Rights of Woman

On the Rights of Woman My first intention was to present just this early, and very important work of Mary Wollstonecraft; ‘A Vindication of the rights of Woman’ but have added other rare and needed books by others who had great influence in their time, and should be in our history books ---but are not. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1791; See: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Wikipedia. This early and powerful assertion of the rights of women against the oppressions of the Christian church was a reply to a pamphlet by Bishop Talleyrand-Perigord, Late Bishop of Autun, and should be known of, and read, by every woman. Page 2. Click and go. The Impending Revolution, by VICTORIA C. WOODHULL; a speech; 1872. See: Victoria Woodhull - Wikipedia (Educational and Delightful to read). There are no women of the 19th Century that was more scandals, effective, and interesting, than the illustrious Victoria C. Woodhull – and her little sister, Tennie (next book). There should be a great deal of their vivacious doings in our history books ---- but is not. Page 246. Click to go. CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY; A RIGHT OF WOMAN; By TENNIE C. CLAFLIN. Ms. Claflin argues the Constitution includes Woman’s Right to Vote. Page 331. Click to go. Woman Rights Tracts; this is a collection of speeches and writings by early champions of woman’s Rights; WENDELL PHILLIPS, THEODORE PARKER, Mrs. MILL, (of England,) T. W. HIGGINSON, AND Mrs. C. I. J. NICHOLS, published in 1854 Page 438. Click to go. WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS NO. 2. By THEODORE PARKER. Page 570. Click to go. WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS NO. 3. By Harriet Tayler Mill, Page 594. Click to go. WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS NO 4. By Thomas W. Higginson, Page 622. Click to go. WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS NO. 5. By MRS. O.I.H. NICHOLS, Page 654. Click to go. Emmett F. Fields To Contents A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN WITH STRICTURES ON POLITICAL AND BY MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. NEW EDITION,WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. HENRY FAWCETT. Reproduced in Electronic Form 2006 Bank of Wisdom, LLC www.bankofwisdom.com NEW YORK : THE HUMBOLDTPUBLISHINGCO., 28 LAFAYETTE PLACE. Reproduced in Electronic form 2006 P.O. Box 926 Louisville, KY 40201 U.S.A. The purpose of the Bank of Wisdom is to again make the United States the Free Marketplace of Ideas that the American Founding Fathers originally meant this Nation to be. Emmett F. Fields Bank of Wisdom, LLC CONTENTS. Dedication, _ Introduction Introduction . . . , . . . to New Edition, . to the First Edition, . _ . . . . . . , . . . . 9 a 23 5 CHAPTER I. The Kights and Involved Duties of Mankind considered, 29 CHAPTER II. The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character discussed, . 35 . 53 CHAPTER III. The same Subject continued, . . . . . . CHAPTER IV. Observations on the State of Degradation to which Woman is reduced hy Various Causes, . . . . . . 66 CEIAPTER V. Animadversions Women on some of the Writers Objects of Pity, bordering who have rendered on Contempt, . * 90 CHAPTER VI. The Effect which an Early Association of Ideas has upon the Character, . . . . _ . . 194 CHAPTER VII. Modesty-Comprehensively Virtue, . . . Considered, and not as a Sexual . . . . . . . . 130 CON TEA’ 5-s. 4 CHAPTER VII I. PAtB Morality Undermined by Sexual a Good Reputation, , Nntions . . . . of , 140 Of the Pernicious Effects which arise from the Unnatural Dis. tinctions established in Society, . . . . . 148 CHAPTER . nf the Importance . IX. CHAPTER X. Parental Affection, . . . . . . . . . ‘57 . . . . . ‘59 . . . . 164 CHAPTER XI. Duty to Parents, On National . Education, . . . CHAPTER XII. - . . , . CHAPTER XIII. Some Instances of the Folly which the Ignokance of Women generates; with concluding Keflections on the Moral Improvement naturally that a Revolution in Female be expected to produce, . Manners might . . . . 184 m M. TALLEYRAND-PERIGORD, LATE SIR-Having I dedicate this BISHOP OF AUTUN. read with great pleasure a pamphlet which you have lately published, volume to you i to induce you to rccousider the sutjcct, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the rights of woman and national education ; and I call with the firm tone of humanity ; for my arguments, sir, are dictated by a Independence I have long plead for my sex-not for mywlf. disinterested spirit-1 considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue-and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath. It is, then, an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of virtue ; and the same motive leads me earnestly to wish to see woman placed in a station in which she would advance, instead of retarding; the progress of those glorious principles that give a substance to, My opinion, indeed, respecting the rights and duties of woman, seems to morality. flow so naturally from these simple principles, that I think it scarcely possible but that some of the enlargd minds who formed ynnr admirable constitution will coincide with me. In France there is undoubtedly a more general diffusion of knowledge than in any other part of the European world, and 1 attnbute it in a great measure, to the social intercourse which has long subsisted between the sexes. It is true, I utter my sentiments with freedom, that in France the very essence of sensuality has been extracted to with regale the voluptuary, and a kind of scntimcntal lust has prevailed, which, togethel the system of duplicity that the whole tenor of .their political and civil government taught, have given a sinister sort of sagacity to the French character, properly termed $usse; from which naturally flows a polish of manners that injures the anhstanre, by hunting sincerity out of society. And modesty, the fairest garb of virtue ! has been more grossly insulted in France than even in England, till their women have treated as prudirh that attention to decency which brutes instinctively observe. -Manners and morals are so nearly allied that they have often been confounded ; but, though the former should only be the natural reflection of the latter, yet, when various causes have produced factitious and corrupt manners, which arc very early caught, morality becomes an empty name. The personal reserve, and sacred respect for cleanliness and delicacy in domestic life, which French women almost despise, am the graceful p?llars of modesty : but. far from despising them, if the pure flame of patriotism have reached their bosoms, they should labor to improve the morals of their fellow-citizens, by teaching men, not only to respect modesty in women, but to acquire it themselves, as the only way to merit their esteem. Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple @xiple, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, DEDZCA she xvi11 stop the progress of knowledge TZON. and viitue ; for truth must be common to al!, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she know-why she ought to be virtuous I’ unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good ? If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot ; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only he produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind ; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations. In this work I have produced many arguments, which to me were conclusive, to prove that the prevailing notion respecting a sexual character was subversive of morality, and I have contended, that to render the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were, idolized, when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand traces of mental beauty, or the interesting simplicity of affection. Consider, sir, dispassionately, these observations-for a glimpse of this truth seemed to open before you when you observed, “that to see one-half of the human race excluded by the other from all participation of government. was a ‘political phenomenon that, according to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain.” If so, on what does your’constitution rest ? If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of woman, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink frdm the same test ; though a different opinion prevails in this country, built on the very arguments which you use to justify the oppression of woman-prescription. Consider-1 address you ZLSil legislzator-whether, when men contend for their free- dom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in the manner best calculated to promote their happiness? Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason. In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination, weak father of a family ; they are all eager UJ crush from the weak king to the r-n ; yet always ztssert that they usurp its throne only to be useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you /OYCE all women, by denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in, their families pping in the dark? for surely, sir, you will not assert that P duty can be binding which is not founded on reason? If, indeed, this be their destiuation, arguments may be drawn from reason ; and thus augustly supported, the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty-comprehending it-for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principle as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner. They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent. But, if women are to he excluded, without having a voice, from a participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward off the charge of injustice and inconsistency, that they want reason -else this flaw in your NEW CONSTITUTION will ever show that man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant ; and tyranny, in whatever part of society it rears its brazen front, will ever undermine morality. I have repeatedIy asserted, and produced what appeared to me irrefragable arguments drawn from matters of fact, to prove my assertion, that women cannot, by DEDICA T/ON. 7 force, be confined to domestic corcxns ; for they will, lwweve~ ignorant, intcmeddle with more weighty affairs, neglecting private duties only to. disturb, by cunning tricks, the orderly plans of reason which rise above their comprehension. Besides, whilst seek for pleasure ignorant beings, good, nor allowed they are only made to acquire personal accomplishments, men will in variety, and faithless husbands will make faithless wives ; such indeed, will be very excusable when, not taught to respect public any civil rights, they attempt to do themselves lustice by retaliation. The box of mischief thus opened in society, what is to preserve private virtue, the only security of public freedom and universal happiness Let there be, then, no coercion estn6ZCsieu’in society, prevailing, the sexes wil1 fall into their proper places. laws are forming your citizens, marriage may become may choose wives from motives of affection, and your vanity. 7 and the common law of gravity And, now that more equitable more sacred ; your young men maidens allow love to root out The father of a family will not then weaken his constitution and debase his sentlments by visiting the harlot, nor forget, in obeying the call of appetite, the purpose for which it was implanted. And the mother will not neglect her children to practice the arts of coquetry, when sense and modesty secure her the friendship of her husband. Rut. till men become attentive to ,the duty of a father, it is vain to expect women to spend that time in their nurwxy which they. ” wise in their generation.” choose to spend at their glass ; for this exertion of cunnin- is only an instinct of nature to enable them to obtain indirectly a littl- of that power of which they are unjustly denied n share : for, if wcmen are not permitted to enjoy legitimate rights. they will render both men and themselves vicious, to obtain illicit privileges. I wish, sir, to set some investigations of this kind afloat in France ; and shonld they lead to a confirmation of my principles, when your consrlrutfon is revised the Rights of Woman may he respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for this respect, and loudly demands JUSTICE for one-half of the human race. I am, sir, yours respectfully M. w. In the original book this is a BLANK PAGE and this page is included to keep page numbering consistent. ==================================== The Bank of Wisdom reproduces the best of scholarly, Philosophical, Scientific, Religious and Freethought books produced by the great thinkers and doers throughout human history. It is our duty and our pleasure to do this necessary work. The Bank of wisdom is always looking for lost, suppressed, and unusual old books, sets, pamphlets, magazines, manuscripts and other information that needs to be preserved and reproduced for future generations. If you have such old works please contact the Bank of Wisdom, we would be interested in obtaining this information either by buying or borrowing the book(s), or in obtaining a good clear copy of all pages. Help us help your children find a better tomorrow. Emmett F. Fields Bank of Wisdom Bank of Wisdom P.O. Box 926 Louisville, KY 40201 U.S.A. 1NTRODUCTlON TO THE NEW EDITION. T HE near approach of the completion of a hundred years since Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her “Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” and its re-publication in the present year, suggest considerations concerning the progress which has already been ma& in Europe and America in establirhing the personal and proprietary independence of women, and also concerning Mary Wollstonecraft’s relation to the great movement of which her book was in England almost the first conscious expression, There is no trner or more consolatory observation concerning the great movements of thought’ which change the social history of the world, thay that no individual is indispensable to their growth. The Reformation in England and Germany would have come and would have changed men’s thoughts concerning the relations of man to God, and of the Church to society, if Wiclif and Erasmus and Luther had never lived, and if Henry VIII. had never wished to put away his first wife. The democratic movement, changing men’s thoughts concerning the relations of the State to society, would have come even if the roll of famous and infamous names associated with the revolution in England and France had been R blank. And the change, which nearly the whole of civilizec! society throughout the world is conscious of in its estimation of the duties, rights, occupations, and sphere of women, in a like manner is not due to any individual or set of individuals. The vastness of the change, its appearance, almpst simultaneously, in various ways in different parts of the world, indicate that it proceeds from causes too powerful and t6o universal to be attributed to any particular individual. Individuals, indeed, have expressed in the most remote periods of history what we should now consider modern ideas concerning the duties and rights of women. Plato’s “ Republic,” Solomon’s description of the virtuous woman, Sir Thomas More’s “ Utopia,” contain arguments and theories that satisfy the most modern advocate of women’s rights. But these and other indications that many mastei minds did not placidly accept’as satisfactory the 10 INTRODUCTION TO THEiVEWEBITIOh? relation of man and woman as master and slave, were for long ages powerless to affect the realities of life. The hour had to come as well as the man : and till the hour was favorable the most conclusive argu- ments, the most patent facts, fell on deaf ears and on blind eyes, and had no practical result in modifying the conduct of men and women, or in ameliorating the laws and customs concerning their relation to one another. It was Mary Wollstonecraft’s good fortune that when she spoke the ears of men had been prepared to hear and their minds to assimilate what she had to say. In one sense, she was as much the product of the women’s rights movement as its earliest confessor. The fermentation in men’s minds which had already produced new thoughts about the rights of man, which was destined presently to overthrow the authority of unrestrained depotism wherever it existed in Western Europe, did not pass by without producing its effect on the greatest despotism of all, that of men over women. The idea that women are created simply to be ministers to the amusement, enjoyment and gratification of men, was closely allied to the idea that peasants and workmen exist solely for the satisfaction of the wants and pleasures Ideas of this kind die hard, and it is Mary uf lbe aristwcratic classes. Wollstonecraft’s chief claim to the regard of posterity that, while she proved to demonstration the falsity of the notion that makes the place of women in creation entirely dependent on their usefulness and agreeableness to men, she had a keen appreciation of the sanctity of women’s domestic duties, and she uever undervalued for a moment. the high importance of these duties,. either to rthe individual, the family, or the State. On the contrary, one of her chief arguments against the subjection of women was that it prevented them from performing these duties as efficiently and as conscientiously as would otherwise be the case. She wanted, as she says in her preface, to see women placed in a station where they would advance instead of re- Her argument, she adds, is tarding the progress of the human,race. built upon the’ simple principle that if women be not prepared by‘ education to become the companions of men, they will stup the prog- ress of knowledge, and that so far from knowledge and freedom inducing women t,o neglect their duties to their families, u the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty-comprehending it-for unless they comprehend it . . . no authority’ can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner.” She argues with force and justice against the habit of regarding women and their duties simply from the sexual point of view, and draws a vivid picture of the domestic miseries and the moral degradation to. both men and women arising from women being trained in the idea that the one object in an unmarried woman’s life is to catch a husband. In the scathing and cruel light of common sense she IlVTRODUCT/oN TO THE NEWEDITION. places in close juxtaposition two leading into the moral fibreof the whole of society facts which in her time. II' ate like acids The one aim and object of women was to get married ; an unmarried woman was a social failure. Women who had passed the marrying and childbearing age were treated to scant courtesy. A writer quoted by Mary Wollstonecraft had expressed this sentiment in plain language by exclaiming, ‘(What business have women turned of forty to do in the world ? ” Yet while in a variety of ways it was dinned into the minds and consciences of women that husband-catching was the end of their existence, they were at the same time enjoined that this object must never be avowed. The aim must be pursued with unceasing vigilance ; the whole of women’s education, dress, manners and thoughts must be subordinated to this one object ; but they must never openly avow it. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s time those who undertook to lead the female mind in the principles of virtue advised women never to avow their love for the man they were about to marry; it was argued that it was “ indelicate in a female ” to let it appear that she married from inclination ; she must always strive to make it appear that her physical and mkntal weakness had caused her to yield to force. 0; the first of these two nonsensical theories-that marriage is the ace aim and object of women’s existence-Mary Wollstonecraft, with her habitual reference to the religious sanction, pertinently asks how women are to exist in that state where there is neither marrying nor giving in mar“ Man,” she adds, “ is always being told to prepare for a future riage. state, but women are enjoined to prepare only for this.” shows how wretched!y the sacredness of marriage domestic life are violated by making marriage She also and the char&s of the only honorable career for women. As long as this is the case, and so far as it is the case, women are apt to marry “ to better themselves,” as the housemaids say, or “for a support, as men accept of places under government,” and not because they are heartily and honestly in love, or because they have any real vocation for married life. Mary Wallstonecraft had ‘had abundant experience, in her own circle, of domestic wretchedness, brought about partly by this cause and partly by the besti’al vices of domestic tyrants invested with the irresponsible power associated with ‘( the divine right of husbands.” On the second of these false theories--i. c., that wnmen must never openIy acknowledge that they wish to marrjr while secretly riage the one object of their existence-she ing how antagonism between making has no difficulty the real and avowed objects mar- in show- of life breeds di&imul#ion and cuts at the root.of all openness and spontaneity of this absurd view character. The authors she quotes as maintainifig of female delicacy seem to leave the moral atmosphere laden with impurities and utterly destitute of the ozone necessary to healthy lungs. Dr. Gregory, for instance, whose book, “ A Legacy to his I2 INTRODUCTION Daughters,” seems to TO THE have been NEW regarded EDITION. as a standard work on female propriety at the end of the eighteenth century, recommends constant dissimulation to girls to whom nature has given a robust A sickly delicacy was supposed to ?be an essenphysical constitution. ti’al part of feminine charm. This will, perhaps, be believed with difficulty at the present time ; one more quotation may, therefore, be given in support of the assertion. The Rev. Ur. James Fordyce, in his I sermons addressed to women, says : “ Let it be observed that in your sex manly exercises are ne\*er graceful ; that in them a tone and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine kind are always forbidding ; that’ men of sensibility desire in every woman soft features and a flowing voice, a form nof rob&. and demeanor delicate and gentle.” The lordly protector, man, was supposed to have his vanity tickled by a constant exhibition of female feebleness. A healthy girl was therefore counseled by sage Dr. Gregory “not to dance with spirit when gaiety of heart would make her feet eloquent,” lest the men who beheld her might either suppose that she was not entirely dependent on. their protection for her safety, or else might entertain dark suspicions as to her modesty. Well might Mary Wollstonecraft proteit. against such “indecent cautions,” and ins respect of nine-tenths of the advice proffered to girls by Dr. Gregory and other writers of the same stamp, dne is inclined to cry, “Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.” The essence of the absurdity now under consideration was di’ssimulation. and dissimulation was, we find, exalted by these writers as the pole-star to the wandering bark of women’s lives. As indicated by these sages, womanly prudence and virtue consist in one long series of prctences. Rehavior, appearance, decorum, the applause of Mrs. Grundy, (‘ constant attention to keep the varnish fresh,” are set before women as ends to be sedulously sought for, on account of their bearing on the grand aim of women’s existence, the admiration of the Eaen piety other sex. TO this end everything else was subordinated. is recommended in one of Dr. Fordyce’s sermons, not because it bends the whole power of the nature more intently on its duty to C;cd &I man, but because piety is becoming to the face and figure. He recommends holiness as a cosmetic. “ Never,” exclaims the preacher, “ perhaps, does a fine woman strihe more deej.$ than when composed int@ pious recollection ; . . . she assumes, without knowing it? superior d&nity UP& new graces ; so that the beadties of holiness seem to radiate about her.” On this passage Mary.Wollstonecraft exclaims that the intrusion of the idea of conquest and admiration as influencing a woman at her devntions, gives her a 46sickly qualm.” Profanation could hardly go lower than this ; but there was much more modeled on the same pattern. Cowardice, as well as physical weakness, was IiVT’ODUCTlON TO THE NEW eZ+-DlTION. 13 regarded as part of what every woman ought to aim at.. Ignorance was likewise extolled. Female modesty was held to be outraged by the confession of strong and enduring love from a woman to a man, even when that man was her husband. Dr. Gregory advises a -wife+ “never to let her husband know the extent of her sensibility or affection.” He likewise cautions all women carefully to hide their good sense and knowledge, if they happen to possess any. “ Be cautious,” he says, “ even in displaying your good sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company. *Hut if you hap- pen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men, who generally ,look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and a cultivated understanding.” Pretence, seeming, outward show were the standards by which a woman’s character was measured. A man is taughf to dread the eye of God ; but women were caught to dread nothing but the eye of man. Rvusseau embodies the then current doctrine, that reputation in the case of women takes the piace of virtue, in a passage which Mary Wollstonecraft quotes. “ To women,” he says, “ reputation is no less indispensable than chastity ; . . . what is thought of her is as important to her as what she really is. It follows, hence, that the syfiem of a woman’s education should in this respect be directly contrary to that of ours. Opinion is the grave of virtue among the men ; but its throne among women.” Right through this tangle of pretences and affectations Mary WolIstonecraft cuts with the double-edged knife of a sound heart and clear head. It is against the system of .dissimulation that she protests ; instead of telling women how they are most likely to avoid censure and win praise, to gain a reputation for decorum and propriety of behavior, she tells them to leave appearances out of consideration--” Make the heart clean, give: lhc head employment,” and behavior will take care of itself. Dr. Gregory’s remarks relative to reputation and the applause of the world, she complains, begin at the wrong end, because he treats them as ends in themselves, and not in their proper relative position as advantages usually, but by no means universally, attendant on nobility of character and purpose. How much sounder than Dr. Gregory’s petty maxims, she reminds her readers, is the Scriptural injunction, “Get wisdom, get muierstanding ; forget it nnt ; _ _ _ forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee. Love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing ; therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getti‘ng get understanding.” With a touch of humor, more common in her private letters than in her more studied works, Mary Wollstonecraft expresses her conviction that there is really no cause to counsel women to pretend to be sillier and more ignorant than they are. “When a woman has sufficient sense not to pretend to anything which she does not understand in &me degree, there is no need of INTRODUCTION =4 TO THE NEW EDITION. determining to hide her talents under a bushel. Let things take their natural course and all will be well.” In combating false views concerning what women ought to be, and to what ends their lives should be directed, Mary Wollstonecraft did not concentrate herself only on the orthodox immoralities propounded by Dr. Gregory and Dr. Fordyce. She challenges thr: whole field, and deals with Pope, Lord Chesterfield and Rousseau as fearlessly as with teachers more in harmony with the ordinarily received opinions of her day. In contrast with Dr. Fordyce’s recommendation of the consolations of religion to women, on the ground that “a fine woman never strikes more deeply ” than when she is communing in spirit with her Creator, she reminds us of the opposite pole of male and female depravity expressed by Pope in the lines where, speaking on behalf of the whole male sex, he says : ” Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create As when she touch’d the brink of all we hate.” The appearance of wantonness, just short of its reality, if, indeed, it was desirable to stop short of it, is recommended to women by Pope exactly in the same spirit as that in which Dr. Fordyce recommended piety. The centre of both systems is the assumption that women. have nothing better to do or think of in this world than ‘(to make conquests,” as the old phrase was. The falsity,,the immorality of this assumption, and the miserable consequences of acting upon it, it was the aim of “ The Vindication of the Rights of Women ” to demonstrate. In combating Rousseau’s views on education; especially his antagonism to teaching boys and girls together, or according to the same methods, she refers to his argument that if women are educated like men, the more they will resemble men, and the less power will they have over the other sex. u This is the very point,” Mary Wollstonecraft. says, I‘ I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselvies.” Rousseau in many respects gave a compendium of all Mary Wollstonecraft most objected to in his views relating to the position of women. Profoundly influenced by his writings, as she had at one time been, she was intensely antagonistic to his professions and his practice in regard to all thatatouched upon the position of women and upon domestic life. There is nothing in her book to show that she was aware of the indelible stain on Rousseau, as a man, which has been left by his disposing of his five children immediately after their birth, by placing them in the turnstile of the Foundling The kntiwledge of this fact has, perhaps, relieved posterity Hospital. from the necessity of paying any very strenuous attention to his arguments on the cultivation of the domestic virtues. Mary Wollstonecraft speaks contemptuously of Rousseau’s wife as “ the fool Theresa,” and she INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION. 15 probably knew what we know also, that Theresa was a kitchen wench, whose state of mind closely apprOached absolute imbecility. (‘ She could never,” says Mr. John Morley, “ be taught to read with any approach to success. She could never follow the order of the twelve months of the year, nor master a single arithmetical figure, nor count a sum of money, nor reckon the price of a thing. A month’s instruction was not enough to give knowledge of the hours of the day upon a dial-plate. The words she used were often the direct opposites of the words she meant to use.” (“ Life of Rousseau,” p. 72.) But nearly imbecile as she was, she loved her children, and deeply resented the cruel wrong her husband did her in snatching them from her. “The fnnl Theresa,” with aimost nothing to commend her but the primitive maternal instinct, may seem to many of us a more touching and instructive spectacle than a score of philosophers maundering over the thesis that woman has been formed for the sole purpose of being pleasing to man and subject to his rule. Mary Wollstonecraft seems to have known of Theresa’s mental limitations and nothing more, and this was enough to show her that what Rousseau looked for in a wife was not a companion who could share his aims and stimulate his thoughts and imagination by her sympathy, but just a creature who had the physical capacity of bearing children, and who was present without necessarily being spoken to-he sometimes passed weeks without addressing her a single word-when complete solitude would have been distasteful to him. There is a peculiar satisfaction on the part of those who are trying to produce a change in general feeling in regard to any subject., when one of their opponents will state boldly, in so many words, what is the real foundation of the sentiment which inspires them. The majority of their spokesmen feel that the real reason of their opposition is too little respectable for open avowal ; they count upon its secret influence, but never refer to it in public. It is, therefore, with a cry of delight that those on the other side seize upon an indiscreet avowal It was a serof the real principles on which their enemies rely. vice of this kind which Rousseau rendered to those who wished to promote the independence of women, when in a passage in “ Emilius ” he avowed his reason for belittling women from the cradle to the grave to be that otherwise they would be less subservient to men. The battle in which Mary Wollstonecraft took a leading part is still being waged, and it may be useful to those who are now carrying on this,contest tn be able fn quote Rousseau’s reason fnr keeping women in a perpetual state of tutelage and childhood. Thes,e are his words : LGFor this reason, thr. education of women should always be relative to that of men. To please, to be useful to US, to make US love and esteem them, to educate US when young, and take care of US when grown up, to advise, to console US, to render OUR lives easy 16 INTRODUCTIOAT TO THE NEW EDITION. and agreeable ; these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy.” Take this and contrast it, as containing a worthy and dignified theory of human life, with the well-known first question and answer of the Scottish “ Shorter Catechism,‘! of which Carlisle said, “ The older I grow-and I now stanJ un the brink of eternity-the, more comes back tu me the first sentence in the catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes : ‘ What is the chief end of man ? ‘IO glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.’ ” Kousseau and hisdisciples would disinherit women from this birthright, and to the question, “What is the chief end of woman ? ” would reply, “To glorify man, and to help him to enjoy himself for a little time.” But Rousseau and those who follow in his footsteps do not even succeed in this poor aim. Happiness is nne of those things of which it may with truth be said, “I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Poor Theresa nursing in her dull brain undying .rcsentment me” against the man who had robbed her of her chiidren, the squalor and degradation of the pair, ancl the miserable end of Rousseau’s life, are all a terrible commentary on the ~ot~ermess of the principles on which he founded their joint existence. All the beauty of personal devotion and self-abnegation, which count for so much in the happiness of family life, disappear and wither when they are selfishly claimed by one member of the family as due to him from the others, and are The affectionate mutual considentirely unreciprocated on his part. eration and the happy companionship of human beings with equal rights, but different capacities and different occupations, are exchanged by those who adopt Rousseau’s doctrines for a state of things which develops the vices of tyranny on the one side and the vices of slavery on the other ; the husband becomes a harsh, exacting master; the wife’and bther members of the household too often become obse- quious and deceitful serfs. Mary Wollstonecraft’s husband wrote of her shortly after her death, “ She was’ a worshipper of domestic life,” and the truth of the expression is felt in every line of the numerous passages in “ The Vindication,” where she contends that the subjection of women is inimical to domestic happiness, and appeals to men to ‘*be conten’t with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience.” If this were so, *‘ they would find us,” she adds, “more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers-in a word, better citizens,” The relation of Milton to his daughters may be mentioned as an object lesson in He tyrannized the truth of Mary Wollstonecraft’s contention. over them, they deceived and cheated him, and the domestic life of one of the greatest of Englishmen, instead of being full of beauty and a source of strength to those who come after him, is a ZZVTRODUCT~OiV TO THE NEW EDITION. I7 thing that we try not to think of, and can never remember without a sense of pain and loss. Mary Wollstonecraft, as Mr. Kegan Paul says, in his sketch of her life and work prefixed to her Letters to Imlay, makes, in her “ Vindication of the Rights of Women,” a reiterated cIaim that women should be treated as the friends and equals of men, and not as their toys and slaves ; but she does not claim for women intellectual or physical or moral equality with men. Her- argument is, that being weaker than men, physically and mentally, and not superior morally, the way in which women are brought up, and their subordination throughout life, first to their fathers, then to their husbands, prevents the due natural development of their physical, mental, and moral capacities. How can the powers of the body be developed without physical exercise? And in her day the ordinary rule for women in the upper ranks of society seems to have been to take none whatever. Their clothes and shoes rendered out-door exercise entirely out of the question. A white muslin gown, damped to cling more closely to the figure, and satin slippers, are not an equipment even for a walk on the London pavements; they would make a country ramble still more completely ant of the question. Miss Edgeworth makes great fun of one of her sentimental heroines who insists on admiring the beauties of nature otherwise than from the windows of a coach. She takes a country walk, the lanes are muddy, ~IIJ she leaves the satin slipper of her right foot in one of them. Mary Wollstonecraft pleaded that the lower degree of physical strength of wumen, and the strain upon rhat strength caused by maternity, ought to secure for them such conditions as regards exercise, clothing and food as would make the most of that strength, and not reduce it to a vanishing point. In the same spirit she argues about the mental capacity of women. Perpetual obedience, she contends, weakens the understanding ; responsibility, and the necessity of thinking and deciding, strengthen it, She draws a picture of the obvious practical disadvantage of women being guided in everything by their hushanrls, and supposes a case in which the husband is a perfectly benevolent and perfectly intelrigent despot. He manages everything, decides from the depths of his wisdom all difficulties ; his wife, to quote Mrs. Poyser, does not know which end she stands uppermost till her husband tells her. But even intelligent and benevolent despots do not live for ever. Her husband dies, and leaves liis wife with a large family of young children. Her previous life has not prepared her by experience to fulfill the arduous task of being both father and mother to them. She is ignorant of the management of their property and of their education. She is utterly unfit for the weight that suddenly falls on her shoulders. What is !eft for her to do excepi transfer to some other husband the direction of 18 INTROBUCTlON TO THE NElVEDITlON. her family, or in some other way shift to other shoulders the responsibility that she ought to discharge? In Mary Wolistonecraft’s remarks, respecting what she considers the moral inferiority of women to men, I think we see more than anywhere else evidence of the salutary change that has already been brought about in the social position and education of women. Very few modern writers, or observers, consider women less sensible to the claims of duty than men. The late Rev. F. D. Maurice, writing in support of women’s suffrage, and speaking of English women as hc knew them, said, “ In any sphere wherein women feel their responsibility, they are, as a rule, far more conscientious than men ; ” and I think there is a general concensus of opinion, that where large and important duties have been confided to women, they have been, on the whole, faithful in the discharge of them. The moral trustworthiness of the run of women is accepted by most of us, in our every-day life, as part of the natural order of things on which we can rely as implicitly as on the continuity of the forces of Nature. Mary Wollstonecraft, however, finds great fault with women in her time, and roundly accuses them of cunning, superstition, want of generosity, low sense of justice, gross mismanagement of their children and of their households, and of a domestic selfishness which, in some respects, is worse than neglect. This last subject is worth referring to, because some of those who wish to maintain the subjection of women are to be found even now, who argue that if a woman is happy in her own children, she has no occasion to occupy herself at all with the circumstances that make or mar the lives of other children. On this point Mary Wollstonecraft says : “In short, speaking of the majority of mothers, they leave their children entirely to the care of servants ; or, because they are their children, treat them as if they were little demi-gods, though I have always observed that the women who thus idolize their children seldom show common humanity to servants, or feel the least tenderness for any children but their own.” If this were true a hundred years ago, the majority of candid observers certainly would not maintain that it is true now. From the time of Mrs. Fry downwards there has been a constantly growing army of women, who both idolize their own children, and spend thcmselvcs with unstinting devotion to render the lives of other children happy and healthy. Women have used the greater freedom and the better education they have received since Mary Wollstonecraft’s time just as she predicted they would. They care for their own children as much, and they care for other children more. They are not content with securing favorable conditions of life for their own children, but in almost innumerable ways are making efforts to check the waste in children’s lives that went on unheeded in Mary Wollstonecraft’s time. ZNTRODUCTZON TO T.E NEW EDZTZON. Ig The faults of “The Vindication,” as a literary work, are patent upon the face of it. There is a want of order and system in it, which may, perhaps, be attributed to the desultory education of the writer. As she, herself, points out, the want of order in women’s education is answerable to a large extent for the want of order in their after-work. A more important blemish to modern ears consists in the formal and frequently stilted language in which the writer conveys her meaning. The reaction against the formalities of the Johnsonian period had begun, but had not as yet conquer-4 ; the triumph of the naturalistic school in literature, led by Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth and Joanna Baillie, was yet to come. There are other faults in the book deeper than those of order and style, which are probably to be traced to a reaction against the school of ethics, which proclaimed that appearances and decorum were ends in themselves to be diligently sought Bar. To this reaction may also, I believe, be attributed the errors of Mary Wollstonecraft’s own life, and those of so many members of the In unraveling the curious tangle of circle in which she moved. relationships, intrigues, suicides and attempted suicides of the remarkable group of personalities to whom Mary Wollstonecraft belonged, one is sickened forever, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has said, of the sub- great merit, howject of irregular relations. Mary Wollstonecraft’s ever, lies in this, that with a detachment of mind from the prejudices and errors of her time, in regard to the position of women, that was quite extraordinary, she did not sanction any depreciation of the immense importance of the domestic duties of women. She constantly exalted what was truly feminine as the aim of woman’s education and training ; she recognized love and the attraction between the sexes as a cardinal fact in human nature, and (‘marriage as the foundation of Hence, very largely from her initiative, almost every social virtue.” the women’s rights movement in England has kept free from the excesses and follies that in some other countries have Marred its course. Mary Wollstonecraft, in her writings, as well as in her life, with its sorrows and errors, is the essentially womanly woman, with the motherly and wifely instincts strong within her, and caring for all she claims and pleads for on behalf of her sex, because she is convinced that a concession of a large measure of women’s rights is essential to the highest possible conception and fuhillmcnt of women’s duties. In words that recall Mazzini’s memorable saying, “The sole origin of every right is in a duty fulfilled,” she says, “ A right always includes a duty,” and again, (* Rights and duties are inseparable.” The remarkable degree in which she was ahead of her time is shown She claims for women on almost every page of u The Vindication.” the right to share in the advantages of representation in Parliament; nearly seventy years before women’s suffrage was heard of in the House of Commons. She knows that few, if any, at that time would INTRODUCTIOiV 20 TO T’E NEW EDITION be found to sympathize with her, but that does not prevent her from claiming for women what she felt was simple justice. She also per-. ceives the enormous importance of the economic independence of women, and its bearing on social health and disease. The possibility of women earning a comfortable livelihood by honest labor tends, in some dcgrcc, to prcvcnt them from marrying nkrcly for a living, and She on the other hand cuts at one fruitful source of prostitution. pointed out fifty years before any English woman had become a qualified medical practitioner, that the profession of medicine was particularly well suited to women, and entirely congenial to the womanly character ; and she argued that there were a number of other businesses and professions in which women might suitably and honorably engage. These opinions have now become the commonplaces of ordinary conversation ; but it must not be forgotten, in estimating the originality of her mind, that she was writing only a very few years after the time when the great lion of the literary and social world of London ha+condemned even the harmless wielding of the. paint-brush and mahl-stick by a woman. Boswell records that Dr, Johnson “thought portrait painting an improper employment for a woman. Public practice of any art, he observed, and staring in men’s faces, is very indelicate in a female ;” and in another place Boswell tells how the great doctor thought literature as little suited to a ” delicate female ” as painting. Of a literary lady of his time, who. was reported to have become attentive to her dress and appearance, Johnson remarked that “ she was better employed at her toilet than using her pen.” It need hardly be said that Mary Wollstonecraft anticipated the change that has come about in the public mind as to what is needful in the education of women. How great that change has been is forcibly illustrated by a passage quoted in u The Vindication” from a writer who propounds the view that the study of botany is inconsistent with the preservation of “ female delicacy.” This might well provoke another “ sickly qualm ” in its essential coarseness of feeling and degrading conception of the works of Nature. Mary Wollstonecraft brings this indelicate delicacy to the right touchstone when she says : “ On reading similar passages, I have reverentially lifted up my eyes and heart to Him who liveth for ever and ever, and said, ‘ 0, my Father, hast Thou by the very constitution of her nature forbid Thy And can her soul be: child to seek Thee in the fair forms of truth? sullied by the knowledge that awfully calls her to Thee?“’ In another all-important respect Mary Wollstonecraft was ahead of her time, and may be regarded, though opinion has moved in the direction in which she pointed, as ahead of ours. In numerous passages she points out the inseparable connection between male and female chastity. One would have thought the fact so self-evident as to need INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION. 21 no asseveration ; but as a matter of experience we know that even now the mass of people mete out to the two partners in the same action an entirely different degree of blame, and judge them by entirely different standards ; the one who is condemned the most severely is not the one who has had the advantage, generally speaking, in wealth, education, experience, and knowledge of the world, and on whom, therefore, if any difference be made, a greater responsibility aught to rest ; “ the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ” on him, and reserves all its terrors for her who stands at a disadvantage in all these respects. An action that is one and the same is regarded as in the last degree heinous in one of the actors and as quite excusable in the other. Against the essential immuraliLy and injustice of this cIu~.- trine and practice, Mary Wollstonecraft protested with her whole strength. She exposes the insincerity of those who profess zeal for virtue by pointing the finger of scorn at the woman who has transgressed, while her partner who may have tempted her by money, ease, and flattery to her doom, is received with every mark of consideration and respect. “ To little respect has that woman a claim . . . who smiles on the libertine while she spurns the victims of his lawless appetites and their own folly,” The injustice of this attitude of mind is as conspicuous as its hypocrisy ; and in the different measure meted out by the world to the partners in each other’s degradation, Mary WoIlstonecraft perceives a fruitful source of immorality. The two sexes must .in this, as in nearly every other respect, rise or sink together. Unchastity in men means unchastity in women ; and the cure for the ills which unchastity brings with it, is not to be found in penitentiaries and in Magdalen institutions, but in a-truer measure of justice as regards the responsibilities of both sexes, in opening to women a variety of honorable means of earning a living, and in developing in men and women self-government and a sense of their responsibiIity to each other,. themselves, their children, and the nation. In many respects Mary Wollstonecraft’s book gives us a pleasing assurance that with all the faults of our time we have made way upon the whole, and are several steps higher up on the ladder of decency and self-control than our fore-runners were a hundred years ago. She speaks of the almost universal habit in her time among the wealthier classes of drinking to excess, and of what is elven less familiar to her readers of the present day, “ of a degree of gluttony which’ is so beastly ” as to destroy all sense of seemliness. She also states that so far from chastity being held in honor among men, it was positively despised by them. In all these matters the end of the nineteenth century compares favorably with the end of the eighteenth ; and one great factor in the progress made is the far greater concession of women’s Tights at this time compared with that. The development of the womanliness of women that comes with their greater freedom makes itself felt in helping to form a sounder public opinion upon all forms of physical excess, and with this a truer and nobler ideal of manly virtue. In one other important respect Mary Wollstonecraft was ahead of her own time in regard to women, and in line with the foremost thinkers on this subject in ours. Henrik Ibsen has taken the lead among the moderns in teaching that women have a duty to themselves as well as to their parents, husbands and children, and that truth and keedom are needed for the growth of true womanliness as well as UT true manliness. But Mary Wollstonecraft anticipated him in teaching that self-government, self-knowledge and self-respect, a worship of truth and not of mere outward observances, are what women’s lives mainly need to make them noble. I have already quoted her saying : ” I do not want them to have power over men, but aver themselves,” and other quotations of a similar drift may be giveil : “ It is not empire, but equality and friendship which women want ; ” and again : (‘ SPeaking of women at large, their jCrst duty is to themsetuesas r-utt’~ionltl creakyes, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens, is that which includes so many of a mother.” The words italicised foreshadow almost VerbatimNorca’s expression in the well-known scene in *‘A Doll’s House,” where she tells her astounded husband that she has discovered that &he has duties to herself as well as to him and to their children. The facts of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life are now so well known, through the biographies of Mr. Kegan Paul and Mrs. Pennell, and her memory has been so thoroughly vindicated from the contumely that was at one time’ heaped upon it, that I do not propose to dwell upon her personal history. I have here endeavored to consider the character of the initiative which she gave to the women’s rights movement in England, and I find that she stamped upon it from the outset the word “ Duty,” and has impressed it with a character that it has never since lost. Women need education, need economic independence, need political enfranchisement, need social equality and friendship, mainly because without them they arc less able to do their duty to What was false and unreal in the themselves and to their neighbors. old system of treating women she showed up in its ugiiness, the native ugliness of all shams. That women must choose between being a slave and a queen, “quickly scorn’d when not ador’d,” is a theory of pinchbeck and tinsel.: it is difficult to discover its relation to the’realities of life. Upon this theory, and all that hangs upon it, Mary Wollstonecraft made the first systematic and concentrated attack ; and 111~ women’s rights movement in England and America owes as much to her as modern Political Economy owes to her famous contemporary, Adam Smith. MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. ’ Horace Walpole called her “ a hyena in petticoats.” INTRODUCTION TO THE A FIRST EDITION. E’TER considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most meIancholy emotions of sorrowful Indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess that either nature has made a great difference between man and man! or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patientry observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools ; but what has been the result?-a prufuund conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their mind3 are not in a healthy state ; far, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty ; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded, on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mnthers: and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and, by their abilities and virtues, exact respect. In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked ; especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement ; that the books of instruc: tion, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions ; and that, in the true style of Mahomctanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species, when improvable reasqn is allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute creation, and puts a natural sceptre: ill a feeble hand. Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the quality or inferiority of the sex ; but as. the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment todeliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of Nature ; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favor of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied-and it is a noble prerogative ! But not content with this natural pre-eminence, men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment : and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow-creatures who find amusement in their society. I am aware of an obvious inference-from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardor in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry ; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind, all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me that they may every day grow more and more masculine. This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures, who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties ; and afterwards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar designation. I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable writers have fallen into; for the instruction which has hitherto been addressed to women has rather been applicable to Zadies,if the little indirect advice that is scattered through “Sandford and Merton” be accepted ; but, addressing my sex in a firmer tone, 1 pay particular attention to those in the middle class, because they appear to be in the most natura1 state. Perhaps the seeds of false refinement, immorality, and vanity have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants- and affections of their race, in a premature, unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society ! As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity ; the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in Nature invariably produces certain effects, they soon only afford barren amusement. But as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of society, and of the moral character of women in each, this hint is for the present sufficient ; and I have only alluded to the subject because it appears to me to be the very essence of an introduction, to give a cursory account of the contents of the work it introduces. My own sex, I hope, will excuse me iT I treat Olern like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinafing graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consist ; I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, “ susceptibility of heart,” “ delicacy of sentiment,” and “ refinement of taste” are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt. Dismissing, then, those pretty feminine phrases which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners supposed to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex ; and that secondary views should be brought to this simple touchstgne. This is a rough sketch of my plan ; and should I express my conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think of the subject, the dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by some of my readers. Animated by this important object, I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style ; I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected ; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, or in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificia1 feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart, I shall be employed about things, not words! and, anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversation. These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and creatq a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple, unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart, render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the exercise of those severe duties which educate a rational and immortal being for a nobler field of action. The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly ; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments ; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrified to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves-the only way women can rise in the world-by marriage. And this desire making mere animals. of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act-they dress, they paint, and nickname God’s creatures. Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio ! Can they be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the poor babes. whom they bring into the world? If, then, it can be fairly deduced, from the present conduct of the sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul, that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to tender them insignifitaut objects of desire-mere propagators of fools !-if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them without cultivating their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is. over,’ I presume that ra&nal men will excuse me for endeavoring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable. Indee?, the word ‘I masculine ” is only a bugbear ; there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength must. render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life ; but why should it be increased by prejudices that. give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries ? Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantine airs that undermine esteem 1 A lively writer-1 cannot recollect his name-asks forty have to do in the world 2 what business women turned of a? ZZfTRODUCTZON TO THEI;IRSTEDZTZOlV. even while they excite desire. mnrtst, anrl if wnmen Let men become more chaste and cln not grow wiser in the same ratio it will be clear that they have weaker understandings. It seems scarcely necessary to say that I now speak of the sex in general. Many individuals have more sense than their male relatives ; and, as nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium without it has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern. PART I. VINDICATIONOF THE RIGHTSOF WOMAN. CHAPTER THE RIGHTS AND Ih-VOLVEB DUTIES I. OF hlANKIND CONSIDERED. N the present state of society it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute I with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built ; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men. In what does man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole-in Reason. What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue, we spontaneously reply. For what purpose were the passions implanted! That man, by struggling with them, might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes, whispers Experience. Consequently, the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge that distinguishes the individual, and directs the laws which bind society ; and that from the exercise of reason knowledge and virtue naturally flow is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed coliectively. The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost impertinent to attempt to illustrate: truths that appear so incontrovertible ; yet such deeply rooted prejudices have cIouded reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason, as it has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations. VZNDZCA T/ON 30 OF THE RZGHTS OF WOMAN. Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices which they have imbibed they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its awn principles ; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn are frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views. Going back to first principles, vice skulks, with all its native deformity, from close investigation ; but a set of shallow reasoners are always exclaiming that these arguments prove too much, and that a measure rotten at the core may be expedient. Thus, expediency is continually contrasted with simple principles, till truth is lost in a mist of words, virtue in forms, and knowledge rendered a sounding aothing by the specious prejudices that assume its name. That the society is formed in the wisest,manner whose constitution Is founded on the nature of man, strikes, in the abstract, every thinking being so forcibly, that it looks like presumption to endeavor to #ring forward proofs ; though proof must be brought, or the strong hold of prescription will never be forced by reason ; yet to urge prescription as an argument to justify the depriving men (or women) of their natural rights, is one of the absurd sophisms which daily insult common sense. The civilization of the bulk of the people of’ Europe is very partial -nay, it may be made a question whether they have acquired any virtues In exchange for innocence equivalent to the misery produced by the vices that have been plastered over unsightly ignorance, and the freedom which has been bartered for splendid slavery. The desire ef dazzling by riches-the most certain pre-eminence that man can obtain-the pleasure of commanding flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For, while rank and titles arc held of the utmost impoitance, before which genius “must hide its diminished head,” it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation when a man of abilities, without rank or property, pushes himAlas! what unheard-of misery have thouself forward to notice. .sands suffered to purchase a cardinal’s hat for an intriguing obscure adventurer, who longed to be ranked with princes, or lord it over them by seizing the triple crown ! Such, indeed, has been the wretchedness that has flowed from hcrcd- itary honors, riches, and monarchy, that men of lively sensibility have almost uttered blasphemy in order to justify the dispensations of Providence. Man has been held out as independent of His power who made him, or as a lawless planet darting from its orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of heaven, lurking in the subtle flame, like Pandora’s pent-up mischiefs, sufficiently punished.his temerity by introducing evil into the world. Impressed by this view of the misery and disorder which pervaded society, and fatigued with jostling against artificial fools, Rousseau became enamored of solitude, and, being at the same time an optimist, he labors with uncommon eloquence to prove that man was naturally a solitary animal. Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who certainly-for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it? --gave life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one attri.bute at the expense of another equally necessary to Divine perfection. Reared on a false hypothesis, his arguments in favor of a state of Nature are plausible, but unsound. I say unsound ; for to assert that a state of Nature is preferable to civilization, in all its possible perfection, is, in other words, to arraign Supreme Wisdom ; and the paradoxical exclamation, that God has made all things right, and that error has been introduced by the creature, whom He formed, knowing what He formed, is as unphilosophical as impious. When that wise Being who, meated us and placed us here saw the fair idea, He willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should unfold our reason, because He could see that present evil would produce future good. Could the helpless creature whom He called from nothing break loose from His Providence, and boldly learn to know good by practicing evil, without His permission? No ! How could that energetic advocate for immortality argue so inconsjstently ? Had .mankind remained forever in the bruta1 state of Nature, which even his magic pen cannot paint as a state in which a single virtue took root, it would have been clear, though not to the sensitive, unreflecting wanderer, that man was born to run the circle of life and death, and adorn God’s garden for some purpose which could not easily be reconciled with His attributes. But if, to crown the whole, there were to be rational creatures produced, allowed to rise in excellence by the exercise of powers implanted for that purpose ; if Benignity itself thought fit to call into ,existence a creature above the brutes,’ who could think and improve himself, why should that inestimable gift-for a gift it was, if man was so created as to have a capacity to rise above the state in which .sensation produced brutal ease- be called, in direct terms, a curse ? A curse it might be reckoned if the whole of our existence were bounded 1 Contrary to the opinion of anatomists, who argue by analogy from the,formation of the teeth, stomach, and intestines, Rousseau will not allow a man to be a carnivorous animal. And, carried away from Nature by a love of system, he disputes whether man be a gregarious animal, though the long and helpless state of infancy seems m point him out as particularly impelled tu pair, the first step towards herding. 32 YINDJCA TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. by our continuance in this world; for why should the gracious Fountain of Life give us passions and the power of reflecting, only to embitter our days and inspire us with mistaken notions of dignity? Why should He lead us from love of ourselves to the sublime emotions which the discovery of His wisdom and goodness excites, if these feelings were not set in motion to improve our nature, of which they make a part,’ and render us capable of enjoying a more God-like portion of happiness ? Firmly persuaded that no evil exists in the world that God did not design to take place, I build my belief on the perfection of God. Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all TZMUright originally; a crowd of authors, that all is now right ; and I, that all wi.Ube right(. But, true to his first position, next to a state of Nature, Rousseau celehrstes barbarism, and apostrophizing the shade wf Fabricius, he forgets that, in conquering the world, the Remans never dreamed of establishing their own liberty on a firm basis, or of extending the reign of virtue. Eager to support his system, he stigmatiies as vicious every effort of genius ; and, uttering the apotheosis‘ of savage virtues, he exalts those to demi-gods who were scarcely human-the brutal Spartans, who, in defiance of justice ahd gratitude, sacrificed, in cold blood, the slaves who had shown themselves heroes to rescue their opprensnrs. Disgusted with artificial manners and virtues, the citizens of Geneva, instead of properly sifting the subject, threw away the wheat with the chaff, without waiting to inquire whether the evils which his ardent soul turned from indignantly were the consequence of civilization or the vestiges of barbarism. He saw vice trampling on virtue, and the semblance of goodness taking place of the reaIity ; he saw talents bent by power to sinister purposes, and never thought of tracing the gigantic mischief up to arbitrary power, up to the hereditary distinctions that clash with the mental superiority that naturally raises a man above his fellows. He did not perceive that regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the noble stem, and holds out baits to render thousands idle and vicious. Nothing can set the regal charzicter in a more contemptible point of view than the various crimes that have elevated men ,to the supreme dignity. Vile intrigues, unnatural crimes, and every vice that degrades our nature, have been the steps to this distinguished eminence; 1 What would you say to a mechanic whom you had desired to make a watch to point out the hour of the day, if, to show his ingenuity, he added wheels to make it a repeater. etc., that perplexed the simple mechanism, should hc wgc, to CICUX him- self, “ Had you not toucheda certain spring you would have known nothing of the matter,” and that he should have amused himself by making an ~xpPrimrnl without doing you any harm? Would you not retort fairly upon him, by insisting that if he had not added those needless wheels and springs, the accident could not have happened ? THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF MANKIND. 33 yet millions of men have supinely allowed the nerveless limbs of the posterity of such rapacious prowlers to rest quietly on their ensanguined thrones.’ What but a pestilential vapor can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies? Will men never be wise?-will they never ccasc to expect corn from tares, and figs from thistles? It is impossible for any man, when the most favorable circumstances concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrolled power ; how, then, must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue; when all the feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out by pleasure ! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow-creature, whose very station sinks him netessa&y below the meanest of his subjects !’ But one power shouId not be thrown down to exalt another, for all power inebriates weak man ; and its abuse proves that the more equality there is established among’men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society. But this, and any simiIar maxim deduced from simple reason, raises an outcry-the Church or the State is in danger if faith in the wisdom of antiquity is not implicit ; and they who, roused by the sight of human calamity, dare lo attack human authority, are reviled as despisers of God and enemies of man. These are bitter calumnies ; yet they reached one of the best of men,’ whose ashes still preach peace, and whose memory demands a respectful pause, when subjects are discussed that lay so near his heart. After attacking the sacred majesty of kings, I shall scarcely excite surprise by adding my firm persuasion, that every profession in which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly injurious to morality. A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom ; hecause subordination and rigor are the very sinews of military d&ipline ; and despotism is necessary to give vigor to enterprises that one will directs. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honor-a kind of morality founded on the fashion of the age-can only be felt by a few officers, while the main body must be moved by command, like the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or cart why, with headlong fury. Besides, nothing can be so prejudicial to the morals of the inhabitants of country towns as the occasional residence of a set of idle, ’ Could there be a greater insuIt offered to the rights of man than the beds of jus- tice in France,whenan infant was made the organ of the detestable nuhnis? * DI. Price. superficial young men, whose only occupation is gallantry, and whose polished manners render vice more dangerous by concealing its deformityunder gay ornamental drapery. An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavery, and proves that the soul has not a strong individual character, awes simple country people into an imitation of the vices, when they cannot catch the slippery graces of politeness. Every corps is a chain of despots, who, submitting and tyrannizing without exercising their reason, become dead-weights of vice and folly on the community. A man of rank or fortune, sure of rising by interest, has nothing to do but to pursue some extravagant freak ; while the needygen/Ceman, who is to rise, as the phrase turns, by his merit, becomes a servile parasite or vile pander. Sailors, the naval gentlemen, come under the same description, only their vices assume a different and a grosser cask. They are more pas- itively indolent, when rot discharging the ceremonials of their station; while the insignificant Auttering of soldiers may be termed active idleness. More confined to the society of men, the former acquire a fondness for humor and mischievous tricks; while the latter, mixing frequently with well-bred women, catch a sentimental cant. But mind is equally out of the question, whether they indulge the horse-laugh or polite simper. May I be aIlowed to extend the comparison to a profession where more mind is certainly to be found ; for the clergy have superior opportunities of improvement, though subordination almost equally cramps their faculties? The blind submission imposed at college to forms of belief serves as a novitiate to the curate, who must obsequiously respect the opinion of his rector or patron, if he mean to rise in his profession. Perhaps there cannot be a more forcible contrast than between the servile, dependent gait of a poor curate and the courtly mien of a bishop. And the respect and contempt they inspire render the discharge of their separate functions equally useless. It is of great importance to observe that the character of every man is, in some degree, formed by his profession. A man of sense may only have a cast of countenance that wears off as you trace his individuality; while the weak, common man has scarcely ever any character but what belongs to the body ; at least, all his opinions have been so steeped in the vat consecrated by authority that the faint ,spirit which the grape of his own vine yields cannot be distinguished. Society, therefore, as it becomes more enlightened, should be veiy careful not to establish bodies of men who must. necessarily be made foolish or vicious by the very constitution of their profession. In the infancy of society, when men were just emerging out of barbarism, chiefs and priests, touching the most powerful springs of savage conduct, hope and fear, must have had unbounded sway. An aristocracy, of course, is naturally the first form of government. But, OPZNZON OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 35 clashing interests soon losing their equipoise, a monarchy and hierarchy break out ot the confusion of ambitious struggles, and the foun- dation of both is secured by feudal tenures. This appears to be the origin of monarchical and priestly power, and the dawn of civilization. But such combustible materials cannot long be pent up ; and, getting vent in foreign wars and intestine insurrections, the people acquire some power in the tumult, which obliges their rulers to gloss Thus, as wars, agriaver their oppression with a show of right. culture, commerce, and literature expand the mind, despots are compelled to make covert corruption hold fast the power which was formerly snatched by open force.’ And this baneful, lurking gangrene is most quickly spread by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of The indolent puppet of a court first becomes a luxurious ambition. monster, or fastidious sensualist, and then makes the contagion which his unnatural state spread, the instrument of tyranny. It is the pestiferous purple which renders the progress of civilization a curse, and warps the understanding, till men of sensibility doubt whether the expansion of intellect produces a greater portion of happiness or misery. But the nature of the poison points out the antidote ; and had Rousseau mounted one step higher in his investigation, or could his eye have pierced through the foggy atmosphere which he almost disdained to breathe, his active mind would have darted forward to contemplate the perfection of man in the estabhshment of true civilization. instead of taking his ferocious flight back to the night of sensual ignorance. CHAPTER THE PRBV*ILIN~~P~NION OF II. A SEXUAL CHARACTER DISCUSSED. T 0 account for and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character ; or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficieut strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness. r Men of abilities scatter seeds, that grow up and have a great influence on the forming opinion ; and when once the public opinion preponderate<. through the exertion of reason, the overttiow of arbitrary power is not very distant. 36 YLVDICA TION OF THE RIGHTS OR WOMAN. If, then, women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence? Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex, when they do not keenly satirize our headstrong passions and grovelling vices. Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of ignorance ! The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force. Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautifu1, everything else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives. Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace, I cannot comprehend his meaning,*unless, in the true Mahometan strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings only designed, by sweet, attractive grace and docile, blind obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar on the wing of contemplation. How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes ! For instance, the winning softness, So warmly and frequently recommended, that governs by obeying. What childish expressions, and how insignificant is the beingcan it be an immortal one?7who will condescend to govern by such sinister methods ! “ Certainly,” says Lord Bacon, “man is of kin to the beast by his body ; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature ! ” Men, indeed, gppear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state of childhood. Rousseau was more consistent when he wished to stop the progress of reason in both sexes, for if men eat of the tree of knowledge, women will come in for a taste ; but, from the imperfect cnltivation which their understandings now receive, they only attain a knowledge of evil. Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is appIied to men or women it is but a civil term for weakness. For if it be allowed that women were destined by Providence to acquire human virtues, and by the exercise of their understandings that stability of chaIacLer which is the firmest ground to rest our future hopes upon, they must be permitted to turn to the Fountain of Light,, and not forced to shape their course UJ the twinkling of a mere satellite. Milton, I grant, was of a very different opinion, for he only bends to the indefeasible right of beauty, though it would be difficult OPIiVION OF A S&XUAL CHARACTER. to render two passages, which I now mean to contrast, consistent. But intO similar incansi~tencies are great men often led by their senses : I’ To whom thus Eve with pe?’ cct beauty adom’d. My Author and Disposer, d hat thou bidst Unarg& I obey; so God ordains; God is thy law, thou mint : to know no more Is Woman’s happiestknowledge and her praise.” These are exactly the arguments that I have used to children; but I: have added: Your reason is now gaining strength, and, till it arrives at some degree of maturity, you must look up to me for advice-then you ought to think, and rely only on God. Yet in the following lines Milton seems to coincide with me, when he makes Adam thus expostulate with his Maker : ” Hast Thou not made me here Thy substitute, And thcsc inferior far beneath ms set ? Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony or true delight? Which must he mutual, in proportion due Giv’n and receiv’d ; but in dispati& The one intense, the other still remiss, Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove Tedious alike : of felIowshi$ I speak, Such as I seek, fit to participate All rational delight-” In treating, therefore, of the manners of women, let us, disregarding sensual arguments, trace what we should endeavor to make them in order to co-operate, if the expression be not too bold, with the Supreme Being. By individual education I mean-for the sense of the word is not precisely defined -such an attention to a child as will slowly sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they begin to fcrmcnt, and set the understanding Lo work before the body arrives at maturity; so that the man may only have to proceed with, not to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason. ‘ro prevent any misconstruction, I must add, that I do not believe that a private education can work the wonders which some sanguine writers have attributed to it. Men and women must be &ucated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education. It is, however, sufficient for my present purpose to assert, that, whatever effect circumstances have on the abilities, every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its awn reason ; for if but one being WRQQ created with vicious inclinations, that is, positively bad, what can save us from atheism I Or, if we worship a God, is not that God a devil ? C~~~~quc:~ily, the most perfst education, m my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart-or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not of its own reason. This was Rousseau’s result from the exercise opinion respecting men : I extend it to women, and confidently assert that they have been drawn out of their sphere by false refinement, and not by an endeavor to acquire masculine qualities. Still, the regal homage which they receive is so intoxicating, that till the manners of the times are changed, and formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to convince them that the illegitimate power which they obtain by degrading themselves, is a curse, and that they must return tn Nature and equality if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that unsophisticated affections impart, But for this epoch we must wait- wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason, and preferring the real dignity of man to childish state, throw off their gaudy hereditary trappings; and if then women do not resign the arbitrary power of beauty, they will prove that they have Cessmind than man. I may be accused of arrogance; still I must declare what I firmly believe, that all the writers who have written on the subject of female education and manners, from Rousseau to Dr. Gregory, have contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters than they would otherwise have been, and, consequently, more useless members of society. I might have expressed this conviction in a lower key; but I am afraid it would have been the whine of affectation, and not the faithful expression of my feelings, of the clear result which experience and reflection have led me to draw. When I come to that division of the subject, T shall advert to the pclssagcs that I more particularly disapprove of in the works of the authors I have just alluded to; but it is first necessary to observe, that my objection extends to the whole purporl of those books, which tend, in my opinion, to degrade one half of the human species, and render women pleasing at the expense of every solid virtue. Though, to reason on Rousseau’s ground, if man did attaiu a degree of perfection of mind when his body arrived at maturity, it might be proper, in order to make a man and his wife nn~, that she should rely entirely on his understanding; and the graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty would be equally conspicuous. But, alas! husbands, as well as their helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks tc early OPIflION OR A SEXUAL CHARACTER debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form-and if the blind lead the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the consequence. Many are the causes that, in the present corrupt state of society, contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and sharpening their senses. One, perhaps, that silently does more mischief than all the rest, is their disregard of order. To do everything in an orderly manner is a most important precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men, who from their infancy are broken into method, observe. This negligent kind of guess-work-for what other epithet can be used to point out the random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense, never brought to the test of reason?- prevents their generalizing matters of fact ; so they do to-day what they did yesterday, merely because they did it yesterday. This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful consequences than is commonly supposed ; for the little knowledge which women of strong minds attain, is, from various circumstances, of a more desuitory kind than the knowledge of men, and it is acquired more by sheer observations on real life, than from comparing what has been individually observed with the results of experience generalized by speculation. Led by their dependent situation and domestic employments more into society, what they learn is rather by snatches; and as learning is with them, in general, only a secondary thing, they do not pursue any one branch with that persevering ardor necessary to give vigor to the facnities and clearness LV ~11r judgment. In the present state of society, a little learning is required to support the character of a gentleman ; and boys are obliged to submit to a few years of discipline. But in the education of women the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment ; even while enervated hy confine- ment and false notions of modesty, the body is prevented from attaining that grace and beauty which relaxed half-formed limbs never exhibit. Besides, in youth their faculties art: WL brought rorward by emulation ; and, having no serious scientific study, if they have natural sagacity, it is turned too soon on life and manners. They dwell on effects and modifications, without tracing them back to causes; and .complicated rules to adjust behavior are a weak substitute for simple principles. As a proof that education gives this appearance of weakness to females, we may instance the example of military men, who are, like them, sent into the world before their minds have been stored with knowledge or fortified by principles. The consequences are similar : soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the muddy current of conuersation, and, from continually mixing with society, they gain what is termed a knowledge of the world ; and this acquaintance, with manners and customs, has frequently been confounded with a knowledge of the human heart. But can the crude fruit of casual observation, never brought to the test of judgment, formed by comparing speculation and experience, deserve such a’distinction ? Soldiers, as well as women, practice the minor virtues with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when the education has been the same? All the difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty, which enables the former to see more of life. It is wandering from my present subject, perhaps, to make a political remark ; but, as it was produced naturally by the train of my reflections, I shall not pass it silently qver. Standing armies can never cunsist of resolute, robust men ; they may be well disciplined machines, but they will seldom ‘contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties. And as for any depth of understanding, I will venture to affirm, that it is as rarely to be found in the army as amongst women ; and the cause, I maintain, is the same. It may be further observed, that officers are also particularly attentive to their persons, fond of dancing, crowded rooms, adventures and ridicule.’ Like the fair sex, the business of their lives is gallantry. They were taught to please, and they only live to please. Yet they do not lose their rank in the distinction of sexes, for they are stilI reckoned superior to women, though in what their superiority consists, beyond what I have just mentioned, it is difficult to discover. The great misfortune is this, that they both acquire manners before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have, from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural ; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices ; and, taking all their opinions on credit, they blindly submit to. authority. So that, if they have any sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance, that catches proportions, and decides with respect to manners ; but fails when arguments are to be pursued below the surface, or opinions analyzed. May not the same remark be applied to women ? Nay, the argument may be carried still further, for they are both thrown out of a useful station by the unnatural distinctions established in civilized life. Riches and hereditary honors have made cyphers of women to give consequence to the numerical figure ; and idleness has produced a mixture of gallantry and despotism into society, which leads the very I Why should women be censured with petulant acrimony, because they seim to have a passion for a scarlet coat? Has not education placed them more on a level with soldiers than with any other class of men? men, who are the slaves of their mistresses, to tyrannize over their sisters, wives and daughters. This is only keeping them in rank and file, it is true. Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience ; but, as blind obedience is ever fought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark, because the former only want The sensualist, indeed, has been slaves, and the latter a plaything. the most dangerous of tyrants, and women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers, while dreaming that they reigned over them. I now principally allude to Rousseau, for his character of Sop&a is, undoubtedly, a captivating one, though it appears to me grossly un- natural ; however, it is not the superstructure, but the foundation, of her character, the principles on which her education was built, that I mean to attack ;, nay, warmly as I admire the genius of that able writer, whose opinions I shall often have occasion to cite, indignation always takes place of admiration, and the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency, which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries. Is this the man, who, in his ardor for virtue, would banish all the soft’ arts of peace, and almost carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this the man who delights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of good dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry the glowing soul aut of itself? How are these +ghty sentiments lowered when he describes the pretty foot and enticing airs of his little favorite ! But, dor the present, I waive the subject, and, instead of severely reprehending the transient effusions of overweening sensibility, I shall only observe, that whoever has cast a benevolent eye on society must often shave been gratified by the sight of humble, mutual love, not dignified by sentiment nor strengthened by a union in intellectual pursuits. The domestic trifles of the day have afforded matters for cheerful converse, and innocent caresses have softened toils which did not require great exercise of mind or stretch of thought : yet, has not the sight of this moderate felicity excited more tenderness than respect ?-an emotion similar to what we feel when children are playing, or animals :sporting’ -whilst the contemplation of the noble struggles of suffering merit has raised admiration, and carried our thoughts to that world where sensation will give place to reason. Women are, therefore, to be considered either as moral beings, or so ’ Similar fxlings has Milton’s pleasing picture of paradisaical happiness ever raised in my mind ; yet, instead of envying the lovely pair, I have, with conscious dignity, or Satanic pride, turned to hell for sublimer objects. In the same style, when viewing -some noble monument of human art, I have traced the emanation of the Deity in the arder I admired, till, descending from that giddy height, I have caught myself CODtemplating the grandest of all human sights : for fancy quickly placed, in some mlitary recess, an Autcx.t of fortune. rising superior to passion and discontent. 42 VIiVDICATION OF TX!3 RIGHTS OF WOMAN weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior faculties of men. Let US examine this question. Rousseau declares that a woman ~huuld IICVC~, fur a IIKJL~I~I~~, feel herself independent ; that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire,, a sweefer companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself. He carries the arguments, which he pretends to draw from the indications of Nature, still further and insinuates that truth and fortitude, the carner-stones of all human virtue, should be cultivated with certain restrictions, because, with respect to the female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought to be impressed with unrelenting rigor. What nonsense ! When will a great man arise with sufficient strength. of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality have thus spread over the subject? If women are by nature inferior to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim. Connected with man as daughters, wives and mothers, their moral character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those simple duties ; but the end, the grand end, of their exertions should be to un-. fold their own faculties, and acquire the dignity of conscious virtue. They may try to render their road pleasant ; but ought never to torget, in common with man, that life yields not the felicity which can. satisfy an immortal soul. I do not mean to insinuate that either sex should be so lost in abstract reflections, or distant views, as to forget the affections and duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed to product the fruit of life ; on the contrary, I would warmly recommend them, even while I assert, that they afford most satisfaction when they are considered in their true, sober light. Probably, the prevailing opinion that woman was created for man may have taken its rise from Moses’ poetical story; yet, as very few, it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the subject,. ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of Adam’s ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground ; or only be so far admitted as it proves that man, from the remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert his strength to subjugate his companion ; and his invention, to show that she ought to have her neck bent under the yoke, because the whole creation was only created for his convenience or pleasure. Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things ; I have already granted that, from the constitution of their bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of virtue. I speak, collectively, of the whole sex; but I see not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in OPZiVZON OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 43: respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one eternal standard? I must, therefore, if I reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that there is a God. It follows, then, that cunning should not be opposed to wisdom, little cares to great exertions, or insipid softness, varnished over-with the name of gentleness, to that fortitude which grand views alone can inspire. I shall be told that woman would then lose many of her peculiar graces, and the opinion of a weli-known poet might be quoted to refute my unqualified assertion. For Pope has said, in the name of the whole male sex, ‘I Yet ne’er so sure our passion to create As when she touch’d the brink of a11we hate.” In what light this sally places men and women I shall leave to the: judicious to determine ; meanwhile I shall content myself with observing, that I cannot discover why, unless they are mortal, femalesshould always be degraded by being made subservient to love or lust. To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against sentiment and fine feelings ; but I wish to speak the simple language of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart. To endeavor. to reason love out of the world would be to out-Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense ; hut an endeavor to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears less wild. Youth is the season for love in both sexes ; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes the place of sensation. But Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed his steps, have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of female education ought to be directed tu one point-to render them pleasing. Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion who have any knowledge of human nature. Do they imagine that marriage can eradicate the habitude of life? The woman who has only been taught. to please will soon find that her charms are oblique sunbeams, and that they cannot have much effect on her husband’s heart when they are seen every day, when the summer is passed and gone. Will she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties ? Or is it not more rational to expect that she will try to please other men ; and, in the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavor to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband ceases to be a lover-and the time will inevitably come-her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, nr hecome a spring of bitterness ; 44 VIhTDICATION OF TiYE RIGHTS OF WOMAb. and love, perhaps the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity, I now speak of women who are restrained by principIe or prejudice; such women, though they would shrink from an intrigue with real abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of gallantry that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands ; or days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by congenial souls, till their health is undermined and their spirits broken by discontent. How, when, can the great art of pleasing be such a necessary study ? It is only useful to a mistress ; the chaste wife and serious mother should only consider her power to please as the polish aof her virtues, and the affection of her husband as one of the comforts that render her task less difficult and her life happier. But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make herself respectable, and not to rely for a11 her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities with herself. The worthy Dr. Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect his heart, but entirely disapprove of his celebrated ‘&Legacy to His Daughters. ” He advises them to’cultivate a fondness for dress, because a fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean when they freqnently rise this indefinite term. If they told us that in a pre-existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance. Rut if he only meant to say that the exercise of the faculties will produce this fondness, I deny it. It is not natural ; but arises, like faIse ambition in men, from a love of power. Dr. Gregory goes much further ; he actually recommends dissimulation, and advises an innocent girl to give the Iie to her feelings, and not dance with spirit, when gaiety of heart would make her feet elo.quent without making her gestures immodest. In the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a sound constitution? And why, to damp innocent vivacity, is she ,darkly to be told that men will draw conclusions which she little thinks of? Let the libertine draw what inference he pleases ; but I hope that no sensible mother will restrain the natural frankness of youth by instilling such indecent cautions. (‘ Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ; ” and a wiser than Solomon hath said that the heart should be made clean, and not trivial ceremonies ‘ob- served, which it is not very difficult to fulfill with scrupulous exactness when vice reigns in the heart. Women ought to endeavor to purify their heart; but can they do so when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely OPINION OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 45 dependent on their senses for employment and amusement, when no uobl~ pursuit sets them above the little vanities of the day, or enables them to curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed over which every passing breeze has power? To gain the affections of a virtuous man is affectation necessary? Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man ; but to insure her husband’s affections must a wife, who, by the exercise of her mind and hody while she was discharging the duties of a daughter, wife, and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain its natural strength, and her nerves a healthy tone-is she, I say, to.condescend to use art and feign a sickly delicacy in order to secure her husband’s affection ? Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of’a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship. In a seraglio, I grant that all these arts are necessary ; the epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apathy ; but have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition ? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure, or the languor of weariness, rather than assert their claim to pursue reasonable pleasures and render themselves conspicuous by practicing the virtues which dignify mankind ? Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid hours and soften the cares of a fellow-creature, who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles and tricks when the serious business of life is over ! Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and cxercistz her mind will, by managing her family and practicing various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband ; and if she, by possessing such substantial qualities, merit his regard, she will not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend to an unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband’s passions. In fact, if we revert to history, tie shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex. Nature, or, to speak with strict propriety, God, has made all things right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work. I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory’s treatise, where he advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her sensibility or affection. VoIuptuous precaution, and as ineffectual as absurd ! Love, from its very nature, must be transitory. To seek for a secret’ that would render it constant, would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea : and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious, to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, “ that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer.” 46 VYX-DICA TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. This is an obvious truth, a;ld, the cause not lying deep, will not elude a slight glance of’inquiry. Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take the place of choike and reason, is, in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind ; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions .that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections ; but the security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought to be insipid, only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration and the sensual emotions of fondness. This is, must be, the course of Nature-friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love. And this constitution seems perfectly to harmonize with the system of government which prevails in the moral world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind ; but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary gratification, when the object is gained and the satisfied mind rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue while he was struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband, the dotard, o prey to childish caprices aud luud jealousies, neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should excite confidence in his children are lavished on the overgrown chiId, his wife. In order to fulfill the duties of life, and to be able to pursue with vigor the various employments which form the moral character, a master and mistress of a family ought nnt to rontinue to love each other without passion. I mean to say, that they ought not to indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind that has never been engrossed by one object wants vigor-if it can long be so, it is weak. A mistaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many sexual prejudices, tend to make women more constant than men; but, for the present, I shall not touch on this braach of the subject. I will go still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the best,mother. And this would almost always be the consequence if the female mind were more enlarged : for it seems to be the common dispensation of Providence, that what we gain in present enjoyment should be deducted from the treasure of life, experience ; and .that when we are gathering the flowers of the day and reveling in pleasure, the solid fruit of toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same time, The.way lies before us ; we must turn to the right or left; and he who will pass OPINION OI; A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 47 life away in bounding from one pleasure to another, must not complain it he acquire neither wisdom nor respectability of character. Supposing, for a moment, that the soul is not immortal, and that .man was only created for the present scene-I think we should have .reason to complain that love, infantine fondness, ever grew insipid .and palled upon the sense. Let us eat, drink, and love, for tomorrow we die, would be, in fact, the language of reason, the morality of life ; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting .shadow ? But if, awed by observing the improbable powers of the mind, we disdain to confine’our wishes or thoughts to such a comparatively mean field of action ; that only appears grand and important, as it is connected with a boundless prospect and sublime hopes; what necessity is there for falsehood in conduct, and why must the sacred majesty of truth be violated to detain a deceitful good that saps the very foundation of virtue? Why must the female mind be tainted by coquettish arts to gratify the sensualist, and prevent love from subsiding into friendship, or compassionate tenderness, when there are not qualities on which friendship can be built? Let the honest heart show itself, and YeasoBteach passion to submit to necessity; or, let the dignified pursuit of virtue and knowledge raise the mind above those emotions which rather embitter than sweeten the cup of life, when they are not restrained within due bounds. I do not,mean to allude to the romantic passion, which is the concomitant of genius. Who can clip its wing? But that grand passion, not proportioned to the puny enjoyments of life, is only true to the sentiment, and feeds on itself. The passions which have been celebrated for their durability have always been unfortunate. They have acquired strength by absence and constitutional melancholy. The fancy has hovered round a form of beauty dimly seen-but familiarity might have turned admiration into disgust, or, at least, into indifference, and allowed the imagination leisure to start fresh game. With perfect propriety, according to this view of things, does Rousseau make the mistress of his soul, Eloifa, love St, Preux, when life was fading befor: her; but this is no proof of the immortality of the .passion. Of the same complexion is Dr. Gregory’s advice respecting delicacy of sentiment, which he advises a woman not to acquire if she have determined to marry. This determination, however perfectly con.sistent with his former advice, he calls indp/icafe, and earnestly persuades his daughters to conceal it, though it may govern their con*duct ; as if it were indelicate to have the common appetites of human nature. Noble morality! and consistent with the cautious prudence of a little soul that cannot extend its views beyond the present minute division of existence. If all the faculties of woman’s mind are only 48 VIA’DICA TIOiV OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. to,be cultivated as they respect her dependence on man ; if, when a husband be obtained, she have arrived at her gdal, and, meanly proud, rests satisfied with such a paltry crown, let her grovel contenLeJly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal kingdom ; but if, struggling for the prize of her high calling, she look beyond the present scene, let her cultivate her understanding without stopping to consider what character the husband may have whom she is destined to marry. Let her only determine, without being too anxious about present happiness, to acquire the qualities that ennoble a rational being, and a rough, inelegant husband may shock her taste without destroying her peace of mind. She will not model her soul to suit the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them : his character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue. If Dr. Crcgory confined his remark to romantic expectations of constant love and congenial feelings, he shoujd have recollected that experience will banish what advice can never make us cease to wish for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expense of reason, I own it frequently happens that women who have fostered a romantic, unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste their’ lives in imagining how happy they should have been with a husband who could love them with a fervid, increasing affection every day and all day. But they might as well pine married as single-and would not be a jot more unhappy with a bad husband than longing for a good.one. That a proper education-or, to speak with more precision, a well-stored mind-would enable a woman to support a single life with dignity, I grant; but that she should avoid cultivating her taste, lest her husband should occasionally shock it, is quitting a substance for a shadow. To say the truth, I do not know of what use is animproved taste if the individual be not rendered more independent of the casualties of life; if new sources of enjoyment, only dependent on the solitary operations of the mind, are not opened. People of taste, married or single, without distinction, will ever be disgusted by various things that touch not less observing minds. On this conclusion *the argument must not be allowed to hinge ; but, in the whole sum of enjoyment, is taste to be denominated a blessing I The question is, whether it procures most pain or pleasure? The answer will decide the propriety of Dr. Gregory’s advice, and show how absurd and tyrannic it is thus to lay down a system of slavery, or to attempt to educate moral beings by any other rules than those deduced from pure reason, which apply to the whole species. Gentleness of manners, forbearance and long-suffering, are such amiable, God-like qualities, that in sublime poetic strains the Deity has been invested with them; and, perhaps, no representation of His goodness so strongly fastens on the human affections as those that ’ For example, the herd of novelists. OPINIONOPA SEXUAL CHARACTER. 49 represent Him abundant in mercy and willing to pardon. Gentleness, all the characterconsidered in this point of view, bears on its front istics of grandeur, combined with the winning graces of condescension ; but what a different aspect it assumes when it is the submissive demeanor of dependence, the support of weakness that loves, because it wants protection ; and is forbearing, because it must silentiy endure injuries ; smiling under the lash at which it dare not snarl. Abject as this picture appears, it is the portrait of an accomplished woman, according to the received opinion of female excehence, separated by specious reasoners from human excellence. Or, they’ kindly restore the rib, and make one moral being of a man and woman, not forgetting to give her all the ‘&submissive charms.” How women can exist in that state where there is to be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, we are not told. For though moralists have agreed that the tenor of life seems to prove that malt is prepared, by various circumstances, for a future state, they constantly concur in advising wonran only to provide for the present. Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of Nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused. To recommend gentleness, indeed, on a broad basis, is strictly philosophical. A frail being should labor to be gentle. But when forbearance coIlfounds right and wrong, it ceases to bc a virtue ; and, however convenient it may be found in a companion, that companion will ever be considered as an inferior, and only inspire a vapid tenderness; which easily degenerates into contempt. Still, if advice could really make a being gentle, whose natural disposition admitted not of such a fihe polish, something toward the advancement of order would be attained ; but if, as might quickly be demonstrated, only affectation be produced by this indiscriminate counsel, which throws a stumbling block in the way of gradual improvement and true melioration of temper, the sex is not much benefited by sacrificing solid virtues to the attainment of superficial graces, though for a-few years they may procure the individuals regal sway. As a philosopher, I read with indignation the plausible epithets which men use to soften their. insults ; and, as a moralist, I ask what is meant by such heterogeneous associations as “fair defects,” ‘6amiable weaknesses,” etc. ? If there be but one criterion of morals, but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny, according to the vulgar tale of Mahomet’s coffin; they have neither the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of reason ’ Vidt Rousseau and Swedenborg. 50 VINDI%A TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. on a perfect model. They were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine. But to view the subject in another point of view. Do passive, indolent women make the best wives? Confining our discussion to the present moment of existence, let us see how such weak creatures perform their part ? Do the women who, by the attainment of a few superficial accomplishments, have strengthened the prevailing prejudice, merely contribute to the happiness of their husbands? Do they display their charms merely to amuse them? And have women who have early imbibed notions of passive obedience sufficient character to manage a family or educate children? So. far from it, that, after surveying the history of woman, I cannot help-agreeing with the severest satirist-considering the sex as the weakest as well as the most oppressed half of the species. What does history disclose but marks of inferiority, and how few women have emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of sovereign man ? So few that the exceptions remind me of an ingenious conjecture respecting Newton -that he was probably a being of superior order, accidentally caged in a human body. Following the same train of thinking, I have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary women who have rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit prescribed to their sex, were nraie spirits, confined by mistake in female frames. But, if it be not philosophical to think of sex when the soul is mentioned, the inferiority must depend on the organs: or the heavenly fire, which is to ferment the clay, is not given in equal portions. But avoiding, as I have hitherto done, any direct comparison of the two sexes collectively, or frankly acknowledging the inferiority of women, according to the present appearance of things, I shall only insist that men have increased that inferiority till women are almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures. Let th+r faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale. Yet let it be remembered, that for a small number of distinguished women F do not ask a place. It is difficult for us purblind mortals to say to what height human discoveries and improvements may arrive when the gloom of despotism subsides, which makes us stumble at every step ; but when morality shall be settled on a more solid basis, then, without being gifted with a prophetic spirit, I will venture to predict that woman will be either the friend or slave of man. We shall not, as at present, doubt whether she is a moral agent, or the link which unites man with brutes. p.lt should it then appear that, like the brutes, they were principally created for the use of man, he will let them patiently bite the bridle, and not mock them with empty praise; or should their rationality be proved, he will not impede their improvement merely to gratify his OPINION OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 5= sensual appetites. He will not, with all the graces of rhetoric, advise their understamdirlg to the guidance of man. He will not, when he treats of the education of wclmen, assert that they ought never to have the free use of reason, nor would he recommend cunning and dissimulation to beings who are acquiring in like manner as himself the virtues of humanity. them to submit Surely there implicitly can be but one rule of right, if morality has an eternal foundation ; and whoever sacrifices virtue, strictly so called, to present convenience, or whose duty it is to act in such a manner, lives only for the passing day, and cannot be an accountable creature. The poet, then, should have dropped his sneer when he says,. “ If weak wonlea go astray. The stars are more in fault than they.” For, that they are bound by the adamantine chain of destiny is most certain, if it be proved that they are never to exercise their own reason, never to be independent, never to rise above opinion, or to feel the dignity of a rational will that only bows to God, and often forgets that the universe contains any being but itself and the model of perfection to which its ardent gaze is turned, to adore attributes that, softened into virtues, may be imitated in kind, though the degree overwhelms the enraptuied mind. If, I say-for I would not impress by declamation when Reason offers her sober light-if they be really capable of acting like rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves ; or, like the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man, when they associate with him ; but cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them at& conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, intead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals. Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same degree of strength of mind, perseverance and fortitude, let their virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the same degree ; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which admits of no modification, would be common to both. Nay, the order of society as it is at present regulated, would not be inverted, for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be practiced to bring the balance even, much less to turn it. These may be termed Utopian dreams. Thanks to that Being who impressed them on my soul, and gave me sufficient strength of mind to dare to exert my own reason, till, becoming dependent only on Him for the support of my virtue, I view, with indignation, the mistaken nutions that enslave‘my sex. s2 VIZDICA TIOiV OF TiYE RIGHTS OP WOMAN. I love man as my fellow ; but his sceptre, real or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage ; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man. In fact, the conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its own reason; or on what foundation rests the throne of God? It appears to me necessary to dwell on these obvious truths, because females have been insulated, as it were ; and, while they have been stripped of the virtues that should clothe humanity, they have been decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a short-lived tyranny. Love, in their bosoms, taking place of every nobler passion, their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion instead of inspiring respect ; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in absolute monarchies, destroys all ntrength of character. Liberty is the mnther of virtue, and if women be, by their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in Nature. -4s to the argument respecting the subjection in which the sex has ever been held, it retorts on man. The many have always been enthralled by the few ; and monsters, who scarcely have shown any discernment of human excellence, have tyrannized over tho’usands .of their fellow-creatures. Why hPve men of superior endowments submitted to such degradation? For, is it not universally acknowledged that kings, viewed collectively, have ever been inferior, in abilities and virtue, to the same number of men taken from the common mass of mankind-yet, have they not been, and are they not still, treated with a degree of reverence that is an insult to reason? China is not the only country where a living man has been made a god. Men have submitted to superior strength to enjoy with impunity the pleasure of the moment--?uamcn have only done the same ; and, therefore, till it is proved that the courtier, who servilely resigns the birthright of a man, is not a moral agent, it cannot be demonstrated that woman is essentially inferior to man because she has always been subjugated. Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the science of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers scrupIing to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate distinction. I shall not pursue this argument any further than to establish an obvious inference, that as sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind, including woman, will become more wise and virtuous. OPINIOLV OF A SEXUAL CHAPTER CHARACTER. III. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. B ODILE’ strength, from being the distinction of heroes, is now sunk into such unmerited contempt that men, as well as women, seem to think it unnecessary : the latter, as it takes from their feminine graces, and from that lovely weakness the source of their undue power ; and the former, because it appears inimical to the character of a gentleman, That they have both, by departing from one extreme, run into another, may easily be proved ; but first it may be proper to observe, that a vulgar error has obtained a degree of credit, which has given force to a false conclusion, in which an effect has been mistaken for a cause. People of genius have, very frequently, impaired their constitutions by study or careless inattention to their health, and the violence of their passions bearing a proportion to the vigor of their intellects, the ,sword’s destroying the scabbard has become almost proverbial, and superficiar observers have inferred from thence, that men of genius have commonly weak, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, delicate, constitutions. Yet the contrary, I believe, will appear to be the fact ; for, on diligent inquiry, I find that strength of mind has, in most cases, been accompanied by superior strength of body-natural soundness of constitutions-not that robust tone of nerves and vigor of muscles, which arise from bodily labor, when the mind is quiescent, or only .directs the hands. Dr. Priestley has remarked, in the preface to his biographical chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond forty-five. And, considering the thoughtless manner in which they have lavished their strength-when, investigating a favorite science, they have wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of the midnight hour ; or, when, lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the passions that meditation had raised ; whose objects, the baseless fabric of a vision, faded before the .exhausted eye-they must have had iron frames. Shakespeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confines of his dreary prison. These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickIy effusions of distempered brains ; but the exuberance of fancy that, “ in a fine phrenzy ” wandering, was not continually reminded of its material shackles. I am aware that this argument would carry me further than it may be supposed I wish to go ; but I follow truth, and, still adhering to my first position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give man a natural superiority over woman ; and this is the only solid basis on which the superiority of the sex cau bt: built. But I still insist that 54 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN; not only the virtue, but the Knmerledg of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational, creatures, ought to endeavor to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the same means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of AaZf being-one of Rousseau’s wild chimeras.’ But if strenkth of body be, with some show of reason, the boast of men, why are women so infatuated as to be proud of a defect ? Rousseau has furnished them with a plausible excuse, which could only have occurred to a man whose imagination had been allowed to run wild, and refine on the .impressions made by .exquisite senses; that they might, forsooth, have a pretext for yielding to a natural appetite without violating a romantic species of modesty, which gratifies the pride and libertinism of man. Women, deluded by these sentiments, i “ Kesearches into abstract and speculative truths, the principles and axioms of sciences-in short, everything which tends to generalize our ideas-is not the proper province of woman ; their studies should be relative to points of practice ; it belongs to’ them to apply those principles which men have discovered ; and it is their part to make observations which direct men to the establishment of general principles. Alh the ideas of women, which have not the immediate tendency to points of duty, should be directed to the study of men, and to the attainment of those agreeable accomplishments which have taste for their object ; for as to works of genius, they are beyond their capacity ; neither hove they sufficient precision or power of attention to succeed in sciences which require accuracy ; and as to physical knowledge, it belongs to those only who are most active, most inquisitive ; who comprehend the greatest variety of objects ; in short, it belongs to those who have the strongest powers and who exercise them most, to judge of the relations between sensible beings and the laws of Nature, A woman who is naturally weak, and does not carry her ideas to any great extent.. knows how to judge and make a proper estimate of those movements which she sets to work in order to aid her weakness, and these movements are the passions of men. The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart. She must have the skill to incline us to do everything which her sex will not enable her to do herself, and which is necessary or agreeable to her ; therefore, she ought to study the mind of man thoroughly, not the mind of man in general, abstradtedly, but the dispositions of those men to whom she is subject, either by the laws of She should learn to penetrate into their real her country or by the force of opinion. sentiments, from their conversation, their actions, their looks, and gestures. She should also have the art, by her own conversation. actions, looks, and gestures, to communicate those sentiments which are agreeable to them, without seeming to intend it. Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart ; but women will read the heart of man better than they. It belongs to women, if I may be allowed the expression, to form an experimental morality, and to reduce the study of man to a system. Women have most wit, men have most genius ; women observe, men reason ; from the concurrence of both we derive the clearest light and the most perfect knowledge which the human mind is, of itself, capable of attaining. In one word, from hcncc we acquire the most intimate acquaintance, both with ourselves and others, of which our nature is capable : and it is thus that art has a constant tendency to perfect those endowments which nature has bestowed. The world is the book of women.“--ROmsealr’s “ BmiZius.” I hope my readers still remember the comparison, which 1 have brought forward, between women and officers. OPINION OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 55 sometimes boast of their weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters ; but virtue is sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life to the triumph of an hour. Women, as well as despots, have now, perhaps, more power than they would have if the world, divided and subdivided into kingdoms and families, were governed by laws deduced from the exercise of reason ; but in obtaining it (to carry on the comparison) their character is degraded, and licentiousness spread through the whole aggregate of society. The many become pedestal to the few. I, therefore, will venture to assert, that till women are more rationally educated, in knowledge must the progress of human virtue and improvement receive continual checks. And if it be granted that woman was not created merely to gratify the appetite of man, or to be the upper servant, who provides his meals and takes care of his linen, it must follow that the first care of those mothers, or fathers, who really attend to the education of females, should be, if not to strengthen the body, at least not to destroy the constitution by mistaken notions of beauty and female excellence ; nor should girls ever be allowed to imbibe the pernicious notion that a defect can, by any chemical process of reasoning, become an excellence. In this respect, I am happy to find that the author of one of the most instructive books that our country has produced for children, coincides with me in opinion. I shall quote his pertinent remarks to give the force of his respectable authority to reason.’ r A respectable old man gives the following sensible account of the method he pursued when educating his daughter : “ I endeavored to give both to her mind and body a degree of vigor which is seldom found in the female sex. As soon as she was sufficiently advanced in strength to be capable of the lighter labors of husbandry and gardening, I employed her as my constant companion. Selene (for that was her name) soon acquired a dexterity in all these rustic employments, which I considered with equal pleasure and admiration. If women are in general feeble both in body and mind, it arises less from nature than from education. We encourage a vicious indolence and inactivity, which we falsely call delicacy ; instead of hardening their minds by the severer principles of reason and philosophy, we breed them to useless arts, which terminate in vanity and sensuality. In most of the countries which I had visited they are taught nothing of a higher nature than a few modulations of the voice, or useless postures of the body ; their time is consumed in sloth or trifles, and trifles become the only pursuits capable of interesting them. We seem to forget that it is upon the qualities of the female sex that our OWII domestic comforts and the education of our children must depend. And what are the comforts or the education which a race of beings corrupted from their infancy. and unacquainted with all the duties of life, are fitted to bestow? To touch a musical instrument with useless skill, to exhibit their natural or affected graces to the eyes of indolent and debauched young men, to dissipate their husband’s patrimony in riotous and unnecessary expenses, these are the only tis cultivated by women in most of the polished nations I had seen. And the 56 VIi%WICA TION OF THX RIGHTS OH WOMAN. But should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labor to become still weaker than Nature intended her to be? drguments of this cast are au iusult’to common sense, and savor of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it,is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger ; and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wife will consider, and leave the narrowminded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation. The mother who wishes to give true dignity of character to her daughter must, regardless of the sneers of ignorance, proceed on a plan diametrically opposite to that which Rousseau has recommended with all the deluding charms of eloquence and philosophical sophistry; for his eloquence renders absurdities plausible, and his dogmatic conclusions puzzle, without convincing, those who have not ability to refute them. Throughout the whole animal kingdom every young creature requires almost continual exercise, and the infancy of children, conformable to this intimation, should be passed in harmless gambols, that exercise the feet and hands, without requiring very minute direction from the head or the constant attention of a nurse. In fact, the care necessary for self-preservation is the first natural exercise of the understanding, as little inventions toamuse the present moment unfold the imagination. But these wise designs of Nature are counteracted by mistaken fondness or blind zeal. The child is not left a moment to its own direction, particularly a girl, and thus rendered dependentdependence is called natural. TU preserve personal beauty-woman’s glory !-the limbs and faculties are cramped with worse than Chinese bands, and the sedentary life which they are condemned to live, while boys frolic in the open air, weakens the muscles and relaxes the nerves. As for Rousseau’s remarks, which have since been echoed by several writers, that they have naturally (that is from their birth, indcpcndent of education) a fondness for dolls, dressing and talking, they are so puerile as not to merit a serious refutation. That a girl, condemned to sit for hours together listening to the idle: chat of weak nurses, or to attend at her mother’s toilet, will endeavor to join the conversation, is, indeed, very natural; and that she will imitate her mother or aunts, and amuse herself by adorning her lifeless do11 as they do in dressing her, poor, consequences are uniformly such as may be expected to proceed from such polluted sources-private misery and public servitude. “ But Selene’s education was regulated by different views, and conducted upon severer principles, if that can be called severity which opens the mind to a sense of moral and reIigious duties, and most eKectually arms it against the inevitable evils of life.” --Mr. Day’s l’SanJfoord md Mwton,” vol. iii. OPIArION OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 57 innocent babe ! is undoubtedly a most natural consequence. of the greatest abilities have seldom had suficient strength For men to rise above the surrounding atmosphere ; and if the pages of genius have always been blurred by the prejudices of the age, some allowance should be made for a sex who, like kings, always see things through a faIse medium. Pursuing these reflections, the fondness for dress, conspicuous in ‘women, may be easily accounted for, without supposing it the result of a desire to please the sex on which they are dependent. The .absurdity, in short, of supposing that a girl is naturally a coquette, and that a desire, connected with the impulse of Nature, to propagate the species, should appear even before an improper education has, by heating the imagination, called it forth prematurely, is so unphilosophical, that such a sagacious observer as Rousseau would not have adopted it if he had not been accustomed to make reason give way ‘to his desire of singularity, and truth to a favorite paradox. Yet thus to give a sex to mind was not very consistent with the principles of a man who argued so warmly and so well for the immortality of the soul. But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis ! Rousseau respected, almost adored, virtue, and yet he allowed himself to love with sensual fondness. His imagination constantly prepared inflammable fuel for his inflammable senses ; but, in order to reconcile his respect for self-denial, fortitude, and those heroic virtues which a mind like his could not coolly admire, he labors to invert the law of Nature, and broaches a doctrine pregnant with mischief and derogatory to the character of Supreme Wisdom. His ridiculous stories, which tend to prove that girls are na&r&& attentive to their persons, without laying any stress on daily example, are below contempt. And that a little miss should have such a correct taste as to neglect the pIeasing amusenient of making O’s, merely because she perceived that it was an ungraceful attitude, should be selected with the~anecdotes of the learned pig.’ had an opportunity of observing more girls in I have, probably, their infancy than J. J. Rousseau-I can recollect my own feelings, and I have looked steadily around me-yet, so far from coinciding with him in opinion respecting the first dawn of the female character, I will ’ “ I once knew a young person who learned to write before she learned to read, and began to write with her needle before she could use a pen. At first, indeed, she took it into her head to make no other letter than the 0 ; this letter she was constantly making of all sizes, and always the wrong way, Unluckily, one day, as she was intent on this employment, she happened to see herself in the looking-glass, when, taking a dislike to the constrained attitude in which she sat while writing, she threw away her pen, like another F’allas, and determined against making the 0 any more. Her brother was also equally adverse to writing ; it was the confinement, however. and not the constrained attitude, that most disgusted him.“-Kowseau’s “ Em&&.” 58 VZNDZCATZON OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. venture to affirm that a girl whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless confinement allows her no alternative. Girls and boys, in short, would play harmlessly together if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long before Nature makes any difference. I will go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shown any vigor of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild-as some of the elegant formers of the fair sex would insinuate. The baneful consequences which flow from inattention to health during infancy and youth extend further than is supposed. Depend-. ence of body naturally produces dependence of mind ; and how can1 she be a good wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is employed to guard against or endure sickness? Nor can it be expected. that a woman will resolutely endeavor to strengthen her constitution and abstain from enervating indulgences, if artificial notions of beauty and false descriptions of sensibility have been early entangled with her motives of action. Most men are sometimes obliged to bear with bodily inconveniences, and to endure occasionally the inclemency of the elements; but genteel women are, literally speaking, slaves to8 their hndies, and glory in their subjection. I once knew a weak woman of fashion who was more than commonly proud of her delicacy and sensibility. She thought a distinguishing taste and puny appetite the height of all human perfection, and acted accordingly. I have seen this weak, sophisticated being neglect all the duties of life, yet recline with self-complacency on a sofa, and boast of her want of appetite as a proof of delicacy that extended to, or, perhaps, arose from, her exquisite sensibility-for it is ditlicult to render intelligible such ridiculous jargon. Yet, at the moment, I have seen her insu1t.a worthy old gentlewoman, whom unexpected misfortunes had made dependent on her ostentatious bounty, and who, in better days, had claims on her gratitude. Is it possible that a human creature could have become such a weak and depraved being, if, like the Sybarites, dissolved in luxury, everything like virtue had not been worn away, or never impressed by precept-a poor substitute, it is true, for cultivation of mind, though it serves as a fence against vice? Such a woman is not a more irrational monster than some of the Roman emperors, who were depraved by lawless power. Yet, since kings have been more under the restraint of law, and the curb (however weak) of honor, the records of history are not filled with such unnatural instances of folly and cruelty, nor does the despotism that kills virtue and genius in the bud hover over Europe with that destructive blast which desoiates Turkey, and renders the men, as well as the soil, unfruitful. OPINION 03 A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 59 Women are everywhere in this deplorable state ; for, in order to. prcscrve their innocence (3s ignorance is courteously termed), truth is: hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial character before their faculties have acquired any strength. Taught from theirinfancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adore its prisog. Men have various employments and pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the opening micld ; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour. But were their understanding once emancipated from the slavery to which the pride and sensuality of man and their short-sighted desire, like that of dominion in tyrants, of present sway has subjected them, we should probably read of their weaknesses with surprise. I must be allowed to pursue the argument a little further. Perhaps, if the existence of an evil being were allowed, who, in the allegorical language of Scripture, went about seeking whom he should devour, he could not more effectually degrade the human character than by giving a man absolute power. This argument branches into various- ramifications. Birth, riches, and every extrinsic advantage that exalts a man above his fellows, without any mental exertion, sink him in reality below them. In propoition to his weakness he is played upon by designing men, till the And that tribes of bloated monster has lost all traces of humanity. men, like flocks Bf sheep, should qnietly follow such a leader, is a solecism that only a desire of present enjoyment and narrowness of understanding can solve. Educated in slavish dependence, and ener-vated by luxury and sloth, where shall we find men who will stand forth to assert the rights of man, or claim the privilege of moral beings who should have but one road to exceilence? Slavery to. monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long in freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished. Let not men, then, in the pride of power, use the same arguments. that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that woman ought to be subjected because she has always been so. But when man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with him ; and,, till that glorious period arrives, in descanting on the folly of the sex, let him not overlook his own. Women, it is true, obtaining power by unjust means, by practicing or fostering vice, evidently lose the rank which reason would assign them, and they become either abject slaves or capricious tyrants. They lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in acquiring power, and 60 VZNDfCATZON OF THE RZGHTS OF WOMAN. act as men are observed to act when they have been exalted by the same means. It is time to effect a revolution in female manners-time to restore to them their lost dignity-and make them, as a part of the human species, labor, by refoiming themselves, to reform the world. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners. If men be demi-gods, why, let tis serve them ! And if the dignity of the female soul be as disputable as that of animals-if their reason does not afford sutliclent light to direct their conduct, while unerring instinct is denied--they are surely of all creatures the most miserable! and, bent heneath the iron hand of destiny, must submit to be a fair defect in creation. But to justify the ways of Providence respecting -them, by pointing out some irrefragable reason for thus making such a large portion of mankind accountable and not accountable, would puzzle the subtilest casuist. The only solid foundation for morality appears to be the character of the Supreme JSemg, the harmony of which arises from a balanceof attributes ; and, to speak with reverence, one attribute seems to imply the neressig of another. He must be just, because He is wise ; He must be good, because He is omnipotent. For to exalt one attribute at the expense of another equally noble and necessary, bears the stamp of the warped reason of mau-the homage of passion. Man, gccustomed to bow down to power in his savage state, can seldom divest himself of this barbarous prejudice, even when civilization determines how much superior mental is to bodily strength; and his reason is clouded by these crude opinions, even when he thinks of the Deity. His omnipotence is made to swallow up, or preside over, His other attributes, and those mortals are supposed to limit His power irreverently who think that it must be regulated %y His wisdom. I disclaim that specious humility which, after investigating Nature, atops at the Author. The High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, doubtless possesses many attributes of which we can form no conception ; but Reason teIls me that they cannot clash with those I adore, and I am compelled to listen to her voice. It seems natural for man to search for excellence, and either to trace it in the object that he worships, or blindly to invest it with perfection, as a garment. But what good effect can the latter mode of worship have on the moral conduct of a rational being? He bends to power ; he adores a dark cloud, which may open a bright prospect to him, to burst in angry, lawless fury on his devoted head-he knows not why. And, supposing that the Deity acts from the vague impulse -of an undirected will, man must also follow his own, or act according ‘to rules deduced from principles which he disclaims as irreverent. into this dilemma have both enthusiasts and cooler thinkers fallen, OPINION OF A SEXUAL CHAlpACTER. 6r when they labored to free men from the wholesome restraints which a just conception of the character of God imposes. It is not impious thus to scan the attributes of the Almighty-in fact, who can avoid it that exercises his faculties? For to love God as the fountain of wisdom, goodness, and power, appears to be the only worship useful to a being who wishes to acquire either virtue or knowledge, A blind, unsettled affection may, like human passions,. occupy the mind and warm the heart ; while to do justice, love mercy, I shall pursue this suband walk humbIy with our God, is forgotten. ject stil! further, when I consider religion in a light opposite to that recommended by Dr. Gregory, who treats it as a matter of sentiment or taste. To return from this apparent digression. It were to be wished that women would cherish an affection for their husbands;founded on the same principle that devotion ought to rest upon. No other firm base is there under heaven-for let them beware of the fallacious light of sentiment,.too often used as a softer phrase for sensuality. It follows, then, I think; that from their infancy women should either be shut up like Eastern princes, or educated in such a manner as to be able to think and act for themselves. Why do men halt between two opininns, 2nd expect. impossibilities ? Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious ? Still, I know that it will require a considerable length of time to eradicate the firmly-rooted prejudices which sensualists have planted. It will also require some time to convince women that they act contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy ; and to convince the world that the poisoned source of female viced and follies-if it be necessary, in compliance with custom, to use synonymous lax sense-has been the sensual homage paid to beauty-to terms in a beauty of features : for it has beeu shrewdly obgervd by a Germau writer, that a pretty woman, as an object of desire, is generally allowed to be so by men of all descriptions ; while a fine woman, who inspires more sublime emotions by displaying intellectual beauty, may be overlooked or observed with indifference by those men who find their happiness in the gratification of their appetites. I foresee an obvious retort : While man remains such an imperfect being as he appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or less, be the slave of his appetites; and those: women obtaining most power who gratify a predominant one, the sex is degraded by a physical, if not by a mor,al, necessity. This objection has, I grant, some force; but while such a sublime precept exists as, “ Be pure as your heavenly Father is pure,” it would seem that the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who alone could limit them ; and that he may press forward without considering VINDICATION 62 OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. whether he steps out of his sphere by indulging such a noble al lbi:ion. To the wild billows it has been said, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” Vainly then, do they beat and foam, restrained by the power that confines the struggling planets in their orbits ; matter yields to the great governing Spirit. But an immortal soul, not restrained by mechanical laws, and struggling to free itself from the shackles of matter, contributes to, instead of disturbing, the order of creation, when, co-operating with the Father of Spirits, it tries to govern itself by the invarialrle rule that, in a degree, before which our imagination faints, regulates lthe universe. Besides, if women be educated for dependence-that is, to act according to the wiI1 of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power-where are we to stop? Are they to be considered as vicegerents allowed to reign over a small domain, and answerable for their conduct to a higher tribunal, liable to error? It will not be difficult to prove that such delegates will act like men subjected by fear, and make their children and servants endure their tyrannical oppression. As they submit without reason, they will, having no fixed rules to square their conduct by, be kind or cruel, just as the whim of the moment directs ; and we ought not to wonder if sometimes, galled by their heavy yoke, they take a malignant pleasure in resting it on weaker shoulders. But, supposing a woman, trained up to obedience, be married to a sensible man, who directs her judgment without making her feel the servility of her subjection, to act with as much propriety by this retiected light as can be expected when reason is taken at second-hand ; yet she cannot insure the life of Her protector-be may die and leave her with a large family. -4 double duty devolves on her-to educate them in the character of both father and mother; to form their principles and secure their property. But, alas! she has never thought, much less acted, for herself. She has only learned to please’ men, to depend gracefully on t “ In the union of the sexes, both pursue one common object, bnt not in the same manner. From their diversity in this particular arises the first determidate difference between the moral relations of each. The one should be active and strong, the other passive and weak ; it is necessary the one should have both the power and the will, and *hat the other should make little resistance. “ This principle being established, it follows that woman is expressly formed to please the man. If the obligation be reciprocal, also, and the man ought to please in his turn, it is not so immediately necessary ; his great merit is in his power, and he This. I must confess, is not one of the refined pleases merely because he is strong. maxims of love ; it is, however, one of the laws of Nature, prior to love itself. ” If woman be formed to please and be subjected to man, it is her place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable to him, instead of challenging his passion. The violence of his desires depends on her charms ; it is by means of these she should urge him to OPINION OF A SEXUAL CHARACTER. 63 them ; yet, encumbered with children, how is she. to obtain another protector-a hushand to supply the place of reason ? A rational man -for we are not treading on romantic ground-though he may think her a pleasing, docile creature, will not choose to marry a fumi& for love when the world contains many more pretty creatures.. What is then to become of her? She either falls an easy prey to some mean fortune-hunter, who defrauds her children of their paternal inheritance, and renders her miserable ; or becomes the victim of discontent and blind indulgence. Unable to educate her sons, or impress them with respect-for it is not a play on words to assert that people are never respected, though filling an important station, who are not respectable-she pines under the anguish of unavailing, impotent regret. The serpent’s LVOL~enters into her very soul, and the vices of liccntious youth bring her with sorrow, if not with poverty also, to the .grave. This is not an overcharged picture; on the contrary, it is a very .possible case, and something similar must have fallen under every attentive eye. I have, however, taken it for granted that she was well disposed, though experience shows that the blind may as easily be led into a But supposing (no very improbable ditch as along the beaten road. conjecture) that a being only taught to please must still find her happiness in pleasing ; what an example of folly, not to say vice, will she be to her innocent daughters ! The mother will be lost in the coquette, and, instead of making friends of her daughters, view them with eyes askance, for they are rivals-rivals more cruel than any ather, because they invite a comparison, and drive her from the throne -of beauty who has never thought of a seat on the bench of reason, It does not require a lively pencil, or the discriminating outline of a caricature, to sketch the domestic miseries and petty vices which such a mistress of a family diffuses. Still, she only acts as a woman qught to act brought up according to Rousseau’s system. She can never be reproached for being masculine, or turning out of her sphere; nay, she may observe another of his grand rules, and, cautiously preserving her reputation free from spot, be reckoned a good kind of woman. Yet in what respect can she be termed good? She abstains, it is true, without any great struggle, from committing gross crimes ; -the exertion of those powers which Nature hath given him. The most successful method of exciting them is to render such exertion necessary by resistance ; as, in that *case, self-love is added to desire, and the one triumphs in the victory which the qther obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and defense between the sexes ; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of the other ; and, in a word, that bashfulness and modesty with which Nature hath armed the weak in order to subdue -the strong.“-Rourseau’z ” Emilius.” I shall make no other comment on this ingenious passage than just to observe that it is the philosophy of lasciviousness. V~L~~D~CATION 64 OF THE RIGHTS OP CVObfA& but how does she fulfill her duties? Duties !-in truth she has enough think of to adorn her body and nurse a weak constitution. With respect to religion, she never presumed to judge for herself; asa dependent creature should, to the ceremonies of but CCJU~UI~II~, the Church which she was brought up in, piously believing that wiser heads than her own have settled that business-and not to doubt is her point of perfection. She therefore pays her tithe of mint and cummin, and thanks her God that she is not as other women are. These are the hIessed effects of a good education !--these the vi1 LLICS of man’s help-mate ! ’ I must relieve myself by drawing a different picture. Let fancy now present a woman with a tolerable understanding-for I do not wish to leave the line of mediocrity-whose constitution, strengthened by exercise, has allowed her body to acquire its full vigor ; her mind, at the same time, gradually expanding itself to comprehend the moral duties of life, and in what human virtue and dignity consist. Formed thus by the discharge of the relative duties of her station, she marries from affection, without losing sight of prudence ; and, looking beyond matrimonial felicity, she secures her husband’s respect before it is necessary to exert mean arts to please him and feed a dying flame, which Nature doomed to expire when the object became famihar, when friendship and forbearance take place of a more ardent affection. This is the natural death of love, and domestic peace is I also sup.pose not destroyed by struggles to prevent its extinction. the husband to be virtuous, or she is still more in want of independent principles. Fate, however, breaks Oris tie. She is left a widow, perhaps, without a sufficient provision, but she is not desolate ! The pang of nature is felt, but after time has softened sorrow into melancholy resignation, her heart turns to her children with redoubled fondness, and, anxious to provide for them, affection gives a sacred, heroic cast to her maternal duties. She thinks that nnt only the eye sees her virtuous efforts from whom all her comfort now must flow, and whose approbation is life; but her imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief, to dwells on the fond hope that. LIIC: eyes which her trembling hand closed may still see how she subdues every wayward passion, to fulfill the double duty of being the father as well as the mother of her children. ’ “ 0 how lovely,” exclaims Rousseau, speaking of Sophia, “is her ignorance! Happy ,is he who is destined to instruct her ! She will never pretend to be the tutor Far from attempting to subject of her husband, but will be content to be his pupil. him to her taste, she will accommodate herself to his. She will be more estimable to him than if she was learned ; he wiil have a pleasure in instructing her.--RousJcau’J “Ellli~iU>: I shall content myself with simply asking how friendship can subsist, when love expires, between the master and his pupil 7 Raised to heroism by her misfortunes, she represses the first faint of a natural inclination, betore it ripens into love, and in the bloom of life forgets her sex-forgets the pleasure of an awakening passion, which might again have been inspired and returned. She no longer thinks of pleasing, and conscious dignity prevents her from priding herself on account of the praise which her conduct demands. Her children have her love, and her brightest hopes are beyond the grave, where her imagination often strays. I think I see her surrounded by her children, reaping the reward of her care. The intelligent eye meets hers, while health and innocence smile on their chubby cheeks, and as they grow up the cares of life She lives to see the virtues are lessened by their grateful attention. which she endeavored to plant on principles, fixed into habits, to see her children attain a strength of character sufficient to enable them to endure adversity without forgetting their mother’s example. The task of life thus fulfilled, she calmly waits for the sleep of death, and, rising from the grave, may say--Behold, thou gavest me a talent-and here are live talents. I wish to sum up what I have said in a few words, for I here throw down my gauntlet, and deny the existence of sexual virtues, not ex-, cepting modesty. For man and woman truth, if I understand the meaning of the word, must be the same ; yet in the fanciful female character, so prettily drawn by poets and novelists, demanding the, sacrifice of truth and sincerity, virtue becomes a relative idea, having, no other foundation than utility, apd of that utility men pretend arbitrarily to judge, shaping it to tIleir own convenience. Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfill ; but they are /lunmn duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same. To become respectable, the exercise of their understanding is necessary ; there is no other foundation for independence of character ; I mean explicitly to say that they must only bow to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion. In the superior ranks of life how seldom do we meet with a man of superior abilities, or even common acquirements? The reason appears to me clear ; the state they are born in was an unnatural one. The human character has ever been formed by the employments the individual, or class, pursues ; and, if the faculties are not sharpened by necessity, they must remain obtuse. The argument may fairly be extended to women ; for, seIdom occupied by serious business, the pursuit of pleasure gives that insignificancy to their character which renders the society of the steal so insipid. The same want of firmness, produced by a similar cause, forces them both to fly from themselves to noisy pleasures and artificial passions, till vanity takes place of every social affection, and the characteristics of humanity can &w:;ing ~56 VINDICA T’ON OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAX. scarcely be discerned. Such are the blessings of civil governments, 3s they are at present organized, that wealth and female softness equally tend to debase mankind, and are produced by the same cause ; but allowing women to be rational creatures, they should be incited to acquire virtues which they may call their own, for how can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its 0201~exertions ? CHAPTER OBSERVATIONS OX THE STATE IS REDUCED OF BY IV. DEGRADATION VARIOUS TO WHICH WOMAN CAUSES. T HAT woman is naturally weak, or degraded by a concurrence of circumstances, is, I think, clear. Hut this position I shall simply contrast with a conclusion, which I have frequently heard fall from sensible men in favor of an aristocracy : That the mass of mankind cannot be anything, or the obsequious slaves, who patiently allow themselves to be driven forward, would feel their own consequence and spurn their chains. Men, they further observe, submit everywhere to oppression, when they have only to Iift up their heacls to throw off the yoke ; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they quietly lick the dust and say, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same propensity to enjoy the present moment ; and, at last, despise the freedom which they have not sufficient virtue to struggle to attain. But I must be more explicit, With respect to the culture of the heart, it is unanimously allowed that sex is out of the question ; but the line of subordination in the mental powers is never to be passed over.’ Only “absolute in loveliness,” the portion of rationality granted to woman is, indeed, very scanty ; for, denying her genius and judgment. it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect. The stamen of immortality, if I may be allowed the phrase, is the perfectibility of human reason ; for, were III~II created ptlrEtxL, vr did a flood of knowledge break in upon him, when he arrived at maturity, that precluded error, I should doubt whether his existence would be 1 Into what inconsistencies do men fall when they argue without the compass of principles ! Women, weak women, are compared with angels ; yet a superior order of beings shoulld be supposed to ~DCPPIFmnre intellprt thnn man : or, in what does their superiority consist? In the same strain, to drop the sneer, they are allowed to possess more goodness of heart, piety and benevolence. I doubt the fact. though it be courteously brought forward, unless ignorance be allowed to be the mother of devotion ; for I am firmly persuaded that, cm an average, the proportion between virtue and knowledge is more upon a par than is commonly granted. QBSERVA TZONS 03 BEGRADA TZOZV OF WOMAN. 67 continued after the dissolution of the body. But, in the present state things, every difficulty in morals that escapes from human discussion, and equally baffles the investigation of profound thinking and the lightning glance of genius, is an argument on which I build my belief of the immortality of the soul. Reason is, consequentially, the simple power of improvement ; or, more properly speaking, of disof cerning truth. Every individual is in this respect a world in itself. More or less may be conspicuous in one being than another ; but the nature of reason must be the same in all, if it be an emanation of Divinity, the tie that connects the creature with the Creator; for, can that soul be stamped with the heavenly image that is not perfected by the exercise of its own reason ? ’ Yet outwardly ornamented with elaborate care, and so adorned to delight man, “that with honor he may love,“’ the soul of woman is not allowed to have this distinction, and man ever placed between her and reason, she is always represented as only created to see through a gross medium, and to take things on trust. But dismissing these fanciful theories, and considering woman as a whole, let it be what it wiil, instead of a part of man, the inquiry is whether she have reason or not. If she have, which, for a moment, I will take for granted, she was not created merely to be the solace of man, and the sexual should not destroy the human character. Into this error men have, probably, been led by viewing education in a false light ; not considering it as the first step to form a being advancing gradually towards perfection,’ but only as a preparation lor lift. On this sensual error, for I must call it so, has the false sys- tem of female manners been reared, which robs the whole sex of its dignity, and classes the brown and fair with the smiling flowers that only adorn the land. This has ever been the language of men, and the fear of departing from a supposed sexual character has made even women of superior sense adopt the same sentiments.’ Thus, ’ “ The brutes,” says Lord Monboddo, “remain in the state in which Nature has placed them, except in so far as their natural instinct is improved by the culture UK bestow upon them.” n Vi& Milton. 8 This word is not strictly just, but I cannot find a better. ‘ “ Pleasure’s the portion of th’ infwiw kind ; But glory, virtue, Heaven for matt design’d.” After writing romparison these lines, how could Mrs. Barbauld write the folIowing ? ” To a Lady. with sme painfed/Eourers. “ Flowers to the fair : to you these flowers I bring, And strive to greet you with an earlier Spring. Flowers SWEET, adpy, and DELICATE LIKE YOU Emblems of innocerrc-r, ad beauty too. With flowers the Graces bind their yellow hair, And flowery wreaths consenting lovers wear. ; ignoble 68 V.NDICA T’ON OF T2Ym.ERIGHTS OF WOMAN. understanding, strictly speaking, has been denied to woman ; and instinct, sublimated into wit and cunning, for the purposes of life, has been substituted in its stead. The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individua1 observations, is the only acquirement, for an Merely immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge. to observe, without endeavoring to account for anything, may (in a very incomplete manner) serve as the common sense of life ; but where is the store laid up that is to clothe the sot11when it leaves the body? This power has not only been denied to women, but writers have insisted that it is inconsistent, with a few exceptions, with their sexual character. Let men prove this, and I shall grant that woman only exists for man. I must, however, previously remark that the power of generalizing ideas, to any great extent, is not very common amongst men or wuxnen. But this exercise is the true cultivation of the understanding; and everything conspires to render the cultivation of the understanding more dificult in the female than in the male world. I am naturally led by this assertion to the main subject of the present chapter, and shall now attempt to point out some of the. causes that degrade the sex, and prevent women from generalizing their observations. I shall not go back to the remote annals of antiquity to trace the history of woman ; it is sufficient to allow that she has always been either a slave or a despot, and to remark that each of these situations. equally retards the progress of reason, The grand source of female folly and vice has ever appeared to me to arise from narrowness of mind ; and the very clonstitution of civil governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the way to prevent the cultivation of the female understanding-yet virtue can be built on no other foundation ! The same obstacles are thrown in the way of the rich, and the same consequences ensue. Pl~wcrs, tkc JO&h4mbry which Narurc kntw, In Eden’s pure and guiltless garden grew. To loffier forms are rougher iasks assip’d; Thr shelfem+ a.4 rc&t~ tkc J~UUI-IIL~ wind, The toug/tPr yew rrpds invading foes, And the iallp’nr for fafurc navies grows ; But this so/f fami&, to cares unknown, Were born fw plearurr and &Zight ALONE. Gay without toil, and lovely without art, Thtysjring lo CHEER flwsenrc andc~r.*n fhp hem+. Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these ; Your BEST,,JOW SWEETEST Pnfpi7e is-t0 PLEASE." So the men tell us ; but virtue, says Reason, must be acquired by rough toils, and useful struggles with worldly cares. OBSER VA Tl0N.S ON DEGRdDA TION OF WOMAiV. 69 Necessity has been proverbially termed the mother of invention : the aphorism may he extended to virtue. It is an acquirement, and an acquirement to which pleasure must be sacrificed ; and who sacrifices pleasure when it is within the grasp, whose mind has not been opened and strengthened by adversity, or the pursuit of knowledge goaded on by necessity ? Happy is it when people have the cares of life to struggle with ; for cltese struggles prevent them becoming a prey to enervating vices, merely from idleness ! But, if from their birth men and women be placed in a torrid zone, with the meridian sun of pleasure darting directly upon them, how can they sufficiently brace their minds to discharge the duties of life, or even to relish the affections that carry them out of themselves? Pleasure is the business of woman’s life, according to the present modification of society, and while it continues to be so little can be expected from such weak beings. Inheriting, in a lineal descent from the first fair defect in Nature, the sovereignty of beauty, they have, to maintain their power, resigned the natural rights which the exercise of reason might have procured them, and chosen rather to be shortlived queens than labor to obtain the sober pleasures that arise from equality. Exalted by their inferiority (this sounds like a contradiction), they constantly demand homage as women, though experience should teach them that the men who pride themselves upon paying this arbitrary, insolent respect to the sex, with the most scrupulous exactness, are tnost inclined to tyrannize over and despise the very weakness they cherish. Often do they repeat Mr. Hume’s senti.merits ; when, comparing the French and Athenian character, he alludes to women : “But what is more singular in this whimsical nation,‘say I to the Athenians, is, that a frolic of yours during the Saturnalia, when the slaves are served by their masters, is seriously continued by them through the whole year, and through the whole course of their liven ; accompanied, too, with some circumstances which still further augment the absurdity and ridicule. Your sport only elevates for a few days those whom fortune has thrown down, and whom she, too, in sport, may really elevate for ever above you. But this nation gravely exalts those whom Nature has subjected to them, and whose inferiority and infirmities are absolutely incurable, The women, though without virtue, are their masters and sovereigns.” Ah ! why do women, I write with affectionate solicitude, condescend to receive a degree of attention and respect from strangers, different from that reciprocation of civility which the dictates of humanity and the politeness of civilization authorize between man and man’? And, why do they not discover, when “in the noon of beauty’s power,” that they are treated like queens only to be deluded by hollow respect, till they are led to resign, or not assume, their natural prerogatives ? Confined, then, in cages like the feathered race, they have 70 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. nothing to do but plume themselves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to perch. It is true they are provided with food and raiment, for which they neither toil nor spin ; but health, liberty and virtue are given in exchange. But where, among mankind, has been found sufficient strength of mind to enable a being to resign these adventitious prerogatives ; one who, rising with the calm dignity of reason above opinion, dared to be proud of the privileges inherent. in man.? And it is vain to expect it whilst hereditary power chokes the affections and nips reason jn the bud. The passions of men have thus placed women on thrones, and, till mankind become more reasonable, it is to be feared that women will avail themselves of the power which they attain with the least exertion, and which is the most indisputable. They will smile-yes, they will smile, though told “ that- In beauty’s empire is no mean, And woman, either slave or queen, Is quickly scorn’d when not ador’d.” But the adoration comes first, and the scorn is not anticipated. Louis XIV., in particular, spread factitious manners, and caught, in a specious way, the whole nation in his toils; for, establishing an artful chain of despotism, he made it the interest of the people at large individually to respect his station and support his power. And woman, whom he flattered by a puerile attention to the whole sex, obtained in his reign that princelike distinction so fata to reason and virtue. A king is always a king, and a woman always a woman ; I his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational cvnverse. With a lover, I grant, she should be so, and her sensibility will naturally lead her to endeavor to excite emotion, not to gratify her vanity, but her heart. This I do not allow to be coquetry, it is the artless impulse of Nature ; I only exclaim against the sexual desire of conquest when the heart is out of the question. This desire is not confined to women. “ I have endeavored,” says Lord Chesterfield, “to gain the hearts of twenty women whose persons I would not have given a rig for.” The libertirle who, in a gust of passion, takes advantage of unsuspecting tenderness, is a saint when compared with this cold-hearted rascal-for I like to use significant words. Yet only taught to please, women are always on the watch to please, and, with true, heroic ardor, endeavor to gain hearts merely to resign or spurn them when the victory is decided and conspicuous. I must descend to the minutia of the subject. ’ And a wit always a wit, might be added ; for the vain fooleries of wits and beauties to obtain attention and make conquests are much upon a par. OBSERVATIONS ON DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 71. I lament that women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly tn pay tn the sex, when, in fact, they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. It is not So ludicrous, in fact, do these condescension to bow to an inferior. ceremonies appear to me that I scarcely am able to govern my muscles when I see a man start, with eager and seri’ous solicitude, to lift a handkerchief or shut a door, when the Ca@ could have done it herself had she only moved a pace or two. -4 wild wish has just flown from my heart to my head,-and I will I do earnestly wish not stifle it though’it may excite a horse-laugh. to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behavior. For this distinction is, I am firmly persuaded, the foundation of the weakness of character ascribed to woman ; is the cause why the understanding is neglected, while accomplishments are acquired with sedulous care; and the same cause accounts for their preferring the graceful before the heroic virtues. Mankind, including every description, wish to be loved and respected by somet/zing; and the common herd will always take the nearest road to the completion of their wishes. The respect paid to wealth and beauty is the most certain and unequivocal, and, of course, will always attract the vulgar eye of common minds. Abilities and virtues are absolutely necessary to raise men from the middle rank of life into notice; and the natural consequence is notorious : the middle rank contains most virtue and abilities. Men have thus, in one station at least, an opp’ortunity of exerting themselves with dignity, and of rising by the exertions which really improve a rational creature ; but the whole female sex are, till their character is formed, in the same condition as the rich ; for they are born--I now speak of a state of civilization-with certain sexual privileges, and while they are gratuitously granted them, few will ever think of works of supererogation to obtain the esteem of a small number of superior people. When do we hear of women who, starting out of obscurity, boldly claim respect on account of their great abilities or daring virtues ? Where are they to be found? “To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which they seek.” “ True ! ” my male readers wi!I probably exclaim ; but let them, before they draw any conclusion,, recollect that this was not written originally as descriptive of women, but of the rich. In Dr. Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments ” 1 have found a general dharacter of people of rank and fortune that, in my opinion, might with the greatest propriety be applied to the female sex. I refer the sagacious reader to the whole comparison ; but must be allowed to quote a passage to enforce an argument that I mean to insist on, as the one most conclusive against a sexual character. For if, excepting warriors, no great men of any denomination have ever 72 VI8DICA TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOM.4N. appeared among the nobility, may it not be fairly inferred that their local situation swallowed up the man, and produced a character similar to that of women, who are CocaZiaed(if I may be allowed the word) by the rank they are placed in by courtesy P Women, commonly called “ladies,” are not to be contradicted in company, are not allowed to exert any manual strength ; and from them the negative virtues only are expected (when any virtues are expected)-patience, docility, good-humor, and flexibility-virtues incompatible with gny vigorous exertion of intellect. Besides, hy living more with each other, and being seldom absolutely alone, they are more under the influence of sentiments than passions. Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions, and to enable the imagination to enlarge the object and make it the most desirable. The same may be said of the rich ; they do not sufficiently deal in general ideas, collected by ifnpassioned thinking or calm investigation, to acquire that strength of character on which great resolves are built. But hear what an acute observer says of the great : “Do the great seem insensible of the easy price at which they may acquire the pubIic admiration ; or do they seep to imagine that to them, as to other men, it must be the purchase either of sweat or of blood ? By what important accomplishments is the young nobleman instructed to support the dignity of his rank, and to’ render himself worthy of that superiority over his fellow-citizens to which the virtue of his ancestors had raised them ? Is it by knowledge, by industry, by patience, by self-denial, or by virtue of any kind ? As all his words, as all his motions, are attended to, he learns an habitual regard to every circumstance of ordinary behavior, and studies to perform all As he is conscious those small duties with the most exact propriely. how much he is observed, and how much mankind are disposed to favor all his inclinations, he acts, upon the most indifferent occasions, with that freedom and elevation which the thought of this naturally inspires. His air, his manner, his deportment, all mark that elegant and graceful sense of his own superiority, which those who are born to inferior station can hardly ever arrive at. These are the arts by which he proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority, and to govern their inclinations according to his OWIIpleasure ; and These arts, supported by rank and in this he is seldom disappointed. pre-eminence, are, upon ordinary occasions, sufficient to govern the world. Louis XIV., during the greater part of his reign, was regarded, not only in France, but over all Europe, as the most perfect model of a great prince. But what were the talents and virtlles by which he acquired this great reputation ? Was it by the scrupulous and inflexible justice of all his undertakings, by the immense dangers and difficulties with which they were attended, or by the unwearied and unrelenting application with which he pursued them? Was it by OBSERVATIONS ON DEGRADATION OF JI’OMAN. 73 his extensive knowIedge, by his exquisite judgment, or by his heroic valor ? It was by nnne of these qualities. But he was, first of all, the most powerful prince in Europe, and consequently held the highest rank among kings ; and then, says his historian, ‘ he surpassed all his courtiers in the gracefulness of his shape and the majestic beauty of his features. The sound of his voice-noble and affecting-gained those hearts which his presence intimidated. He had a step and a deportment which could suit only him and his rank, and which would have been ridiculous in any other person. The embarrassment which he occasioned to those who spoke to him, flattered that secret satisfaction with which he felt his own superiority.’ These frivolous accomplishments, supported by his rank,,and, no doubt, too, by a degree of other talents and virtues, which SWZIIIS,however, not to have been much above mediocrity, established this prince in the esteem of his own age, and have drawn, even from posterity, a good deal of respect for his memory. Compared with these, in his own times and in his own presence, no other virtue, it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry, valor, and beneficence trembled, were abashed, and lost all dignity before them.” Woman, also thus “ in herself complete,” by possessing all these f~z?&.w~ accomplishments, so changes the nature of things, “ That what she wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best ; All higher knowledge in leer presence falls Degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanc’d, and like Folly shows ; Authority and Reason on her wait.” And all this is built on her loveliness ! In the middle rank of life, to continue the comparison, men, in their youth, are prepared for professions, and marriage is not considered as the grand feature in their lives ; while women, on the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties. It is not business, extensive plans or any of the excursive flights of ambition that engross their attention ; no 1 their thoughts are not employed in rearing such noble structures. To rise in the world,and have the liberty of running from pleasure to pleasure, they must marry advantageously, and to this object their time is sacrificed and their persons .often legally prostituted. A man, when he enters any profession, has his eye steadily fixed on some future advantage (and the mind gains great strength by having all its efforts directed to one point), and, full of his business, pleasure is considered as mere relaxation ; while women seek for pleasure as the main purpose of existence. In fact, from the education which they receive from society, the love of pleasure may be said to govern them all ; but does this prove that there is a sex in souls ! Tt would be just as rational to decIare that 74 VINDICATION OF Z-TfB RIGHTS OF WOMAN, the courtiers in France, when a destructive system of despotism ha6 formed their character, were not men, because liberty, virtue and humanity were sacrificed to pleasure and vanity-fatal passions, which have ever dommeered over the w/zofe race ! The same love of pleasure, fostered by the whole tendency of their education, gives a trifling turn to the conduct of women in most cir-cumstances : for instance, they are ever anxious about secondary things, and on the watch for adventures instead of being occupied by duties. A man, when he undertakes a journey, has, in general, the end in view ; a woman thinks more of the incidental occurrences, the strange things that may possibly occur on the road ; the impression that she may make on her fellow-travelers ; and, above all, she is anxiously intent on the care of the finery that she carries with her, which is. more than ever a part of herself, when going to figure on a new scene-when, to use an apt French turn of expression, she is going to produce a sensation. Can dignity of mind exist with such trivial cares ? In short, women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes, have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization! and missed the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise that speak of the. condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected ; consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by every momentary gust of feeling. Civilized women are, therefore, so weakened by false refinement that, respecting morals, their condition is much below what it would be were they HI. in a slate nearer tu Nature. Ever resLless and anniuus, their over-exercised sensibility not only renders them uncomfortable themselves, but troublesome, to use a soft phrase, to others. All their thoughts turn on things calculated to excite emotion ; and feeling, when they should reason, their conduct is unstable, and their opinions are wavering-not the wavering produced by deliberation or progressive views, but by contradictory emotions. By fits and starts they are warm in many pursuits ; yet this warmth, never concentrated into perseverance, soon exhausts itself ; exhaled by its own heat, or meeting with some other fleeting passion, to which reason has never given any specific gravity, neutrality ensues. Miserable, indeed, must be that being whose cultivation of mind has only tended to inflame its passions ! A distinction should be made between inflaming ancl strengthening them. The passions thus pampered, while the judg-ment is left unformed, what can be expected to ensue ? Undoubtedly,, a mixture of madness and folly ! This observation should not be confined to the fair sex ; however, at present, I only mean to apply it to them. OBSER Vd TIOIVS ON DEGRADA 2-10~3~ OF WOMAIV. 75; Novels, music, poetry and gallantry all tend to make women the creatures of sensation ; and their character is thus formed in the mold of folly during the Lme they are acquiring accomplishments, the only improvement they are excited, by their station in society, to acquire. This over-stretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that sovereignty which it ought to attain, to render a rational creature useful to others and content with its own station ; for the exercise of the understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by Nature to calm the passions. Satiety has a very different effect ; and I have often been forcibly struck by an emphatical description of damnation-when the spirit, is represented as continually hovering with abortive eagerness round the defiIed body, unable to enjoy anything without the organs of sense. Yet, to their senses are women made slaves, because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power. And will moralists pretend to assert that this is the condition in which one-half of the human race should be encouraged to remain with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence ? Kind instructors ! what were we created for ?, To remain, it may be said, innocent ; they mean in a state of childhood. We might as well never have been born, unless it were necessary that we should be created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reas.on, the power of discerning good from evil, whilst we lie down in the dust, from whence we were taken, never to rise again. It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses. cares and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power t1ey obtain must be obtained by their charms and weakness : I‘ Fine by defect, and amiably weak ! ” And, made by this amiable weakness entirely dependent, excepting what they gain by illicit sway, on man, not only for protection, but advice, is it surprising that, neglecting the duties that reason alone points out, and shrinking from trials calculated to strengthen their minds, they only exert themselves to give their defects a graceful covering, which may serve to heighten their charms in the eye of the voluptuary, though it sink them below the scale of moral excellence ? Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to man for every comfort. In the most trifling dangers they cling totheir support with parasitical tenacity, piteously demanding succour ; and their nafu~al' protector extends his arm, or lifts up his voice, to guard the lovely trembler-from what ? Perhaps the frown of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse ; a rat would be a serious danger. In 76 VINDICA T’ON OF THZT RlGHTS OF WOMAN. the name of reason, and even common sense, what can save such beings from contempt, even though they be soft and fair? These fears, when not affected, may produce some pretty attitudes, but they show a degree of imbecility which degrades a rational creature in a way women are not aware of-for love and esteem are very distinct things. I am fully persuaded that we should hear of none of these infantine airs if girls were aHowed to take sufficient exercise, and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed and their powers df digestion destroyed. To carry the remark still further-if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps created, were treated in the same mamer as cowardice in boys, we should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. It is true that they could not then, with equal propriety, be termed the sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man ; but they wouId be more respectable members of society, and discharge the important duties of life by the light of their own reason. ‘ Educate women like men,” says Rousseau, ‘I and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.” This is the very point I aim at. I do not wish them to have power over men but over themselves. In the same strain have I heard men argue against instructing the poor, for many arc the forms that aristucracy assumes. LL’Teach them to read and write,” say they, (‘and you take them out of the station assigned them by Nature.” An eloquent Frenchman has answered them ; I will borrow his sentiments : “But they know not, when they make man a brute, that they may expect every instant to see him transformed into a ferocious beast. Without knowledge there can be no morality ! ” Ignorance is a frail base for virtue ! Yet, that it is the condition for which woman was organized, has been insisted upon by the writers who have most vehemently argued in favor of the superiority of man -a superiority not in degree but essence-though, to soften the argument, they have labored to prove, with chivalrous generosity, that the sexes ought not to be compared ; man was made to reason, woman to feel ; and that together, flesh and spirit, they make the most perfect whole, by blending happily reason and sensibility into one character. And what is sensibility? “Q uic k ness of sensation, quickness of perception, delicacy.” Thus is it defined by Dr. Johnson ; and the definition gives me no other idea than of the most exquisitely-polished instinct. I discern not a trace of the image of God in either sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven, they are still material ; intellect dwells not there ; nor will fire ever make lead gold ! I come round to my old argument : if woman be allowed to have l OBSERVATIONS ON DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 77 an immortal soul, she must have, as the employment of life, an understanding to improve. And when, to render the present state more complete, though everything proves it to be but a fraction of a mighty sum, she is incited by present gratification to forget her grand destination, Nature is counteracted, or she was born only to procreate and rot. Or, granting brutes of every description a soul, though not a reasonable one, the exercise of instinct and sensibility may be LIK step which they are to take, in this life, towards the attainment of reason in the next ; so that through all eternity they will lag behind man, who, why we cannot tell, had the power given him of attaining reason in his first mode of existence. When I treat of the peculiar duties of women, as I should treat of the peculiar duties of a citizen or father, it will be found that I do not mean to insinuate that they should be taken out of their families, speaking of the majority. LLHe that hath wife and children,” says Lord Bacoq “ hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impedi- ments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men.” I say the same of women. But the welfare of society is not built on extraordinary exertions ; and, were it more reasonably organized, there would be still less need of great abilities or heroic virtues. In the regulation of a family, in the education of children, understanding, in an unsophisticated sense, is particularly requiredstrength, both of body and mind ; yet the men who, by their writings, have most earnestly labored to domesticate women, have endeavored, by arguments dictated by a gross appetite, which satiety had rendered fastidious, to weaken their bodies and cramp their minds. But, if even by these sinister methods they really perslraded women, by working on their feelings, to stay at home, and fulfill the duties of a mother and mistress of a family, I should cautiously oppose opinions that led women to right conduct, by prevailing on them to make the discharge of such important duties the main busi-. ness of life, though reason were insulted. Yet, and I appeal to experience, if, by neglecting the understanding, they be as much, nay, more, detached from these domestic employments than they could be by the most serious intellectual pursuit-though it may be observed that the mass of mankind will never vigorously pursue an intellectual object ’ -1 may be allowed to infer that reason is absolutely necessary to enable a woman to perfvrm any duty properly, and I must again repeat that sensibility is not reason. The comparison with the rich still occurs to me ; for, when men neglect the duties of humanity, wqmen will follow their example-a common stream hurries them both along with thoughtless celerity. ’ The ~IBSSof mankind are rather the slaves of their~ppetitcs than of thrir passions. .78 VZNDZCA TZON OF THE R/GUTS OF WOMAN. Riches and honors prevent a man from enlarging his understanding, and enervate all his powers by reversing the order of Nature, which ~CIS ever made true pleasure the reward of lahor. Pleasure-enervating pleasure-is, likewise, within women’s reach without earning it. But, till hereditary possessions are spread abroad, how can we expect men to be proud of virtue? And, till they are, women will govern them by the most direct means, neglecting their dull domestic duties .to catch the pleasure that sits lightly on the wing of time. “ The power of the woman,” says some author, “ is her sensibility ; ” and men, not aware of the consequence, do all they can to make this power swallow up every other. Those who constantly employ their sensibility will have most: for example, poets, painters and composers.’ Yet, when the sensibility is thus increased at the expense of reason, and even the imagination, why do philosophical men com- plain of their fickleness? The sexual attention of man particularly acts on female sensibility, and this sympathy has been exercised from their youth up. A husband cannot long pay those attentions with the passion necessary to excite lively emotions, and the heart, accustomed to lively emotions, turns to a new lover, or pines in secret, the ‘prey of virtue or prudence. I mean, when the heart has really been rendered susceptible and the taste formed; for I am apt toeonclude, from what I have seen in fashionable life, that vanity is oftener fostered than sensibility by the mode of education, and the intercourse between the sexes, which I have reprobated ; and that coquetry more ‘frequently proceeds from vanity than from that inconstancy which overstrained sensibility naturally produces. Another argument that has had great weight with me, must, I think, have some force with every considerate benevolent heart. Girls who have been thus weakly educated, are often cruelly left by ‘their parents without any provision, and, of course, are dependent on not only the reason but the bounty of their brothers. These brothers are, to view the fairest side of the question, good sort of men, and give as a favor what children of the same parents had an equal right to. In this equivocal, humiliating situation a docile female may remain some time with a tolerable degree of comfort. But, when the brother marries-a probable circumstance-from being considered as the mistress of the family, she is viewed with averted looks as an intruder, an unnecessary burden on the benevolence of the master of ithe house and his new partner. Who can recount the misery which many unfortunate beings, whose minds and bodies are equally weak, suffer in such siLuatiuns-uunabIe to work and ashamed to beg? The wife, a cold-hearted, narrow1 Men of these descriptions pour it into their compositions, to amalgamate the gross materials ; and, molding them with passion, give to the inert body a soul ; but, io woman’s imagination, love alone concentrates these ethereal beams. OBSERVATIONS 0~3~ DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 79 minded woman-and this is not an unfair supposition, for the present IIKKI~: uf education does not rend to enlarge the heart any more than the understanding-is jealous of the little kindness which her husband shows to his relations ; and her sensibility not rising to humanity, she is displeased at seeing the property of /lev children lavished on an helpless sister. These are matters of fact, which have come under my eye again .and again. The consequence is obvious : the wife has recourse to cunning to undermine the habitual affection which she is afraid openly to oppose ; and neither tears nor caresses are spared till the spy is worked out of her home, and thrown on the world unprepared for its difficulties ; or sent, as a great effort of generosity, or from some regard to propriety, with a small stipend and an uncultivated mind, into joyless solitude. These two women may he much upon a par with respect to reason and humanity; and, changing situations, might have acted just the same seIfish part; but had they been differently educated, the case The wife would not have had would also have been very different. that sensibility of which self is the centre, and reason might have taught her not to expect, and not even to be flattered by, the affection ,of her husband, if it led him to violate prior duties. She would wish *not to love him merely because he loved her, but on account of his virtues; and the sister might have been able to struggle for herself, instead of eating the bitter bread of dependence. 1 am, indeed, persuaded that the heart, as well as the understand,ing, is opcncd by cultivation ; and by (wllich may not appear so clear) strengthening the organs. I am not now talking of momentary Rashes of sensibility, but of affections. And, perhaps, in the education of both sexes, the most difficult task is so to adjust instruction -as not to narrow the understanding, while the heart is warmed by the generous juices of Spring, just raised by the electric fermentation of the season ; nor to dry up the feelings by employing the mind in investigations remote from life, With respect to women, when they receive a careful education, they are either made fine ladies, brimful of sensibility and teeming with capricious fancies, or mere notable women. The latter are often friendly, honest creatures, and have a shrewd kind of good sense joined with worldly prudence that often render them more useful members of society than the fine, sentimental lady, though they pnssess neither greatness of mind nor taste. The intellectual world is shut against them ; take them out of their family or neighborhood, and they stand still, the mind finding no employment, for literature .affords a fund of amusement which they have never sought to relish, but frequently to despise. The sentiments and taste of more cultivated minds appear ridiculous, even in those whom chance and family connections have led them to love; but in mere acquaintance they think it all affectation. A man of sense can only love such a woman on account of her sex, and respect her because she is a trusty servant. He lets her, to preserve his own peace, scold the servants, and go to church in clothes made h man of her own size of understanding of the very best materials. would, probably, not agree so well with her, for he might wish to encroach on her prerogative, and manage some domestic concerns himself. Yet WO~CII, whose minds are not enlarged by cultivation, or the natural selfishness of sensibility expanded by reflection, are very unfit to manage a family; for, by an undue stretch of power, they are always tyrannizing to support a superiority that only rests on the arbitrary distinction of fortune. The evil is sometimes more serious, and domestics are deprived of innocent indulgences, and made to work beyond their strength, in order to enable the notable woman to keep a better table and outshine her neighbors in finery and parade. If she attend to her childreu, it is, in general, to dress them in a costly manner ; and, whether this attention arise from vanity or fondness, it is equally pernicious. Besides, how many women of this description pass their days, or, at least, their evenings, discontentedly ! Their husbands acknowledge that they are good managers, and chaste wives ; but leave home to seek for more. agreeable-may I be allowed to use a significant French word, p+unt-society ; and the patient drudge, who fulfills her task like a blind horse in a mill, is defrauded of her just reward ; for the wages due to her are the caresses of her husband, and women who have so few resources in themselves do not very patiently bear this privation of a natural right. A fine lady, on the contrary, has been taught to look down with contempt on the vulgar employments of life, though she has only been incited to acquire accomplishments that rise a degree above sense-for even corporea1 accomplishments cannot be acquired with any degree of precision unless the understanding has been strengthened by. exercise. Without a foundation of principles taste is superficial; grace must arise from something deeper than imitation. The imagination, however, is heated, and the feelings rendered fastidious, if not sophisticated ; or a counterpoise of judgment is not acquired when the heart still remains artless, though it becomes too tender. These women are often amiable, and their hearts are really more sensible to general benevolence, more alive to the sentiments that civilize life, than the square-elbowed family drudge ; but, wanting a due proportion of reflection and self-government, they only inspire tove, and are the mistresses of their husbands while they have any hold on their affections, and the platonic friends of his male acquaintance. These are the fair defecfs in Nature; the women who appear UBSERVA TIONS ON DEGRADA TION OF WOMAN 81 to be created, not to enjoy the fellowship of man, but to save him off the rough angles of his character, and by playful daIliance to give some dignity to the appetite that draws him to them. Gracious Creator of the whole human race, hast Thou created such a being as woman-who can trace Thy wisdom in Thy works, and feel that Thou alone art by Thy nature exalted above her-for no better purpose ? Can she believe that she was only made to submit to man, her equal, a being who, like her, was sent into the world to acquire virtue? Can she consent to be occupied merely to please him, merely to adorn the earth, when her soul is capable of rising to Thee ? And can she rest supinely dependent on man for reason, when she ought to mount with him the arduous steeps of knowledge ? Yet, if love be the supreme good, let women be only educated to inspire it, and let every charm be polished to intoxicate the senses ; but, if they be moral beings, Iet them have a chance to become intelligent ; and let love to man be only a part of that glowing ffame of universal love which, after encircling humanity, mounts in grateful incense to God. To fulfill domestic duties much resolution is necessary, and a serious kind of perseverance that requires a more firm support than emotions, however lively and true to Nature. To give an example of order, the soul of virtue, some austerity of behavior must be adopted, scarcely to be expected from a being who, from its infancy, has been made the weathercock of its own sensations. Whoever rationally from sinking means to into absolute be useful must brulality, have by rubbing a pian of conduct; and, in the dis- charge of the simplest duty, we are often obliged to act contrary to the present impulse of tenderness or compassion. Severity is frequently the most certain, as well as the most sublime proof of affection ; and the want of this power over the feelings, and of that lofty, dignified affection which makes a person prefer the future good of the beloved object to a present gratification, is the reason why so many fond mothers spoil their children, and has made it questionable whether negrigence or indulgence be most hurtful ; but I am inclined to think that the latter has done most harm. Mankind seem to agree that children should be left under the manNow, from all the obseragement of women during their childhood. vation that I have been able to make, women of sensibility are the most unfit for this task, because they will infallibly, carried away by their feelings, spoil a child’s temper. The management of the temper, the first and most important branch of education, requires the sober, steady eye of reason, a plan of conduct equally distant from tyranny and induIgence ; yet these are the extremes that people of sensibility alternately fall into, always shooting beyond the mark. I have followed this train of reasoning much further, till I have 82 VIL%‘DICA XION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. concluded that a person of genius is the most improper person to be employed in education, public or private. Minds of this rare species see things ton much in masses, and seldom, if ever, have a good tern- per. That habitual cheerfulness, termed good-humor, is, perhaps, as seldom united with great mental powers as with strong feelings. And those people who follow, with interest and admiration, the flights of genius, or, with cooler approbation, suck in the instruction which has been elaborately prepared for them by the profound thinker, ought not to be disgusted if they find the former choleric and the latter morose; because liveliness of fancy and a tenacious comprehension of mind are scarcely compatible with that pliant urbanity which leads a man, at least, to bend to the opinions and prejudices of others, instead of roughly confronting them. But, treatiog of education or II~~IIII~XS, minds of a superior class are not to be considered, they may be left to chance; it is the multitude, with moderate abilities, who call for instruction, and catch the coior of the atmosphere they breathe. This respectable concourse, I contend, men and women, should not have their sensations heightened in the hot-bed of luxurious indolence at the expense of their understanding; for, unless there be a ballast of understanding, they will never become either virtuous or free; an aristocracy founded on property or sterling talents, will ever sweep before it the alter-Irately timid and ferocious slaves of feeling. Numberless are the arguments-to take another view of the subject-brought forward with a show of reason, because supposed to be deduced from Nature, that men have used, morally and physically, to degrade the sex. I must notice a few. The female understanding has often been spoken of with contempt, as arriving sooner at maturity than the male. I shall not answer this argument by alluding to the early proofs of reason, as well as genius, in Cowley, Milton, and Pope,’ but only appeal to experience to decide whether young men, who are early introduced into company (and examples now abound), do not acquire the same precocity. So notorious is this fact that the bare mentioning of it must bring before people who at all mix in the world the idea of a number of swaggering apes of men, whose understandings are narrowed by being brought into the society of men when they ought to have been spinning a top or twirling a hoop. It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not attain their full growth and strength till thirty, but that women arrive at maturity by twenty. I apprehend that they reason on false ground, led astray by the male prejudice, which deems beauty the perfection of woman-mere beauty of features and complexion, the vulgar acceptation of the word-while male beauty is allowed to have some ’ Many other names might be added. 0BSERVATIONS ON DEGRADATIOL~~ OF WOMAN. 83 connection with the mind. Strength of body, and that character of countenance which the French term a $$ysiozo~rie, women do not acquire before thirty, any more than men. The little artless tricks of children, it is true, are particularly pleasing and attractive ; yet, when the pretty freshness of youth is worn off, these artless graces become studied airs, and disgust every person of taste. In the countenance of girls we only look for vivacity and bashful modesty; but, the springtide of life over, we look for soberer sense in the face, and for traces of ,passion, instead of the dimples of animal spirits ; expecting to see individuality of character, the only fastener of the affections.’ We, then, wish to converse, not to fondle ; to give scope to our imaginations as well as to the sensations of ollr hearts. At twenty the beauty of both sexes is equal ; but the libertinism of man leads him to make the distinction, and Superannuated coquettes are commonly of the same opinion; for, when they ‘can 110 longer inspire love, they pay for the vigor and vivacity of youth. The French, who admit more of mind into their notions of beauty, give the preference to women of thirty. I mean to say that they allow women to be in their most perfect state when vivacity gives place to reason, and to that majestic seriousness of character which marks maturity-or, the resting point. In youth, till twenty, the body shoots out ; till thirty, the solids are attaining a degree of density ; and the flexible muscles, growing daiIy more rigid, give character to the countenance-that is, they trace the operations of the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell us not only what powers are within, but how they have been employed. It is proper to observe that animals who arrive slowly at maturity are the longest-lived and of the noblest species. Men cannot, however, claim any natural superiority from the grandeur of’ longevity, for in this respect Nature has not distinguished the male. Pnlygamy is another physical degradation ; and a plausible argument for a custom that blasts every domestic virtue is drawn from the well-attested fact, that in the countries where it is established more females are born than males. This appears to be an indication of Nature, and to Nature apparently reasonable speculations must yield. A further conclusion obviously presented itself : If polygamy be necessary, woman must be inferior to man, and made for him. With respect to the formation of the f&us in the womb we are very ignorant ; but it appears to me probable that an accidental physical cause may account for this phenomenon, and prove it not to be a law of Nature. I have met with some pertinent observations on the subject in Forster’s “Account of the Isles of the South Sea,” that will explain my meaning. After observing that of the two sexes ’ The strength of an affection is, generally, in the S.XIWproportion as the character of the species in the object beloved is lost in that of the individual. 84 VIiVDICA TION OF TZ?.E RIGHTS 03 WOMAIV. among animals the most vigorous and hottest constitution always prevails, and produces its kind, he adds : “If this be applied to thi: inhabitants of Africa, it is evident that the men there, accustomed te polygamy, are enervated by the use of so many women, and therefore less vigorous; the women, on the contrary, are of a hotter constitution, not only on account of their more irritable nerves, more sensible organization, and more lively fancy, but likewise because they are deprived in their matrimony of that share of physical love which, in a murlogamous condition, would all be theirs ; and thus, for the above reasons, the generality of children are born females.” “ In the greater part of Europe it has been proved, by the most accurate lists of mortality, that the proportion of men to women is nearly equal ; or if any difference takes place, the males born are more numerous, in the proportion of 105 to x00.” The necessity of polygamy, therefore, does not appear ; yet when a man seduces a woman, it should, I think, be termed a left-hat/deed marriage, and the man should be ZpRaq obliged to mamtain the woman and her children, unless adultery, a natural divorcement, abrogated the law. And this law should remain in force as long as the weakness of woman caused the word “seduction ” to be used as an excuse for their frailty and want of principle-nay, while they depend on man for a nuhsistence, instead of earning it by the exertion of their own hands or heads. But these women should not, in the full meaning of the relationship, be termed wives, 01 the very purpose of marriage would be subverted, and all those endearing charities that flow from personal fidelity, and give a sanctity to the tie, when neither love nor friendship unites the hearts, would melt into selfishness. The woman who is faithful to the father of her children demands respect, and should not be treated like a prostitute ; though I readily grant that if it be necessary for a man and woman to live together in order to bring up their offspring, Nature never intended that a man should have more than one wife. Still, highly as I respect marriage, as the foundation of almost; every social virtue, I cannot avoid feeling the most lively compassion for those unfortunate females who are broken off from society, and by one error torn from all those affections and relationships that improve the heart and mind. It does not frequently even deserJe the name of error, for many innocent girls become the dupes of a sincere, affectionate heart, and still more are, as it may emphatically be termed, YU~TZU’before they know the difference between virtue and vice, and, thus prcparcd by their education for infamy, they l~ecurnt: infamous. Asylums and Magdalens are not the proper remedies for these abuses. It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world ! A woman who has lost her honor imagines that she cannet fall lower, and, as for recovering her former station, it is impossible ; no OBSERVATIONS ON DEGRADA T/Ollr OP IVOMAX 85 exertion can wash this stain away. Losing thus every spur, and having no other means of support, prostitution becomes her only refuge, and the character is quickly depraved by circumstances over which the poor wretch has little power, unless she possesses an uncommon portion of sense and loftiness of spirit. Necessity never makes prostitution the business of men’s lives, though numberless are the women who are thus rendered systematically vicious. This, however, arises, in a great degree, from the state of idleness in which women are educated, who are always taught to look up to man for a maintenance, and to consider their persons as the proper return for his exertions to support them. Meretricious airs and the whole science of wantonness have, then, a more powerful stimulus than either appetite or vanity ; and this remark gives .force to the prevailing opinion that with chastity all is lost that is respectable in woman. Her character depends on the observance of one virtue, though the only passion fostered in her heart is love. Nay, the honor of a woman is not made even to depend on her will. When Richardson 1 makes Clarissa tell Lovelace that he had robbed her of her honor, he must have had strange notions of honor and virtue. For, miserable beyond all names of misery is the condition of a being who cuulll Le degraded without its own consent ! This excess of strictness I have heard vindicated as a salutary error. I shall answer in the words of Leibnitz : “Errors are often useful, but it is commonly to remedy other errors.” Most of the evils of life arise from a desire of present enjoyment that outruns itself. The obedience required nf women in the marriage state comes under this description; the mind, naturally weakened by depending on authority, never exerts its own powers, and the obedient wife is thus rendered a weak, indolent mother. Or, supposing that this is not always the consequence, a future state of existence is scarcely taken into the reckoning when only negative virtues are cultivated. For, in treating of morals, particularly when women are alluded to, writers have too often considered virtue in a very limited sense, and made the foundation of it so/e~ worldly utility ; nay, a still more fragile base has been given to this stupendous fabric, and the wayward, fluctuating feelings of men have been made the standard of virtue. Yes ; virtue as well as religion has been subjected to the decisions of taste ! It would almost provoke a smile of contempt, if the vain absurdities of man did not strike us on all sides, to observe how eager men are to degrade the sex from whom they pretend to receive the chief pleasure of life ; and I have frequently, with full conviction, retorted Pope’s sarcasm on them ; or,. to speak explicitly, it has appeared to ’ Dr. Young fortune supports that shunned the same opinion, in his plays, when he talks of the n&forthe light of day. 86 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. me applicable to the whole human race. A love of pleasure or sway seems to divide mankind, and the husband who lords it in his little harem thinks only of his pleasure or his convenience. To such lengths, indeed, does an intemperate love of pleasure carry some prudent men, or worn-out libertines, who marry to have a safe bedfellow, that they seduce their own wives. Hymen banishes modesty, and chaste 10~9 takes its flight. Love, considered as an animal appetite, cannot long feed on itself withour expiring. And this extinction in its own flame may bc te~mecl the violent death of love. But the wife, who has thus been rendered licentious, will probably endeavor to fill the void left by the loss of her husband’s attentions, for she cannot contentedly become merely an upper servant after having been treated like a goddess. She is still handsome, and, instead of transferring her fondness to her child- ren, she only dreams of enjoying the sunshine of life. Besides, there are many husbands so devoid of sense and parental affection that, during the first effcrvcscence ol vuluptuous fondness, they refuse to let their wives suckle their children. They are only to dress and live to please them ; and love, even innocent love, soon sinks into lasciviousness when the exercise of a duty is sacrificed to its indulgence. -Personal attachment is a very happy foundation for friendship ; yet, when even two virtuous young people marry, it would, perhaps, be happy if some circumstancer checked their passion ; if the recollection of some prior attachment, or disappointed affection, made it. on one side, at least, rather a match founded on esteem. In that case they would look beyond the present moment, and try to render the whole of life respectable by forming a plan to regulate a friendship which only death ought to dissolve. Friendship is a serious affection- the most sublime of all affections -because it is founded on principle and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree love and frienclship cannot subsist in the same bosom; even when inspired by different objects they wcakcn or destroy each other, and for the same object can only be felt in succession. The vain fears and fond jealousies, the winds which fan the flame of love, when judiciously or artfully tempered, are both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship. Love, such as the glowing pen of genius has traced, exists not on earth, or only resides in those exalted, fervid imaginations that have sketched such dangerous pictures. Dangerous, because they not only afford a plausible excuse to the voluptuary, who disguises sheer sen- suality under a sentimental veil, but as they spread affectation and take from the dignity of virtue. Virtue, as the very word imports, should have an appearance of seriousness, if not of austerity ; and to endeavor to trick her out in the garb of pleasure, because the epithet. OBSERVATIONS ON DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 87 has been used as another name for beauty, is to exalt her on a quicksand-a most insidious attempt to hasten her fail by apparent respect, Virtue and pleasure are not, in fact, so nearly allied in this life as some eloquent writers have labored to prove. Pleasure prepares the fading wreath and mixes the intoxicating cup ; but the fruit which virtue gives is the recompense of toil, and, gradually seen as it ripens, only affords calm satisfaction ; nay, appearing to be the result of the II~LUF~ LCII~CIK~ UT things, il is scarcely observed. Bread, the common food of life, seldom thought of as a blessing, supports the constitution and preserves health ; still, feasts delight the heart of man, though disease and even death lurk in the cup or dainty that elevates the spirits or tickIes the palate. The lively, heated imagination likewise, to apply the comparison, draws the picture of love, as it draws every other picture, with those glowing colors which the daring hand will steal from the rainbow that is directed by a mind, condemned in s world like this to prove ils noLIe origin by panting after unattainable perfection, ever pursuing what it acknowledges to be a fleeting dream. An imagination of this vrgorous cast can give existence to unsubstantial forms, and stability to the shadowy reveries which the mind naturally falls into when realities are found vapid. It can then depict love with celestial charms, and dote nn the grand ideal object ; it can imagine a degree of mutua1 affection that shall refine the soul, and not expire when it has served as a ILscale to heavenly ; ” and, like devotion, make it absorb every meaner affection and desire. In each other’s arms, as in a temple, with its summit lost in the clouds, the world is to be shut out, and every thought and wish that do not nurture pure affection and permanent virtue. Permanent virtue ! alas ! Rousseau, respectable visionary 7! thy paradise would soon be violated by the entrance of some unexpected guest. Like Milton’s, it would only contain angels, or men sunk below the dignity of rational creatures. Happiness is not material ; it cannot be seen or felt ! Yet the eager pursuit of the good whic,h every one shapes to his own fancy, proclaims man the lord of this lower world, and to be an intelligential creature who ‘is not to receive but acquire happiness. They, therefore, who complain of the delusions of passion, do not recollect that they are exclaiming against a strong proof of the immortality of the Sod. But, leaving superior minds to correct themselves, and pay dearly for their experience, it is necessary to observe that it is not against strong, persevering passions, but romantic, wavering feelings, that I wish to guard the female heart by exercising the understanding, for these paradisaical reveries are oftener the effect of idleness than of a lively fancy. Women have seldom sufficient serious employment to silence theit feelings ; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits, frittering away all 88 VINBICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense. In short, the whole tenor of female education (the education of society) tends to render the best-disposed romantic and inconstant, and the remainder vain and mean. In the present state of society this evil cau scarcely be remedied, I am afraid, in the slightest degree ; should a more laudable ambition ever gain ground, they may be brought nearer to Nature and reason, and become more virtuous and useful as they grow more respectable. But I will venture to assert that their xason will never acquire sufficient strength to enable it to regulate their conduct, while the making an appearance in the world is the first wish of the majority of mankind. TO this weak wish the natural affections and the most useful virtues are sacrificed. Girls marry merely to be&r tlrenrselvcs,to borrow a significant vulgar phrase, and have such perfect power over their hearts as not to permit themselves to fall ilt love till a man with a superior fortune offers. On this subject I mean to enlarge in a future chapter ; it is only necessary to drop a hint at present, because women are so often degraded by suffering the selfish prudence of age to chill the ardor of youth. From the same source flows an opinion that young, girls ought to dedicate great part of their time to needlework, yet this employment contracts their faculties more than any other that could have hecn chosen for them, by confining their thoughts to their persons. Men order their clothes to be made and have done with the subject ; women make their own clothes, necessary or ornamental, and are continually talking about them, and their thoughts follow their hands. It is not, indeed, the making of necessaries that weakens the mind, but the fripyery of dress. For, when a woman in the lower rank of life makes her husband’s and children’s clothes, she does her duty-this is her part of the family business ; but when women work only to dress better than they could otherwise afford, it is worse than sheer loss of time. To render the poor virtuous, they must be employed ; and women in t-he middle rank of life, did they not apt the fashions of the nobility without catching their ease, might employ them, while they themselves managed their families, instructed their children, and exercised their UWII minds. Gardening, experimental philosophy and literature would afford them subjects to think of and matter for conversation, that in some degree would exercise their understandings. The conversation of French-women, who are not so rigidly nailed to their chairs to twist lappets and knot ribbons, is frequently superficial ; but I contend that it is not half so insipid as that of those English-women whose time is spent in making caps, bonnets, and the whole mischief of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain-hunting, etc., etc.; and it is the decent, prudent women who are most degraded by these practices, for their motive is simply vanity. The OBSERVATIONS OF WOMAN. 89 wanton who exercises her taste to render her passion alluring, has something ON DEGRADA TION more in view. These observations all branch out of a general one, which I have ‘before made, and which cannot be too often insisted upon ; for, speaking of men, women, or professions, it will be found that the employment of the thoughts shapes the character both generally and individually. The thoughts of women ever hover round their persons, and is it surprising that their persons are reckoned most valuable? Yet some degree of liberty of mind is necessary even to form the person ; and this may be one reason why some gentle wives have so few attractions beside that of sex. Add to this, sedentary employments render the majority of women sickly, and false notions of female excellence make them proud ul Lhis delicacy, though it be another fetter, that, Sy calling the attention continually to the body, cramps the activity of the mind. Women of quality seldom do any of the manual part of their dress ; consequently, only their taste is exercised, and they acquire, by thinking less of the finery, when the business of their toiIet is over, that ease which seldom appears in the deportment of women who dress merely for the sake of dressing. In fact, the observation with respect to the middle rank, the one in which talents thrive best, exleds not to women ; for those of the superior class, by catihing, at least, a smattering of literature, and conversing more with men on general topics, acquire more knowledge than the women who ape their fashions and faults without sharing their advantages. With respect to virtue, to US-E!the word in a comprehensive sense, I have seen most in low life. Many poor women maintain their children by the sweat of their brow, and keep together families that the vices of the fathers would have scattered abroad ; but gentlewomen are too indolent to be actively virtuous, and are softened rather than refined by civilization. Indeed, the good sense which I have met with among the poor women who have. had few advantages of education, and yet have acted heroically, strongly confirmed me in the opinion that trifling Man, taking her’ body, employments have rendered woman a trifler. the mind is left to rust ; so that while physical love enervates man, as being his favorite recreation, he will endeavor to enslave woman-and who can tell how many generations may be necessary to give vigor to the virtue and talents of the freed posterity of abject slaves?’ In tracing the causes that, in my opinion, have degraded woman, I have confined my observations to such as universally act upon the morals and manners of the whole sex, and to me it appears clear that Whether this arise from they all spring from want of understanding. 1 “ I take her body,” says Ranger. g “ Supposing that women are voluntary slaves, slavery of any kind is unfavorable to human happiness and im~rovcmcnt.“-2i’rwx’s *’ Emzys.” VI-DIG-A 90 T.ON OF TX?? RlGHTS OF WOMAN. a physical or accidental weakness of faculties, time alone can determine, for I shall not lay any great stress on the example of a few women’ who, from having received a masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution ; I only contend that the men who, have been placed in similar situations have acquired a similar character-1 speak of bodies of men-and that men of genius and talents have started out of a class in which women have never yet been. placed. CHAPTER ANIMADVERSIONS WOMEN ON SOME OBJECTS OF OF THE PITY, V, WRITERS BORDERING WHO HAVE ON CONTEMPT. RENDERED T HE opinions, speciously supported in some modern publications, on the 1emale character and education, which have given the tone to most of the observations made, in a more cursory manner, on the sex, remain now to be examined. SECTION 1. I shall begin with Roun<ean, and give a sketch of his character of woman, in his own words, interspersing comments and reflections. My comments, it is true, will all spring from a few simple principles, and might have been deduced from what I have already said; but the artificial structure has been raised with so much ingenuity that it seems necessary to attack it in a more circumstantial manner, and make the application myself. LbSophia,” says Rousseau, u should be as perfect a woman as Emilius is a man, and to render her so it is necessary to examine the character which Nature has given to the sex.” He then proceeds to prove that woman ought to be weak and passive, because she has less bodily strength than man, and hence infers that she was formed to please and to be subject to him, and that it is her duty to render herself agreea& to her master-this being the grand end of her existence.’ Still, however, to give a little mock dignity to lust, he insists that man should not exert his strength, but depend on the wili of the woman when he seeks for pleasure with her, “ Hence we deduce a third consequence from the different constitutions of the sexes ; which is, that the strongest should be master in 1 Silppl~~, El&a, Mrs. Macaulay. the Empress of Kussia, Madame d’Eon, etc. These and many more may be reckoned exceptions ; and are not all heroes, as well as heroines, exceptions to general rules ? I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes, but reasonable creatures. 2 I have already inserted the passage, pp. 62, 63. WOMlZVOBJECTSOFPITY. 91 appearance, and be dependent, in fact, on the weakest ; and that not. from any frivolous practice of gallantry or vanity of protectorship, but from an invariable law of Nature, which, furnishing woman with a greater facility to excite desires than she has given man to satisfy them, makes the latter dependent on the good pleasure of the former, and compels him to endeavor to please in his turn, in order f~ s&&n her consent that hc shoda’ be strongest.’ On these occasions the most delightful circumstance a man finds in his victory is, to doubt whether it was the woman’s weakness that yielded to his superior strength, or whether her inclinations spoke in his favor ; the females are also generally artful enough to leave this matter in doubt. The understanding of women answers in this respect perfectly to their constitution : so far from being ashamed of their weakness, they glory in it ; their ten.der muscles make no resistance ; they affect to be incapable of lifting the smallest burdens, and would blush to be thought robust and strong. To what purpose is all this ? Not merely for the sake of appearing delicate, but through an artful precaution : it is thus. they provide an excuse beforehand, and a right to be feebk when they think it expedient.” I have quoted this passage lest my readers should suspect that I warped the author’s reasoning to support my own arguments. I havealready asserted that in educating women these fundamental principles lead to a system of cunning and lasciviousness. Supposing woman to have been formed only to please and be subject to man, the conclusion is just-she ought to sacrifice every other consideration to render herself agreeable to him ; and let this brutal desire of self-preservation be the grand spring of all her actions, when it is proved to be the iron bed of fate, to fit which her character. should be stretched or contracted, regardless of all moral or physical distinctions. But if, as, I think, may be demonstrated, the purposes of. even this life, viewing the whole, be subverted by practical rules built upon this ignoble base, I may be allowed to doubt whetherwoman were created for man ; and, though the cry of irreligion, or even atheism, be raised against me, I will si’mply declare that werean angel from heaven to tell me that Moses’ beautiful, poetical cosmogony, and the account of the fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what my reason told me was derogatory to thecharacter of the Supreme Being ; and, having no fear of the devil before mine eyes, I venture to call this a suggestion of reason, instead of reslirlg my weakness 011~11t:broad shoulders of the first seducer of my frail sex. “ It being once demonstrated,” continue; Rousseau, “ that man and woman are not, nor ought to be, constituted alike in temperament and character, it follows, of course, that they should not be educated ’ What nonnenc;e ! 92 VZZVDZCATZON OF TX?” R/GUTS OF WOMAN. in the same manner. In pursuing the directions of Nature, they indeed, to act in concert, but they should not be engaged in the same employments ; the end of their pursuits should be the same, but the means they should take to accomplish them, and, of consequence, zheir tastes and inclinations, should be different.” . . . . . . . . u Whet’her I consider khe peculiar destination of the sex, observe their inclinations, or remark their duties, all things equally concur to ought, point out the peculiar method uf- educatiun best adapted to them. Woman and man were made for each other ; but their mutual dependence is not the same. The men depend on the women only on account of their desires; the women on the men both on account of their ,desires and their necessities. We could subsist better without them than they without us.” . . . “For this reason the education of the women should be always relative to the men. To please, to be useiul tu us, to make and esteem them, to educate us when young, and take grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives .able; these are the duties of women at all times, should be taught in their infancy. So long as we fail us love care of us when easy and agreeand what they to recur to this principle, we run wide of the mark, and all the precepts which given them contribute neither to their happiness nor our own.” are “ Girls are from their earliest infancy fond of dress. Not content with being pretty, they are desirous of being thought so ; we see, by .a11their little airs, that this thought engages their attention ; and they .are hardly capable of understanding what is said to them, before they are to be governed by talking to them of what people will think of their behavior. The same motive, however, indiscreetly made use of with boys, has not the same effect ; provided they are let pursue their amusements at pleasure, they care very little what peopIe think of Time and pains,arc ncccssary to subject boys to this motive. them. “ Whensoever girls derive this first lesson, it is a very good one. As the body is born, in a manner, before the soul, our first concern should be to cultivate the former ; this order is common to both sexes, but the object of that cultivation is different. In the one sex it is the development of corporeal powers; in the other, that of personal charms : not that either quality of strength or beauty ought to be confined exclusively to one sex, but onIy that the order of the cultivation of both is in that respect reversed. Women certainly rcquirc as much strength as to enable them to move and act gracefully, and men as much address as to qualify them to act with ease.” . . . . . , “ Children of ‘both sexes have a great many amusements in common, WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. 93 and so they ought; have they not also many such when they are taste to distinguish in grown up? Each sex has also its peculiar this particular. Boys love sports of noise and activity--to beat the drum, to whip the top, and to drag about their little carts. Girls, on the other hand, are fonder of things of show and ornament, such as mirrors, trinkets, and dolls ; the doll is the peculiar amusement of the females, from whence we see their taste plainly adapted to their destination. The physical part of the art of pleasing Lies in dress, and this is all which children are capacitated to cultivate of that art.” “ Here, then, we see a primary propensity firmly established, which you need only to pursue and regulate. The little creature will doubtless be very desirous to know how to dress up her doll, to make its sleeve-knots, its flotinces, its head-dress, etc. ; she is obliged to have so much recourse to the people about her, for their assistance in these articles, that it would be much more agreeable to her to owe them all to her own industry. Hence, we have a good reason for the first lessons that are usually taught these young females ; in which we do not appear to be setting them a task, but obliging them by instructing them in what is immediately useful to themselves. And, in fact, almost all of them learn with reluctance to read and write ; but very readily apply themselves to the use of their needles. They imagine themselves already grown up, and think with pleasure that such qualifications will enable them to decorate themselves.” This is certainly only an education of the body ; but Rousseau is not the only man who has indirectly said that merely the person of a young woman, without any mind, unless animal spirits come under that description, is very pleasing. To render it weak and what some may call beautiful, the understanding is neglected, and girls forced to sit still, play with dolls, and listen to foolish conversations--the effect of habit is insisted upon as an undoubted indication of Nature. I know it was ‘Rousseau’s opinion that the first years of youth should be employed to form the body, though in educating Emilius he deviates from this plan : yet, the difference between strengthening the body, on which strength of mind in a great measure depends, and only giving it an easy motion, is very wide, Rousseau’s observations, it is proper to remark, were made in a country where the art of pleasing was refined only to extract the grossness of vice. He did not go back to Nature, or his ruling appetite disturbed the operations of reason, else he would not have drawn these crude inferences. In France, boys and girls, particularly the latter, are only educated to please, to manage their persons, and regulate the exterior behavior ; and their minds are corrupted, at a very early age, by the worldly and pious cautions they receive to guard them against 94 VINDICA T/ON OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. immodesty. I speak of past times. The very confessions which mere children were obliged to make, and the questions asked by the holy -men-I assert these facts on good authority-were sufficient to impress .a sexual character ; and the education of society was a school of coquetry and art. At the age of ten or eleven-nay, often much sooner-girls began to coquet, and talked, unreproved, of establishing themselves in the world by marriage, In short, they were treated like women almost from their very .birth, and compliments were listened to instead of instruction. These -weakening the mind, Nature was supposed to have acted like a step-mother when she formed this after-thought of creation. Not allowing them understanding, however, it was but consistent to subject them to authority independent of reason, and to prepare them for this subjection he gives the following advice : “ Girls ought to be active and diligent ; nor is that all ; they should also be early subjected to restraint. This misfortune, if it really be one, is inseparable from their sex ; nor do they ever throw it off but to suffer more cruel evils. They must be subject, al1 their lives, to the most constant and severe restraint, which is that of decorum ; it is, therefore, necessary to accustom them early to such confinement that it may not afterwards cost them too dear, and to the suppression of their caprices that they may the more readily submit to the will of others. If, indeed, they be fond of being always at work, they should ‘be sometimes compelled to lay it aside. Dissipation, levity and inconstancy are faults that readily spring up from their first propensities when corrupted or perverted by too much indulgence. To prevent this abuse we should teach them, above all things, to lay a due restraint on themselves. The life of a modest woman is reduced, by our absurd institutions, to a perpetual conflict with herself ; not but it is just that this sex should partake of the sufferings which arise from those evils it hath caused us.” And why is the life of a modest woman a perpetual conflict? I should answer that this very system of education makes it so. Modesty, temperance and self-denial are the sober offspring of reason ; but when sensibility is nurtured at the expense of the understanding, such weak beings must be restrained by arbitrary means, and be subjected to continual conflicts; but give their activity of mind a wider range, and nobler passions and motives will govern their appetites and sentiments. “The common attachment and regard of a mother-nay, mere habit-will make her beloved by her children, if she do nothing to incur their hate. Even the constraint she lays them under, if well directed, will increase their.affection instead of lessening it, because a state of dependence being natural to the sex, they perceive themselves formed for obedience.” WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. 95 This is begging the question ; for servitude not only debases the individual, but its effects seem to be transmitted to posterity. Considering the length of time that women have been dependent, is it surprising that some of them hug their chains and fawn like the spaniel ? (‘ These dogs,” observes a naturalist, I‘ at first kept their ears erect, but custom has superseded nature, and a token of fear is become a beauty.” u For the same .reason,” adds Rousseau, ‘I women have, or ought to have, but little liberty ; they are apt to indulge themselves exces.sively in what is allowed them. Addicted in everything to extremes, they are even more transported at their diversions than boys.” The answer to this is very simple. Slaves and mobs have always indulged themselves in the same excesses when once they broke loose from authority. The bent bow recoils with violence when the.hand is suddenly relaxed that forcibly held it ; and sensibility, the plaything of outward circumstances, must be subjected to authority or moderated by reason. “ There results,” he continues, “ from this habitual restraint a tract.ableness which women have occasion for during their whole lives, as they constantly remain either under subjection to the men or to the apinions of mankind, and are never permitted to set themselves above -those opinions. The first and most important qualification in a -woman is good-nature or sweetness of temper; formed to obey a being so imperfect as man, often full of vices and always full of faults, she ought to learn betimes even to suffer injustice and to bear -the insults of a husband without complaint ; it IS not for his sake, but her own, that she should be of a mild disposition. The perverseness and ill-nature of the women only serve to aggravate their own misfortunes and the misconduct of their husbands ; they might plainly perceive that such are not the arms by which they gain the superiority.” Formed to live with such an imperfect being as man, they ought to learn from the exercise of their faculties the necessity of forbearance ; but all the sacred rights of humanity art: violated by insisting on ‘blind obedience, or the most sacred rights belong ody to man. The being who patiently endures injustice and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong. Besides, I deny the fact, this is not the true way to form or meliorate the temper: for, as a sex, men have hetter tempers than women, because they are occupied by pursuits that interest the head as well as the heart, and the steadiness of the head gives a healthy temperature to the heart. People of sensibility have seldom good tempers. The formation of the temper is the cool work of reason, when, as life advances, she mixes with happy art jarring elements. I never knew 8 weak or ignorant person who had a good temper, though that 96 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. constitutional good humor, and that docility which fear stamps on the behavior, often obtains the name. I say behavior, for genuine meekness never reached the heart or mind, unless as the effect of reflection ; and that simple restraint produces a number of peccant humors in domestic life, many sensible men will allow, who find some of these gentle, irritable creatures very troublesome companions. “ Each sex,” he further argues, ‘6 should preserve ifs peculiar tone and manner; a meek husband may make a wife impertinent, but mildness of disposition on the woman’s side will always bring a man back to reason, at least if he be not absolutely a brute, and will sooner or later triumph over him.” Perhaps the mildness of reason might sometimes have this effect ; but abject fear always inspires contempt, and tears are only eloquent when they flow down fair cheeks. Of what materials can that heart be composed which can melt when insulted, and, instead of revolting at injustice, kiss the rod? Is it unfair to infer that her virtue is built on narrow views and selfishness, who can caress a man, with true feminine softness, the very moment when he treats her tyrannically ? Nature never dictated such insincerity ; and, though prudence of this sort be termed a virtue, morality becomes vague when any part is supposed to rest on falsehood. These are mere expedients, and expedients are only useful for the moment. Let the husband beware of trusting too implicitly to this servile obedience; for if his wife can, with winning sweetness, caress him when angry, and when she ought to be angry, unless contempt has stifled a natural effervescence, she may do the same after parting with a lover. These are all preparations for adultery; or, should the fear of the world, or of hell, restrain her desire of pleasing other men, when she can no longer please her husband, what substitute can be found by a being who was on?y formed, by Nature and Art, to please man? What can make her amends for this privation, or where is she to seek Tor a rresh ernploy~ne~~t ? Where find sufficient strength of mind to determine to begin the search, when her habits are fixed and vanity has long ruled her chaotic mind ? But this partial moralist recommends cunning systematically and plausibly. u Daughters should be always submissive ; their mothers, however, should not be inexorable. To make a young person tractable;she ought not to be made unhappy ; to tiake her modest, she ought not to be rendered stupid. On the contrary, I should not bc displeased at her being permitted to use some art, not to elude punishment in case of disobedience, but to exempt herself from the necessity of obeying. It is not necessary to make her dependence burdensome, but only to let her feel it. Subtilty is a talent natural to the sex ; and as I am WOMENOBJECTS OFPITY. 97 persuaded all our natural inclinations are right and good in themselves, I am of opinion rhis should be cultivated as well as the others ; it is requisite for us only to prevent its abuse.” “Whatever is, is right,” he then proceeds triumphantly to infer. Granted ; yet, perhaps, no aphorism ever contained a more paradoxical assertion. It is a solemn truth with respect to God. He, reverentially I speak, Sees the whole at once, ancl saw its just proportions in the womb of time; but man, who can only inspect disjointed parts, finds many things wrong; and it is a part of the system, and therefore right, that he should endeavor to alter what appears to him to be so, even while he bows to the wisdom of the Creator and respects the darkness he labors to disperse. The inference that follows is ‘just, supposing the principle to be sound. “The superiority of address, peculiar to the female sex, is a very equitable indemnification for their inferiority in point of strength; without this, woman would not be the companion of man, but his slave; it is by her superior art and ingenuity that she preserves her equality, and governs him while she affects to obey. Woman has everything against her-as well our faults as her own timidity and weakness ; she has nothing in her favor but her subtilty and her beauty. Is it not very reasonable, therefore, she should cultivate both ? ” Greatness of mind can never dwell with cunning or address; for I shall not boggle about words, when their direct signification is insincerity and falsehood, but content myself with observing that, if any class of mankind be so created that it must necessarily be educated by rules not strictly deducible from truth, virtue is an affair of convention. How could Rousseau dare to assert, after giving this advice, that in the grand end of existence the object of both sexes should be the same, when he well knew that the mind, formed by its pursuits, is expanded by great views swallowing up little ones, or that it becomes itself little? Men have superior strength of body; but were it not for mistaken notions of beauty, women would acquire sufficient to enable them to earn their own subsistence -UK true definition of independence-and to bear those bodily inconveniences and exertions that are requisite to strengthen the mind. Let us then, by being allowed to take the same exercise as boys, not only during infancy, but youth, arrive at perfection of body, that FOT we may know how far the natural superiority of man extends. what reason or virtue can be expected from a creature when the se&dtime of life is neglected? None-did not the winds of heaven casually scatter many useful seeds in the fallow ground ! “Beauty cannot be acquired by dress, and coquetry is an art not so early and speedily attained. While girls are yet young, however, they are in a capacity to study agreeable gesture, a pleasing modulation of VIIVBICA 98 TIOnT OF THeE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. voice, an easy carriage and behavior, as well as to take the advantage of gracefully adapting their looks and attitudes to time, place and occasion. Their application, therefore, should not be solely confined to the arts of industry and the needle, when they come to display other talents whose utility is already apparent.” “For my part I would have a young Englishwoman cultivate her agreeable talents, in order to please her future husband, with as much care and assiduity as a young Circassian cultivates hers, to fit her for the harem of an Eastern haahaw.” To render women completely insignificant, he adds : “ The tongues of women are very voluble ; they speak earlier, more readily and more agreeably than the men; they are accused also of speaking much more. But so it ought to be, and I should be very ready to convert this reproach into a compliment ; their lips and eyes have the same activity, and for the same reason. A man speaks of what he knows, a woman of what pleases her ; the one requires knowledge, the other taste ; the principal object of a man’s discourse should be what is useful, that of a woman’s what is agreeable. There ought to be nothing in common between their different conversation but truth.” “We ought not, therefore, to restrain the prattle of girls, in the same manner as we should that of boys, with that severe question : To what purpose are you fizZking? but by another, which is no less difficult to answer : How z&Z your discourse be received? In infancy, while they are as yet incapable to discern good from evil, they ought to observe it, as a law, never to say anything disagreeable to those whom they are speaking to ; what will render the practice of this rule also the more difficult, is that it must ever be subordinate to the former, of never speaking falsely or telling an untruth.” To govern the tongue in this manner must require great address indeed ; and it is too much practiced both by men and women. Out of the abundance of the heart how few speak ! So few that I, who love simplicity, would gladly give up politeness .for a quarter of the virtue that has been sacrificed to an equivocal quality which, at best, should only be the polish of virtue. But to complete the sketch. “It is easy to be conceived that if male children be not in a capacity to form any true notions of religion, those ideas must be greatly above the conception of the females. It is for this very reason I would begin to speak to them the earlier on this subject ; for if we were to wait till they were in a capacity to discuss methodically such profound questions, we should run a risk of never speaking to them on this subject as long as they lived. Reason in women is a practical reason, capacitating them artfully to discover the means of attaining a known end, but which would never enable them to discover that end itself. The social relations of the sexes are, indeed, truly admirable ; from their union there WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. 99 results a moral person, of which woman may be termed the eyes and man the hand, with this depcndcncc on each other ; that it is froln the man that the woman is to learn what she is to see, and it is of the woman that man is to learn what he ought to do. If woman could recur to the first principles of things as well as man, and man was capacitated to enter into their minviile as well as women, always independent of each other, they would live in perpetual discord, and their union could not subsist. But in the present harmony which naturally subsists between them, their different faculties tend to one common end-it is difficult to say which of them conduces the most to it-each follows the impulse of the other; each is obedient, and both are masters.” ‘*As the conduct of a woman is subservient to the public opinion, her faith in matters of religion should, for that very reason, be subEvery daughter ought fo be qf the same religion as her ject to authority. mother, and every wzffe to be of the same religion as Rev husband; for, though such religion shod be fake, thaf docilig which induces fhe mother and daughter to submif fo the order of Nature, takes away, in the !ighf of God, the crintinaZify of their error.” ’ As ‘I they are not in a capacity to judge for themselves, they ought to abide by the decision of their IaLhers and husbands as confidently as by that of the Church.” *‘As authority ought to regulate the religion of the women, it is not so needful to explain to them the reasons for their belief as to lay down precisely the tenets they are to believe ; for the creed, which presents only obscure ideas to the mind, is the source of fanaticism ; and that which presents absurdities, leads to infidelity.” Absolute, uncentroverted authority, it seems, must subsist somewhere ; but is not this a direct and exclusive appropriation of reason ? The rights of humanity have been thus confined to the male line from Adam downward. Rousseau would carry his male aristocracy still further, for he insinuates that he should not blame those who contend for leaving woman in a state of the most profound ignorance, if it were not necessary, in order to preserve her chastity, and justify the man’s choice, in the eyes of the world, tn give her a Iittle knowledge of men, and the customs produced by human passions ; else she might prdpagate at home without being rendered less voluptuous and innocent by the exercise of her understanding-excepting, indeed, during the first year of marriage, when she might employ it to dress like Sophia. “ Her dress is extremely modest in appearance, and yet very coquettish in fact ; she does not make a display of her charms, she ‘What is to be the consequence if the mother’s and husband’s opinion should &uanrc not to agree? An ignorant person cannot be reasoned out of an error ; and whenpersuadcd to give up one prejudice for another the mind is unsettled. Indeed, the husband may not have any religion to teach her, though, in such a situation, she will be in gre& want of a support to her virtue, indepeudcur uf worldly considerations. IOO VINDICATION OF TRI R/GUTS OF WOMAN. conceals them ; but in concealing them she knows how to affect your imagination. Every one who sees her will say, “There is a modest and discreet girl ; ” but while you are near her, your eyes and affections wander all over her person, so that you cannot withdraw them ; and you would conclude that every part of her dress, simple as it seems, was only put in its proper order to be taken to pieces by the imaginaIs this modesty? Is this a preparation for immortality ? tion.” Again : what opinion are we to form of a system of education, when the author says of his heroine, “that with her doing things well is but a secorru’uryconcern ; her principal concern is to do them neafly.” Secondary, in fact, are all her virtues and qualities; for, respecting religion, he makes her parents thus address her, accustomed to submission : “ Your husband will instruct you in good time.” After thus cramping a woman’s mind, if, iri urder to keep it fair, he have not made it quite a blank, he advises her to reflect that a reflecting man may not yawn in her company when he is tired of caressing her. What has she to reflect about who must obey? And would it not be a refinement on cruelty only to open her mind to make the darkness and misery of her fate visible P Yet these are his sensible remarks ; how consistent with what I have already been obliged to quote, to give a fair view of the subject, the reader may determine. “They who pass their whole lives in working for their daily bread have no ideas beyond their business or their interest, and all their understanding seems to lie in their fingers’ ends, This ignorance is. neither prejudicial to their integrity nor their morals ; it is often of service to them. Sometimes, by means of reflection, we are led to compound with our duty, and we conclude by substituting a jargon of words in the room of things. Our own conscience is the most enlightened philosopher. There is no need to be acquainted with Tully’s. offices to make a man of probity; and perhaps the most virtuous woman in the world is the least acquainted with the definition of virtue. But it is no less true that an improved understanding only can render society agreeable ; and it is a melancholy thing for a father of a family, who is fond of home, to be obliged to be always wrapped up in himself, and to have nobody about him to whom he can impart his sentiments. ‘aBesides, how should a woman void of reflection be capable of educating her children ? How should she discern what is proper for them ? How should she incline them to those virtues she is unacquainted with, or to that merit of which she has no idea. She can orllysoothe or chide them, render them insolent or timid ; she Will make them formal coxcombs, or ignorant blockheads ; but will never How, indeed, should she, when her make them sensible or amiable.” husband is not always at hand to lend her his reason ?-when they both together make but one moral being ? A blind will, “ eyes WOMEN OBJECZJS would go a very little without hands,” abstract reason, that should conccntratc reason, may be employed in OF PITY way; the 101 and perchance his scattered beams of her practical judging of the flavor of wine, descanting on the sauces most proper for turtle ; or, more profoundly intent at a card-table, he may be generalizing his ideas as he bets .away his fortune, leaving all the minutia! of education to his helpmate or to chance. But, grauting that woman ought to be beautiful, innocent, and silly, to render her a more alluring and indulgent companion, what is her understanding sacrificed for ? And why is all this preparation necessary only, according to Rousseau’s own account, to make her the mistress of her husband a very short time ? For no man ever insisted more on the transient nature of love. Thus speaks the philosopher : The habitual state of the affections 4‘ Sensual pleasures are transient. The imagination, which decks the always loses by their gratification. objects of our desires, is lost in fruition. Excepting the Supreme Being, who is self-existent, there is nothing beautiful but what is ideal.” But he returns tc! his unintelligent paradoxes again, when he thus addresses Sophia : “ Emilius, in becoming your husband, is become your master, and claims your obedience. Such is the order of Nature. When a man is married, however, to such a wife as Sophia, it is proper he should be directed by her ; this is also agreeable to the order of Nature. It is, therefore, to give you as much authority over his heart as his sex gives him over your person, that I have made you the arbiter of his pleasures. It may cost you, perhaps, some disagreeable self-denial ; hut you will he certain nf maintaining ynnr empire over him if you can preserve it over yourself. What I have already observed, also, shows me that this difficult attempt does not surpass your courage. “Would you have your husband constantly at your feet, keep him at some distance from your person. You will long maintain the authority in love, if you know but how to render your favors rare and valuable. It is thus you may employ even the arts of coquetry in the service of virtue, and those of love in that of reason.” 1 shall close my extracts with a just description of a comfortable couple : “And yet you must not imagine that even such management will always suffice. Whatever precaution be taken, enjoyment will, by degrees, take off the edge of passion. But when love hath lasted as long as possible, a pleasing habitude supplies its place, and the attachment of a mutual confidence succeeds to the transports of passion. Children often form a more agreeable and permanent connection between married people than even love itself. When you cease to be the mistress of Emilius, you will continue to be his wife and friend ; you will be the mother of his children.” ’ Children, he truly observes, form a much more permanent connection between married people than love. Beauty, he declares, will not be valued, or even seen, after a cuu~~le have lived six months together. Artificial graces and coquetry will likewise pall on the senses. Why, then, does he say that a girl should be educated for her husband with the same care as for an Eastern harem ? I now appeal from the reveries of fancy and refined licentiousness tn the good sense of mankind, whether, if the object of education be to prepare women to become chaste wives and sensible mothers, the method so plausibly recommended in the foregoing sketch be the one best calculated to produce those ends? Will it be allowed that the surest way to make a wife chaste is to teach her to practice the wanton arts of a mistress, termed virtuous coquetry, by the sensualist who can no longer relish the artless charms of sincerity, or taste the pleasure arising from a tender intimacy, when confidence is unchecked by suspicion, and rendered interesting by sense ? The man who can be contented to live with a pretty, useful companion, without a mind, has lost in voluptuous .gratifications a taste for more refinecl enjoyments; he has never felt the calm satisfaction that refreshes the parched heart, like the silent dew of heaven, of being beloved by oue who could understand him. In the society of his wife he is still alone, unless when the man is sunk m the brute. “ The charm of life,” says a grave philosophical reasoner, is “ sympathy; nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellowfeeling with all the emotions of our own breast.” But, according to the tenor of reasoning by which women are kept from the tree of knowlcdgc, the important years of youth, the useful- ness of age, and the rational hopes of futurity, are all to be sacrificed to render women an object of desire for a s,Jzorttime. Besides, how could Rousseau expect them to be virtuous and constant when reason is neither allowed to be the foundation of their virtue, nor truth the object of their inquiries? But all Rousseau’s errors in reasoning arose from sensibility, and sensibility to their charms women are very ready to forgive! When he should have reasoned he became impassioned, and reflection in- flamed his imagination instead of enlightening his understanding. Even his virtues also led him farther astray; for, born with a warm constitution and lively fancy, Nature carried him toward the other sex with such eager fondness, that he soon became lascivious. Had he given way to these desires, the fire would have extinguished itself in a natural manner; but virtue, and a romantic kind of delicacy, made him practice self-denial ; yet, when fear, delicacy, or virtue restrained him he debauched his imagination, and, reflecting on the sensations to which fancy gave force, he traced them in the most glowing colors, and sunk them deep into his soul. WO*RfEN 03]lxTS He then sought for solitude; OP P/i-Y. ‘03 not to sleep with the man of Nature, or calmly investigate the causes of things under the shade where Sir Isaac Newton indulged contemplation, but merely to indulge his feel- ings. And so warmly has he painted what he forcibly felt, that, interesting the heart and inflaming the imagination of his readers, in proportion to the strength of their fancy they imagine that their understanding is convinced, when they only sympathise with a poetic writer, who skilfully exhibits the objects of sense, most voluptuously shadowed or gracefully veiled ; and thus making us feel whilst dreaming that we reason, erroneous conclusions are left in the mind. Why was Rousseau’s life divided between ecstasy and misery? Can any other answer be given than this, that the effervescence of his lmagmatlon produced both ; but, had his fancy been allowed tc cool, it is possible that he might have acquired more strength of mind. Still, if the purpose of life be to educate the intellectual part of man, all with respect to him was right; yet, had not death led to a nobler scene of action, it is probable that he would have enjoyed more equal happiness on earth, and have felt the calm sensations of the man of Nature, instead of being prepared for another stage of existence by nourishing the passions which agitate the civilized man. But, peace to his manes! I war not with his ashes, but llis upi&ns. I war only with the sensibility that led him to degrade woman by making her the slave of love. ’ ‘ Curs’d vassalage ! First idoliz’d till love’s hot fire be o’er, Then slaves to those who courted US before.” --Dryden. The pernicious tendency of those books, in which the writers indegrade the sex while they are prostrate before their personal charms, cannot be too often or two severely exposed. Let us, my dear contemporaries, rise above such narrow prejudices ! If wisdom be desirable on its own account ; if virtue, to deserve the sidiously name, must be founded on knowledge ; let us endeavor to strengthen our minds by reflection, till our heads become a balance for our hearts ; let us not confine all our thoughts to the petty occurrences of the day, or our knowledge to an acquaintance with our lovers’ or husbands’ hearts ; but let the practice of every duty be subordinate to the grand one of improving our minds and preparing our affections for a more exalted state ! Beware then, my friends, of suffering the heart to be moved by every trivial incident: the reed is shaken by a breeze, and annually dies; but the oak stands firm, and for ages braves the stortn ! Were we, indeed, only created to flutter out our hour and die, why, let us, then, indulge serwibiliry, amI laugh at ~ht. severity of reason. 104 VINDICA TI0i-V OR THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. Yet, alas! even then we should want strength of body and mind, and life would be lost in feverish pleasures of wearisome languor! But the system of education which I earnestly wish to see exploded, seems to presuppose what ought to be taken for granted, that virtue shields us from the casualties of life ; and that fortune, slipping off her bandage, will smile on a well-educated female, and bring in her hand an Emilius or a Telemachus: while, on the contrary, the reward which virtue promises to her votaries is confined, it seems clear, to their own bosoms; and often must they contend with the moat veratious, worldly cares, and bear with the vices and humors of relations for whom they can never feel a frlendship. There have been many women in the world who, instead of being supported by the reason and virtue of their fathers and brothers, have strengthened their own minds by struggling with their vices and follies, yet have never met with a hero in the shape of a husband; who, paying the debt that mankind owed them, might chance to bring back their reason to its natural dependent state, and restore the usurped prerogative, of rising above opinion, to man. SECTION II. Dr. Fordyce’s sermons have long made a part of a young woman’s library-nay, girls at school are allowed to read them-but I should instantly dismiss them from my pupil’s, if I wished to strengthen her understanding, by leading her to form sound principles on a broad basis ; or were I only anxious to cultivate her taste; though they must be allowed to contain many sensible observations. Dr. Fordyce may have had a very laudable end in view ; but these discourses are written in such an affected style, that, were it only on that account, and had I nothing to object against his meZ~.$ficous precepts, I should not allow girls to peruse them, unless I designed to hunt every spark of nature out of their composition, melting every human quaIity into female meekness and artificial grace. I say artificial, for true grace arises from some kind of independence of mind. Children, careless of pleasing, and only anxious lo amuse themselves, are often very graceful ; and the nobility, who have mostly lived with inferiors, and always had the command uf money, acquire a graceful ease of deportment, which should rather be termed habitual grace of the body than that superior gracefulness which is truly the expression of the mind. This mental grace, not noticed by vulgar eyes, often flashes across a rough countenance, and, irradiating every feature, shows simplicity and independence of mind. It is then we read characters of immortality in the eye, and see the soul in every gesture ; though, when at rest, neither the face nor limbs may have much beauty to recommend them, nor the behavior anything peculiar The mass of mankind, however, look to attract universal attention. WOMEfl OBJECTS OF PITY. IO.5 dor more tangibk beauty ; yet simplicity is, in general, admired, when people do not consider what they admire ; and can there he simplicity without sincerity? But, to have done with remarks that are in some measure desultory, though naturally excited by the subjectIn declamatory periods Dr. Fordyce spins out Rousseau’s eloquence, and, in most sentimeptal rant, details his opinions respecting the female character and the behavior which.woman ought to assume 50 render her Lovely. He shall speak for himself, for thus he makes Nature address man : “ Behold these smiling innocents, whom I have graced with my fairest gifts, and committed to your protection ;-behold them with love and respect ; treat them with tenderness and honor. They are timid and want to be defended. They arc frail ; 0 do not take advantage of their weakness ! Let their fears and blushes endear them. Let their confidence in you never be abused. But is it possible that any of you can be such barbarians, so supremely wicked, as to abuse it ? Can you find in your hearts ’ to despoil the gentle, trusting creatures of their treasure, or do anything to strip them of their native robe of virtue? Cur.& be the impious hand that would dare to violate the unblemished form of Chastity ! Thou wretch ! thou ruffian ! forbear ; nor venture to provoke heaven’s fiercest vengeance.” I know not any comment that can be made seriously on this curious passage, and I could produce many similar ones; and some, so very sentimental, that I have heard rational men use the word indecent when they mentioned them with disgust. Throughout, there is a display of cold artificial feelings, and that parade of sensibility which boys and girls should be taught to despise as the sure mark of a little, vain mind. Florid appeals are made to heaven and to the beaufeous innocents-the fairest images of heaven bere below-while sober sense is left far behind. This is not the lan:guage of the heart, nor will it ever reach it, though the ear may be tickled. I shaI1 be told, perhaps, that the public have been pleased with these volumes. True; and Harvey’s “ Meditations ” are still read, though he equally sinned against sense and taste. I particularly object to the lover-like phrases of pumped-up passion which are everywhere interspersed. If women be ever allowed to walk without leading-strings, why must they be cajoled into virtue by .artful flattery and sexual compliments? Speak to them the language of truth and soberness, and nway with the lullaby strains of condescending endearment ! Let them be taught to respect themselves as rational creatures, and not led to have a passion for their own insipid persons. It moves my gall to hear a preacher descanting on dress 1 Can you ?-Can you? would be the most emphatical comment, were it drawled aont in a whining voice. 106 VIi%7DICA T/ON OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. and needlework, and still more to hear him address the British fair, (( the fairest of fhe fair,” as if they had only feelings. Even recommending piety, he uses the follnwing srgnment : (‘Never, perhaps, does a fine woman strike more deeply than when, composed into pious recollection, and possessed with the noblest considerations, she assumes, without knowing it, superior dignity and. new graces ; so that the beauties of holiness seem to radiate about her, and the bystanders are almost induced to fancy her already worshipping among her kindred angels ! ” Why are women to be thus. bred up with a desire of conquest? The very word, used in this sense, gives me a sickly qualm ! Do religion and virtue offer no stronger motives, no brighter reward? Must they always be defaced by being made to consider the sex of their companions ? Must they lot: taiighl always to he pleasing? And. when leveling their small artillery at the heart of man, is it necessary to tell them that a little. sense is sufficient to render their attention increa’ib& soot/zing? “ As a small degree of knowledge entertains in a woman, so, from a woman, though for a different reason, a small expression of kindness delights, particularly if she have beauty ! ” I should have supposed for the, same reason. Why are girls to be told that they resemble angels, but to sink them below women ?-or that a gcntlc, innocent fcmalc is an object that comes nearer to the idea which we have formed of angels than any other? Yet they are told, at the same time, that they are only like angels when they are young and beautiful : consequently it is. their persons, not their virtues, that procure them this homage. Idle, empty words ! What can such delusive flattery lead to but vanity and folly ? The lover, it is true, has a poetical license to exalt his mistress; his reason is the bubble of his passion, and he does not utter a falsehood when he borrows the language of adoration. His. imagination may raise the idol of his heart, unblamed, above humanity ; and happy would it be for women if they were only flattered by the men who love them-l mean who love the individual, not the sex -but should a grave preacher interlard his discourses with such fooleries ? In sermons or novels, however, voluptuousness is always true to its text. Men are allowed by moralists to cultivate, as Nature directs, different qualities, and assume the different characters that the same passions, modified almost to infinity, give to each individual. A rirtuous man may have a choleric or a sanguine constitution, be gay or grave, unreproved ; be firm till he is almost over-bearing, or, weakly submissive, have no will or opinion of his own ; but all women are to be leveled, by meekness and docility, into one character of yielding softness and gentle compliance. I will use the preacher’s own words : “Let it be observed that in WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. your sex manly exercises are never graceful ; that in them a tone and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine kind, arealways forbidding, and that men of sensibility desire in every woman soft features and a flowing voice, a form not robust, and demeanor. delicate and gentle.” Is not the folIowing portrait the portrait of a house slave ? “I am astonished at the folly of many women, who are still reproaching their- husbands for leaving them alone, for preferring this or that company to theirs, for treating them with this and the other mark of disregard and indifference, when, to speak the truth, they have themselves, in a great measure, to blame. Not that I would justify the men in anything wrong on their part. But had you behaved to them with more. res@tfuZ observance and a more equal tenderness, studying their humors, overlookiq- tkeir mistakes, submitting to fkeir opinions in matters indifferent, pacsing by little inst.nnces of unf3mnnens, cnprir~ or passion, giv-- ing soft answers to hasty worcls, complaining as seldom as possible, and making it your daily care to relieve their anxieties and prevent. their wishes, to enliven the hour of dullness, and call up the ideas of felicity ; had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but you would have maintained and even increased their esteem, so far as to have. secured every degree of influence that could conduke to their virtueor your mutual satisfaction, and your house might, at this day, have. been the abode of domestic bliss.” Such a woman ought to be an angel-or she is an ass-for I discern not a trace ‘of the human character, neither reason nor passion, in this domestic drudge, whose being is absorbed in that of a tyrant’s. Still, Dr. Fordyce must have had very little acquaintance with the. human heart, if he really supposed that such conduct would bringback wandering love instead of exciting contempt. No ; beauty, gentleness, etc., etc., may gain a heart, but esteem, the only lastingaffection, can alone be obtained by virtue, supported by reason ! It is respect for the understanding that keeps alive tenderness for the. person ! As these volLmes are so frequently put into the hands of young- people, I have taken more notice of them than, strictly speaking, they deserve ; but, as the3 have contributed to vitiate the taste an& enervate the understanding of many of my fellow-creatures, I could not pass them silently over. SECTION III. Such paternal solicitude pervades Dr. Gregory’s “Legacy to his. Daughters,” that I enter on the talk of criticism with affectionate respect ; but as this little volume has many attractions to recommend it to the notice of the most respectable part of my sex, I cannot silently pass over arguments that so speciously support opmlons which, 108 VIA~DICATION OF TH3 RIGHTS OF WOMAN. I think, have had the most baneful effect on the morals and manners of the female world. His easy, familiar style is particularly suited to the tenor of hisadvice, and the melancholy tenderness which his respect for the memory of a beloved wife diffuses through the whole work, renders it very interesting ; yet there is a degree of concise elegance conspicuous in many passages that disturbs this sympathy, and we pop on the author when we only expect to meet the-father, Hesides, having two objects in view: he seldom adhered steadily to -either ; for, wishing to make his daughters amiable, and fearing lest unhappiness should be the consequence of instilling sentiments that might draw them out df the track of common life without enabling them to act with consonant independence and dignity, he checks the natural Aow of his thoughts, and neither advises one thing nor the .other. In the preface he tells them a mournful truth, 66that they will hear, at least once in their lives, the genuine sentiments of a man who has no interest in deceiving them.” Hapless woman ! what can be expected from thee when the beings on whom thou art said naturally to depend for reason and support, have all an interest in deceiving thee ! This is the root of the evil th’at has shed a corroding mildew on all thy virtues ; and, blighting in the bud thy opening faculties, has rendered thee the weak thing thou -art ! It is this separate interest-this insidious state of warfare, that undermines morality and divides mankind ! If love has made some women wretched, how many more has the cold, unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered vain and useless! Yet this heartless attention to the sex is reckoned so manly,so polite, that, till society is very differently organized, I fear this vestige of *Gothic manners will not be done away by a more reasonable and affectionate mode of conduct. Besides, to strip it of its imaginary dignity, I must observe that in the most uncivilized European States this lipservice prevails in a very great degree, accompanied with extreme .dissoluteness of morals. In Portugal, the country that I particularly .allude to, it takes place of the most serious moral obligations ! for a man is seldom assassinated when in the company of a woman. The savage hand of rapine is unnerved by this chivalrous spirit; and if the stroke of vengeance cannot be stayed, the lady is entreated to pardon the rudeness and depart in peace, though sprinkled, perhaps, with her husband’s or brother’s blood. I shall pass OYC:T his slrictures uf religion, because I mean to discuss that subject in a separate chapter. The remarks relative to behavior, though mapy of them very sensible, I entirely disapprove of, because it appears to me to be beginning, as it were, at the wrong end. A cultivated understanding and an WOMEiV OBJECTS OF PITY. 109 affectionate heart will never want starched rules of decorum-something more substantial than seemliness will be the result ; and, with- out understanding, the behavior here recommended would be rank Decorum, indeed, is the one thing needful !-decorum is affectation. to supplant Nature, and banish all simplicity an.d variety of character out of the female world. Yet what good end can all this superficial counsel produce? It is, however, much easier, to point out this or that mode of behavior than to set the reason to work ; but, when the mind has been stored with useful knowledge, and strengthened by being employed, the regulation of the behavior may safely be left to its guidance. Why, for instance, should the following caution be given when art of every kind must contaminate the mind; and why entangle the grand motives of action, which reason and religion equally combine to enforce, with pitiful worldly shifts and sleight of hand tricks, to gain the applause of gaping, tasteless fools ? “ Be even cautious in displaying your good sense.’ It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company. But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great partsand a cultivated understanding.” If men uf real Izlerit, as he afterwards observes, be superior to this meanness, where is the necessity that the behavior of the whole sex should be modulated to please fools, or men who, having little claim to respect as individuals, choose to keep close in their phalanx. Men, indeed, who insist on their common superiority, having only this sexual superiority, are certainly very excusable. There would be no end to rules for behavior, if it be proper always to adopt the tone of the company ; for thus, for ever varying the key, ajar would often pass for a tzafural’ note. Surely it would have been wiser to have advised women to improve themselves till they rose above the fumes of vanity ; and then to let the public opinion come round-for where are rules of accommodation to stop? The narrow path of truth and virtue inclines neither to the right nor left-it is a straightforward business, and they who are earnestly pursuing their road may bound over many decorous prejudices without leaving modesty behind. Make the heart clean and give the head employment, and I will venture to predict that there will be nothing offensive in the behavior. The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain, always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern pictures, copied with tasteless servility after the antiques-the soul is left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may props Let women once acquire good sense ; and, if it deserve the name, it will teach them-w of what USCwill it be?-how to employ iI. VINDICATION II0 OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. erly be termed character. This varnish of fashion, which seldom sticks very close to sense, may dazzle the weak ; but leave Nature to itself, and it will seldom disgust the wise. Besides, when a woman .has sufficieut sense not to pretend to anything which she does not understand in some degree, there is no need of determining to hide ,her talents under a bushel. Let things take their natural course, and all will be well. It is this system of dissimulation, throughout the volume, that I virtue <despise. Women are always to ~ccnd to be this and that-yet might apostrophize them, in the words of Hamlet : “Seems ! I know not seems! Have that within that passeth show.” Still the same tone occurs ; for, in another place, after recommending, without sufficiently discriminating, delicacy, he adds : “The men will complain of your reserve. They will assure you that a franker behavior would make you more amiable. But, trust me, they are not sincere when they tell you so. I acknowledge that on someoccasions it might render you more agreeable as companions, but it would make you less amiable as women-an important distinction, which many of your sex are not aware of.” This desire of being always women is the very consciousness that *degrades the sex. Excepting with a lover (I must repeat with emphasis a former observation) it would be well if they were only agreeable or rational companions. But in this respect his advice is even inconsistent with a passage which I mean to quote with a most marked approbation: ‘&The sentiment that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms, provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of your sex.” With this opinion I per.fectly coincide. A man, or a woman, of any feeling must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the caresses of the individual, not the sex, that are received and returned with pleasure ; and that the heart, rather than the senses, is moved. Without this natural delicacy, love becomes a selfish, personal gratification, that soon de- grades the character. I carry this sentiment still further. Affection, when love is out of the question, authorizes many personal endearments, that, naturally flowing from an’ innocent heart, give life to the behavior ; but the personal intercourse of appetite, gallantry, or vanity, is despicable. When a man squeezes the hand of a pretty woman, handing her to a carriage, whom he has never seen before, she will consider such an impertinent freedom in the light of an insult, if she have ariy true delicacy, instead of being flattered by this unmeaning homage to beauty. These are the privileges of friendship, or the momentary homage which the heart pays to virtue, when it flashes suddenly on the notice-mere animal spirits have no claim to the kindness of affection. WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. III Wishing to feed the affections with what is now the food of vanity, 1 would fain persuade my sex to act from simpler principles. Let them merit love, and they will obtain it, though they may never be told that-‘&The power of a fine woman over the hearts of men, of .men of the finest parts, is even beyond what she conceives.” I have already noticed the narrow cautions with respect to dnfor these are the plicity, female softness, delicacy of constitution; .changes which he rings round without ceasing-in a more decorous manner, it is true, than Rousseau ; but it all comes home to the same ‘point, and whoever is at the trouble to analyze these sentiments, will find the first principles not quite so delicate as the superstructure. The subject of amusements is treated in too cursory a manner, .but with the same spirit. When I treat of friendship, love, and marriage, it will be found that we materially differ in opinion. I shall not then forestall what I have to observe on these important subjects; but confine my remarks to -the general tenor of them, to that cautious family prudence, to those confined views of partial, unenlightened affection, which exclude pleasure and improvement, by vainly wishing to ward off sorrow and error-and by thus guarding the heart and mind, destroy also all their energy. It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust ; to be disappointed in love than never to love ; to lose a husband’s fondness than forfeit his esteem. Happy would it be for the world, and for individuals, of course, if all this unavailing solicitude to attain worldly happiness, on a confined plan, were turned into an anxious desire to improve the understanding. “Wisdom is the principal thing: therefore get wisdom ; and with all thy gettings get understanding.” “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and hate knowledge ? ” saith Wisdom to the daughters of men. SECTION IV. 1 do not mean to allude to all the writers who have written on the subject of female manners--it would, in fact, be only beating over the old ground, for they have, in general, written in the same strain ; but .attacking the boasted prerogative of man-the prerogative that may emphatically be called theiron sceptre of tyranny, the original sin of tyrants-I declare against all power built on prejudices, however hoary. If the submission demanded be founded on justice, there is no .appealing to a htgher power-for God is Justice itself. Let us, then, .as children of the same parent, if not bastardized by being the younger born, reason together, and learn to submit to the authority .of reason-when her voice is distinctly heard. But if it be proved that this throne of prerogative only rests on a chaotic mass of prejudices, that have no inherent principle of order to keep them tugc;lllttr, VIIVDICA 1 I 2 T/ON OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. or on an elephant, tortoise, or even the mighty shoulders of a son of the earth, they may escape, who dare to brave the consequence, without any breach of duty, without sinning against the order of things. While reason raises man above the brutal herd, and death is big with promises, they alone are subject to blind authority who have no reliance on their own strength. They are free-who will be free.’ The being who can govern itself has nothing to fear in life ; but if anything be dearer than its own respect, the price must be paid to Virtue, like everything valuable, must be loved for the last iarthing. herself alone; or she will not take up her abode with us. She will not impart that peace “which passeth understanding,” when she is merely made the stilts of reputation ; and respected with Pharisaical exactness, because “honesty is the best policy.” That the plan wf life which enables us to carry some knowledge and virtue into another world, is the one best calculated to insure content in this, cannot be denied; yet few people act accordinK to this principle, though it be universally allowed that it admits not of dispute. Present pleasure, or present power, carries before it these sober convictions ; and it is for the day, not for life, that man bargains with happiness. How few-how very few-have sufficient foresight or resolution to endure a small evil at the moment, to avoid a grcatcr hereafter ! Woman in particular, whose virtue’ is built on mutable prejudices, seldom attains to this greatness of mind ; so that, becoming the slave of her own leelings, she is easily subjugated by those of others. Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason, is employid rather to burnish than to snap her chains. Indignantly have I heard women argue in the same track as men, and adopt the sentiments that brutalize them, with al1 the pertinacity of ignorance. I must illustrate my assertion by a few examples. Mrs. Piozzi, who often repeated by rote what she did not understand, comes forward with Johnsonian periods. “Seek not for happiness in singularity; arid dread a refinement of Thus she dogmatically addresses wisdom 9s a deviation into folly.” a new married man ; and to elucidate this pompous exordium she adds, (‘1 said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows less so; that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her person, is well known ; nor will any of US contradict the assertion. ~1 our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart of man ; and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained? There is no 1 “ IIe is the free man, whom the PutA makes free.“--Cu?qzW. * I meon to use a word that comprehends more than chastity, the sexual virtue. WOMEZV OBJECTS OF PITY. “3 reproof, however pointed-no punishment, however severe, that a woman of sptrit WIII not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband.” These are truly masculine sentiments--“All our arfs are employed to gain and keep the heart of man “-and what is the inference ? If her person-and was there ever a person, though formed with Medi- cean symmetry, that was not slighted ?-be neglected, she will make herself amends by endeavoring to please other men. Noble morality! Rut thus is the understanding of the whole sex affronted, and their virtue deprived of the common basis of virtue. A woman must know that her person cannot be as pleasing to her husband as it was to her lover; and if she be offended with him for being a human creature, she may as well whine about the loss of his heart as about any other foolish thing. And this very want of discernment or unreasonable anger proves that he could not change his fondness for her person into affection for her virtues or respect for her understanding. While women avow and act up to such opinions, their understandings, at least, deserve the contempt and obloquy that men, w/lo nmer insult their persons, have pointedly leveled at the female mind. And it is the sentiments of these polite men, who do not wish to be encumbered with mind, that vain women thoughtlessly adopt. Yet they should know, that insulted reason alone can spread that sacred reserve about the person, which renders human affections-for human affections have always some base alloy-as permanent as is consistent with the granll ehcl of existence-the attainment of virtue. The Raroness de Stael speaks the same.language as the lady just cited, with more enthusiasm. Her eulogium on Rousseau was accidentally put into my hands, and her sentiments, the sentiments of too many of my sex, may serve as the text for a few comments. ‘GThough Rousseau,” she observes, “has endeavored to prevent women from interfering in public affairs, and acting a brilliant part in the theatre of politics, yet, in speaking of them, how much has he done it to their satisfaction ! If he wished to deprive them of some rights foreign to their sex, how has he for ever restored to them all those to which it has a claim ! And, in attempting to diminish their influence over the deliberations of men, how sacredly has he established the empire they have over their happiness ! In aiding them to descend from a usurped throne, he had firmly seated them upon that to which they were destined by Nature ; and, though he be full of indignation against them when they endeavor to resemble men, yet, when they come before him with all the charms, weakness, virtues and eyroys of their sex, his respect for their persms amounts almost to True !-for never was there a sensualist who paid more adoration.” fervent adoration at the shrine of beauty. So devout, indeed, was his 114 VINDlGATlON OF Th’.?,Z RlGUTS OF WOMAN. respect for the person that, excepting the virtue of chastity, for obvious reasons, he only wished to see it embellished by charms, weaknesses and errors. He was afraid lest the austerity of reason should disturb the soft playfulness of love. The master wished to have a meretricious slave to fondle, entirely dependent on his reason and bounty ; he did not want a companion whom he should be compelled to esteem, or a friend to whom he could confide the care of his children’s education, should death deprive them of their father before he had fulfilled the sacred task. He denies woman reason, shuts her out from knowledge, and turns her aside from truth; yet his pardon ii granted, because “he admits the passion of love.” It would require some ingenuity to show why women were to be under such an obligation to him for thus admitting love, when it is clear that he it only for the relaxation of men and to perpetuate the species ; but he talked with passion, and that powerful spell worked on admitn the sensibility of a young cncomiast. rhapsodist, it to women “ What signifies it,” pursues this that his reason disputes with them the empire when his heart is devotedly theirs?” It is not empire but equality that they should contend for. Yet, if they only wished to lengthen out their sway, they should not entirely trust to their persons ; for, though beauty may gain a heart, it cannot keep it, even while the beauty is in full bloom, unless the mind lend, at least, some graces. When women are once sufficiently enlightened to discover their real interest, on a grand scale, they will, I am persuaded, be very ready to resign all the prerogatives of love that are not mutual-speaking of them as lasting prerogatives- for the calm satisfaction of friendship and the tender confidence of habitual esteem. Before marriage they will not assume any insolent airs or afterwards abjectly submit ; but, endeavoring to act like reasonable creatures, in both situations, they will not be tumbled from a throne to a stool. Madame Genlis has written several entertaining books for children, and her Letters on Education afford many useful hints that sensible parents will certainly avail themselves of ; but her views are narrow, and her prejudices as unreasonable as strong. I shall pass over her vehement argument in favor of the eternity of future punishments, because I blush to think that a human being should ever argue vehemently remarks on her absurd manner plant .reason ; for everywhere mission to parents, but to the She tcl’ls a story of a young in such a cause, and only make a few of making the parental authority supdoes she inculcate, not only b&i subopinion of the world.’ man, cngagcd by his father’s cxprcss 1 A person is not to act in this or that way, though convinced doing, because some equivocal circumstances may lead the world acted from different motives. This is sacrificing the substance people but watch their own hearts, and act rightly, as far as they they are right in so to swprct that they for a shadow. Let can judge, and they WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. desire, to a girl of fortune. is deprived of her fortune, 115 Before the marriage could take place she and thrown friendless The on the world. father practices the most infamous arts to separate his son from her ; and, when the son detects his villainy, and, following the dictates of ~honor, marries the girl, nothing but misery ensues, because, forsooth, he married z&~orct his father’s consent. On what ground can religion *or morality rest when justice is thus set at defiance? With the same -view she represents an accomplished young woman as ready to marry anybody that her mamma pleased to, recommend, and as actually marrying the young man of her own choice without feeling any emotions of passion, Decause that a well-educated girl had not time to be in love. Is it possible to have much respect for a system of education rhat thus insults Reason and Nature ? Many similar opinions occur in her writings, mixed with sentiments abat do honor to her head and heart. Yet so much superstition is mixed with her religion, and so much worldly wisdom with her morality, that I should not let a young person read her works unless I could afterwards converse on the subjects and point out the contradictions. Mrs. Chapone’s Letters are written with such good sense and unaffected humility, and contain so many useful observations, that I only mention them to pay the worthy writer this tribute of respect. I cannot, it is true, always coincide in opinion with her, but I always respect her. The very word respect brings Mrs. Macaulay to my remembrance --the woman of the greatest abilities, undoubtedly, that this country has ever prorl~tced. And yet thin wnman has heen suffered to die without sufficient respect being paid to hq memory. Posterity, however, will be more just, and remember that Catharine Macaulay was an example of intellectual acquirements supposed to be incompatible with the weakness of her sex. In her style of writing, indeed, no sex appears, for it is like the sense it conveys-strong and clear. I will not call hers a masculine understanding, because 1 admit not of such an arrogant assumption of reason ; but I contend that it was a sound one, and that her judgment, the matured fruit of prnfnnnd thinking, was a proof that a woman can acquire judgment in the full extent of the word. Possessing more penetration than sagacity, more understanding than fancy, she writes with sober energy and argumentative closeness ; yet sympathy and benevolence give an interest to her sentiments, and that vital heat to arguments which forces the reader to weigh them.’ It is best to be directed may patiently wait till the opinion of the world comes round. by a simple motive, for justice has too often been sacrificed to propriety-another word for convenience. 1 Coinciding in opinion with Mrs. Macaulayrelative to many branches of education, I rcfcr to her valuable work instead of quoting her sentiments to support my uwu. 116 VlNDlCATlOiV 03 TH-RlGHTS OP WOMAN. When I first thought of writing these strictures, I anticipated Mrs, Macaulay’s approbation with a little of that sanguine ardor which it has been the business of my life to depress, but soon heard with the sickly qualm of disappointed hope and the still seriousness of regret that she was no more. SECTION V. Taking a view of the different.works which have been written on education, Lord Chesterfield’s Letters must not be silently passed system, 01 over. Not that I mean to analyze his unmanly, immoral even to cull any of the useful, shrewd remarks which occur in his epistles. No ; I only mean to make a few reflections on the avowed tendency of them-the art of acquiring an early knowledge of the world : an art, I will venture to assert, that preys secretly, Iike the worm in the bud, on the expanding powers, and turns to poison the generous juices which should mount with vigor in the youthful frame,. inspiring warm affections and great resolves.’ LLFor saith everything,” the wise man, “there is a seaSon ;” and who would look for the fruits of autumn during the genial months. of spring? But this is mere declamation, and I mean to reason with those worldly-wise instructors who, instead of cultivating the judgment, instill prejudices, and render hard the heart that gradual experience would only have cooled. An early acquaintance with human infirmities, or what is termed knowledge of the world, is the surest way, in my opinion, to contract the heart and damp the natural youthful ardor which produces not only great talents but great virtues. For the vain attempt to bring forth the fruit of experience, before the sapling has thrown out its leaves, only exhausts its strength, and prevents its assuming a natural form; just as the form and strength of subsiding metals are injured when the attraction of cohesion is disturbed. Tell me, ye who have studied the human mind, is it not a strange way to fix principles by showing young people that they aie seldom stable? And how can they he fortified by habits when they are proved to be fallacious by exampIe ? Why is the ardor of youth thus to be damped, and the luxuriancy of fancy cut to the quick? ,This thy cautiun ruay, it is true, guard a character from worldly ihis- chances ; but will infallibly preclude excellence in either virtue or The stumbling-block thrown across every path by knowledge.’ 1 That children ought to be constantly guarded against the vices and IolIies of the world, appears to me a very mistaken opinion; for, in the courseof my experience-and my eyes have looked abroad-I never knew a youth, educated in this manner, who had early imbibed these chilling suspicions, and repeated by rote the hesitating if of age, that did not prove a selfish character. * I have already observed that an early knowledge of the world, obtained in a natural way, by mixing in the world, has the same ellect ; instancing officers and women. WOMEN OBJ&TS OF PITY. ==7 suspicion will prevent any vigorous exertions of genius or benevolence, and life will be strip@ of its most ,Iluriug charm long before its calm evening, when man should retire to contemplation for comfort and support. A young man who had been bred up with domestic friends, and led to store his mind with as much speculative knowledge as can be acquired by reading, and the natural reflections which ymthful ebullitions of animal spirits aud instinctive feelings inspire, will enter the But this appears to be world with warm and erroneous expectations. the course of Nature; and in morals, as we11 as in works of taste, we should be observant of her sacred Indications, and not presume to lead when we ought obsequiously to follow. In the world few people act from principle; present feelings and early habits are the grand springs; but how would the former be deadened, and the latter rendered iron, corroding’fetters, if the wor1d were shown to young people just as it is; when no knowledge of mankind or their own hearts, slowly obtained by experience, rendered them forbearing? Their fellow-creatures would not then be viewed as frail beings; like themselves, condemned to struggle with human infirmities, and sometimes displaying the light and sometimes the dark side of their character; extorting alternating feelings of love and disgust ; but guarded against as beasts of prey, till every enlarged social feeling, in a word-humanity, was eradicated. In life, on the contrary, as we gradually discover the imperfections of our nature, we discover virtues ; and various circumstances attach us to our fellow-creatures, when we mix with them, and view the same objects, that are never thought of in acquiring a hasty, unnatural knowledge of the world. We see a folly swell into a vice, by almost imperceptible degrees, and pity while we blame; but if the hideousmonster burst suddenly on our sight, fear and disgust, rendering us more severe than man ought to he, might lead us with blind zeal to u&u-p the character of Omnipotence, and denounce damnation on our fellow-mortals, forgetting that we cannot read the heart, and that we have seeds of the same vices lurking in our own. I have already remarked that we expect more from instruction than mere instruction can produce ; for, instead of preparing young people to encounter the evils of life with dignity, and to acquire wisdom and virtue by the exercise of their own faculties, precepts are heaped upon precepts, and blind obedience required, when conviction should be brought home to reason. Suppose, for instance, that a young person in the first ardor of friendship deifies the beloved object-what harm can arise from this mistaken, enthusiastic attachment ? Perhaps it is necessary for virtue first to appear in a human form to impress youthful hearts; the ideal model. which a more n>atulr:l ~cd exalted mind looks up to, and shapes 118 ~71NDICATIOiV OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAiV. for itself, would elude their sight. “He who loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God ? ” asked the wisest of men. It is natural for youth to adorn the first object of its affection with every good quality ; and the emulation produced by ignorance, or, t@ speak with more propriety, by inexperience, brings forward the mind capable of forming such an affection; and when, in the lapse of time, perfection is found not to be within the reach of mortals, virtue, abstractedly, is thought beautiful, and wisdom sublime. Admiration then gives place to friendship, properly so called, because It IS cemented by esteem ; and the being walks alone, only dependent on heaven for that emulous panting after perfection which ever glows in a noble mind. I3ut this knowledge a man must gain by the exertion of his own faculties; and this is surely the blessed fruit of disappointed hope; for He who delighteth to diffuse happiness and show mercy to the weak creatures, who are learning to know Him, never implanted a good propensity to be a tormenting ignis f&m! Our trees are now allowed to spread wiIh wild luxuriance ; nor don we expect by force to combine the majestic marks of time with youthful graces, but wait patiently till they have struck deep their root, and braved many a storm. Is the mind, then, which, in proportion to. its dignity, advances more slowly toward perfection, to be treated with less respect? To argue from analogy, everything around us is in a progressive state; and when an unwelcome knowledge of life produces almost a satiety of life, and we discover by the natural course of things that all that is done under the sun is vanity, we are drawing near the awful close of the drama. The days of activity and hope are over, and the opportunities which the first stage of existence has afforded of advancing in the scale of intelligence, must soon be summed up. A knowledge at this period of the futility of life, or earlier, if obtained by experience, is very useful, because it is natural ; but wh$n a frail being is shown the follies and vices of man, that he may be taught prudently to guard against the common casualties of life by saclificirrg his heart, surely it is not spcakiog harshly LLJ call iL the wisdom of this world, contrasted with the nobler fruit of piety and experience ! I will venture a paradox, and deliver my opinion without reserve: If men were only born to form a circle of life and death, it would be wise to take every step that foresight could suggest to render life happy. Moderation in every pursuit would then be supreme wisdom; and the prudent voluptuary might enjoy a degree of content, thougl-t he neither cultivated his understanding nor kept his heart pure. Prudence, supposing we were mortal, would be true wisdom ; or, to be more explicit, would procure the greatest portlon of happiness, cqnsidering the whole of life ; but knowledge beyond the conveniences of li:e would be a curse. WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. 119 Why should we injure our health by close study? The exalted which intellectual pursuits afford would scarcely be eouivalent to the hours of languor that follow ; especially, if it be necessary to take into the reckoning the doubts and disappointments that cloud our researches. Vanity and vexation close every inquiry; for the cause which we particularly wished to discover flies like the horizon before us as we advance. The ignorant, on the contrary, resemble children, and suppose that if they could walk straight forward they should at last arrive where the clouds meet. Yet, disappointed as we are in our researches, the mind gains strength by the exercise-sufficient, perhaps, to comprehend the answers which, in another step of existence, it may receive to the anxious questions it asked, when the pleadure understanding with feeble wing was fluttering round the visible effects to dive into the hidden cause. The passions also, the winds of life, would be useless, if not injurious, did the substance which composes our thinking being, after we have thought in vain, only become the support of vegetable life, and invigorate a cabbage or blush in a rose. The appetites would answer every earthly purpose, and produce more moderate and permanent happiness. But the powers of the soul, that are of little use here, and, prubably, disturb OUT animal enjoyments, even while conscious dignity makes us glory in possessing them, prove that life is merely an education, a state of infancy, to which the only hopes worth cherishing should not be sacrificed. I mean, therefore, to infer that we ought to have a precise idea of what we wish to attain by education, for the immortality of the soul is contradicted by the actions of many people who firmly profess the belief. If you mean to secure ease and prosperity on earth as the first consideration, and leave futurity to provide for itself, you act prudently in giving your child an early insight into the weaknesses of his nature. You may not, it is true, make an Inkle of him ; but do not imagine that he will stick to more than the letter of the law, who has very early imbibed a mean opinion of human nature ; nor will he think it necessary to rise much above the common standard. He may avoid gross vices, because honesty is the best policy; but he will never aim at attaining great virtues. The example of writers and artists will illustrate this remark. I must therefore venture to doubt whether what has been thought an axiom in morals may not have been a dogmatical assertion made by men who have coolly seen mankind through the medium of books, and say, in direct contradiction to them, that the regulation of the passions is not always wisdom. On the contrary, it should seem that one reason why men have superior judgment, and more fortitude than women, is undoubtedly this : that they give a freer scope to thegrand passions, and by more frcqucntly going astray cnlargc their minds. IZO YLVDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. If, then, by the exercise of their own’ reason, they fix on some stable principle, they have probably to thank the force of their passions, nourished by false views of life, and permitted to overleap the boundary that secures content. l3ut if, in thr. dawn of life, we could soberly survey the scenes before as in perspective, and see everything in its true colors, how could the passions gain sufficient strength to unfold the faculties ? Let me now, as from an eminence, survey the world stripped of all its false, delusive charms. The clear atmosphere enables me to see each object in its true point of view, while my heart is still. I am calm as the prospect in the morning when the mists, slowly dispersing, silently unveil the beauties of Nature, refreshed by rest. In what light will the world now appear? I rub my eyes and think, perchance, that I am just awakening from a lively dream. I see the sons and daughters of men pursuing shadows, and anxiously wasting their powers to. feed passions which have no adequate object-if the very excess of these blind impulses, pampered by that lying, yet constantly trusted, guide, the imagination, did not, by preparing them for some other state, render short-sighted mortals wiser without their own concurrence ; or, what comes to the same thing, when they were pursuing some imaginary present good. After viewing objects in this light, it would not be very fanciful to imagine that this world was a stage, on which a pantomime is daily performed for the amusement of superior beings. How would they be diverted to see the ambitious man consuming himself by running after a phantom, and “pursuing the bubble fame in the cannon’s mouth ” that was to blow him to nothing ; for when consciousness is lost, it matters not whcthcr we mount in a whirlwind or descend in And should they compassionately invigorate his sight, and rain. show him the thorny path which led to eminence, that, Iike a quicksand, sinks as he ascends, disappointing his hopes when almost within his grasp, would he not leave to others the honor of amusing them, and labor to secure the present moment, though, from the constitution of his nature, he would not find it very easy to catch the flying stream ? Such slaves are we to hope and fear ! But, vain as the ambitious man’s pursuits would be, 1~ is often striving for something more substantial than fame--that, indeed, would be the veriest meteor, the wildest fire that could lure a man to ruin. What ! renounce the most trifling gratification to be applauded when he should be no more! Wherefore this struggle, whether man be mortal or immortal, if that noble passion did not really raise the being above his feIlows? And love! What diverting scenes would it produce !-Pantaloon’s tricks must yield to more egregious folly! To see a mortal adorn an 1“ I find that all is but lip-wisdom which wants experience,” says Sidney. WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. I21 object with imaginary charms, and then fall down and worship the he had himself set up-how ridiculous ! But what serious consequences ensue to rob man of that portion of happiness which the Deity, by calling him into existence, has (or on what can his attributes rest ?) indubitably promised. Would not all the purposes of life have been much better fulfilled if he had only felt what has been termed physical love? And would not the sight of the object, not seen through the medium of imagination, soon reduce the passion to an appetite, if reflection, the noble distinction of man, did not give it force, and make it an instrument to raise him above this earthly dross, by teaching him to love the Centre of all Perfection-Whose wisdom appears ciea.rer and clearer in the works of Nature, in proportion as idol which reason is illuminated and exalted by contemplation-and by acquiring that love of order which the struggles of passion produce? The habit of reflection, and the knowledge attained by fostering any passion, might be shown to be equally useful, though the object be proved equally fallacious ; for they would all appear in the same light, if they were not magnified by the governing passion implanted in us by the Author of all Good, to call forth and strengthen the faculties of each individual, and enable it to attain all the experience that an infant can obtain, who does certain things, it cannot tell why. I descend from my height, and, mixing with my fellow-creatures, feel myself hurried along the common stream ; ambition, love, hope, and fear, exert their wonted power, though we be convinced by reason that their present and most attractive promises are only lying dreams; but had the cold hand of circumsp&ion damped each generous feeling before it had left any permanent character, or fixed some habit, what could be expected hut selfish prudence and reason just rising above instinct ? Who that has read Dean’ Swift’s disgusting description of the Yahoos, and insipid one of Houyhnhnm, with a philosophical eye, can avoid seeing the futility of degrading the passions, or making man rest in contentment? The youth should aci ; for had he the experience of a grey head he would be fitter for death than life, though his virtues, rather residing in his head than his heart, could produce nothing great, and his understanding, prepared For this world, would not, by its noble flights, prove that it had a title to a better. Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of life: he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother into vice. Those who are entering life, and those who are departing, see the world from such very different points of view that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of the foriner never attempted a solitary flight. When we hear of some daring crime, it crimes fnll on IIS in the 12 2 V.iVDlCA Y-ION OF TflE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. deepest shade of turpitude, and raises indignation ; but the eye that. gradually saw the darkness thicken, must observe it with more compassionate forbearance. The world cannot be seen by an unmoved spectator ; we must mix in the throng, and feel as men feel before we can judge of their feelings. If we mean, in short, to live in the world to grow wiser and better, and not merely to enjoy the good things CJf life, we must attain a knowledge of others at the same time that we become acquainted with ourselves ; knowledge acquired any other way only hardens the heart and pcrplcxcs the understanding. I may be told that the knowledge thus acquired is sometimes purchased at too dear a rate. I can only answer that j very much doubt whether auy knowledge can be attained without labor and sorrow; and those who wish to spare their children both, should not complain They only aimed at making if they are neither wise! nor virtuous. them prudent; and prudence, early in life, is but the cautious craft of ignorant self-love. I have observed that young people, to whose education particular attention has been paid, have, in general, been very superficial and conceited, and far from pleasing in any respect, because they had neither the unsuspecting warmth of youth, nor the cool depth of age. I cannot help imputing this unnatural appearance principally to that hasty, premature instruction which leads them presumptuouSly to repeat all the crude notions they have taken upon trust, so that the careful education which they received makes them all their lives the slaves of prejudices. Mental, as we11as bodily, exertion is, at first, irksome ; so much so, that the many would fain let others both work and think for them. An observation which I have often made will illustrate my meaning. When, in a circle of strangers or acquaintances, a person of moderate abilities asserts an opinion with heat, I will venture to affirm-for I have traced this fact home, very often-that it is a prejudice. These echoes have a high respect for the understanding of some relation or friend ; and without fully comprehending the opinions which they arc so eager to retail, they maintain them with a degree of obstinacy that would surprise even the person who concocted them. I know that a kind of fashion now prevails of respecting prejudices;. and when any one dares to face them, though actuated by humanity and armed by reason, he is superciliously asked whether his ancestors were fools. No, I should reply; opinions, at first, of every description, were all, probably, considered, and therefore were founded on some reason; yet not unfrequently, of course, it was rather a local expedient tban a fundamental principle that would be reasonable at But moss-covered opinions assume the disproportioned all times. form of prejudices, when they are indolently adopted only because age has given them a venerable aspect, though the reason on which WOMEN OBJECTS OF PITY. 123. they were built ceases to be a reason, or cannot be traced. Why are we to love prejudices, merely because they are prejudices?’ A prejudice is a fond, obstinate persuasion for which we can give no reason ;. for the moment a reason can be given for an opinion, it ceases to be a prejudice, though it may be an error in judgment : and are we then advised to cherish opinions only to set reason at defiance? This. mode of arguing, if arguing it may be called, reminds me of what is vulgarly termed a woman’s reason ; for women sometimes declare that they love, or believe, certain things, becausethey love or believe them. It is impossible to converse with people to any purpose who only use affirmatives and negatives. Before you can bring them to a point to start fairly from, you must go back to the simple principles that were antecedent to the prejudices broached by power; and it is ten to one but you are stopped by the philosophical assertion that certain principles are as practically false as they are abstractedly true.’ Nay,, it may be inferred that reason has whispered some doubts, for it generally happens that people assert their opinions with the greatest heat when they begin to waver ; striving to drive out their own doubts. by convincing their opponent, they grow angry when those gnawingdoubts are thrown back to prey bn themsclvcs. The fact is that men expect from education what education cannot. give. A sagacious parent or tutor may strengthen the body and sharpen the instruments by which the child is to gather knowledge ;, but the honey must be the reward of the individual’s own industry. It is almost as absurd to attempt to make a youth wise by the experience of another, as to expect the body to grow strong by thk, exercise which is only talked of or seen.’ Many of those children whose conduct has been most narrowly watched become the weakest men, because their instructors only instill certain notions into their minds that have no other foundation than their authurity ; and if they be loved or respected, the mind is cramped in its exertions and wavering in its advances. The business of education in this case is only to conduct,the shooting tendriIs to a proper pole ; vet, after laying precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgment itself,, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this borrowed, fallacious light as if they had illuminated it themselves, and he, when they cuter life, what their parents are at the close. They do not consider that the tree, and even the human body, does not strengthen itsfibres till it has reached its furl growth. There appears to be something analogous in the mind. The senses ’ Vide Mr. Burke. * “ Convince a man against his will, I Ie’s of the same opinion still.” a “ One sees nothing when one is c&tent to contemplate act one’s self to be able to see how others act.“-A’ozmmu. only ; it is necessary to and the imagination give a form to the character during childhood and youth ; and the understanding, as life advances, gives firmness to the first fair purposes of sensibility ; till virtue arising rather from the clear conviction of reason than the impulse of the heart, morality is made to rest on a rock against which the storms of passion vainly beat. I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say that religion will not have this condensing energy unless it be founded on reason. If it be merely the refuge of weakness or wiId farlaticism, and not a governing principle of conduct drawn from self-knowledge, and a rational opinion respecting the attributes of God, what can it be ex.pected to produce ? The religion which consists in warming the affections and exalting the imagination is only the poetical part, and may afford the individual pleasure without rendering it a more moral being. It may be a substitute for WQrldly pursuits, yet narrow instead of enlarging the heart ; but virtue must be loved as in itself sublime and excellent, and not for the advantages it procures vr the evils it averts, if any great degree of excellence be expected. Men will not become moral when they only build airy castles in a future world to compensate for the disappointments which they meet with in this-if they turn their thoughts from relative duties to religious reveries. Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling, wnrldly wisdom of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon, endeavor to blend contradictory things. If you wish to make your son rich, pursue one course ; if you are only anxious to make him virtuous, you must take another ; but do not imagine that you can bound .from one road to the other without losing your way.’ CHAPTER THE EFFECT WHICH AN EARLY THE VI. ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS HAS UPON CHARACTER. DUCATED in the enervating style recommended by the writers on whom I have bee11 animadverting, and not having a chance, from their subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is ,it surprising that women everywhere appear a defect in Nature? Is it surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their understandings and turn al1 their attention to their persons? The great advantages which naturaIly result from storing the mind The with knowledge are obvious from the following considerations. E 1Seean excellent essay on this subject, by in Prose.” hers. Barbauld, in “ Miscellaneous Pieces EFFECT OF EARLY ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 125 association of our ideas is either habitual or instantaneous, and the latter mode seems rather to depend on the original temperature of the mind than on the will. When the ideas and matters of fact are once taken in, they lie by for use till some fortuitous circumstance makes the information dart into the mind with illustrative force that has been received at very different periods of our lives. Like the lightning’s flash are many recollections, one idea assimilating and explammg another with astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to that quick perception of truth which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power ; for when reflectiun, the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights or proCou~~d the raw materials will in some degree arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts or transcribe from the imagination the warm sketches of fancy; but the animal spirits, the individual character, give the coloring. Over this subtile electric fluid’ how little power do we possess, and over it how little power can reason obtain ! These fine intractable spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and, beaming in its eagle eye, produce in the most eminent degree the happy energy of associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their fellow-creatures, forcing them to view with interest the objects reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over in Nature. I must be allowed to explain myself. The generality of people cannot see or feel poetically-they want fancy-and therefore fly from solitude in search of sensible objects; but when an author lends them his eyes, they can see as he saw, and be amused by images they could not select, though lying before them. Educaliorl thus only supplies the man of gemus with knowledge to give variety and contrast to his associations; but there is an habitual association of. ideas that grows (‘ with our growth,” which has a great effect on the moral character of mankind, and by which a turn is given to the mind that commonly remains throughout life. So ductile is the understanding, and yet so stubborn, that the associations which depend on adventitious circumstances, during the period that the body takes to arrive at maturity, can seIdom be disehtangled by reason. One idea calls up another, its old associate ; and memory, faithful ’ I have sometimes,when inclined to laugh at materialists, asked whether, as the most powerful effects in Nature are apparently produced by fluids, the magnetic, etc., the passionsmight not be fine volatile fluids that embraced humanity, keeping the more refractory elementary parts together-or whether they were simply a liquid fire that pervaded the more sluggish material<, giving them life and heat? .to first impressions, particularly when the intellectual powers are not employed to cool our sensations, retraces them with mechanical exactness. This habitual slavery to first impressions has a more baneful effect ton the female than the male character, because business and other dry employments of the understanding tend to deaden the feelings .and break associations that do violence to reason. But females, who are made women of when they are mere children, and brought back to childhood when they ought LU leave the go-cart for ever, have not :sufficient strength of mind to efface the superinductions of Art that have smothered Nature. Everything they see or hear serves to fix impressions, calls forth emotions; and associates ideas that give a sexual character to the mind. False notions of beauty and delicacy stop the growth of their .limbs, and produce a sickly soreness rather than delicacy of, organs ; and thus weakened by being employed in unfolding, instead of examining, the first associations forced on them by every surrounding abject, how can they attain the vigor necessary to enable them to throw off their factitious character? Where find strength to recur to reason, and rise superior to a system of oppression that blasts the fair promises of spring ? This cruel association of ideas which everything conspires to twist into all their habits of thinking, or, to speak with more precision, of feeling, receives new force when they begin to act a little for themselves, for they then perceive that it is only through their address to excite emotions in men, that pleasure and power are to be obtained. Beside, the books professedly written for their instruction, which make the first impression on their minds, all inculcate the same opinions. Educated, then, in worse than Egyptian bondage, it is unreasonable, as well as cruel, to upbraid them with faults that can scarcely be avoided, unless a degree of native vigor ‘be supposed that falls to the lot of very few amongst mankind. For instance, the severest sarcasms have been leveled agaiust the sex, and they have been ridiculed for rcpcating “a set of phrases learned by rote,” when nothing could be more natural, considering the education they receive, and that their “highest praise is to obey unargued ” the will of man. If they be not’alIowed to have reason sufficient to govern their own conduct, why, all they learn must be learned by rote. And when all their ingenuity is called forth to adjust their dress, (‘a passion for a scarlet coat” is so natural that it never surprised me ; and, allowing Pope’s summary of their character to be just, “that every woman is at heart a rake,” why should they be bitterly censured for seeking a congenial mind, and preferring a rake to a man of sense ? Rakes know how to work on their sensibility; while the modest merit of reasonable men has, of course, less effect on their feelings ; EFFECT OF EARLY.ASSOCIATIOiV OF IDEAS. 127 and they cannot reach the heart by the way of the uaderstanding, because they have few sentiments in common. It seems a little absurd to expect women to be more reasonable than men in their Zikings, and still to deny them the uncontrolled use ,of reason. When do men faJ’I i?i ZOTX with sense? When do they, with their superior powers and advantages, turn from the person to the mind ? And how can they, then, expect women, who are only taught to .observe behavior and acquire manners rather than morals, to despise what they have been all their lives laboring to attain? Where are they suddenly to find judgment enough to weigh patiently the sense of an awkward, virtuous man, when his manners, of which they are made critical judges, are rebuffing, and his conversation cold and .&ill, because it does not consist of pretty repartees or well-turned compliments? In order to admire or esteem anything for a continuance, we must at least have our curiosity excited by knowing in some .degree what we admire; for we are unable to estimate the value of qualities and virtues above our comprehension. Such a respect, when it is felt, may be very sublime; and the confused consciousness of humility may render the dependent creature an interesting object in some points of view ; but human love must have grosser ingredients, .aml the person very naturally will cumt: in for its share-and an ample share it mostly has. Love is, in a great degree, an arbitrary passion, and will reign, like some other stalking mischiefs, by its own authority, without deigning to reason ; and it may also be easily distinguished from esteem-the foundation of friendship-because it is often excited hy evanescent beauties and graces ; though, to give an energy to the sentiment, .something more solid must deepen their impression and set the imagination to work to make the most fair-the first good. Men look for Common passions are excited by common qualities. .beauty and the simper of good-humored docility, women are captivated by easy manners ; a gentlemanlike man seldom fails to please -them, and their thirsty ears eagerly drink the insinuating nothings of politeness, while they turn from the unintelligible sounds of the charmer-reason, charm he never so wisely. With respect to superficial accomplishments the rake certainly has the advantage, and of these females can form an opinion, for it is their own ground. Ren.dered gay and giddy by the whole tenor of their lives, the very aspect of wisdom or the severe graces of virtue must have .a lugubrious appearance to them, and produce a kind of restraint from which they and love, sportive child, naturally revolt. Without taste, excepting of the lighter kind-for taste is the offspring of judgment-how can they discover that true beauty and grace must arise from the play of the mind ? And how can they be expected to relish in a lover what they do not, or very imperfectly, possess themselves ? The sympathy that unites hearts and invites to confidence in them is so very faint, that it cannot take fire and thus mount to passion. No, I repeat it, the love cherished by such minds must have grosser fuel ! The inference is obvious : till women are led to exercise their understandings they should not be satirized for their attachment to rakes, or even for being rakes at heart, when it appears to be the inevitable consequence of their education. They who live to please must find their enjoyments, their happiness, in pleasure ! It is a trite yet true remark that WC never do anything well unless we love it for its own sake. Supposing, however, for a moment, .that women were, in some future revolution of time, to become what I sincerely wish them to be, even love would acquire more serious dignity and be purified in its own fires; and virtue, giving true delicacy to their afleccions, they would turn with disgust from a rake, Reasoning, then, as well as feeling-the only province of woman at present-they might easily guard against exterior graces, and quickly learn to despise the sensibility that had been excited and hackneyed in the ways of women, whose trade was vice and allurements wanton airs. They would recollect that the flame-one must use appropriated expressionswhich they wished to light up had been exhausted by lust, and that the sated appetite, losing all relish for pure and simple pleasures, could only be roused by licentious arts or variety. What satisfaction could a woman of delicacy promise herself in a union with such a man, when the very artlessness of her affection might appear insipid ? Thus does Dryden describe the situation : *‘ Where love is duty on the f~rnale side, surly pride.” On theirs, mere sensual gust, and sought with But one grand truth women have yet to learn, though much it imIn the choice of a husband they ports them to act accordingly. should not be led astray by the qualities of a lover-for a lover the husband, even supposing him to be wise and virluous, cannot long remain. Were women more rationally educated, could they take a more comprehensive view uf things, they would be contented to love but once in their lives, and after marriage calmly let passion subside into, friendship-into that tender intimacy which is the best refuge from care, yet is built on such pure, still affections, that idle jealousies. would not be allowed to disturb the discharge of the sober duties of life, or to engross the thoughts that ought to be otherwise employed. This is a state in which many men live, but few, very few, women. And the difference may easily be accounted for without recurring to a sexual character. Men, for whom we are told women were made, have too much occupied the thoughts of women, and this association EFFECT OF EARLY ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 129 has so entangled love with all their motives of action-and, to harp a little on an old string, having been solely employed either to prepare themselves to excite love, or actually putting their lessons in practice-they cannot live without love. But when a sense of duty or fear of shame obliges them to restrain this pampered desire of pleasing beyond certain lengths-too far for delicacy, it is true, though far from criminaIity-they obstinately determine to love (I speak of the passion) their husbands to the end of the chapter ; and then, acting the part which they foolishly exacted from their lovers, they become abject wooers and fond slaves. Men of wit and fancy are often rakes ; and fancy is the food of love. Such men will inspire passion. Half, the sex, in its present infantine state, would pine for a L,ovelace-a man so witty, so graceful and so valiant ; and can they deserve blame for acting according to principles so constantly inculcated? They want a lover and pro- tector, and behold him kneeling before them-bravery prostrate’ to beauty ! The virtues of a husband are thus thrown by love into the background, and gay hopes or lively emotions banish reflection till the day of reckoning come ; and come it surely will, to turn the sprightly lover into a surly, suspicious tyrant, who contemptuously insults the very weakness he fostered. Or, supposing the rake re-. formed, he cannot quickly get rid of old habits. When a man of abilities is first carried away by his passions, it is necessary that sentiment and taste varnish the enormities of vice and &!I!! 2 z&t’tc3 tlrtital indulgences palls upon ; but when the gloss of novelty is worn off, and pleasure becomes barefaced and enjoyment the sense, laxiviousness only the desperate effort of weakness flying from reflection as from a legion of devils. 0 virtue ! thou art not an empty name ! All that life can give thou givest ! If much comfort cannot be expected from the friendship of a rake of superior abilities, what is the cnnseqnence when he lacketh sense as well as principles? Verily, misery in its most hideous shape ! When the habits of weak people are consohdated by time, a reformation is barely possible, and actually makes the beings miserable who not sufficient mind to be amused by innocent pleasure, like the tradesman who retires from the hurry of business; Nature presents to them only a universal blank, and the restless thoughts prey on the damped spirits.’ Their reformation, as well as his retirement, actually makes them wretched, because it deprives them of all employment have t I have frequently seen this exemplified in women whose beauty couId no longer he repaired. They have retired from the noisy scenes of dissipation ; but, unless they become Methodists, the solitude of the select society of their family connections or acquaintance has presented only a fearful void ; consequently, nervous complaints, and al1 the vaporish train of idleness, rendered them quite as useless,and far more unhappy, than when they joined the giddy throng. 130 VINIIICA TION OI; liyi? RIGHTS OF WOMAN. by quenching the hopes and fears that set in motion their sluggish minds. If such be the force of habit, if such be the bondage of folly, how carefully ought we to guard the mind from storing up vicious associations ; and equally careful should we be to cultivate the understanding, to save the poor wight from the weak, dependent state of even harmless ignorance ! For it is the right use of reason alone which makes us independent of everything-excepting the unclouded reason -“ whose service is perfect freedom.” CHAPTER ?dODESTY-COMPREHENSIVELY VII. CONSIDERED, AND NOT AS A SEXUAL VIRTUE. M ODESTY! Sacred offspring of sensibility and reason !-true delicacy of mind !-may I unblamed piesume to investigate thy nature, and trace to its covert the mild charm that, mellowing each harsh feature of a character, renders what wnuld otherwise only inspire cold admiration-lovely ? Thou that smoothest the wrinkles of wisdom, and softenest the tone of the sublimest virtues till they all melt into humanity ; thou that spreadest the, ethereal cloud that, surrounding love, heightens every beauty it half shades, breathing those coy sweets that steal into the heart and charm the senses-modulate for me the language of persuasive reason, till I rouse my sex from the flowery bed on which they supinely sleep life away! In speaking of the association of our ideas, I have noticed two distinct modes ; and in defining modesty, it appears to me equally proper to discriminate that purity of mind, which is the effect of charity, from a simplicity of character that leads us to form a just opinion of ourselves, equally distant from vanity or presumption, though by no means incompatible with a lofty consciousness of our Modesty, in the latter signification of the term, is that own dignity. soberness of mind which teaches a man not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, and should be distinguished from humility, because humility is a kind of self-abasement. A modest man often conceives a great plan, and tenaciously adheres to it, conscious of his own strength, till success gives it a sanction that determines its character. Milton was not arrogant when he suffered a suggestion of judgment to escape him that proved a prophecy; nor was General Washington when he accepted of the command of the American forces. The latter has always been char- MODESTY-COMPRE2TENSIVELY CONSIDERED. 131 acterized as a modest man ; but had he been merely humble he would probably have shrunk back irresolute, afraid of trusting to himself the direction of an enterprise on which so much depended. A modest man is steady, an hhmble man timid, and a vain one prewhich the .observation of many sumptuous ; this is the judgment Jesus Christ was modest, Moses was characters has led me to form. humble, arid Peter vain. Thus, discriminating modesty from humility in one case, I do not mean to confound it with bashfulness in the other. Bashfulness, in fact, is so distinct from modesty, that the most bashful lass, or raw, country lout, often become the most impudent ; for their bashfulness being merely the instinctive timidity of ignorance, custom soon changes it into assurance.’ The shameless behavior of the prostitutes who infest the streets of this metropolis, raising alternate emotions of pity and disgust, may They trample on virgin bashfulness serve to illustrate this remark. in their shame, become more with a sort of bravado ; and, glorying audaciously lewd than men, however depraved, to whom this sexual quality has not been gratuitously granted, ever appear to be. But these poor ignorant wretches never had any modesty to lose when they consigned themselves to infamy; for modesty is a virtue, not a quality. No ; they were only bashful, shame-faced innocents ; and losing their innocence, their shame-facedness was rudely brushed off ; a virtue would have left some vestiges in the mind, had it been sacrificed to passion, to make us respect the grand ruin. Purity of mind, or that genuine delicacy which is the only virtuous support of chastity, is near akin to that refinement of humanity which never resides in any but cultivated minds. It is something nobler than innocence ; it is the delicacy of reflection, and not the coyness of ignorance. The reserve of reason, which, like habitual cleanliness, is seldom seen in any great degree unless the soul is active, may easily be distinguished from rustic shyness or wanton skittishness ; and, so far from being incompatible with knowledge, it is its fairest fruit. What a gross idea of modesLy had t.11~ writer UT the fullwwirlg remark: <‘The lady who asked the question whether women may be instructed in the modern system of botany, consistently with female delicacy, 1 4‘ ‘Such is the country maiden’s fright, When first a red-coat is in sight, Behind the door she hides her face : Next time at distance eyes the lace ; She now can all his terrors stand, Nor from his squeeze withdraws her hand. She plays familiar in his arms, And ev’ry soldier hath his charms ; From tent to tent she spreads her flame ; For custom conquers fear and shame.“-Gq. I32 VIiVBlCA TIOiV OF THYi. RIGHTS OF WOMAN. was accused of ridiculous prudery; nevertheless, if she had proposed the question to me, I should certainly have answered : 4They cannot ! ’ ” Thus is the fair book of knowledge to be shut with an everlasting seal. On reading familiar passages I have reverentially lifted up my eyes and heart to Him who liveth for ever and ever, and said : “ 0 my Father, hast Thou by’the very constitution of her nature forbid Thy child to seek Thee in the fair forms of truth? And can her soul be sullied by the knowledge that awfully calls her to Thee? ” I have, then, philosophically pursued these retlections till I inferred that those women who have most improved their reason must have the most modesty-though a dignified sedateness of deportment may have succeeded the playful, bewitching bashfulness of youth.’ And thus have I argued. To render chastity the virtue from which unsophisticated modesty will naturally Aow, the attention should be called away from employments which only exercise the sensibility ; and the heart made to beat time to humanity, rather than to throb with love. The woman whu has dedicated a considerable portion of her time to pursuits purely intellectual, and whose affections have been exercised by humane plans of usefulness, must have more purity of mind, as a natural consequence, than the ignorant beings whose time and thoughts have been occupied by gay pleasures or schemes to, of the behavior is not modesty ; conquer hearts:’ The regulation though those who study rules of decorum are, in general, termed modest women. Make the heart clean, let it expand and feel for all that is human, instead of being narrowed by selfish passions ; and let the mind frequently contemplate subjects that exercise the understanding without heating the imagination ; and artless modesty will give the finishing touches to the picture. She who can discern the dawn of immortality in the streaks that shoot athwart the misty night of ignorance, promising a clearer day, will respect, as a sacred temple, the body that enshrines such an improvable soul. True love, likewise, spreads this kind of mysterious sanctity round the bclovcd object, mal&g the lover most modest J Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity ; bashfulness the charm of vivac- ious youth. s I have conversed, as man with man, with medical men on anatomical subjects ; and compared the proportions of the human body with artists-yet such modesty did I meet with, that I was never reminded by word or look of my sex, of the absurd rules which make modesty a Pharisaical cloak of weakness. And I am persuaded that in the pursuit of knowledge, women would never be insulted by sensible men, and rarely by men of any description, if they did not by mock modesty remind them that they were women : actuated by the same spirit as the Portuguese ladies, who would think their charms insulted if, when left alone with a man, he did not at least attempt to be grossly familiar with their persons. Men are not always *men in the company of women ; nor would women always remember that they are women, if they were allowed to acquire more understanding. MODESTY-COMPREHEI?SIVEL when in her presence.’ returning personal Y CONSIDERED. So reserved is affection endearments, it wishes nnt only 133 that, receiving to shun or the human ,eye as a kind of profanation, but to diffuse an encircling, cloudy obscurity to shut out even the saucy, sparkling sunbeams. Yet that affection does not deserve the epithet of chaste which does not receive a sublime gloom of tender melancholy, that allows the mind for .a moment to stand still and enjoy the present satisfaction, when a ,consciousness of the Divine presence is felt-for this must ever be the food of joy! As I have always been fond of tracing to its source in Nature any prevailing custom, I have frequently thought that it was a sentiment sf affection for whatever had touched the person of an absent or lost friend, which gave birth to that respect for relics so much abused by :selfish priests. Devotion, or love, may be allbwed to hallow the garments as well as the person ; for the lover must want fancy who has not a sort of sacred respect for the glove or slipper of his mistress. He could not confound them with vulgar things of the same kin{! ‘This fine sentiment, perhaps, would not bear to be analyzed by the experimental philosopher-but of such stuff is human rapture made up ! A shadowy phantom glides before us, obscuring every other object ; yet when the soft cloud is grasped, the form melts into com- mon air, leaving a solitary void, or sweet perfume stolen from the violet, that memory long holds dear. But I have tripped unawares on fairy, ground, feeling the balmy gale of Spring stealing on me, though November frowns. As a sex, women are more chaste than men ; and, as modesty is the effect of chastity, lhey may deserve to have this virtue ascribed to them in rather an appropriate sense ; yet I must be allowed to add an hesitating if, for I doubt whether chastity will produce modesty, though it may propriety of conduct, when it is merely a respect for the opinion of the world,’ and when coquetry and the love-lorn tales of novelists employ the thoughts. Nay, from experience and reason, I should be led to expect to meet with more modesty among men than women, simply because men exercise their understandings more than women. But with respect to propriety of behavior, excepting one class of females, women have evidently the advantage. What can be more disgusting than the impudent dress of gallantry, thought so manly, which makes many men stare insultingly at every female they meet ? Can it be termed respect for the sex ? No ; this loose behavior shows such habitual depravity, such weakness of mind, that it is vain to expect much public or private virtue till both men and women grow ’ Male or female : for the world contains many modest men. p The immodest behavior of many married women, who are nevertheless faithful to their husbands’ beds. will illustrate this remark. 134 YIAJL’ICA TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. more modest-til1 men, curbing a sensual fondness for the sex, or an affectation of manly assurance-more properly speaking, impudence -treat each other with respect-unless appetite or passion give the tone, peculiar to it, to their behavior. 1 mean even personal respectthe modest respect of humanity and fellow-feeling-not the libidinous mockery of gallantry, nor the insolent condescension of protectorship. To carry the observation still further, modesty must heartily disclaim and refuse to dwell with that debauchery of mind which Ieads a man coolly to bring forward, without a blush, indcccnt allusions, or obscene witticisms, in the presence of a fellow-creature-women are now out of the question, for then it is brutality. Respect for man, as, man, is the foundation of every noble sentiment. How much more modest is the libertine, who obeys the call of appetite or fancy, than the lewd joker who sets the table in a roar ? This is one of the many instances in which the sexual distinction respecting modesty has proved fatal to virtue and happiness. It is, however, carried still further ; and woman, weak woman ! made by her education the slave of sensibility, is required, on the most trying “Can anything,” says ISnox, occasions, to resist that sensibility. “be more absurd than keeping women in a state of ignorance, and yet so vehemently to insist on their resisting temptation ?” Thus, when virtue or honor make it proper to check a passion, the burden is thrown on the weaker shoulders, contrary to reason and true modesty, which, at least, should render the self-denial mutual, to say nothing of the generosity of bravery supposed to be a manly virtue. In the same strain runs Rousseau’s and Dr. Gregory’s advice respecting modesty-strangely miscalled ; for they both desire a wife to leave it in doubt whelher sensibiIity or weakness led her to her husband’s arms. The woman is immodest who can let the shadow of such a doubt remain in her husband’s mind a moment. But to state the subject in a different light. The want of modesty which I principally deplore as subversive of morality, arises from the state of warfare so strenuously supported hy voluptuous men as the very essence of modesty, though in fact its bane ; because it is a re- finement on lust that men fall into who have not sufficient virtue to relish the innocent notions of modesty A man of delicacy carries his pIeasul-es UT luve. still further, for neither weakness nor sensibility will gratify him-he looks for affection. Again, men boast of their triumphs over women. What do they boast of ? TruIy, the creature of sensibility was surprised by her sensibility into folly-into vice ; ’ and the dreadful reckoning falls heavily on her weak head when reason wakes. For, where art thou to find comfort, forlorn and disconsolate one? He who ought to have directed thy reason and supported thy weakness, has betrayed 1 The poor moth, fluttering round a candle, burns its wings. thee ! In a dream of passion thou consented to wander through flowery lawns ; and, heedlessly stepping over-the precipice to which thy guide, instead of guarding, lured thee, thou startest from thy dream only to face a sneering, frowning world, and to find thyself alone in a waste ; for he that triumphed in thy weakness is now pursuing new conquests? but for thee there is no r.edemption on this side the grave ! And what resource hast thou in an enervated mind to rsisc a sinking he&t ? Eut if the sexes be really to live in a state of warfare, if Nature have pointed it out, let them act nobly, or let pride whisper to them that the victory is mean when they merely vanquish sensibility. The real conquest is that over affection not taken by surprise-when, like Heloisa, a woman gives up all the world, deliberately, for love. I do not now consider the wisdom or virtue of such a sacrifice ; I only contencl that it was a sacrifice to affection and not merely to sensibility, though she had her share. And I must be allowed to call her a modest woman, before I dismiss this part of the subject by saying, that till men are more chaste women will be immodest. Where, indeed, could modest womeu find husbands from whom they would not continually turn with disgust ? Modesty must be equally cultivated by both sexes, or it will ever remain a sickly hot-house plant ; while the affectation of it, the fig leaf borrowed by wantonness, may give a zest to voluptuous enjoyments. Men will probably still insist that woman ought to have more modesty than man, but it is not dispassionate reasoners who wil1 most earnestly oppose my opinion. No; they are the men of fancy, the favorites of the sex, who outwardly respect and inwardly despise the weak creatures whom they thus sport with. They caynot submit to resign the highest sensual gratification, nor even to rehsh the epicurism of virtue-self-denial. To take another view of the subject, confining my remarks to women. The ridiculous’ falsities which are told to children from mistaken notions of modesty, tend very early to inflame their imaginations and set their little minds to world respecting subjects which Nature never intended they should think of till the body arrived at some degree of ’ Children very early see cats with their kittens, birds with their you~,~g ones, etc. \Vhy, then, are they not to be told that their mothers carry and nourish them in the same way? As there would, then, be no appearance of mystery, they would never think of the subject more. Truth may always be told to children, if it he told gravely : but it is the immodesty of affected modesty that does all the mischief ; and this smoke heats the imagination by vainly endeavoring to obscure certain objects. If, indeed, children could be kept entirely from improper company, we should never aliude to any such subjects ; but, as this is impossible, it is best to tell them the truth, especially as such information, not interesting them, will make no impression on their imagination. 136 v~h?D.K’ TIOiV 03 THE RIGHTS OI;: WOMAN. maturity ; then the passions naturaIly begin to take place of the senses as instrumentsto unfold the understanding and form the moral character. In nurseries and boarding-schools I fear girls are first spoiled-particularly in the latter. A number of girls sleep in the same room and And though I should be sorry to contaminate an wash together. innocent creature’s mind byinstilling false delicacy or those indecent prudish notions which early cautions respecting the other sex naturally engender, I should be very anxious to prevent their acquiring nasty or immodest habits ; and as many girls have learned very nasty tricks from ignorant servants, the mixing them thus indiscriminately together is very improper. To say the truth, women are in general too familiar with each other, which leads to that gross degree of familiarity that so frequently renders the uarriage state unhappy. Why, in the name of decency, are sisters, female intimates, or ladies and their waiting-women, to be so grossly familiar as to forget the respect which one human creature owes to another ? That squeamish delicacy which shrinks from the most disgusting offices when affection’ or humanity leads us to watch at a sick pillow, is despicable. But why women in health should be more familiar with each other than men are, when they boast of their superior delicacy, is a solecism in manners which I could never solve. In order to preserve health and beauty, I should earnestly recommend frequent ablutions, to dignify my advice that it may not offend the fastidious ear ; and by example girls ought to be taught to wash and dress alone without any distinction of rank ; and if custom should make them require some little assistance, let them not require it till that part of the business is over which ought never tu be done before a fellow-creature; because it is an insult to the majesty of human nature. Not on the score of modesty, but decency ; for the care which some modest women take, making at the same time a display of that care, not to let their legs be seen, is as childish as immodest.’ 1 could proceed still further, till I animadverted on some still more nasty customs, which men never fall into. Secrets are told, where which su~ne silence ought to reign ; and that regard to cleanliness, religious sects have, perhaps, carried too far-especially the Essenes among the Jews-by making that an insult to God which is only an insult to humanity, is violated in a beastly manner. How can delic~fc * AtTection would rather make one choose to perform these offices to spare the deliby still keeping a veil over them, for the personal helpfulness produced by sickness is of an humbling nature. s I remember to have met with a sentence in a book of education that made me smile : “ It wouId be needless to caution you against putting your hand, by chance, under your neck-handkerchief ; for a modest woman never did so ! ” cacy of aifricnd I~IO~ESTY-COMPRE~~~S~~E~ Y COiVSIDERED. I 37 women obtrude on notice that part of the animal economy whidh isso very disgusting? And is it not very rational to conclude that lht: women who have not been taught to respect the human nature of their own sex in these particulars, will not long respect the mere difference of sex in their husbands? After their maidenish bashfulness is once lost, I, in fact, have generally observed that women fall into old habits, and treat their husbands as they did their sisters or female .acquaintance. Besides, women, from necessity, because their minds are not cultivated, have recourse very often to what I familiarly term bodily wit ; and their intimacies are of the same kind. In short, with respect to both mind and body, they are too intimate. That decent personal .rescrve which is tlrt: foundation of dignity of character, must be kept up between woman and woman, or their minds will never gain strength or modesty. On this account, also, I object to many females being shut up together in nurseries, schools, or convents. I cannot recollect without indignation the jokes and hoiden tricks which knots of young women indulged themselves in, when, in my youth, accident threw me, an awkward rustic, in their way. They were almost on a par with the double meanings which shake the convivial table when the glass has circulated freely. But it is vain to attempt to keep the heart pure unless the head is furnished with ideas, and set to work to compare them, in order to acquire judgment, by generalizing simple ones ; and modesty, by making the understanding damp the sensibility. It may be thought that I lay tnn great a stress on personal rcscrve; but it is ever the handmaid of modesty; so that were I to name the graces that ought to adorn beauty, I should instantly exclaim, cleanliness, neatness, and personal reserve. It is obvious, I suppose, that the reserve I mean has nothing sexual in it, and that I think it epzcaCCy necessary in both sexes. So necessary, indeed, is that reserve and cleanliness which indolent women too often neglect, that I will venture to affirm that when two or three women live in the same house, the one wili be tnost respected by the male part of the family who resides with them, leaving Iove enti?eIy out of the question, who pays this kind of habitual respect to her person. When domestic friends meet in the morning, there will naturally .prevail an affectionate seriousness, especially if each look forward to the discharge of daily duties ; and it may be reckoned fanciful, but this sentiment has frequently risen spontaneously in my mind : I have been pleased, after breathing the sweet, bracing morning air, to see the same kind of freshness in the countenances I particularly loved ; I was glad to see them braced, as it were, for the day, and ready to run their course with the sun. The greetings of affection in the morning are by these mcnns more resprctlul than the familiar tenderness which frequently prolongs the evening talk. Nay, I have often felt hurt, not to say disgusted, when a friend has appeared, whom I parted with full dressed the evening before, with her clothes huddled on, be-cause she chose to indulge herself in bed till the last moment. Domestic affection can only be kept alive by these neglected attentions; yet if men and women took half as much pains to dress habitually neat as they do to ornament, or rather to disfigure, their persons, much would be done toward the attainment of purity of mind. But women only dress to gratify men of gallantry ; for the lover is always. best pleased with the simple garb that fits close to the shape. There is an impertinence in ornaments that rebuffs affection, because love al’ways clings round the idea of home. As a sex, women are habitually indolent ; and everything tends to make them so. I do not forget the spurts of activity which sensibilityproduces ; but as these flights of feelings only increase the evil. they are not to be confounded with the slow, orderly walk of reason. Sol great, in reality, is their mental and hodily indolence, that till their body be strengthened and their understanding enlarged by active exertions, there is little reason to expect that modeSty will take place of bashfulness. They may find it prudent to assume its semblance ; but the fair veil will only be worn on gala days, Perhaps there is not a virtue that mixes so kindly with every other as modesty. It is the pale moonbeam that renders more interesting every virtue it softens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted horizon.. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction which makes Diana, with her silver crescent, the goddess of chastity. I have sometimes thought that, wandering with sedate step in some lonely dame of antiquity must have felt a glow of conscious recess, a 11~odesL dignity when, after contemplating the soft, shadowy landscape, she has invited with placid fervor the mild reflection of her sister’s beams to turn to her chaste bosom. A Christian has still nobler motives to incite her to preserve her rhastity and acquire modesty, for her body has been called the Temple of the Living God--of that God who requires more than modesty of mien. His eye searcheth the heart ; and let her remember, that if she hupt: to fired favor in the sight of purity itself, her chastity must be founded on modesty, and not on worldly prudence ; or, verily, a good reputation will be her only reward ; for that awful intercourse, that sacred communication, which virtue establishes between man and his. Maker, must give rise to the wish of being pure as He is pure ! ,\fter the foregoing remarks it is almost superfluous to add that I consider all those feminine airs of maturity which succeed bashfulness-to which truth is sacrificed to secure the heart of a husband, or, rather, to force him to be still a lover when Nature would, had shenot been interrupted in her operations, have made love give place to friend-- MODESTY-COMPREHENSZVELY CONSZDERED. 139 ship-as immodest. The tenderness which a man will feel for the mother of his children is an excellent substitute for the ardor of unsatisfied passion ; but to prolong that ardor it is indelicate, not to say immodest, for women to feign an unnatural coldness of constitution. Women as well as men ought to have the common appetites and passions of their nature, they are only brutal when unchecked by reason; but the obligation to check them is the duty of mankind, not a sexual duty. Nature, in these respects, may safely be left to herself ; let women only acquire knowledge and humanity, and love will teach, them modesty.’ There is no need of falsehoods, disgusting as futile, for studied rules of behavior only impose on shallow observers ; a man. of sense soon sees through and despises the affectation. The behavior of young people to each other, as men and women, is the last thing that should be thought of in education. In fact, behavior in most circllmstances is now so much thought of, that sim-plicity of character is rarely to be seen ; yet if men were only anxious. to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly in the mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exterior mark, would soon strip affectation of its flaunting plumes ; because fallacious as unstable is the conduct that is not founded upon truth! Would ye, 0 my &Lers, really possess modesty, ye must rememberthat the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible, with ignorance and vanity ! Ye must acquire that soberness of mind which the exercise of duties and the pursuit of knowledge alone inspire, or ye will still remain in a doubtful, dependent situation, and Th? downcast eye, the rosy blush, onIy be loved while ye are fair! the retiring grace, are all proper in their season; but modesty, beingthe child of reason, cannot long exist with the sensibiIity that is not tempered by reflection. Beside, when Iove, even innocent love, is the, whole employ of your lives, your hearts will be too soft to afford modesty that tranquil retreat where she delights to dwell, in close union with humanity. 1 The behavior of many newly married women has often nnxious x~ver to let their husbands forget lhr. privilege clis@stedme. They seem of marriage, and to find no pleasure in his society unless he is acting the lover. Short, indeed, must be the reign of love when the flame is thus constantly blown up, without its receiving any solid fuel ! 140 VINDICA TloN OI; THE KIGHTS CHAPTER MORALITY UNDERMINED BY A SEXUAL GOOD OI; WOMAN. VIII. NOTIONS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF REPUTATION. T has long since occurred to me that advice respecting behavior, and all the various modes of preserving a good reputation, which I have been so strenuously inculcated on the female world, were specious poisons, that, incrusting morality, eat away the substance; and that this measuring of shadows produced a false calculation, because their length depends so much on the height of the sun, and other adventitious circumstances. Whence arises the easy, fallacious behavior of a courtier? From his situation, undoubtedly ; for, standing in need of dependents, he is *obliged to learn the. art of denying without giving offense, and of .evasively feeding hope with the chameleon’s food : thus does politeness sport with truth, and, eating away the sincerity and humanity natural to man, produce the fine gentleman. Women likewise acquire, from a supposed necessity, an equally artificial mode of behavior. Yet truth is not with impunity to be sported with, for the practiced dissembler at last becomes the dupe of his own arts, loses that sagacity which has been justly termed common sense, namely, a quick perception of common truths ; which are constantly received as such by the unsophisticated mind, though it might not have had sufficient energy to discover them itself, when #obscured by local prejudices. *The greater number of people take their opinions on trust to avoid the trouble of exercising their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the letter rather than the spirit of, a law, divine or human. “Women,” says some author, I cannot recollect who, “mind not what only heaven sees.” Why, indeed, should they? It is the eye of man that they have been taught to dread-and if they can 1~11their Argus to sleep, they sel.dom think of heaven OI- ~l~n~selves, because their reputation is safe; and it is reputation, not chastity and all its fair train, that they are ,employed to keep free from spot, not as a virtue, but to preserve their station in the world. To prove the truth of this remark, I need only advert to the intrigues of married women, particularly in high life, and in countries where women are suitably married, according to their respective ranks, by their parents. If an innocent girl become a prey to love, ahe is degraded for evx, though her mind was not polluted by the .arts which married women, under the convenient cloak of marriage, practice ; nor has she violated any duty-but the duty of respecting herself. The married woman, on the contrary, breaks a most sacred engagement, and becomes a cruel mother when she is a false and MORALITY i7NDERMZiVED. 141 faithless wife. If her husband have still an affection for her, the arts which she must practice to deceive him will render her the most contemptible of human beings ; and, at any rate, the contrivances necessary to preserve appearances wilI keep her mind in that childish, or vicious, tumult which destroys all its energy. Beside, in time, like those people who habitually take cordials to raise their spirits, she will want an intrigue tn give life to her thoughts, having lost all relish for pleasures that are not highly seasoned by hope or fear. Sometimes married women act still more audaciously : I will mention an instance. A woman of quality, notorious for her gallantries, though, as she still lived with her husband, nobody chose to place her in the class where she ought to be placed, made a point of treating with the most insulting contempt a poor timid creature, abashed by a sense of her former weakness, whdm a neighboring gentleman had seduced and This woman had actually confounded virtue afterwards married. with reputation, and, I do believe, valued herself on the propriety of her behavior before marriage; though, when once settled to the satisfaction of her family, she and her lord were equally faithless-so that the half-alive heir to an immense estate came from heaven knows where. To view this subject in another light. I have known a number of women-who, if they did not love their husbands, loved nobody else-give themselves entirely up to vanity and dissipation, neglecting every domestic duty ; nay, even squandering awny all the money which should have been saved for their helpless young children ; yet’ have plumed themselves on their unsullied reputation, as if the whole compass of their duty as wives and mothers was only to preserve it. While other indolent women, neglecting every personal duty, have thought that they deserved their husbands’ affection, because, forsooth, they acted in this respect with propriety, Weak minds are always fond of resting in the ceremonials of duty, but morality offers much simpler motives; and it were to be wished that superficial moralists had said less respecting behavior and outward observances; for unless virtue, of any kind, be built on knowledge. it will only produce a kind of insipid decency. Respect for the opinion of the world has, however, been termed the principal duty of woman in the most express words, for Rousseau .declares “that reputation is no less indispensable than chastity.” &‘A man,” adds he, “secure in his own good conduct, depends only on himself, and may brave the public opinion; but a woman, in behaving well, performs but half her duty, as what is thought :f her is as important to her as what she really is. It follows, hence, that the system of a woman’s education should, in this respect, be directly contrary to that of ours. Opiniurl is the grave of virtue among the men ; but its throne among =42 VIXDICA TION OF TNE KfGHTS OF WOMAA? It is strictly logical to infer that the virtue that rests on women.” .opinion is merely worldly, and that it is the virtue of a being to whom reason has been denied. But, even with respect to the opinion of the -world, I am convinced that this class of reasoners are mistaken. This regard for reputation, independent of its being one of the natural rewards of virtue, however, took its rise from a cause that I ,have already deplored as the grand source of female depravity, the impossibility of regaining respectability by a return to virtue, though men preserve theirs during the indulgence of vice. It was natural for women, then, to endeavor to preserve what once lost was lost for ever, till this care swallowing up every other care, reputation for chastity became the one thing needful to the sex. But vain is the scrupulosity of ignorance; for neither religion nor virtue, when they reside in the heart, require such a puerile attention to mere ceremonies, because the behavior must, upon the whole, be proper when .the motive is pure. To support my opinion I can produce very respectable authority ; and the authority of a cool reasoner ought to have weight to enforce consideration, though not to establish a sentiment. Speaking of the general laws of morality, Dr. Smith observes-“That by some very extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and justice, in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an inundation. Accidents of the first kind, however, are, perhaps, still more rare and still more contrary to the common course of things than those of the second ; and it stilI remains true, that the practice of truth, justice and humanity is a certain and almost infallible method of acquiring what those virtues chiefly aim at, the confidence and love of those we live with. A person may be easily misrepresented with regard to a particular action ; but it is scarcely possible that he should be SO with regard to’the general tenor of his conduct. An innocent man may be believed to have done wrong; this, however, will rarely happen. On the contrary, the established opinion of the innocence Qf his manners will often lead us to absolve him where he has really been in the’fault, notwithstanding very strong presumptions.” I perfectly coincide in opinion with this writer ; for I verily believe that few of either sex were ever despised for certain vices without deserving to be despised. I speak not of the calumny of the moment, which hovers over a character like one of the dense morning fogs ?f November over this metropolis, till it gradually subsides before the common light of day ; I only contend that the daily conduct of ‘43 the majority prevails to stamp their character with the impression of Quietly does the clear light, shining day after day, refute the truth. ignorant surmise, or malicious tale, which has thrown dirt on a pure character. A false light distorted, for a short time, its shadowreputation-but it seldom fails to become just when the cloud is dispersed that produced the mistake in vision. Many people, u~xluuI~kxlly, in several respects obtain a better reputation than, strictly speaking, they deserve-for unremitting industry will mostly reach its goal in all races. They who only. strive for this paltry prize, like the Pharisees, who prayed at the corners of streets, .to be seen of men, verily obtain the reward they seek-for the heart aof man cannot be read by man ! Still, the fair fame that is naturally reflected by good actions, when the man is only employed to direct his steps aright, regardless of the lookers-on, is, in general, not only ‘more true, but more sul-e. There are, it is true, trials when the good man must appeal to God ,from the injustice of man, and, amidst the whining candor or hissings .of envy, erect a pavilion in his own mind to retire to till the rumor be *overpast ; nay, the darts of undeserved censure may pierce an innocent, tender bosom through with many snrrnws ; but these are all exceptions to general rules. And it is according to common laws that human behavior ought to be regulated. The eccentric orbit of the comet never influences astronomical calculations respecting the -invariable order established in the motion of the principal bodies of the solar system. I ~111, then, venture to affirm that after a man is arrived at maturity, *the general outline of his character in the world is just, although for -the before-mentioned exceptions to the rule. I do not say that a prudent, worldly-wise man, with only negative virtues and qualities, may not sometimes obtain a smoother reputation than a wiser and a better man. So far from it, that I am apt to conclude from experience that, where the virtue of two people is nearly equal, the most negative character will be liked best by the world at large, while the ather may have more friends in private life. But the hiIls and dales, clouds and sunshine, conspicuous in the virtues of great men, set off each other ; and, though they afford envious weakness a fairer mark to shoot at, the real character will still work its way to light, though bespattered by weak affection or ingenious malice.’ With respect to that anxiety to prcscrve a reputation hardly earned, which leads sagacious people to analyze it, I shall not make the *obvious comment ; but I am afraid that morality is very insidiously undermined, in the female world, by the attention being turned to the show instead of the substance. A simple thing is thus made strangely 1 I allude to various biographical Johnson.” writings. particdarly to BosweIl’s “Life of 144 V-INBICATIOiV OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMA,V. complicated ; nay, sometimes virtue and its shadow are set at variance. We should never, perhaps, have heard of Lucretia had she died to preserve her chastity instead of her reputation. If we really deserve our own good opinion we shall commonly be respected in the world ; but if we pant after higher improvement and higher attainments, it is not sufficient to view ourselves as we suppose that we are viewed by others, though this has been ingeniously argued as the foundation of our moral sentiments’-because each bystander may have his own prejudices, beside the prejudices of his age or couutry, We should rather endeavor to view ourselves as we suppose that Being views US who seeth each thought ripen into action, and whose judgment never swerves from the eternal rule of right. Righteous are all His judgments-just as merciful ! The hun~ble mind Lhat seeketh to find favor in His sight, and calmly examines its conduct when only His presence is felt, will seldom form a very erroneous opinion of its own virtues. During the still hour of self-collection the angry brow of offended justice will be fearfully deprecated, or the‘tie which draws man to the Deity will be recognized in the pure sentiment of reverential adoration, that swells the heart without exciting’any tumultuous emotions. In these solemn moments man discovers the germ of those vices which, like the Java tree, shed a pestiferous vapor al-OUIKI; death is in the shade ! and he perceives them without abhorrence, because he feels himself drawn by some cord of love to all his fellow-creatdres, for whose follies he is anxious to find every extenuation in their nature-in himself, “If I,” he may thus argue, “who exercise my own mind, and have been refined by tribulation, find the serpent’s egg in some fold of rnJ’ heart, and crush it with difficulty, shall not I pity those who have stamped with less vigor, or who have heedlessly nurtured the insidious reptile till it poisoned the vital stream it sucked? Can I, conscious of my secret sins, throw off my fellow-creatures, and calmly see them drop into the chasm of perdition that yawns to receive them? No ! no ! the agonized heart will cry with suffocating impatience : I, too, am a man ! and have vices, hid, perhaps, from human eye, that bend me to the dust before God, and loudly tell me, when all is mute, that we are formed of the same earth and breathe the same element.” Humanity thus rises naturally out of humility, ar?d twists the cords of love that, in various convolutions, entangIe the heart. This sympathy extends still further, till a man well pleased observes force in arguments that do not carry conviction to his own bosom, and he gladly places in the fairest ilght, to hlmselt, the shows of reason that have led others astray, rejoiced to find some reason in all the errors of man, though before convinced that He who rules the day makes His sun to shine on all, Yet, shaking hands thus, as it 1 Smith. were, with corruption, one foot on earth, the other with bold stride mounts to heaven, and claims kindred with superior natures. Virtues, unobserved by man, drop their balmy fragrance at this cool hour; and the thirsty land, refreshed by the pure streams of comfort that ‘suddenly gush out, is crowned with smiling verdure ; this is the living green on which that eye may look with complacency that is too pure to &hold iniquity ! But my spirits flag, and I must silently indulge the reverie these reflections lead to, unable to describe the sentiments that have calmed my soul when, watching the rising sun, a soft shower drizzling through the leaves of neighboring trees seemed to fall on my languid yet tranquil spirits, to cool the heart that had been heated by the passions which reason labored to tame. The leading principles which run through all my disquisitions wouId render it unnecessary to enlarge on this subject, if a constant attention to keep the varnish of the character fresh, and in good condition, were not often inculcated as the sum total of female duty ; if rules to regulate the behavior and to preserve the reputation did not too frequently supersede moral obligations. But, with respect to reputation, the attention is confined to a single virtue-chastity. If the honor of a woman, as it is absurdly caIled, be safe, she may neglect every social duty ; nay, ruin her family by gaming and extravagance ; yet still present a shameless front-for truly she is an honorable woman ! Mrs. Macaulay has justly observed that “there is but one fault She then which a woman of honor may not commit with impunity.*’ justly and humanely adds : “This has given rise to the trite and foolish observation, that the first fault against chastity in woman has a radical power to deprave the character. But no such frail beings come out of the hands of Nature. The human mind is built of nobler materials than to be easily corrupted ; and, with all their disadvantages of situation and education, women seldom become entirely abandoned till they are thrown into a state of desperation by the venvmous rancor of their own sex.” But in proportion as this regard for the reputation of chastity is prized by women, it is despised by men ; and the two extremes are equalIy destructive to morality. Men are certainly more under the influence of their appetites than women, nnrl their appetites are more dcpravcd by unbridled indulgence and the fastidious contrivances of satiety. Luxury has introduced a refinement in eating that destroys the constitution-and a degree of gluttony which is so beastly, that a perception of seemliness of behavior must be worn out before one being could eat immoderately in the presence of another, and afterwards complain of the oppression that his intemperance naturally produced. Some women, particularly 146 VINDfCA TJON OF TffE 3’IGHT.S OF WOMAN. French-women, have also lost a sense of decency in this respect, for It were to be wished they will talk very calmly of an indigestion. that idleness was not allowed to generate-on the rank soil of weatth -those swarms of summer insects that feed on putrefaction; we should not then be’disgusted by the sight of such brutal excesses. There is one rule relative to behavior, that, I think, ought to regulate every other : and it is simply to cherish such an habitual respect for mankind as may prevent us from disgusting a fellow-creature for the sake of a present indulgeuce. The shameful indolence of many married women, and others a little advanced in life, frequently leads them to sin against delicacy. For though convinced that the person is the band of union between the sexes, yet how often do they, from sneer indolence, or to enjoy some trifling indulgence, disgust ! l‘he depravity of the appetite which brings the sexes together has had a still more fatal effect. Nature must ever be the standard of taste, the gauge of appetite-yet how grossly is Nature insulted by the voluptuary. Leaving the refinements of love out of the question, Nature, by making the gratification of an appetite, in this respect as well as every other, a natural and imperious law to preserve the species, exalts the appetite, and mixes a little mind and affection with a sensual gust. The feelings of a parent, mingled with an instinct merely animal, give it dignity ; and the man and woman often meeting on account of the child, a mutual interest and affection is excited by the exercise of a common sympathy. Women, then, having, necessarily, some duty to fulfill more noble than to adorn their persons, would not contentedly be the slaves of casual lust ; which is now the situation of a very cnnsiderable nuinber who are, literally speaking, standing dishes to which every glutton may have access. I may be told that great as this enormity is, it onIy affects a devoted part of the sex-devoted for the salvation of the rest. But, false as every assertion might easily be proved that recommends the sanctioning a small evil to produce greater good, the mischief does not stop here ; for the moral character and peace of mind of the chaster part of the sex are undermined by the conduct of the very women to whom they allow no refuge from guilt; whom they inexorably consign to the exercise of arts that lure their husbands from them, debauch their sons and force them-let not ,modest women start-to assume, in some .degree, the same character themselves. For I will venture to assert, that all the causes of female weakness, as well as depravity, which I have already enlarged on, branch out of one grand cause- want of chastity in men. The intemperance, so prevalent, depraves the appetite to such a degree, that a wanton stimulus is necessary to rouse it ; but the parental design of Nature is forgotten, and the mere person, and that for a moment, alone engrosses the thoughts. So voluptuous, indeed, MORALITY ULVDERMINED. often grows the lustful prowler, that he refines on female softness. Something more soft than woman is then sought for, till, in Italy and Portugal, men attend the levees of equivocal beings to sigh for more than female languor. To satisfy this genus of men, women are made systematically voluptuous ; and though they may not all carry their libertinism to the same height, yet this heartless intercourse with the sex, which they allow th.emselves, depraves both sexes, because the taste of men is vitiated, and women of all classes naturally square their behavior to gratify the taste by which they obtain pleasure and power. Women becoming consequently weaker in mind and body than they ought to be, were one of the grand ends of their being taken into account-that of bearing and nursing children-have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother ; and, sacrificing to lasciviousness destroy the the was implanted ! parental affection that ennobleS instinct, either embryo in the womb or cast it off when born. Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity. The weak, enervated women, who particularly catch the attention of libertines, are unfit to be mothers, though they may conceive ; so that the rich sensuahst, who has rioted among women, spreading depravity and misery, when he wishes to perpetuate his name, receives from his wife only a half-formed being that inherits both its father’s and mother’s weakness. Contrasting the humanity of the present age with the barbarism of antiquity, great stress has been laid on the savage custom of exposing the children whom their parents could not maintain ; while the man of sensibility, who thus, perhaps, complains, by his promiscuous amours produces a most destructive barrenness and contagious Aagitiousness of manners. Surely Nature never intended that women, by satisfying an appetite, should frustrate the very purpose for which it I have before observed that men ought to maintain the women whom they have seduced : this would be one means of reforming female manners, and stopping an abuse that has an equal fatal effect on population and morals. Another, no less obvious, would be to turn the attention of a woman to the real virtue of chastity ; for to little respect has that woman a claim on the score of modesty, though her reputation may be white as the driven snow, who smiles on the lihertjne while she spurns the victims of his lawless appetites and their own folly. Beside, she has a taint of the same folly, pure as she esteems herself, when she studiously adorns her person only to be seen by men, to excite respectful sighs, and all the idle homage of what is called innocent gallantry. Did women really respect virtue for its own sake, they would not seek for a compensation in vanity for the self-denial which they are obliged to practice to preserve their reputation, nor would they associate with men who set reputation at defiance. The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue. Chastity, modesty, public spirit, and all the noble train of virtues on which social virtue and happiness are built, should be understood and cultivated by all mankind, or they will be cultivated to little effect. And, instead of furnishing the vicious or idle with a pretext for violating some sacred duty, by terming it a sexual one, it wouId be wiser to show that Nature has not made any difference, for that the unchaste man doubly defeats the purpose of Nature by rendering women barren and destroying his own constitution, though he avoids the shame that pursues the crime in the other sex. These are the physical consequences-the moral are still more alarming-for virtue is. only a nominal distinction when the duties of citizens, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and directors of families become merely the. selfish ties of convenience. Why, then, do philosophers look for public spirit? Public spirit must be nurtured by private virtue, or it will resemble the factitious sentiment which makes women careful to preserve their reputation and men their honor-a sentiment that often exists unsupported by virtue, unsupported by that sublime morality which makes the habitual breach of one duty a breach of the whole moral law. CHAPTER OF THE PERNICIOUS EFFECTS DISTINCTIONS F WHICH IX. ARISE ESTABLISHED FROM IN THE UNNATURAL SOCIETY. ROM the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk under the rank herbage ; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the still, sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it ripens into virtue. One class presses on another ; for all are aiming to procure respect on account of their propert*and property, once gained, will procure the respect due onIy to talents and virtue. Men neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods; religion is alsa separated from morality by a ceremonial veil ; yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of sharpers or oppressors. There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that who- ever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual idle- ness can hereditary wealth a,nd titles produce ? For man is so constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity of some kind first set the wheels in motion. Virtue, likewise, can only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties ; but the importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There must be more will never gain equality established in society, or more morality ground ; and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly, even when founded on a rock, if one-haIf of mankind be chained to its bottom by fate; for they will be continually undermining it through ignorance or prirle. It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men ; nay, it is vaiu to expect that strength of natural affection which would make them good wives and mothers. While they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish ; and the men who can be gratified by the fawning fondness of spaniel-like affection have not much delicacy, for love is not to be bought, in any sense of the word : its silken wings are instautly shriveled up when anything beside a return in kind is sought. Yet while wealth enervates men, and women live, as it were, by their personal charms, how can we expect them to discharge those ennobling duties which equally require exertion and self-denial ? Hereditary property sophisticates the mind; and the unfortunate victims to it, if I may so express myself, swathed from their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind ; and, thus viewing every- thing through one medium, and that a false one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness consist. False, indeed, must be the light when the drapery of situation hides the man, and makes him stalk in masquerade, dragging from one scene of dissipation to another the nerveless limbs that hang with stupid listlessness, and rolling round the vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind at home. I mean, therefore, to infer that the society is not properly organized which does not compel men and women to discharge their respective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that countenance from their fellow-creatures which every human being wishes some way to attain. The respect, consequently, which is paid to wealth and mere .personal charms, is a true north-east blast that blights the tender ‘blossoms of affection and virtue. Nature has wisely attached affections to duties to sweeten toil, and to give that vigor to the exertions ,of reason which only the heart can give. But the affection which is put on merely because it is the appropriated insignia of a certain character, when its duties are not fullillecl, is out: UT lk empty ISO VI,‘vDICATlON OF THE RIGHTS OF lVOMAAr. compliments which vice and folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of things. To illustrate my opinion, I need only observe that when a woman is admired for her beauty, and suffers herself to be so far intoxicated by the admiration she receives as to neglect to discharge the indispensable duty of a mother, she sins against herself by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally tend to make her useful and happy. True happiness-I mean all the contentment and virtuous satisfactiuu 1llaL cau be snatched in this impeliect state-must arise from well-regulated affections ; and an affection includes a duty. Men are not aware of the misery they cause and the vicious weakness they cherish by only inciting women to render themselves pleasing ; they do not consider that they thus make natural and artificial duties clash by sacrificing the comfort and respectabihty of a woman’s life to voluptuous notions of beauty, when in Nature they all harmonize. Cold would be the heart of a husband, were he not rendered unnatural by eally debauchery, who did not feel more delight at seeing his child suckled by its mother than the most artful wanton tricks. could ever raise ; yet this natural way of cementing the matrimonial tic and twisting esteem with fonder recollections, wealth leads woman to spurn. To preserve their beauty and wear the flowery crown of the day, which gives them a kind of right to reign for a short time over the sex, they neglect to stamp impressions on their husbands’ hearts that would be remembered with more tenderness when the snow on the head began to chill the bosom than even their virgin charms. The maternal solicitude of a reasonable, affectionate woman is very interesting; and the chastened dignity with which a mother returns the caresses that she and her child receive from a father who has been fulfilling the serious duties of his station, is not only a respectable but a beautiful sight. So singular, indeed, are my feelings-and I have endeavored not to catch factitious ones-that, after having been fatigued with the sight of insipid grandeur and the slavish ceremonies that with cumbrous pomp supplied the place of domestic affec- tions, I have turned to some other scene to relieve my eye by resting it on the refreshing green everywhere scattered by Nature. I have then viewed with pleasure a woman nursmg her children, and discharging the duties of her station, with, perhaps, merely a servantmaid to take off her hands the servile part of the household business. I have seen her prepare herself and children, with only the luxury of cleanliness, to receive her husband, who, returning weary home in the evening, found smiling babes and a clean hearth My heart has loitered in the midst of the group, and has even throbbed with sympathetic emotion when the scraping of the well-known foot has raised a pleasing tumult. While my benevolence has been gratified by contemplating this art- UNNATURAL DISTINCTIONS IN SOCIETY. '5' less picture, I have thought that a couple of this description, equally necessary and independent of each other, because each fulfilled the respective duties of their station, possessed all that life could give. Raised sufficiently above abject poverty not to be obliged to weigh the consequence of every farthing they spend, and having sufficient to prevent their attending to a frigid system of economy, which narrows both heart and mind, I declare, so vulgar are my conceptions, that I know ML what is wanted tu render this the happiest as well as the most respectable situation in the world, but a taste for literature, to throw a little variety and interest into social converse, and some superfluous money to give to the needy and to buy books. For it is not pleasant when the heart is opened by compassion and the head active in arranging plans of usefulness, tn have a prim urchin rnntinually twitching back the elbow to prevent the hand from drawing out an almost empty purse, whispering at the same time some prudential maxim about the prior-ity oI justice. Destructive, however, as riches and inherited honors are to the human character, women are more debased and cramped, if possible, by them than men, because men may still, in some degree, unfold their faculties by becoming soldiers and statesmen. As soldiers, I grant, they can now only gather, for the most part, vain-glorious laurels, while they adjust to a hair the European balance, taking especial care that no bleak northern nook or sound incline the beam. But the days of true heroism are ‘over, when a citizen fought for his country like a Fabricius or a Washington, and then returned to his farm to let his virtuous fervor run in a more placid, but not a less salutary, stream. No; our British heroes are oftener sent from the gaming table than from the plow; and their passions have been rather inflamed by hanging with dumb suspense on the turn of a die, than sublimated by panting after the adventurous march of virtue in the historic page. The statesman, it is true, might with more propriety qhit the faro bank, or card table, to guide the helm, for he has stiI1 but to shuffle and trick-the whole system of British politics, if system it may courteously be called, consisting in multtplying dependents and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich : thus a war, or any wiId-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a Iucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place. It is not necessary, then, that he should have bowels for the poor, so he can secure for his family the odd trick. Or, should some show of respect for what is termed with ignorant ostentation an Englishman’s birthright, be expedient to bubble the gruff mastiff that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show very safely by giving his single voice and suffering his light squadron to file off to the other side. ,4nd when a question of humanity is 15 2 VIiVDf CA TIO1\; OF TBE RIGHTS OF WOMAiV. agitated he may dip a sop in the milk of human kindness to silence Cerberus, and talk of the interest which his heart takes in an attempt to make the earth no longer cry for vengeance as it sucks in its children’s blood, though his cold hand may at the very moment rivet their chains by sanctioning the abominable traffic. A minister is no longer a minister than while he can carry a point which he is determined to carry. Yet it is not necessary that a minister should feel like a man, when a bold push might shake his seat. But, to have done with these episodical observations, let. me return to the more specious slavery which chains the very soul of woman, keeping her for ever under the bondage of ignorance. The preposterous distinctions of rank, which render civilization a curse by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants and cunning, envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of people ; because respectability is not attached to the discharge of the relative duties of life, but to the station ; and when the duties are not fulfilled the affections cannot gain sufficient strength to fortify the virtue of which they are the natura1 reward, Still,~there are some loopholes out of which a man may creep, and dare to think and act for himself; but for a woman it is a Herculean task, because she has difficulties peculiar to he0 sex to overcome which require almost superhuman powers. A truly benevolent legislator always endeavors to make it the interesL uf each individual to be virtuous; and thus, private virtue becoming the cement of public happiness, an orderly whole is consolidated by the tendency of all the parts toward a common centre. But the private or public virtue of woman is very problematical ; for Rousseau, and a numerous list of male writers, insist that she should all her life he snhjected to a severe restraint, that of propriety. Why subject her to propriety-blind propriety, if she be capable of acting from a nobler spring, if she be an heir of immortality? Is sugar always to be produced by vital blood? Is one-half of the human species, like the poor African slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalize them, when principles would be a surer guard, only to sweeten the cup of man? Is not this indirectly to deny woman reason? For a gift is a mockery, if it be unfit for use. Women are, in cnmmnn with men, rendered weak and luxtirious by the relaxing pleasures which wealth procures ; but, added to this, they are made slaves to their persons, and must render them alluring that man may lend them his reason to guide their tottering steps aright. Or, should they be ambitious, they must govern their tyrants by sinister tricks ; for without rights there cannot be any incumbent duties. The laws respecting woman, which I mean to discuss in a future part, make an absurd unit of a man and his wife ; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cypher. The being who discharges the duties of its station is independent ; and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next in point of importance, as citizens, is that which includes so many, of a mother. The rank in life which dispenses with their fulfilling this duty necessarily degrades them by making them mere dolls. Or, should they turn to something more important than merely fitting drapery upon a smooth block, their minds are only occupied by some soft, platonic attachment, or the actual management of an intrigue may keep their thoughts in motion; for, when they neglect domestic duties, they have it not in their own power to take the field and march and counter-march, like soldiers, or wrangle in the senate, to keep their faculties from rusting. I know that, as a proof of the inferiority of the sex, Rousseau has exultingly exclaimed, “How can they “leave the nursery for the camp ? ” And the camp has by some moralists been termed the school of the most heroic virtues; though, I think, it would puzzle a keen casuist to prove the reasonableness of the greater number of wars that have dubbed heroes. I do not mean to consider this question critically ; because, having frequently viewed these freaks of ambition as the first natural mode of civilization, when the ground must he torn up, and the woods cleared by fire and sword, I do not choose to call them pests ; but surely the present system of war has little connection with virtue of any denomination, being rather the school of finesse and effeminacy than of fortitude ! Yet, if defensive war-the only justifiable war in the present advanced state of society, where virtue can show its face and ripen amid the rigors which purify the air on the mountain’s top-were alone to be adopted as just and glorious, the true heroism of antiquity might again animate female bosoms. But, fair and softly, gentle reader, male or female, do not al,.rm thyself; for though I have compared the character of a modern soldier with that of a civilized woma~~, ‘I am IWL going to advise them to turn their distaff into a musket, though I sincerely wish to see the bayonet converted into a pruning-hook. I only recreated an imagination, fatigued by contemplating the vices and follies which al1 proceed from a feculent stream of wealth that has muddied the pure rilIs of natural affection, by supposing that society will some time or other be so constituted that man must necessarily fulfill the duties of a citizen or be despised ; and that, while he was employed in any of the clepartments of civil life, his wife, also an active citizen, should be equally intent to manage: her family, educate her children, and assist her neighbors. But, to render her really virtuous and useful, she must not, if she discharge her civil duties, want, individually, the protection of civil laws ; she must not be dependent on her husband’s bounty for her subsistence during his life or support after his death : fnr how can R being be generous who has nothing of its own? or virtuous, who is. not free? ‘The wife, in the present state of things, who is faithful to her husband, and neither suckles nor educates her children, scarcely deserves the name of a wife, and has no right to that of a citizen. But take away natural rights, and duties become null. Women, then, must be considered as only the wanton solace of men when they become so weak in mind and body that they cannot exert themselves, unless to pursue some frothy pleasure or to invent some frivolous fashion. What can be a more melancholy sight to a thinking mind than to look into the numerous carriages that drive helterskelter about this metropolis in a morning, full of pale-faced creatures. who are flying from themselves ? I have often wished, with Dr. Johnson, to place some of them in a little shop, with haIf-a-dozen children looking up to their languid countenances for support. I am much mistaken if some latent vigor would not soon grve health and splnt to their eyes ; and some lines drawn, by tl;e exercise of reason, on the blank cheeks, which before were only undulated by dimples, might restore lost dignity to the character, or, rather, enable it to attain the true dignity of its nature. Virtue is not to be acquired even by speculation, much less by the negative supineness that wealth naturally generates. Beside, when poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not morality cut to the quick? Still, to avoid misconstruction, though I consid’er that women in the common walks of life are called to fulfill the duties of wives and mothers by religion and reason, I cannot help lamenting that women of a superior cast have not a road open by which they can pursue more extensive plans of usefulness and independence. I may excite laughter by dropping a hint which I mean to pursue some future time ; for I really think that women ought tu have representatives, instead of being arbitrarily governed without having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government. But, as the whole system of representation is now in this country only a convenient handle for despotism, they need not complain ; for they are as well represented as a numerous class of hard-working mechanics, whn pay for the support of royalty when they can scarcely stop their children’s mouths with bread. How are they represented whose very sweat supports the splendid stud of an heir-apparent, or varnishes the chariot of some female favorite who looks down on shame? Taxes on the very necessaries of Iife enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pas!: with stupid pomp before a gapifig crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear ! This is mere Gothic grandeur; something like the barbarous, useless parade of having sentinels on horseback at Whitehall, which I could never view without a mixture of contempt and indignation. UNNATURAL DISTINCTIONS IN SOCZETY. ‘55 How strangely must the mind be sophisticated when this sort of state impresses it ! But till these monuments of folly are leveled byvirtue, similar follies will leaven the whole mass. For the same character, in some degree, will prevail in the aggregate of society ; and the refinements of luxury, or the vicious repinings of envious poverty, will equally banish virtue from society, considered as the characteristic of that society, or only allow it to appear as one of the stripes. of the harlequin coat worn by the civilized man. In the superior ranks of life every duty is done by deputies, as if duties could ever be waived ; and the vain pleasures which consequent idleness forces the rich to pursue, appear so enticing to the next rank,. that the numerous scramblers for wealth sacrifice everything to tread as sineon their heels. The most sacred truths are then considered cures, because they were procured by interest, and only sought to, enable a man to keepgood company. Women, in particular, all want to be ladies-which is simply to have nothing to do, but listlessly to go, they scarcely care where, for they cannot tell what. But what have women to do in society (I may be asked) but to loiter with easy grace? Surely you would not condemn them all to. *‘ suckle fools and chronicle small beer ?” No ! Women might certainly study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses. And midwifery, decency seems to allot to them ; though, I am afraid, the. word ‘* midwife ” in our dictionaries will soon give place to “atcouchcur,” and one proof of the former delicacy of the sex be effaced from the language. They might also study politics, and settle their benevolence on the. broadest basis ; for the reading of history will scarcely be more useful than the perusal of romances, if read as mere biography-if the character of the times, the political improvements, arts, etc., be not observed-in short, if it be not considered as the history of man, and not of particular men who filled a niche in the temple of fame, and dropped into the black rolling stream of time, that silently sweeps all before it into the shapeless void called eternity-for shape, can it be called, “ that shape bath none ? ” Business of various kinds they might likewise pursue, if they were educated in a more orderly manner, which might save many from Women would not then marry for a common and legal prostitution. support, as men accept of places under government, and neglect the implied duties ; nor would an attempt to earn their own subsistencea most laudable one !-sink them almost to the level UT thuae pourabandoned creatures who live by prostitution. For, are not milliners and mantua-makers reckoned the next class? The few employments. open to women, so far from being liberal, are menial ; and when a superior education enables them to take charge of the education of children as governesses, they are not treated like the tutors of sons--- ~56 V(nTDIcA TION OF THE R/GUTS OI; WOMAN. .though even clerical tutors are not always treated in a manner calculated to render them respectable in the eyes of their pupils, to say .nothing of the private comfbrt of the individual. But as women vducared like gentlewomen are never designed for the humiliating situations which necessity sometimes forces them to fill, these situations are considered in the light of a degradation ; and they know .little of the human heart who need to be told that nothing so painfully sharpens sensibility as such a fall in life. Some of these women might bc reslrained from marrying by a groper spirit or delicacy, and others may not have had it in their power to eScape in this pitiful way from servitude. Is not that government, then, very defective, and very unmindful of the happiness of sne-half of its members, that does not provide for honest, independent women, by encouraging them to fiI1 respectable stations ? But in order to render their private virtue a public benefit, they must have a civil existence in the State, married or single; else we shall continually see some worthy woman, whose serlsibility has been rendered painfully acute by undeserved contempt, droop like “the lily broken down by a plow-share.” It is a melancholy truth-yet such is the blessed effect of civilization-the most respectable women are the most oppressed ; and, unless they have understandings far superior to the common run of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being treated like contemptible beings, become contemptible. How many women thus waste life away, the prey of discontent, who might have practiced as physicians, reguIated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, .supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads sur-charged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre-nay, I doilbt whether pity and love are .so near akin as poets feign, for I have seldom seen much compassion ,excited by the helplessness of females, unless they were fair; then, perhaps, pity was the soft handmaid of love, or the harbinger of lust ! How much more respectable is the woman tvho ~..arr~sher own bread by fulfiIling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty ! Beauty ! did I say ? So sensible am I of the beauty of moral lovelincss, or the harmorlious propriety that attunes the passions of a wellregulated mind, that I blush at making the comparison ; yet I sigh.to think how few women aim at attaining this respectability by withdrawing from the giddy whirl of pleasure, or the indolent calm that stupefies the good sort of women it sucks in. Proud of their weakness, however, they must always be protected, .guarded from care and all the rough toils that dignify the mind. If this be the fiat of fate, if they will make themselves insignificant and contemptible, “sweetly to waste life away,” let them not expect to be valued when their beauty fades, for it is the fate of the fairest flowers PARENTAL AFFECTION. =st to be admired and pulled to pieces by the careless hand that plucked In how many ways do I wish, from the purest benevolence, to them. impress this truth on my sex ; yet I fear that they will not listen to a truth that dear-bought experience has brought home to many an agitated bosom, nor wilIingly resign the privileges of rank and sex for the privileges of humanity, to which those have no claim who do not discharge its duties ! Those writers are particularly useful, in my opinion, who make man feel for man, independent of the station he fills, or the drapery of fictitious sentiments. I, then, would fain convince reasonable men of the importance of some of my remarks ; and prevail on them to weigh dispassionately the whole tenor of my observations. I appeal to their understandings ; and, as a fellow-creature, claim, in the name of my sex, some interest in their hearts. I entreat them to assist to emancipate their companion, to make her a /zeZpmeef for them. Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers-in a word, better citizens.. We should then love them with true affection, because we should learn to respect ourselves; and the peace of mind of a worthy man would not be interrupted by the idle vanity of his wife, nor the babes sent to nestle in a strange bosom, having never found a home in their mother’s, CHAPTER PARENTAL X. AFFECTION. P ARENTAL affection is, perhaps, the blindest modification of perverse self-love ; for ye have not, like the French,’ two terms to distinguish tkie pursuit of a natural and reasonable desire from the ignorant calculations of weakness. Parents often love their children in the most brutal manner, and sacrifice every relative duty to promote their advancement in the world-to promote, such is the perversity of unprincipled prejudices, the future welfare of the very beings whose present existence they embitter by the most despotic stretch of power. Power, in fact, is ever true to its vital principle; for in every shape It would reign without control or inquiry. Its throne is built across a dark abyss, which no eye must dare to explore, lest the baseless fabric should totter under investigation. Obedience, unconditional obedience, is the catch-word of tyrants of every description; and, to render “assurance doubly sure,” one kind of ’ L’amour propre. L’amour dc foi r&xx. ~$3 VINDICATIOhr OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAh? -despotism supports another. Tyrants would have cause to tremble if .reason were to become the rule of duty in any of the relations of life ; for the light might spread till perfect day appeared. And when it did appear, how would men smile at the sight of the bugbears at which -they started during the night of ignorance, or the twilight of timid -inquiry ! Parental affection, indeed, in many minds, is but a pretext to tyrannize where it can be done with impunity; for only good and wise men .are content with the respect that will bear discussion. Convinced -that they have a right to what they insist on, they do not fear reason, #or dread the sifting of subjects that recur to natural justice; because they firmly believe that the more enlightened the human mind becomes the deeper root will just and simple principles take. They do not rest in expedients, or grant that what is metaphysically true c;an be practically false; but, disdaining the shifts of the moment, they calmly wait till time, sanctioning innovation, silences the hiss of selfishness or envy. If the power of reflecting on the past, and darting the keen eye of contemplation into futurity, be the grand privilege of man, it must be granted that some people etioy this prerogative in a very limited degree. Everything new appears to them wrong; and not able to distinguish the possible from the monstrous, they fear where no fear should find a place, running from the light of reason, as if it were a firebrand ; yet the Iimits of the possible have never been defined to stop the sturdy innovator’s hand. Woman, however, a slave in every situation to prejudice, seldom exerts enlightened maternal affection ; for she either neglects her children, or spoils them by improper indulgence. Beside, the affec.tion of some women for their children is, as I have before termed it, frequently very brutish ; for it eradicates every spark of humanity. Justice, truth, everything is sacrificed by these Rebekahs ; and for the sake of their own children they violate the most sacred,duties, forgetting the common relationship that binds the whole family on earth together. Yet reason seems to say, that they who suffer one duty, or affection, to swallow up the rest, have not sufficient heart or mind to fulfill that one conscientiously. It, then, loses the venerable aspect of a duty, and assumes the fantastic form of a whim. As the care of children in their infancy is one of the grand duties annexed to the female character by Nature, this duty would afford many forcible arguments for strengthening the female understanding, if it were properly considered. The formation of the mind must be begun very early, and the temper, in particmar, requires the most judicious attention-an attention which women cannot pay who only love their children because they are their children, and seek no further for the foundation of their duty than in the feelings of the moment. It is this want of reasor in their affections which makes women SO darn I-WI into extrcmcs, and either be the most fond or most careless and unnatural mothers. To be a good mother, a woman must have sense and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend .entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers ; wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow. When chastisement is necessary, though they have offended the mother, the father must inflict the punishment ; he must be the judge in all disputes, But I shall more fully discuss this subject when I treat of private education ; I now only mean to insist that unless the understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more firm, by being allowed to govern her own conduct, she will never have sufficient sense or command of temper to manage her Her parental affection, indeed, scarcely deserves children properly. the name when it does not lead her to suckle her children ; because the discharge of this duty is equally calculated to inspire maternal .and filial affection ; and it is the indispensable duty of men and women to fulfill the duties which give birth to affections that are the :surest preservatives against vice. Natural affection, as it is termed, I believe to be a very faint tie (affections must grow out of the habitual exercise of a mutual sympathy); and what sympathy does a mother exercise who sends her babe to a nurse, and only takes it from a nurse to send it to a school ? In the exercise of their maternal feelings Providence has furnished women with a natural substitute for love, when the lover becomes only a friend, and mutual confidence takes place of overstrained admiration-a child then gently twists the relaxing cord, and a mutual care produces a new mutual sympathy. But a child, though a pledge of affection, will not enliven it, if both father and mother be content to transfer the charge to hirelings ; for they who do their duty by proxy should not murmur if they miss the reward of duty-parental aaection produces filial duty. CHAPTER DUTY T TO XI. PARENTS. HERE seems to be an indolent propensity in man to make prescription always take place of reason, and to place every duty on an arbitrary foundation. The rights of kings are deduced in a direct line from the King of Kings, and that of parents from our first parent. Why do we thus go back. for principles that should always rest on the same base, and have the same weight to-day that they had a thousand years ago, and not a jot more ? If parents discharge their duty they have a strong hold and sacred claim on tht: gratitude of their children ; but few parents are willing to receive the respectful affection of their offspring on such terms. , They demand blind obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service ; and, to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding, a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary prmciple-for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying vicious or weak beings merely because they obeyed a powerful instinct ? The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which naturally subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few words : The parent who pays proper attention to helpless infancy has a I-igIlt to require the same attention when the feebleness of age comes upon him. But to subjugate a rational being to the mere will of another, after he is of nge to answer to svciety for his own conduct, is a most cruel and undue stretch of power, and, perhaps, as injurious to morality as those religious systems which do not allow right and wrong to have any existence but in the Divine will. I never knew a parent who had paid more than common attention to his children, disregarded ; ’ on the contrary,. the early habit of relying almost implicitly on the opinion of a respected parent is not easily shaken, even when matured reason convinces the child that his father is not the wisest man in the world. This weakness-for a weakness it is, though the epithet amiable may be tacked to it-a reasonable man must stsel himself against; for the absurd duty. too often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being a parent, shackles the mind and prepares it for a slavish submission to any power but reason. I distinguish between the natural and accidental duty due to parents. The parent who sedulously endeavors to form the heart and enlarge the understanding of his child, has given that dignity to the discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and leaves instinctive natural affection far behind. Such a parent acquires all the rights of the most sacred friendship ; and his advice, even when his child is advanced in life, demands serious consideration. With respect to marriage-though after one-and-twenty a parent seems to have no right to withhold his consent WI any account-yet twenty years of soIicitude call for a return ; and the son ought, at least, to promise not to marry for two or three years, should the object of his choice not entirely meet with the approbation of his first friend. 1 Dr. Johnson makes the same observation. DUTY TO PARENTS. 161 Rut respect for parents is, generally speaking, a much more debasmg principle ; it is only a selfish respect for property. The father who is blindly obeyed, is obeyed from sheer weakness or from motives that degrade the human character. A great proportion of the misery that wanders, in hideous forms, around the world, is allowed to rise from the negligence of parents; and, still, these arc the people who are most tenacious of what they term a natural right, though it be subversive of the birth-right of man--the right of acting according to the direction of his own reason. I have already very frequently had occasion to observe, that vicious or indolent people are always eager to profit by enforcing arbitrary privileges, and, generally, in the same prnportion as they neglect the discharge of the duties which alone render the privileges reasonable. This is at the bottom a dictate of common sense, or the instinct pf self-defence, peculiar to ignorant weakness ; resembling that instinct which makes a fish muddy the water it swims in, to elude its enemy,. instead of boldly facing it in the clear stream. From the clear stream of argument, indeed, the supporters of prescription, of every denomination, fly ; and, taking refuge in the darkness, which, in the language of sublime poetry, has been supposed to surround the throne of Omnipotence, they dare to demand that implicit respect which is only due to His unsearchable ways, But, let me not be thought presumptuous, the darkness which hides our God from us, only respects speculative truths-it never obscures moral ones ; they shine clearly, for God is light, and never, by the constitution of our nature, requires the discharge of a duty the reasonableness of which does not beam on us when we open our eyes. The indolent parent of high rank may, it is true, extort a show of respect from his child; and females on the Continent are particularly subject to the views of their families, who never think of consulting their inclination or providing for the comfort of the poor victims of their pride. The consequence is notorious : these dutiful daughters become adulteresses, and neglect the education of their children, from whom they, io their turn, exact the same kind of obedience, Females, it is true, in all countries, are too much under the dominion of their parents ; and few patents think of addressing their children in the following manner, though it is in this reasonable way that Heaven seems to command the whole human race: (‘ It is your interest to obey me till you can judge for yourself ; and the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection in me to serve as a guard to you whilst your reason is unfolding; but when your mind arrives at maturity, you must only obey me, or rather respect my opinions so far as they coincide with the light that is breaking in on your own mind.” A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind ; and Mr. Locke very judiciously observes that, “ If the mind be curbed 162 VfNDfCA TION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAI~~. and humbled too much in children ; if the spirits be abased and broken much by’ too strict a hand over them ; they lose all their vignr and industry.” This strict hand may in some degree account for the weakness of women; for girls, from various causes, are more kept clown by their parents, in every sense of the word, than boys. The duty expected from them is, like all the duties arbitrarily imposed on women, more from’a sense of propriety, more out of respect for decorum, than reason ; and thus taught slavishly to submit to their parents, they are prepared for the slavery of marriage. I may be told that a number of women are not slaves in the marriage state. True; but they, then, become tyrants; for it is not rational freedom, but a lawless kind of power, resembling the authority exercised by the favorites of absolute monarchs, which they obtain by debasing means. I do not, likewise, dream of insinuating that either boys or girls arc always slaves; I only insist that when they are obliged to submit to authority blindly, their faculties are weakened, and their tempers rendered imperrous or abject. I also lament that parents, indolently availing themselves of a supposed privilege, damp the first faint glimmering of reason, rendering at the same time the duty, which they are so anxious to enforce, an empty name ; because they will not let it rest on the only basis on which a duty can rest securely : for, unless it be founded on knowledge, it cannot gain sufficient strength to resist the squallsof passion, or the silent sapping of self-love. But it is not the parents who have given the surest, proof of their affection for their children, or, to speak more properly, who, by fulfilling their duty, have allowed a natural parental affection to take root in their hearts-the child of exercised sympathy and reason, and not the overweening offspring of selfish pride-who most vehemently insist on their children submitting to their will merely because it is their will. On the contrary, the parent who sets a good example patiently lets that example work ; and it seldom fails to produce its natural effect-filial reverence. Children cannot be taught too early to submit to reason-the true definition of that necessity which Rousseau insisted on, without defining it-for to submit to reason is to submit to the nature of things, and to that God who formed them so, to promote our real interest. Why should the minds of children be warped as they just begin to expand, only to favor the indolence of parents, who insist on a privilege without being willing to pay the price fixed by Nature ? I have before had occasion to observe that a right always includes a duty, and I think it may likewise fairly be inferred that they forfeit the right who do not fulfill the duty. It is easier, I grant, to command than reason ; but it does not follow from hence that children cannot comprehend the reason why they are made to do certain things habitually ; for, from a steady DUTY TO PARENTS. ‘63 adherence to a few simple principles of conduct, flows that salutary power which a judicious parent gradually gains over a child’s mind: And this power becomes strong, indeed, if tempered by an even display of affection brought home to the child’s heart. For I believe, as a general rule, it must be allowed that the affection which we inspire always resembles that we cultivate ; so that natural affections, which have been supposed almost distinct from ~C~SULI,may be found more nearly connected with judgment than is cdmmonly allowed. Nay; as .another proof of the necessity of cultivating the female understanding, it is but just to observe that the affections seem to have a kind of animal capriciousness wheu they merely reside in the heart. It is the irregular exercise of parental authority that first injures the mind, and to these ‘irregularities girls are more subject than boys. The will of those who never allow their will to be disputed, unless they happen to be in a good humor, when they relax yruportionally, is almost always unreasonable. To elude this arbitrary authority, girls very early learn the lessons which they afterwards practice on their husbands ; for I have frequently seen a little sharp-faced miss rule a whole family, excepting that now and then mamma’s anger will burst out of some accidental cloud-either her hair was ill-dr,essed,’ or she had lost more money at cards the night before than she was willing to own to her husband, or some such moral cause of anger. After observing sallies of this kind, I have been led into a melancholy train of reflection respecting females, concluding that when their first affection must lead them astray, or make their duties clash till they rest on mere whims and customs, little can be expected from them as they advance in life. How, indeed, can an instructor remedy this evil-for to teach them virtue on any solid principle is to teach them to despise their parents? Children cannot, ought not, to be taught to make allowance for the faults of their parents ; because every such allowance weakens the force of reason in thetr mirlds, and makes them still more indulgent to their own. It is one of the most sublime virtues of maturity that leads us to be severe with respect to and forbearing to others. But children should only be taught the simple virtues ; for if they begin too early to make gllowante for human passions and manners, they wear off the fine edge of the criterion by which they shouId regulate their own, and bedome unjust in the same proportion as they grow indulgent. The affections of children and weak people are always selfish ; they love their relatives because they are beloved by them, and not on account of their virtues. Yet, till esteem and love are blended ourdves 1 I myself heard a little girl once say to a servant, *‘ My mamma has been scolding me finely this morning, because her hair was not dressed to please her.” Though this remark was pert, it was just. And what respect could a girl acquire for such P parent without doing violence to reason ? 164 VINDICA TJOiV OP THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. together in the first affection, and reason made the foundation of the first duty, morality will stumble at the threshold. But, till society is very diffcrcntly constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantIy endeavor to settle that power on a Divine right which will not bear the investigation of reason. CHAPTER GIN NATIONAL XII. EDUCATION. T HE good effects resulting from attention to private education will ever be very confined, and the parent who really puts his own hand to the plow will always, in some degree, be disappointed till education becomes a grand national concern. A man cannot retire into a desert with his child ; and if he did he could not bring himself back to childhood, and become the proper friend and playfellow of an infant or youth. And when children are confined to the society of men and women, they very soon acquire that kind of premature manhood which stops the growth of every vigorous power of mind or body. In order to open LheiI- faculties, they should be cxcited to think for themselves, and this can only be done by mixing a number of children together, and making them jointly pursue the same objects. A child very soon contracts a benumbing indolence of mind, which he has seldom sufficient vigor afterwards to shake off, when he only asks a question instead of seeking for information, and then relies implicitly on the answer he receives. With his equals in age this could never be the case; and the subjects of inquiry, though they might be influenced, would not be entirely under the direction of men, who frequently damp, if not destroy, abilities by bringing them forward to@ hastily : and too hastily they will infallibly be brought forward if the child be confined to the society of a man, however sagacious that man may he. Beside, in youth the seeds of every affection should be sown, and the respectful regard which is felt for a parent is very different from the social affections which are to constitute the happiness of life as it advances. Of these equality is the basis, and an intercourse of sent’iments unclogged by that observant seriousness which prevents disputation, though it may not egforce submission. Let a child have ever such an affection for his parent, he will always languish to play and prattle with children ; and the very respect he feels-for filial esteem always has a dash of fear mixed with it-will, if it do not teach him cunning, at least prevent him from pouring out the little secrets which ON NA T/OhTAL 165 ED UCA TIOL%~. first open the heart to friendship and confidence, gradually leading to more expansive benevolence. Added to this, he will never acquire that frank ingenuousness of behavior which young people can only attain by being frequently in society where they dare to speak what they think ; neither afraid of being reproved for their presumption nor laughed at for their folly. Forcibly impressed by the reflections which the sight of schools, as they are at present conducted, naturally suggested, I have formerly delivered my opinion rather warmly in favor of a private education ; but further experience has led me to view the subject- in a different I still, however, think schools, as they are now regulated, the light. :hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature sup~~4 LObe attained there merely cunning selfishness. At ,school, boys become gluttons and slovens, and, instead pf cultivating domestic affections, very early rush into the libertinism which destroys the constitution before it is formed, hardening the heart as it weakens the understanding. I should, in fact, be averse to boarding-schools if it were for no &her reason than the unsettled state of mind which the expectation .of the vacations produces. On these the children’s thoughts are fixed with cager, anticipating hopes for, at least, to speak with moderation, half of the time, and when they arrive they are spent in total dissipa.tion and beastly indulgence. But, on the contrary, when they are brought up at home, though they may pursue a plan of study in a more orderly manner than can be adopted when near a fourth part of the year is actually spent in -idleness, and as much more in regret and anticipation, yet they there acquire too high an opinion of their own importance, from being allowed to tyrannize over servants, and from the anxiety expressed by most mothers on the score of manners, who, eager to teach the accomplishments of a gentleman, stifle, in their birth, theCvirtuei of a man. ‘I’hus, brought into company when they ought to be seriously employed, and treated like men when they are still boys, they become vain and effeminate. The only way to avoid two extremes, equally injurious to morality, would be to contrive some way of combining a public and private Thus, to make men citizens, two natural steps might be education. taken, which seem directly to lead to the desired point ; for the domestic affections, that first open the heart to the various modifications of humanity, would be cultivated, while the children were nevertheless allowed to spend great part of their time on terms of equality with other children. I still recollect, with pleasure, the country day-school ; where a boy trudged in the morning, wet or dry, carrying his books, and his dinner if it were at a considcrnblc distance. A se1va111 did llul ltlerl lead 166 VINDICATION OF THZ RIGHTS OF WOMAN. master by the hand: for, when he had once put on coat and breeches, he was allowed to shift for himself, and return alone in the evening to recount the feats of the day close at the parental knee. His father’s house was his home, and was ever after fondly remembered ; nay? I appeal to many superior men, who were educated in this manner, whether the recollection of some shady lane where they conned their lesson, or of some stile, where they sat making a kite or mending a bat, has not endeared their country to them? But what boy ever recollected with pleasure the years he spent in close confinement at an academy near London ?-unless, indeed, he should, by chance, remember the poor scarecrow of an usher, whom he tormented ; or the tartman, from whom he caught a cake, to devour it with a cattish appetite of selfishness. At boarding-schools of cvcry description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief ; and of the senior, vice. Beside, in great schools, what can be more prejudicial to the moral character than the system of tyranny and abject slavery which is established among the boys, to say nothing of the slavery to forms? which makes religion worse than a farce ? For what good can be expected from the youth who receives the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to avoid forfeiting half a guinea, which he probably afterwards spends’ in some sensual manner? Half the employment of the youths is to elude the necessity of attending public worship ; and well they may, for such a constant repetition of the same thing must be a very irksome restraint on their natural As these ceremonies have the most fatal effect on their vivacity. morals, and as a ritual performed by the lips, when the heart and mind are far away, is not now stored up by our Church as a bank to draw on for the fees of the poor souls in purgatory, why should they not be abolished ? But the fear of innovation in this country extends to everything. This is only a covert fear, the apprehensive timidity of indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming it over, the snug place, which they consider in the light of an hereditary estaLe, and eat, drink, and enjoy themselves, instead of fulfilling the duties, excepting a few empty forms, for which it was endowed. These are the people who most strenuously insist on the will of the founder being observed, crying out against all reformation, as if it were a violation of justice. I am now alluding particularly to the relics of popery retained in our colleges, when the Protestant members seem to be such sticklers for the Stablished Church ; but their zeal never makes them lose sight of the spoi1, of ignorance, which rapacious PriesLs UT superstitious memory have scraped together. Xo ; wise in their generation, they venerate the prescriptive right of possession, as a stronghold, and still let thesluggish bell tinkle to prayers, as during the days when the elevation of the host was supposed to atone for the sins of the people; lest one ON NATZONAL EDUCATZOh'. ‘67 reformation should lead to another, and the spirit kiI1 the letter. These Romish customs have the most baneful effect on the morals of our clergy ; for the idle vermin who two or three times a day perform in the most slovenly manner a service which they think useless, but call their duty, soon lose a sense of duty. At college, forced to attend or evade public worship, they acquire an habitual contempt for the very service, the performance of which is to enable them to live in idleness. It is mumbled over as an affair of business, as a stupid boy repeats his task; and frequently the college cant escapes from the preacher the moment after he has left the pulpit, and even while he is eating the dinner which he earned in such a dishonest manner. Nothing, indeed, can be more irreverent than the cathedral service as it is now performed in this country; neither does it contain a set of weaker men than those who are the slaves of this childish routine. A disgusting skeleton of the former state is still exhibited ; but all the solemnity that interested the imagination, if it did not purify the of high mass on the Contiheart, is stripped off. The performance nent must impress every mind, where a spark of fancy glows, with that awful melancholy, that sublime tenderness, so near akin to devotion. I do not say that these devotional feelings are of more use, in a moral sense, than any other emotion of taste ; but I contend that the theatrical pomp which gratifies our senses is to be preferred to the cold parade that insults the understanding without reaching the heart. Among remarks on national education, such observations cannot be misplaced, especially as the supporters of these establishments, degenerated in puerilities, affect to be the champions of religion. Religion, pure source of comfort in this vale of tears ! how has the clear stream been muddied by the dabblers, who have presumptuously endeavored to confine in one narrow channel the living waters that ever flow toward God-the sublime ocean of exister.ce 1 What would life be willlout thaL pc:"tx which Lk love of God, when built on humanity, alone can impart ? Every earthly affection turns back, at intervals, to prey upon the heart that feeds it ; and the purest effusions of benevolence, often rudely damped by man, must mount as a free-will offering to Him who gave them birth, whose bright image they faintly reflect. In public schools, however, religion, confounded with irksome ceremonies and unreasonable restraints, assumes the most ungracious aspect; not the sober austcrc one that ~UIIIIIMII& respect while it inspires fear, but a ludicrous cast that serves to point a pun. For, in fact, most of the good stories and smart things which enliven the spirits that have been concentrated at whist, are manufactured out of the incidents to which the very men labor to give a droll turn who countenance the abuse to live on the spoil. 16% VIAJDICATIOA’ OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. There is not, perhaps, in the kingdom a more dogmatical or luxurious set of men than the pedantic tyrants who reside in colleges and preside at public schools, The vacations are equally injurious to the morals of the masters and pupils; and the intercourse which the former keep up with the nobility introduces the same vanity and extravagance into their families.which banish domestic duties and comforts from the lordly mansion whose state is awkwardly aped. The boys, who live at a great expense with the masters and assistants, are never domesticated, though placed there for that purpose; for, after a silent dinner, they swallow a hasty glass of wine, and retire to plan some mischievous trick, or to ridicule the person or manners of the very people they have just been cringing to, and whom they ought to consider as the representatives of their parents. Can it, then, be a matter of surprise that boys become selfish and vicious who are thus shut out. from social converse? or that a mitre often graces the brow qf one of these diligent pastors ? The desire of living in the same style RS the rank just above them, infects each individual and every class 01 people, and meanness is the concomitant of this ignoble ambition ; but those professions are most debasing whose ladder is patronage ; yet out of one of these professions the tutors of youth are, in general, chosen. But can they be expected to inspire independent sentiments, whose conduct must? be regulated by the cautious prudence that is ever on the watch for preferment? So far, however, from thinking of the morals of boys, I have heard several masters of schools argue that they only undertook to teach Latin and Greek, and that they had fulfilled their duty by sending some good scholars to college. A few good scholars, I grant, may have been formed by emulation and diskipline; but to bring forward these clever boys, the health and morals of a number have been sacrificed. The sons of our gentry and wealthy commoners are mostly educated at these seminaries; and will any one pretend to assert that the majority, making every nllowante, come under the description of tolerable scholars? It is not for the benefit of society that a few brilliant men should be brought forward at the expense of the multitude. It is true that great men seem to start up, as great revolutions occur, at proper intervals, to restore order, and to blow aside the clouds that thicken over the face of truth ; but let more reason .and virtue prevail in society, and these strong winds would not be necessary. Public education, of every denot&tation, should be directed to form citizens: but if you wish to make good citizens, you must first exercise the affections of a son and a brother. This is the only way to expand the heart ; for public affections, as well as public virtues, must ever grow out of the private character, or they are merely meteors that ON NA TZONAL EL’ UCA TZON. 169 shoot athwart a dark sky, and disappear as they are gazed at and admiwrl. Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes whom they first played with. The exercise of youthful sympathies forms the moral temperature; and it is the recollection of these first affections and pursuits that gives life to those that are afterward more under the direction of reason. In youth the fondest friendshlps are formed-the genial juices, mounting at the same time, kindly mix ; or, rather, the heart, tempered for the reception of friendship, is accustomed to seek for pleasure in something More noble than the churlish gratification of appetite. In order, then, to inspire a love uf 11u1neand domestic pleasures, children ought to be educated at home, for riotous holidays only make them fond of home for their own sakes. Yet the vacations which do not foster domestic affections continually disturb the course of study, and render any plan of improvement abortive which incIudes temperance ; still, were they abolished, children would be entirely separated from their parents, and I question whether they would be.come better citizens by sacrificing the preparatory affections, by ctestraying the force of relationships that render the marriage stale as necessary as respectable. But if a private education produce self- importance, or insulate a man in his family, the evil is only shifted, .not remedied. This train of reasoning brings me back to a subject on which I mean to dweI1, the necessity of establishing proper .day-schools. But these should be national establishments ; for while schoolmasters are dependent on the caprice of parents, little exertion can be expected from them, more. than is necessary to please ignorant people. Indeed, the necessity of a master’s giving the parents some sample of the boy’s abilities, which during the vacation is shown to every vwtor,’ is productive of more Mlschlef than would at first be supposed. For it is seldom done entirely, to speak with moderation, by the child itself : thus, the master countenances falsehood, or winds the poor machine up to some extraordinary exertion, that injures the wheels and stops the progress of gradual improvement. The memory is loaded with unintelligible words, to Make a show of, without the understanding’s acquiring any distinct ideas ; but only that education ,deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of mind which teaches goung people how to begin to think. ‘l‘he imagmation should not be allowed to debauch the understanding before it gained strength, or vanity will become the forerunner of vice ; for every way of exhibiting the acquirements of a child is injurious to its moral character. * I now particularly allude to the numerous academies in and about London, $0 & behavior of the tracling part of this great city. and How much time is lost in teaching them to recite what they do not understand, while, seated on benches, all in their best array, themammas listen with astonishment to the parrot-like prattle, uttered ill W~CI~IIIcadences, withal1 the pomp of ignorance and folly! Such exhibitions only serve to strike the spreading fibres of vanity through the whole mind ; for they neither teach children to speak fluently, norbehave gracefully. So far from it, that these frivolous pursuits might comprehensively be termed the study of affectation ; for we now rarely see a simple, hanhfnl boy, though few people of taste were ever disgusted by that awkward sheepishness so natural to the age, which schools and an early introduction into society have changed into im-pudence and apish grimace. Yet how can these things be remedied while schoolmasters depend entirely on parents for a subsistence, and when so many rival schools. hang out their lures to catch the attention of vain fathers and mothers, whose parental affection only leads them to wish that their children should outshine those of their neighbors? Without great good-luck, a sensible, conscientious man would starve before he could raise a school, if he disdained to bubble weak parents. by practicing the secret tricks of the craft. In the best-regulated schools, however, where swarms are not crammed together, many bad habits must be acquired ; but at common schools the body, heart and understanding are equally stunted ; for parents are often only in quest of the cheapest school, and the master could not live if he did not take a much greater number than he could manage himself; nor will the scanty pittance allowed for each child permit him to hire ushers sufficient to assist in the discharge of the mechanical part of the: business. l3eside, whatever appearance the house and garden may make, the children do not enjoy the comfort of either; for they are continually reminded by irksome restrictions that they are not at home, and the state-rooms, gardens, etc., must be kept in order for the recreation of the parents, by the very who, of a Sunday, visit the school, and are impressed parade that renders the situation of their children uncomfortable. With what disgust have I heard sensible women-for girls are more restrained and cowed than boys--speak of the wcarisume confinement which they endured at school ! Not allowed, perhaps, to step out of one broad walk in a superb garden, and obliged to pace with steady deportment stupidly backwards and forwards, holding up their heads and turning out their toes, with shoulders braced back, instead of bounding, as Nature directs to complete her own design, in the various attitudes so conducive to health.’ The pure animal spirits, * I remember a circumstance that once came under my own observation and raised my indignation. I went to visit a little boy at a school where young children were prepared for a large one. The master took me into the school-room, etc., but while I ON NA TIONAL ED UCA TIOiV. 17s which make both mind and body shoot out and unfold the tender blossoms of hope. are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes or pert repinings that contract the faculties and spoil the temper ; else they mount to the brain, and, sharpening the understanding before it gains. proportionable strength, produce that pitiful cunning which disgracefully characterizes the female mind-and, I fear, will ever characterize. it while women remain the slaves of power ! -l‘he little respect paid to chastity in the male world is, 1 am persuaded, the grand source of many of the physical and moral evils that torment mankind, as well as of the vices and follies that degrade and destroy women ; yet, at school, boys infallibly lose that decent bashfulness which might have ripened into modesty at home. And what nasty, indecent tricks do they not also learn from each other, when a number of them pig together in the same bed-chamber, not to speak of the vices which render the body weak while they effectually prevent the acqulsltlon of any delicacy of mind. ‘l‘he. little attention paid to the cultivation of modesty among men produces great depravity in all the relationships of society ; for, not only love-love, that ought to purify the heart, and first call forth all the youthful powers, to prepare the man to discharge the benevolent duties of life is sacrificed to premature lust, but all the social affec- tions are deadened by the selfish gratifications which very early pollute the mind and dry up the generous juices of the heart. In what an unnatural manner is innocence often violated, and what serious consequences ensue to render private vices a public pest ! Beside, a habit of personal order, which has more effect on the moral character than is, in general, supposed, can only be acquired at home, where that respectable reserve is kept up which checks the familiarity that, sinking into beastliness, undermines the affection it insults. I have already animadverted on the bad habits which females acquire when they are shut up together, and I think that the observation may fairly be extended to the other sex; till the natural inferenceis drawn which I have had in view throughout-that to improve both sexes, they ought, not only in private families, but in public schools, to be educated together. If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship; nor will women ever fulfill the peculiar duties of their sex till they become enlightened walked down a broad gravel walk, I could not help observing that the grass grew very luxuriaurly on each side of me. I immediarely asked the child some quesrions, and found that the poor boys were not allowed to stir off the walk, and that the master sometimes permitted sheep to be turned in to crop the untrodden grass. The tyrant of this domain used to sit by a window that overlooked the prison yard ; and one nook turning from it, where the unfortunate babes could sport freely, he enclosed, and planted it with potatoes. The wife, likewise. was equally anxious to keep the children in order, lest they’should dirty or tonr their clothes. 172 V.&BICATlOiV OF TNE RlGHTS OF WOMAN. citizens, till they become free by being enabled to earn their own subsistence, independent of men-in the same manner, I mean, to prevent misconstruction, as one man is independent of another. Nay, marriage will never be held sacred til1 women, by being brought up with men, are prepared to be their companions rather than their mistresses; for the mean doublings of cunning will ever render them contemptible, while oppression renders them timid. So convinced am I of this truth, that I wiI1 venture to predict that virtue will never pr,evniI in society till the virtues of both sexes arc founded on I-easun, and till the affections common to both are allowed to gain their due strength by the discharge of mutual duties. Were boys and girls permitted to pursue the same studies together, those graceful decencies might early be inculcated which produce modesty without those sexual distinctions that taint the mind. Lessons of politeness, and that formulary of decorum which treads on the heels of falsehood, would be rendered useless by habitual propriety of behavior-not, indeed, put on for visitors, like the courtly robe of politeness, but the sober effect of cleanliness of mind. Would not this simple elegance of sincerity be a chaste homage paid to domestic affections, far surpassing the meretricious compliments that shine with false Iustre in the heartless intercourse of fashionable life ? But’till more understanding preponderates in society, there will ever be a want of heart and taste, and the harlot’s rouge will supply the place of that celestial suffusion which only virtuous affections can give to the face. Gallantry, and what is called love, may subsist without simplicity of character ; but the main pillars of friendship are respect and confidence-esteem is never founded on it cannot tell what ! A taste for the fine arts requires cultivation-but not more than a ‘taste for the virtuous affections-and both suppose that enlargement of mind which opens so many sources of mental pleasure. Why do people hurry to noisy scenes and crowded circles ? I should answer, because they want activity nf mind, because they have not cherished the virtues of the heart. They only, therefore, see and feel in the gross, and continually pine after variety, finding everything that is simple insipid. This argument may be carried further than philosophers are aware of; for if Kature destined woman, in particular, for the discharge of domestic duties, she made her susceptible of the attached affections in a great degree. Now, women are uotoriously fond of pleasure, and, naturally, must be so according to my definition, because they cannot enter into the minutiae of domestic taste, lacking judgment, the foundation of all taste. For the understanding, in spite of sensual cavilers, reserves to itself the privilege of conveying pure joy to the heart. With what a languid yawn have I seen an admirable down, that a man of true taste returns to again and poem thrown Again with rapture ; and while melody has almost suspended respiration, a lady has asked me where I bought my gown. I have seen also an eye glanced coldly over a most exquisite picture, rest, sparkling with pleasure, on a caricature rudely sketched ; and while some terrific feature in Nature has spread a sublime stillness through my soul, I have been desired to observe the pretty tricks of a lap-dog that my perverse fate forced me to travel with. Is it surprising that such a tasteless being should rather caress this dog than her children ?-or that she should prefer the rant of flattery to the simple accents of sincerity ? To illustrate this remark I must be allowed to observe that men of the first genius and most cultivated minds have appeared to have the highest relish for the simple beauties of Nature ; and they must have forcibly felt what they have so well described, the charm which natural affections and unsophisticated feelings spread round the human character. It is this power of looking into the heart, and responsively vibrating with each emotion, that enables the poet to personify each passion, and the painter to sketch with a pencil of fire. True taste is ever the work of the understanding employed in observing natural effects ; and till women have more understanding, it is vain to expect them to possess domestic taste. Their lively senses will ever be at work to harden their hearts, and the emotions struck out of them will continue to be vivid and transitory, unless a proper education store their mind with knowledge. It is the want of domestic taste, and not the acquirement of knowledge, that takes women out of their families, .and tears the smiling babe from the breast that ought to afford it nourishment. Women have been allowed to remain in ignorance and slavish dependence many, very many, years ; and still we hear of nothing but their fondness of pleasure and sway, their preference of rakes and soldiers, their childish attachment to toys. and the vanity that makes them value accomplishments more than virtues. History brings forward a fearful catalogue *of the crimes which their cunning has produced, when the weak slaves have had sufficient address io over-reach their masters. In France, and in how many other countries, have men been the luxurious despots, and women the crafty ministers? Does this prove that ignorance and dependence domesticate them? Is not their folly the by-word of the libertines, who relax in their society ? and do not rnev of sense continually lament that an immoderate fondness for dress and dissipation carries the mother of a family forever from home? Their hearts have not been debauched by knowledge, or their minds led astray by scientific pursuits ; yet they do not fulfill the peculiar duties which as women On the contrary, the state they are called upon by Nature to fulfill of warfare which subsists between the sexes makes them employ those wiIes that often frustrate the more open designs of force. When, therefore, I call women slaves, I mean in a political and civil sense ; for, indirectly, they obtain too much power, and are de#based by their exertions to obtain illicit sway. Let an enlightened nation,’ then, try what effect reason would have them to to bring them back to Nature and their duty ; and, aHowing share the advantages of education and government with man, see whether they will become better as they grow wiser and become free. They cannot be injured by the experiment ; for it is not in the power of man to render them more insignificant than they are at present. To render this practicable, day schools, for particular ages, should be established by government, in which boys and girls might be educated together. The school for the younger children, from five to ,nine years of age, ought to be absolutely free and open to all classes.’ A sufficient number of masters should also be chosen, by a select committee, in each parish, to whom any complaint of negligence, etc., might be made, if signed by six of the children’s parents. Ushers would then be unnecessary ; for I believe experience will ever prove that this kind of subordinate authority is particularly injurious to the morals of youth. What, indeed, can tend to deprave the character more than outward submission and inward contempt ? Yet how can boys be expected to treat an usher with respect when the master seems to consider him in the light of a servant, and almost to countenance the ridicule which becomes the chief amusement uf thr: boys during the play hours? But nothing of this kind could occur in an elementary day-school where boys and girls, the rich and poor, should meet together. And .to prevent any of the distinctions of vanity, they should be dressed alike, and all obliged to submit to the same discipline, or leave the The school-room ought to be surrounded by a large piece 01 school. ground, in which the children might be usefully exercised ; for at this age they should not be confined to any sedentary employment for rnort: than an hour at a time. But these relaxations might all be rendered a part of elementary education, for many things improve and amuse the senses, when introduced as a kind of show, to the principles of which, dryly laid down, children wonId turn a deaf ear. For instance, botany, mechanics and astronomy. Reading, writing, arithmetic, natural history and some simple experiments in natural phiIosophy might fill up the day ; but these pursuits should never enI France. * Treating this part of the subject, I have borrowed some hints from a very semible pamphlet, written by the late Bishop of Autun, on Public Education. ON NA Z’IONA L ED UCA TION. lcroach on gymnastic plays in the open air. history, the history of man, and politics, might I75 The elements of religion, also he taught by con- versations, in the Socratic form. After the age of nine, girls and boys intended for domestic employments or mechanical trades, ought to be removed to other schools, and receive instruction in some measure appropriated to the destination of .each individual, the two sexes being still together in the morning ; but in the afternoon the girls should attend a school where plain-work, mantua-making, millinery, etc., would be their employment. The young people of superior abilities, or fortune, might now be taught, in another school, the dead and living languages, the elements of science, and continue the study of history and politics on a more extensive scale, which would not exclude polite literature. “Girls and boys still together ?” I hear some readers ask: Yes ! And I should not fear any other consequence than that some early .attachment might take place ; which, while it had the best effect on the moral character of the young people, might not perfectly agree with the views of the parents; for it will be a long time, I fear, before .the world will be so far enlightened that parents, only anxious to ren.der their children virtuous, shall allow them to choose companions for life themselves. Beside, this would be a sure way to promote early marriages ; and .from early marriages the most salutary physical and moral effects -naturally flow. What a different character does a married citizen assume from the selfish coxcomb, who lives but for himself, and who is often afraid to marry lest he should not be abie to live in a certain .style. Great emergencies excepted, which would rarely occur in a .society of which equality was the basis, a man can only be prepared to discharge the duties of public life by the habitual practice of those inferior ones which form the man. In this plan of education the constitution of boys would not be ruined by the early debaucheries which now make men so selfish, or girls rendered weak and vain by indolence and frivolous pursuits. Rut I presuppose that such a degree of equality should be established between the sexes as would shut out gallantry and coquetry,. yet allow friendship and love to temper the heart for the discharge of higher duties. These would be schools of morality-and the happiness of man, allowed to flow from the pure springs of duty and affection, what advances might not the human mind make? Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous ; but the present distinctions established in society corrode all private and blast all public virtue. I have already inveighed against the custom of confining girls to their nccdlc, and shutting them out from all political and civil employments ; for by thus narrowing their minds they are rendered unfit to fulfill the peculiar duties thich fiature has assigned them. Only employed about the little incidents of the day, they necessarily grow up cunning. My very soul has often sickened at observing the sly tricks practiced by women to gain some foolish thing on which their silly hearts were set. Not allowed to dispose of money, or call anything their own, they learn to turn the market penny; or, should a husband offend, by staying from home, or give rise to some emotions UT jealousy-a new gown, or any pretty bauble, smooths Juno’s angry brow. But these MUenesseswould not degrade their character, if women were led to respect themselves, if political and moral subjects were open to them ; and I will venture to affirm that this is the only way to their domestic duties. to make them properly attentive An active mind embraces the whole circle of its duties, and finds time enough for all. It is not, I assert, a bold attempt to emulate masculine virtues; it is not the enchantment of literary pursuits, or the steady investigation of scientific subjects, that leads women astray from duty. No ; it is indolence and vanity-the love of pleasure and the Iove of sway-that will reign paramount in an empty mind. I say empty emphatically, because the education which women now receive scarcely deserves the name. For the little knowledge that they are led to acquire, during the important years of youth, is merely relative to accomplishments-and accomplishments without a bottom-for unless the understanding be cultivated, superficial and monotonous is every grace. Like the charms of a made-up face, they only strike the senses in a crowd ; but at home, wanting mind, they want variety, The consequence is obvious : in gay scenes of dissipation we meet the artificial mind and face, for those who fly from solitude dread, next to solitude, the domestic circle ; not having it in their power to amuse or interest, they feel their own insignificance, or find nothing to amuse or interest themselves. Beside, what can be more indelicate than a girl’s coming OUTin tht? fashionable world ?-which, in other words, is to bring to market a marriageable miss, whose person is taken from one public place to another, richly caparisoned. Yet, mixing in the giddy circle under restraint, these butterflies long to flutter at large, for the first affection of their souls is their own persons, to which the attention has been called with the most sedulous care while they were preparing for the period that decides their fate for life. Instead of pursuing this. idle routine, sighing for tasteless show and heartless slaLtz, with what dignity .would the youths of both sexes form attachments in the schools that I have cursorily pointed out-in which, as life advanced, dancing, music, and drawing might be admitted as relaxations ; for at these schools young people of fortune ought to remain, more or less, till they were of age! Those who were designed for particular professions might attend, three or four mornings in the week, the schools appropriated for their immediate instruction. I only drop these observations at present as hints; rather, indeed, as an outline of the plan I mean than a digested one ; but I must add, that I highly approve of one regulation mentioned in the pamphlet’ already allutied to, that of making the children and youths independThey should be tried by ent of the masters respecting punishments. their peers, which would be an admirable method of fixing sound principles of justice in the mind, and might have the happiest effect on the temper, which is very early soured or irritated by tyranny, till it becomes peevishly cunning or ferociously overbearing. My imagination darts forward with bcncvolcnt fervor to greet these amiable and respectable groups, in spite of the sneering of cold hearts, who are at liberty to utter, with frigid self-importance, the damning epithet, ” romantic, ” the torte of which I shall endeavor to blunt by repeating the words of an eloquent moralist : “I know not whether the allusions of a truly human heart, whose zeal renders everything easy, be not preferable to that rough and repulsing reason which always finds an indifference for the public good the first obstacle to whatever would promote it.” I know that libertines will also exclaim that woman would be unsexed by acquiring strength of body and mind, and that beauty-soft, bewitching beauty !-would no longer adorn the daughters of men. I am of a very different opinion, for I think that, on the contrary, we should then see dignified beauty and true grace ; to produce which many powerlul physical and moral causes would concur. Not relaxed beauty, it is true, or the graces of helplessness, but such as appears to make us respect the human body, as a majestic pile fit to receive a noble inhabitant, in the relics of antiquity. I do not forget the popular opinion that the Grecian statues were not modeled after Nature. I mean, not according to the proportions of a particular man ; but that beautiful limbs and features were selected from various bodies to form an harmonious whole. This might, in some degree, be true; The fine, ideal picture of an exalted imagination might be superior to the materials which the statuary found in Nature, and thus it might with propriety be termed rather the model of mankind than of a man. It was not, however, the mechanical selection of limbs and features, but the ebullition of a heated fancy thaw burst forth ; and the fine senses and enlarged understanding of the artist selected the solid matter, which he drew into this glowing focus. I observed that it was not mechanical, because a whole was produced-a model of that grand simplicity, of those concurring energies, * The Bishop of Autun’s. 178 VINDlCATZOrV OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN which arrest our attention and command our reverence. For only insipid, lifeless beauty is produced by a servile copy of even beautiful Nature. Yet, independent of these observations, I believe that the human form must have been far more beautiful than it is at present ; because extreme inddlence, barbarous ligatures, and many causes which forcibly act on it, in our luxurious state of society, did not retard its expansion nor render it deformed. Exercise and cleanliness appear to be not only the surest means of preserving health, but of promoting beauty, the physical causes only considered ; yet this is not sufficient; moral ones must concur, or beauty xvi11be merely of that rustic kind which blooms on the innocent, wholesome countenances of some country people, whose minds have not been exercised. To render the person perfect, physical and moral beauty ought to be attained at the same time, each lending and receiving force by the combination. Judgment must reside on the brow, affection and fancy beam in the eye, and humanity curve the cheek, or vain is the sparkling of .&he finest eye nr the elegantly turned finish of the fairest features ; while in every motion that displays the active limbs and well-knit ,joints, grace and modesty should appear. But this fair assemblage is inot to be brought together by chance ; it is the reward of exertions calculated to support each other ; for judgment can only be acquired iby reflection, affection by the discharge of duties, and humanity by the exercise of compassion to every living creature. Humanity to animals should be particularly inculcated as a part of national education, for it is not at present one of our national virtues. Tenderness for their humble, dumb domestics among the lower class is oftener to be found in a savage than in a civilized state. For civilization pl-events that intercourse which creates affection in the rude hut, or mud hovel, and leads uncultivated minds, who are only depraved by the refinements which prevail in the society, where they are trodden under foot by the rich, to domineer over them to revenge the insults that they are obliged to bear from their superiors. This habitual cruelty is first caught at school, where it is one of the rare sports of the boys to torment the miserable brutes that fall in their way. The transition, as they grow up, from ,barbarity to brutes to domestic tyranny over wives, children, and servants is very easy. Justice, or even benevolence, will not be a powerful spring of action unless it extend to the whole creation; nay, I believe that it may be delivered as an axiom, that those who can see pain unmoved will soon learn to inflict it. The vulgar are swayed by present feelings, and the habits which they have accidentally acquired ; but on partial feelings much depend,ence cannot be placed, though they ,be just ; for, when they are not invigorated by reflection, custom weakens them, till they are scarcely The sympathies of our nature are strengthened by perceptible. ON NA TIOIVAL ED UCA TIOX. pondering cogitations, and deadened by thoughtless heart smote him more for one murder, I79 use. Macbeth’s the first, than for a hundred subsequent ones, which were necessary to back it. But when I used the epithet “ vulgar,” I did not mean to confine my remark to the -poor ; for partial humanity, founded on present sensations, or whim, is quite as conspicuous, if not more so, among the rich. The lady who sheds tears for the bird starved in a snare, and execrates the devils in the shape of men who goad to madness the poor under a burden above its ass, tottering strength, will nevertheless keep her coachman and horses whole hours waiting for her, when the sharp frost bites, or the rain beats against the well-closed windows which do not admit a breath of air to tell ox or whip the patient how roughly the wind blows without. And she who takes her dogs to bed, and nurses them with a parade of sensibility, when sick, will suffer her babes to grow up crooked in a nursery. This illustration of my argument is drawn from a matter of fact. The woman whom I allude to was handsome, reckoned very handsome, by those who did not miss the mind when the face is plump and fair; but her understanding had not been led from female duties by literature, nor her innocence debauched by knowledge. No; she was quite feminine, according to the masculme acceptation of the word ; and, so far from loving these spoiled brutes that filled the place which her children ought to have occupied, she only lisped out a pretty mixture of French and English nonsense to please the men who flocked round her. The wife, mother, and human creature, were all swallowed up by the factitious character which an improper education and the self- ish vanity of beauty had produced. I do not like to make a distinction without a difference, and I own that I have been as much disgusted by the fine lady who took her lap-dog to her bosom instead of her child, as by the ferocity of a man, who, beating his horse, declared that he knew as well when he did wrong as a Christian. This brood of folly shows how mistaken they are who, if they allow women to leave their harems, do not cultivate their understandings in order to plant virtues in their hearts. For, had they sense, they might acquire that domestic taste which would lead them to love with reasonable subordination their whole family, from their husband to the house-dog ; nor would they ever insult humanity in the person of the most menial servant by payinK more attention to the comfort of a brute than to {hat of a fellow-creature. My observations on natural education are obviously hints; but I principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes together to perfect both, and of making chiidren sleep at borne that they may learn to love home ; yet, to make private support, instead of smothering, public affections, they should be sent to school to mix VIiVDICATION 180 OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. wit6 a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of equality form a just opinion of ourselves. To render mankind mm-e virtuons, and happier, of course, can we both sexes must act from the same principle; but how can that be expected when only one is allowed to see the reasonableness of it ? To render also the social compact truly equitable, and in order to spread those enlightening principles which alone can meliorate the fate of man, women must be allowed to found their virtue on knowledge,, which is scarcely possible unless they be educated by the same pursuits as men. For they are made so inferior by ignorance and low desires, as not to deserve to be ranked with them ; or, by the serpentine wrigglings of cunning, they mount the tree of knowledge, and only acquire sufficient to lead men astray. IL is plain rrum 11x Irislury wl all uali~us, L11at. WUIII~:II cannot be confined to merely domestic pursuits, for they will not fulfill family duties, unless their minds take a wider range, and while they are kept in ignorance they become in the same proportion the slaves of pleasure as they are the slaves of men. Nor can they be shut out of great enterprises, though the narrowness of their minds often makes them. mar what they are unable to comprehend. The libertinism, and even the virtues, of superior men, will always. give wumen, of some description, great power over them ; and these weak women, under the influence of childish passions and selfisk vanity, will throw a false light over the objects which the very men view with their eyes, who ought to enlighten their judgment. Men of fancy, and, those sanguine characters who mostly hold the helm of hnmzm affairs, in general, relax in the society of women ; and surely I need not cite to the most superficial reader of history the numerous examples of vice and oppression which the private intrigues of female favorites have prqduced, not to dwell on the mischief that naturally arises from the blundering interposition of well-meaning folly. For in the transactions of business it is much better to have to deal with> a knave than a fool, because a knave adheres to some plan; and any plan of reason may be seen through much sooner than a sudden flight of folIy. The power which vile and foolish women have had over wise men, who possessed sensibility, is notorious: I shall only mention one instance. Who ever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau?though, in the lump, he constantly endeavored to degrade the sex. And why was he thus anxious? Truly, to justify to himself the affec-tion which weakness and virtue had made him cherish for that fool Theresa. He could not raise her to the common level of her sex; and therefore he labored to bring woman down to hers. He found her a convenient, humble companion, and pride made him determine to find some superior virtues in the being whom he chose to live with ; ON NA ~TIONA L ED UCA TION. but did not her conduct during his life, and after his death, clearly show how grossly he was mistaken who called her a celestial inno- ,cent ? Nay, in the bitterness of his heart he himself laments, that when his bodily infirmities made him no longer treat her like a woman, she ceased to have an affection for him. And it was very natural that she should ; for, having so few sentiments in common, when the sexual tie was broken, what was to hold her? To hold her affection whose sensibility was confined to one sex, nay, to one man, it requires sense to turn sensibility into the broad channel of humanity ; many women have not mind enough to have an affection for a woman, or a friendship for a man. But the sexual weakness that makes woman depend upon a man for subsistence, produces a kind of cattish affection which leads a wife to purr about her husband as she would about any man who fed and caressed her. Men are, however, often gratified by this kind of fondness, which is confined in a beastly manner to themselves ; but should they ever become more virtuous, they will wish to converse at their fireside with a friend, after they cease to play with a mistress. Beside, understanding is necessary to give variety and interest to sensual enjoyments ; for low, indeed, in the intellectual scale is the mind that can contrnue to love when neither virtue nor scwc give: a human appearance to an animal appetite. But sense will always preponderate; and if women be not, in general, brought more on a level with men, some superior women, like the Greek courtezans, will .assemble the men of abilities around them, and draw from their families many citizens who would have stayed at home had their wives had .more sense, or the graces which result from the exercise of understanding and fancy, the legitimate parents of taste. A woman of talents, if she be not absolutely ugly, will always obtain great power, raised by the weakness of her sex ; and in proportion as men acquire virtue and delicacy, by the exertion of reason, they will look for both in women, but they can only acquire them in the same way that men do. In France or Italy, have the women confined themselves to domestic life ? Though they have not hitherto had a political existence, yet, have they not illicitly had great sway, corrupting themselves and the men with whose passions they played? In short, in whatever light I viewed the subject, reason and experience convince me that the only method of leading women to fulfill their peculiar duties, is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate the inherent rights of mankind. Make them free, and ttrey will quickly become wise and virtuous, as men become more so ; for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of man will be worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps uncles llis feet. VfNDICA I82 2+IOiV OF THE RIGHTS Let men take their choice-man and wo?an other, though not to become one being-and prove women they will deprave OF WOMAN. were made for each if they will not im- them ! I speak of the improvement and emancipation of the whole sex ; for I know that the behavior of a few women, who, by accident, or following a strong bent of Nature, have acquired a portion of knowledge superior to that of the rest of their sex, has often been overbearing ; but there have been instances of women who, attaining knowledge, have not discarded modesty, nor have they always pedanticalfy appeared to despise the ignorance which they labored to disperse in their own minds. The exclamations, then, which any advice respect-ing female learning commonly produces, especially from pretty women, often arise from envy. When they chance to see that even the lustre of their eyes am.l the flippant spol-tivcness of refined coquetry will not always secure them attention during a whole evening, should a woman of a more cultivated understanding endeavor to give a rational turn to the conversation, the common source of consolation is that such women seldom get husbands. What arts have I not seen silly women use to interrupt byflirtatiun-a very significant word to describe such a manceuvre-a rational conversation which made the men forget that they were pretty women ! But allowing what is very natural to man, that the possession of rare abilities is really calculated to excite overweening pride, disgusting in both men and women-in what a state of inferiority must the female faculties have rusted, when such a small portion of knowledge as those women attained who hare sneeringly been termed learned women, col~lrl be singular !- suficiently so to puff tip the possessor and excite envy in her contemporaries, and some of the other sex. Nay, has not a little rationality exposed many women to the severest censure? I advert to well known facts, for I have frequently heard women ridiculed, and every little weakness exposed, only because they adopted the advice of some medical men, and deviated from the beaten track in their mode of treating their infants. I have actually heard this barbarous aversion to innovation carried still fnrther, and a sensible woman stigmatized as an unnatural mother, who has thus been wisely solicitous to preserve the health of her children, when, in the midst of her care, she has lost one by some of the casualties of infancy, which no prudence can ward off. Her acquaintance has observed that this was the consequence of new-fangled notions--the new-fangled notions of ease and cleanliness.. And those who pretended to experience, though they have long adhered to prejudices that have, according to the opinions of the most. sagacious physicians, thinned the human race, almost rejoiced at the disaster that gave a kind of sanction to prescription. Indeed, if it were only on this account, the national education of ON NATiONAL &DUCATIOh? ‘83 women is of the utmost consequence, for what a number of human sat;rifices are made to that Moloch-prejudice ! And in how many children destroyed by the lasciviousness of man ! ways are The want of natural affection in many women, who are drawn from their duty by the admiration of men, and the ignorance of others, render the infancy of man a much more perilous state than that of brutes ; yet men are unwilling to place women in situations proper to enable them to acquire sufficient understanding to know how even to nurse their babes. So forcibly does this truth strike me, that Iwould rest the whole tendency of my reasoning upon it, for whatever tends to incapacitate the maternal character takes woman out of her sphere. But it is vain to expect the present race of weak mothers either to take that reasonable care of a child’s body which is necessary to lay the foundation of a good constitution, supposing that it do not suffer for the sins of its fathers, or to manage its temper so judiciously that the child will not have, as it grows up, to throw off all that its mother, its first instructor, directly or indirectly taught ; and, unless the mind have uncommon vigor, womanish follies will stick to the character throughout life-the weakness of the mother will be visited on the children ! And while women are educated to rely on their husbands for judgment, this must ever be the consequence ; for there is no improving an understanding by halves ; nor can any being act wisely from imitation, because in every circumstance of life there is a kind of individuality which requires an exertion of judgment to modify general rules. The being who can think justly in one track wil1 soon extend its intellectual empire ; and she who has sufficient. judgment to manage her children will not submit, right or wrong, to her husband, or patiently to the social laws which make a nonentity of a wife. In public schools women, to guard against the errors of ignorance, should be taught the elements of anatomy and medicine, not only to enable them to take proper care of their own health, but to make them rational nurses of their infants, parents and husbands ; for the bills of mortality are swelled by the blunders of self-willed old women, who give nostrums of their own without knowing anything of the human frame. It is likewise proper, only in a domestic view, to make women acquainted with the anatomy of the mind, by allowing the sexes to associate together in every pursuit, ancl by leading them to observe the progress of the human understanding in the improvement of the sciences and arts ; never forgetting the science of morality, or the study of the political history of mankind. A man has been termed a microcosm ; and every family might also be called a State. States, it is true, have mostly been governed by arts that disgrace the. character of man ; aud tht. wallt of a just 184 VIfVDICA TION OF TgE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. constitution and equal laws have so perplexed the notions of the worldly-wise, that they more than question the reasonableness of contending for the rights of humanity. Thus morality. polluted in the national reservoir, sends off streams of vice to corrupt the constituent part of the body politic; but should more noble or, rather, more just principles regulate the laws, which ought to be the government of spciety, and not those who execute them, duty might become the rule of private conduct. Beside, by the exercise of their bodies and minds women would acquire that mental activity so necessary in the maternal character, united with the fortitude that distinguishes steadiness of conduct from the obstinate perverseness of weakness. For it is dangerous to advise the indolent to be steady, because they instantly become rigorous, and, to save themselves trouble, punish with severity faults that the patient fortitude of reason might have prevented. But fortitude presupposes strength of mind ; and is strength of mind to be acquired by indolent acquiescence? by asking advice instead of exerting the judgment ? by obeying through fear, instead of practicing the forbearance which we all stand in need of ourselves ? The conclusion which I wish to draw is obvious : Make women rational creatures and free citizens, and thef will quickly become good wives and mothers ; that is-if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers. Discussing the advantages which a public and private education combined, as I have sketched, might rationally be expected to produce-1 have dwelt most on such as are particularly relative to the female world, because I think the female world oppressed ; yet the gangrene which the vices engendered by oppression have produced, is not confined to the morbid part, but pervades society at large ; so that when I wish to see my sex become more like moral agents, my heart bounds with the anticipation of the general diffusion of that sublime contentment which only morality can diffuse. CHAPTER SOME INSTANCES GENERATES, IMPROVEMENT NATURALLY T OF THE WITH THAT FOLLY XIII. WHICH CONCLUDING A BE EXPECTED REVOLUTION TO THE IGNORANCE REFLECTIONS IN FEMALE ON OF WOMEN THE MORAL MANNERS MIGHT PRODUCE. HERE are many follies in some degree peculiar to women : sins against reason of commission’as well as of omission ; but, all flowing from ignorance or prejuclice, I shall only point out such as POLL Y GENERA TED B Y IGNORANCE. appear to be particuIarly animadverting on them, injurious to their moral character. I wish cspccially to prove that ‘8 And, in the wcakncss of mind and body, which men have endeavored, impelled by various motives, to perpetuate, prevents their discharging the peculiar duty of their sex-for, when weakness of body will not permit them to suckle their children, and weakness of mind makes them spoil their tempers, are women in a natural state ? SECTION I. One glaring instance of the weakness which proceeds from ignorance, first claims attention and calls for severe reproof. In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain a subsistence by practicing on the credulity of women, pretending to cast nativities-to use the technical phrase-and many females who. proud of their rank and fortune, look down on the vulgar with sovereign contempt, show by this credulity that the distinction is arbitrary, and that they have not sufficiently cultivated their minds to rise above vulgar prejudices. Women, because they have not been led to consider the knowledge of their duty as the one thing necessary to know, or to live in the present moment. by the discharge of it, are very anxious to peep into futurity, to learn what they have to expect, to render life interesting and to break the vacuum of ignorance. I must be allowed to expostulate seriously with the ladies who follow these idle inventions ; for ladies-mistresses of families--are not ashamed to drive in their own carriages to the door of the cunning man.’ And if any of them should peruse this work, I entreat them to answer to their own hearts the following questions, not forgetting that they are in the presence of God. Do you believe that there is but one God, and that He is powerful, wise and good? Do you believe that all things were created by Him, and that all beings are dependent on Him ? DO YOU rely on His wisdom, so conspicuous in His works, and in your own frame? and are you convinced that He has ordered all things which do not come under the cognizance of your senses, in the same perfect harmony, to fulfill His designs ? Do you acknowledge that the power of looking into futurity, and seeing things that are not, as if they were, is an attribute of the Creator? And should He, by an impression on the minds of His ’ I once lived in the neighborhood of one of these men, a Aandsomr man, and SW, with surprise and indignationf women, whose appearance and attendance bespoke that rank in which females are supposed to receive a superior education, flock Jo his door. 186 VINDICA TION OF THE RIGHTS OP WOMAN. creatures, think fit to impart to them some event hid in the shades of time yet unborn, to whom would the secret be revealed by immediate The opinion of ages will answer this question: To rev-. inspiration? erend old men, to people distinguished for eminent piety. The oracles of old were thus delivered by priests dedicated to the. service of the god who was supposed to inspire them. The glare of worldly pomp which surrounded these impostors, and the respect paid to them by artful politicians, who knew how to avail themselves of this useful engine to bend the necks of the strong under the dommion of the cunning, spread a sacred, mysterious veil of sanctity over their lies and abominations. Impressed by such solemn, devotional parade, a Greek or Roman lady might be excused if she inquired of the oracle, when she was anxious to pry into futurity, or inquire about some dubious event ; and her inquiries, however contrary to reason, could not be reckoned impious. But can the professors of Christianity ward off that imputation? Cau a Christian suppose that the favorites of the Most High, the highly favored, would be obliged to lurk in disguise, and practice the most dishonest tricks to cheat sillywomen out of the money-which the poor cry for in vain? Say not that such questions are an insult to common sense-for it is your own conduct, 0 ye foolish women, which throws an odium on your sex ! And these reflections should make you shudder at your thoughtlessness and irrational devotion, for I do not suppose that all of you laid aside your religion, such as it is, when you entered those. mysterious dwellings. Yet, as I have throughout supposed myself talking to ignorant women-for ignorant ye are in the most emphati-cal sense of the word-it would be absurd to reason with you on the. egregious folly of desiring to know what the Supretne Wisdom has. concealed. Probably you would not understand me were I to attempt to show you that it would of life-that be absolutely inconsistent with the grand purpose of rendering human creatures wise and virtuous-and that, were il sawCurled by God, it would disturb the order established in creation ; and if it be not sanctioned by God, do you expect to, which have not yet ashear truth ? Can events be foretold-events sumed a body to become subject to mortal inspection-can they be foreseen by a vicious worldlmg, who pampers his appetites by preying on the foolish ones? Perhaps, however, you devoutly believe in the devil, and imagine, to shift the question, that he may assist his votaries ; but if really respccting the power of such a being, au enemy tu goudn~ss and tu, God, can you go to church after having been under such an obligation to him ? From these delusions to those still more fashionable deceptions,. practiced by the whole tribe of magnetizers, the transition is very JOLLY GENERATED BY IGNORANCE. natural. With respect to them, it is equally proper to ask women a few questions. Do you know anything of the construction of the human frame? If not, it is proper that you should be told what every child ought to know, that when its admirable economy has been disturbed by intemperance or indolence-I speak not of violent disorders, but of chronical diseases-it must be brought into a healthy state again by slow degrees ; and, if the functions of life have not been materially injured, regimen-another word for temperance-air, exercise, and a few medicines, prescribed by persons who have studied the human body, are the only human means yet discovered of recovering that inestimable blessing-health, that will bear investigation. Do you then believe that these magnetizers, who, by hocus-pocus. tricks, pretend to work a miracle, are delegated by God, or assisted by the solver of a11these kind of difficulties-the devil ? Do they, when they put to flight, as it is said, disorders that have baffled the powers of medicine, work in conformity to the light of reason ? or, do they effect these wonderful cures by supernatural aid ?. “ By a communication,” an adept may answer, “ with the world of spirits ! ” A noble privilege, it must be allowed. Some of the ancients. mention familiar demons, who guarded them from danger by kindly intimating, we cannot guess in what manner, when any danger was. nigh, or pointed out what they ought to undertake. Yet the men who laid claim to this privilege, out of the order of Nature, insisted that it was the reward, or consequence, of superior temperance and piety. But the present workers of wanders are not raised above theirfellows by superior temperance or sanctity. They do not cure for the, love of God, but for money. These are the priests of quackery, though it is true they have not the convenient expedient of selling masses for souls in purgatory, or churches where they can display crutches and models of limbs made sound by a touch or a word. I am not conversant with the technical terms, nor initiated into the. arcana, therefore, I may speak improperly ; but ‘it is clear that men who will not conform to the law of’reason and earn a subsistence in an honest way, by degrees, are very fortunate in becoming acquainted with such obliging spirits. We cannot, indeed, give them credit for either great sagacity or goodness, else they would have chosen more noble instruments, when they wished to show themselves the benevolent friends of man. It is, however, little short of blasphemy to pretend to such powers ! From the whole tenor of the dispensations of Providence, it appears evident to sober reason that certain vices produce certain effects ; and can any one so grossly insult the wisdom of God, as to suppose that a miracle will be allowed to disturb His general laws, to restore tu health the intemperate and vicious, merely to enable 188 VZNDZCA TZON OF THE RZGHTS OF WOMAN. them to pursue the same course with impunity ? “ Be whole, and sin no more,” said Jesus. And are greater miracles to be performed by those who do not follow His footsteps, who healed the body to reach the mind ? The mentioning of the name of Christ, after such vile impostors, may displease some of my readers. I respect their warmth ; but let them not forget that the followers of these delusions bear His name, and profess to be the disciples of Him who said, by their works we should know who were the children of God or the servants of sin. I allow that it is easier to touch the body of a saint, or to be mag,netized, than to restrain our appetites or govern our passions ; but health of body or mind can only be recovered by these means, or .we make the Supreme Judge partial and revengeful. Is He 3 man that He should change, or punish out of resentment? He-the common Father, wounds but to heal, says reason, and our irregularities producing certain consequences, we are forcibly shown the nature of vice; that thus learning to know good from evil, by experience, we may hate one and love the other, in proportion to the wisdom which we attain. The poison contains the antidote; and we either reform our evil habits and cease to sin against our .own bodies, to use the forcible language of Scripture, or a premature death, the punishment of sin, snaps the thread of lift. Here an awful stop is put to our inquiries. But why should I conceal my sentiments ? Considering the attributes of God, I believe that whatever punishment may follow, will tend, like the anguish of disease, to show.the malignity of vice, for the purpose of reformation. Positive punishment appears so contrary to the nature of God, discoverable in all His works, and in our reason, that I couId sooner believe that the Deity paid no attention to the conduct of men, than that He punished without the benevolent design of reforming. To suppose only that an all-wise and powerful Being, as good as He is great, should create a being foreseeing that, after fifty or srxty years of feverish existence, it would be plunged into never-ending woe-is blasphemy. On what will the worm feed that is never to die ? “ On folly, on ignorance,” say ye-1 should blush indignantly at drawing the natural conclusion, could I insert it, and wish to withdraw myself from the wing of my God ! On such a supposition, I speak with reverence, He would be a consuming fire. We should wish, though vainly, to fly from His presence when fear absorbed love, and darkness involved all His counsels ! I know that many devout people boast of submitting to the wiI1 of God blindly, as to an arbitrary sceptre or rod, on the same principle as the Indians worship the devil. In other words, like people -in the common concerns of life, they do homage to power, and FULL Y GENERA TEB BY IGNORANCE. If% cringe under the foot that can crush them. Rational religion, on the contrary, is :I submission to the will of a Being so perfectly wise, that all He wills must be directed by the proper motive-must be reasonable. And, if thus we respect God, can we give credit to the mysterious. insinuations which insult His laws? Can we believe, though it should stare us in the face, that He would work a miracle to authorize confusion by sanctioning an error ? Yet we must either allow these impious conclusions, or treat with contempt every promise to restore health to a diseased body by supernatural means, or to foretell the. incidents that can only be foreseen by God. SECTION II. Another instance of that feminine weakness of character often produced by a confined education, is a romantic twist of the mind, which has been very properly termed sentimeni&. Women subjected by ignorance to their sensations, and only taught. to look for happiness in love, refine on sensual feelings, and adopt metaphysical notions respecting that passion which lead them shamefully to neglect the duties of life, and frequently in the midst of these sublime refinements they plump into actual vice. These are the women who are amused by the reveries of the stupid novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste and draw the heart aside from its daily duties. I do not mention the understanding, because never having been exercised, its slumbering energies rest inactive, like the lurking particles of fire which are supposed universally to pervade matter. Females, in fact, denied all political privileges, and not allowed, as married women, excepting in criminal cases, a civil existence, have their attention naturally drawn from the interest of the whole community to that of the minute. parts, though the private duty of any member of society must be very imperfectly performed when not connected with the general good. The mighty business of female life is to please, and restrained from entering into more important concerns by political and civil oppression, sentiments become events, and reflection deepens what it should, and would, have effaced, if the understanding had been allowed to take a wider range. But, confined to trifling employments, they naturally imbibe opinions which the only kind of reading calculated to interest an innocent, frivolous mind inspires. Unable to grasp any great thing, is it surprising that they find the reading of history a very dry talk, and disquisitions addressed to the understanding intolerably tedionn and 190 tYNDlCA TION OP TUE RIGHTS OP WOMAN. .almost unintelligible? Thus are they necessarily dependent on the novelist for amusement. Yet, when I exclaim against novels, 1 mean when contrasted with those works which exercise the understanding a& regulate the imagination. r‘or any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a blank, because the ‘mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by a slight exer-tion of its thinking powers ; beside, even the productions that are *only addressed to the imagination, raise the reader a little above the gross gratification of appetites, to which the mind has not give11 a :shade of delicacy. This observation is the result of experience ; for I have known several notable women, and one in particular, who was a very good woman-as good as such a narrow mind, would allow her to be-who took care that her daughters (three in number) should never see a novel. AS she was a woman of fortune and fashion, they had various masters to attend them, and a sort of menial governess to watch -their footsteps. Prom their masters they learned how tables, chairs, etc., were called in French and Italian ; but as the few books thrown in their way were far above their capacities, or devotional, they neither ,acquired ideas nor sentiments, and passed their time, when not compelled to repeat words, in dressing, quarreling with each other, or #conversing with their maids by stealth, till they were brought into company as marriageable. Their mother, a widow, was busy in the meantime in keeping up her ,connections, as she termed a numerous acquaintance, lest her .girls should want a proper introduction into the great world. And these .young ladies, with minds vulgar in every sense of the word, and spoiled tempers, cnteled lilt: puffed up wirh notions of their own consequence, and looking down with contempt on those who could not vie with them in dress and parade. With respect to love, Nature, or their nurses, had taken care to teach them the physical meaning of the word ; and, as they had few topics of conversation, and fewer refinements of sentiment, they expressed their gross wishes not in very delicate phrases, when they spoke freely talking of matrimony. Could these girls have been injured by the perusal of novels! 1 almost forgot a shade in the character of one of them ; she affected a simplicity bordering on folly, and, with a simper, would utter the most immodest remarks and questions, the full meaning of which she had learned while secluded from the world, and afraid to speak in her mother’s presence, who governed with a high hnnd. They were all educated, as she prided herself, in a most exemplary manner, and read their chapters and psalms before breakfast, never touching a silly novel. This is only one instance ; but I recollect many other women who, FOLLY GEiVERATEn BY IGNORANCE. 131 not led by degrees to proper studies, and not permitted to choose for themselves, have indeed been overgrown children ; or have obtained, by mixing in the world, a little of what is termed common sense-that is, a distinct manner of seeing common occurrences as they stand detached-but what deserves the name of inteilect, the power df gaining general or abstract ideas, or even intermediate ones, was out of the question. Their minds were quiescent, and when they were not roused by sensible objects and employments of that kind, they were low-spirited, would cry, or go to sleep. When, therefore, I advise my sex not to read such flimsy works, it is to induce them to read something superior ; for I coincide in opinion with a sagacious man who, having a daughter and niece under his .care, pursued a very different plan with each. The niece, who had considerable abilities, had, before she was left to his guardianship, been indulged in desultory reading. Her he ,endeavored to lead, and did lead, to history and moral essays ; but his daughter, whom a fond, weak mother had indulged, and who consequently was averse to everything like application, he allowed to read novels; and used to justify his conduct by saying, that if she ever attained a relish for reading them, he shouId have some foundation to work upon, and that erroneous opinions were better than none at .all. In fact, the female mind has been so totalIy neglected, that knowledge was only to be acquired from this muddy source, till from reading novels some women of superior talents learned to despise -them. The best method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a fondness for novels is to ridicule them-not indiscriminately, for then it would have little effect ; but if a judicious person, with some turn for humor, would read several to a young girl, and point out, both by tones and apt comparisons with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted instead of romantic senti- ments. In one respect, however, the majority of both- sexes resemble, and .equally show a want of taste and modesty. Ignorant women, forced to be chaste to preserve their reputation, allow theii imagination to revel in the unnatural and meretricious scenes sketched by the novel writers of the day, slighting as insipid the sober dignity and matron graces of history,’ while men carry the same vitiated taste .and fly for amusement to the wanton, from the unsophisticated af virtue and the grave respectability of sense. into life, charms 1 I am not now alluding to that superiority of mind which leads to the creation of ideal beauty, when he, surveyed with a penetrating eye. appears a tragi-comedy, in which little can be seen to satisfy the heart without the help of fancy. Beside, the reading of novels makes women, and particularly ladies of fashion, very fond of using strong expressions and superlatives in conversation ; and, though the dissipated, artificial life which they lead prevents their cherishing auy strong legitimate passion, the language of passion in affected tones slips forever from their glib tongues, and every trifle produces those phosphoric bursts which only mimic in the dark the flame of passion. SECTION III. Ignorance and the mistaken cunning that Nature sharpens in weak heads as a principle of self-preservation, render women very fond of dress, and produce all the vanity which such a fondness may naturally be expected to generate, to the exclusion of emulation and magnanimity. I agree with Rousseau that the physical part of the art of pleasing rnnsists in ornaments, and for that very reason I should guard girls against the contagious fondness for dress so common to weak women, that they may not rest in the physical part. Yet, weak are the women who imagine that they can long please without the aid of the mind, or, in other words, without the moral art of pleasing. But the moral art, if it be not a profanation to use the word “art,” when alluding to the grace which is an effect of virtue, and not the motive of action, is never to be found with ignorance ; the sportiveness of innocence, so pleasing to refined libertines of both sexes, is widely different in its essence from this superior gracefulness. A strong inclination for external ornaments ever appears in barbarous states-unly OK IIIWI, not the women, adorn themselves; for where women are allowed to be so far on a level with men, society has advanced, at least one step, in civilization. The attention to dress, therefore, which has been thought a sexuak propensity, I think natural to mankind. But I ought to express myWhen the mind is not sufficiently opened self with more precision to take pleasure in reflection, the bddy wil1 be adorned with sedulous care, and ambition will appear in tattooing or painting it. So far is this first inclination carried, thaw even the hellish yoke of slavery cannot stifle the savage desire of admiration which the black heroes inherit from both their parents, for all the hardly-earned savings of a slave are commonly expended in a little tawdry finery. And I have seldom known a good male or female servant that was not particularly fond of dress. Their clothes were their riches; and I argue from analogy that the fondness for dress, so extravagant in females, arises from the same cause-want of cultivation of mind. When men meet they converse about business, politics, or literature ; but, says Swift, “how naturally do women apply their hands to each FOLLY GENERATED BY IGNORANCE. ‘93 other’s, lappets and ruffles.” And very natural is it-for they have not any business to interest them, have not a taste for literature, and they find politics dry, because they have not acquired a love for mankind by turning their thoughts to the grand pursuits that exalt the human race and promote general happiness. Beside, various are the paths to power and fame which by accident or choice men pursue, and though they jostle against each other-for men of the same profession are seldom friends-yet there is a much greater number of their fellow-creatures with whom they never clash. But women are very differently situated with respect to each otherfor they are all rivals. Before marriage it is their business to please men; and after, with a few exceptions; they follow the same scent with all the persevering Even virtuous women never forget their sex pertinacity of instinct, in company, for they are for ever trying to make themselves agrccab~~. A female beauty and a male wit appear to be equally anxious to draw the attention of the company to themselves ; and the animosity of contemporary wits is proverbial. Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running in the same race, and would rise above the virtue of mortals if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye. An immoderate fondness for dress, for pleasure, and for sway, are the passions of savages; the passions that occupy those uncivilized beings who have not yet extended the dominion of the mind, or even learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that abstract train of thought which produces principles. .4nd that women, from their education and the present state of civilized life, are in the same condition, cannot, I think, be controverted. To laugh at them, then, or satirize the follies of a being who is never to be allowed to act freely from the light of her own reason, is as absurd as cruel ; for that they who are taught blindly to obey authority will endeavor cunningly to elude it, is most natural and certain. Yet let it be proved that they ought to obey man implicitly, and I shall immediately agree that it is woman’s duty to cultivate a fondness for dress, in order to please, and a propensity to cunning for her nan preservation. The virtues, however, which are supported by ignorance must ever be wavering-the house built on sand could not endure a storm, It is almost unnecessary to draw the inference. If women are to be made virtuous by authority, which is a contradiction in terms, let them be immured in seraglios and watched with a jealous eye. Fear not that the iron will enter into their souls-for the souls that can 194 Vll\iDlCATlON OF THE RIGHTS bear such treatment are made of yielding enough to give life to the body. “ Matter too soft a lasting mark OF W-OMAN. materials, just animated to bear. And best distinguish’d by black, brown. or fair.” The most cruel wounds wil1, of course, soon heal, and they may still people the world, and dress to please man-all the purposes which certain celebrated writers have allowed that they were created to fulfill. SECTION IV. Women are supposed to possess more sensibility, and even humanity, than men, and tneir strong attachments and instantaneous emotions of compassion are given as proofs; but the clihging affection of ignorance has seldom -anything noble in it, and may mostly be resolved into selfishness, as well as the afiection of children and brutes. I have known many weak women whose sensibility was entirely en- grossed by their husbands ; and as for their humanity, it was Very faint indeed, or, rather, it was only a transient emotion of compassion. Humanity does not consist “in a squeamish ear,” says an eminent orator, “it belongs to the mind as well as the nerves.” But this kind of exclusive affection, though it degrades the individual, should not be brought forward as a proof of the inferior,ity of the sex, because it is the n&Ural consequence of confined views ; for even women of superior sense, having their attention turned to little employments, and private plans, rarely rise to heroism, unless when spurred on by love ! and love, as an heroic passion, like genius, appears but once in an age. I therefore agree with the moralist who asserts, ‘(that women have seldom so much generosity as men ; ” and that their narrow affections, to which justice and humanity are often sacrificed, render the sex apparently inferior, especially as they are commonly inspired by men ; but I contend that the heart would expand as the understanding gained strength, if women were not depressed from their cradles. I know that a little sensibility, and great weakness, will produce a strong sexual attachment, and that reason must cement friendship; consequently, I allow that more friendship is to be found in the male than in the female world, and that men have a higher sense of justice. The exclusive affections of women seem indeed to resemble Cato’s He wished to crush Carthage, not most unjust love for his country. to save Rome, but to prnmote its vain-glory; and, in general, it is tn similar principles that humanity is sacrificed, for genuine duties support each other. Beside, how can women be just or generous, when they are the slaves of injustice? POLL Y GEERA TED SECTlON As the rearing of childrctl-that BY IGiVORANCE. V. is, the laying a foundation of sound health, both of body and mind, in the rising generation-has justly been insisted on as the peculiar destination of woman, the ignorance that incapacitates them must be contrary to the order of things. And I contend that their minds can take in much more, and ought to do so, or they will never become sensible mothers. Many men attend to the breeding of horses, and overlook the management of the stable, who would-strange w&t of sense and feeling !-think themselves degraded by paying any attention to the nursery ; yet, how many children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of women ! But when they escape, and are destroyed neither by unnatural uegligence nor blind fondness, how few are managed properly with respect to the iufant mind ! So that to break the spirit, allowed to become vicious at home, a child is sent to school ; and the methods taken there, which must be taken to keeIj a number of children in order, scatter the seeds of almost every vice in thesoil thus forcibly torn up. I have sometimes compared the struggles of these poor children, who ought never to have felt restraint, nor would, had they been always held in with an even hand, to the despairing plunges of a spirited filly, which I have seen breaking on a strand ; its feet sinking deeper and deeper in the sand every time it endeavored to throw its rider, till at last it sulIenly submitted. I have always found horses-animals I am attached to-very tractable when treated with humanity and steadiness, so that 1 doubt whether the violent methods taken to break them do not essentially injure them. I am, however, certain that a child should never be thus forcibly tamed after it has injudiciously been allowed to run wild ; for every violation of justice and reason in the treatment of children weakens their reason. And so early do they catch a character, that the base of the moral character, experienceleacls me to infer, is fixed before their seventh year, the period during which women are allowed the sole management of children. Afterwards it too often happens that half the business of education is to correct-and very imperfectly is it done, if done hastily-the faults which they would never have acquired if their mothers had had more understanding. One striking instance of the folly of women must not be omittedthe manner in which they treat infants in the presence of childrea, permitting them to suppose that they ought to wait on them and bear their humors. A child should always be made to receive assistance from a man or woman as a favor ; and, as the first lesson of independence, they should practically be taught, by the exampie of their mother, not to require that personal attendance which it is an insult to humanity tu require: whw in health ; aml, instead of being led 10 196 VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. assume airs of consequence, a sense of their own weakness should first make them feel the natural equality of man. Yet how frequently have I indignantly heard servants imperiously called to put children to bed, and sent away again and again, because master or miss hung about mamma to stay a little longer ! Thus made slavishly to attend the little idol, all those most disgusting humors were exhibited which characterize a spoiled child. In short, speaking of the majority of mothers, they leave their children entirely to the care of servants ; or, because they are their children, treat them as if they were little demi-gods, though I have always observed that the women who thus idolize their children seldom show common humanity to servants, or feel the least tenderness for any children but their own. It is, however, these exclusive affections, and an individual manner of seeing things, produced by ignorance, which keep women forever at a stand with respect to improvement, and make many of them dedicate their lives to their children only to weaken their bodies and spoil their tempers, frustrating also any plan of education that a more rational father may adopt; for unless a mother concur, the father who restrains will ever be considered as a tyrant. But, fulfilling the duties of a mother, a woman with a sound constitution may still keep her person scrupulously neat, and assist to maintain her family, if- necessary ; or, by reading and conversations with both sexes indiscriminately, improve her mind. For Nature has so wisely ordered things, that did women suckle their children they would preserve their own health, and there would be such an interval between the birth of each child that we should seldom see a houseful .of babes. And did they pursue a plan of conduct, and not waste their time in following the fashionable vagaries of dress, the management of their household and children need not shut them out from literature, or prevent their attaching themselves to a science with that steady eye which strengthens the mind, or practicing one of the fine arts that cultivate the taste. But visiting to display finery, card-playing, and balls, not to mention the idle bustle of morning trifling, draw women from their duty to render them insignificant, to render theni pleasing, accurding to the present acceptation of the word, to every man but their husband. For a round of pleasures in which the affections are not exercised cannot be said to improve the understanding, though it be erroneously called seeing the world ; yet the heart is rendered cold and averse to duty by such a senseless intercourse, which becomes necessary from habit even when it has ceased to amuse. But we shall not see women affectionate till more equality be established. in society, till ranks are confounded and women freed ; neither shall we see that dignified domestic happiness, the simple POLL Y GENiXA TED B Y TGNORANCE. ‘97 grandeur of which cannot be relished by ignorant or vitiated minds ; nor will the important task of education ever be properly begun till the person of a woman is no longer preferred to her mind. For it would be as wise to expect corn from tares, or figs from thistles, as that a foolish, ignorant woman should be a good mother. SECTION VI. It is not necessary to inform the sagacious reader (now I enter on my concluding reflections) that the discussion of this subject merely consists in opening a few simple principles and clearing away the rubbish which obscured them, But, as all readers are not sagacious, I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to bring the subject home to reason-to that sluggish reason which supinely takes opinions-on trust, and obstinately supports them to spare itself the Jabor of thinking. Moralists have unanimously agreed that unless virtue be nursed by liberty it will never attain due strength-and what they say of man I extend to mankind, insisting that in all cases morals must be fixed on immutable principles-and that the being cannot be termed rational or virtuous who obeys any authority but that of reason. To render women truly useful members of society, I argue that they should be led, by having their understandings cultivated on a large scale, to acquire a rational affection for their country, founded on knowledge, because it is obvious that we are little interested about what we do not understand. And to render this general knowledge of due importance, I have endeavored to show that private duties are never properly fulfilled unless the understanding enlarges the heart, and that public virtue is only an aggregate of private. Rut the distinctions established in society undermine both, by beating out the solid gold of virtue, till it becomes only the tinsel-covering of vice ; for, -while wealth renders a man more rcspcctable than virtue, wealth will &e sought before virtue ; and while women’s persons are caressed when a childish simpersshows an absence of mind, the mind will lie fallow. Yet true voIuptuousness must proceed from the mind ; for what can equal the sensations produced by mutual affection supported by mutual respect ? What are the cold or feverish caresses of appetite,‘but sin embracing death, compared with the modest overflowings Yes, let me tell the liberof a pure heart and exalted imagination? tint of fancy when he dcspiscs understanding in woman, that the mind, which he disregards, gives life to the enthusiastic affection from which rapture, short-lived as it is, alone can Bow ! And that without virtue a sexual attachment must expire, like a tallow candle in the socket, creating intolerable disgust. To prove this I need only observe that men, who have wasted great part of their lives with 198 VZNBZCATZOZV OF THE RZGHTS OP WOMAN, women, and with whom they have sought for pleasure with eager thirst, entertain the meanest opinion of the sex. Virtue, true refiner of JOY! if foolish men were to fright thee from earth in order to give loose to all their appetites without a check, some sensual wight of taste would scale the heavens to invite thee back to give a zest to. pleasure ! That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or vicious, is, I think, not to be disputed ; and that the most salutary effects tending to improve mankind might be expected from a KLVULUTION in female manners, appears, at least with a face of probability, For, as marriage has been termed the to rise out of the observation. parent of those endearing charities which draw man from the brutal herd, the corrupting intercourse that wealth, idleness and folly produce between the sexes is more ltniversally injurious to morality than all the other vices of mankind collectively considered. To adulterous lust the most sacred duties are sacrificed, because, before marriage, men, by a promiscuous intimacy with wumen, learned to consider love as a selfish gratification-learned to separate it not only from esteem, but from the affection merely built on habit which mixes a little humanity with it. Justice and friendship are also set at defiance,. and that purity of taste is vitiated which would naturally lead a man to relish an artless display of affection rather than affected airs. But that noble simplicity of affection which dares to appear unadorned, has few attractions for the libertine, though it be the charm which, by cementing the matrimonial tie, secures to the pledges of a warmer passion the necessary parental attention ; for children will never be properly educated till friendship subsists between parents. Virtue flies from a house divided against itself, and a whole legion of devils take UD their residence there. The affection of husbands and wives canot be pure when they have so few sentiments in common, and when so little confidence is established at home, as must be the case when their pursuits are so differintimacy from which tenderness should flow, will not, ent. That can not, subsist between the vicious. Contending, therefore, that the sexual distinction which men have so warmly insisted upon is arbitrary, I have dwelt on an observation that several sensible men, with whom I have conversed on the subject, allowed to be well founded, and it is simply this-that the little chastity to be found amongst men and consequent disregard of modesty tend to degrade both sexes ; and, further, that the modesty of women, characterized as such, will often bc only the artful veil of wantonness, instead of being the natural reflection of purity, till modesty be universally respected. From the tyranny of man, I firmly believe, the greater number of female follies proceed ; and the cunning, which I allow makes at FOLLY GENERATED BY IGNORANCE. ‘99 present a part of their character, I likewise have repeatedly endeav.ored tn prove is produced by oppression. Were not Dissenters, for instance, a class of people with strict truth characterized as cunning ? And may I not lay some stress ou this fact to prove that when any power but reason curbs the free spirit of man, dissimulation is practiced, and the various shifts of art are naturally called forth ? Great attention to decorum, which was carried to a degree of scrupulosity, and all that puerile bustle about trifles and consequential solemnity which l3utler’s caricature of a Dissenter brings before the imagination, shaped their persons as well as I speak collectively, for I their minds in the mold of prim littleness. know how many ornaments to human nature have been enrolled among sectaries ; yet I assert that the same narrow prejudice for their sect which women have for their families prevailed in the Dissenting part of the community, however worthy in other respects, and also that the same timid prudence or headstrong efforts often disgraced the ,exertions of both. Oppression thus formed many of the features of their character perfectIy to coincide with that of the oppressed half ,of mankind ; for is it not notorious that Dissenters were-like women-fond of deliberating together and asking advice of each -other till, by a complication of little contrivances, some little end was brought about ? A similar attention to preserve their reputation was conspicuous in the Dissenting and female world, and was produced by a similar cause. Asserti,ng the rights which women, in common with men, ought to contend for, I have not attempted to extenuate‘ their faults, but to prove them to be the natural consequence of their education and station in society. If so, it is reasonable to suppose that they will change their character and correct their vices and follies when they are allowed to be free in a physical, moral and civil sense.’ Let women share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues, of man ; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify the authority that chains such a weak being to her duty. If the latter, it will be expedient ‘to open a fresh trade with Russia for whips : a present which a father should always make to his son-inlaw on his wedding-day, that a husband may keep his whole famiIy in order by the same means ; and, without any violation of justice, reign, wielding his sceptre, sole master of his house, because he is the dy being in it who has reason :-the Divine, indefeasible, earthly .soverelgnty breathed into man by the Master of the Universe. Allowing this position, women have not any inherent rights to claim ; and a 1 have further enlarged on the advantages which might reasonably be expected to -result, from in improvement in female manners, toward the general reformation of society, but it appeared to me that such reflections would more properly close the last volume. zoo VINDICA TIOhr OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. by the same rule their duties vanish, for rights and duties are inseparable. Be just then, 0 pe men of nnderstanding ! and mark not more severely what women do amiss than the vicious tricks of the horse or the ass for whom ye provide provender-and allow her the privileges of ignorance to whom ye deny the rights of reason, or ye will be worse than Egyptian ta&k-masters, expecting virtue where Nature has not given understanding ! Reproduced in Electronic Form 2006 Bank of Wisdom, LLC www.bankofwisdom.com THE is the only publication of its kind,- the only one containing p0pu.k scientific works at low prices. 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PHYSICS AND POLITICS: An Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Heredity to Political Society.-B’ WALTER BAQEROT, author of “The Chapter I.-The Preliminary Age. Chapter Il.-The Cse of Conflict. Chapter III.-Nation-making. Chapter IV.-Nation.making. THE HTJMEOEDT PWLISWINCI English Cnnntitntion." CONTENTS. Chhnpter V.-The [email protected] Age of Discussiop.. Progress Pohtically I CO., OS Lafayette Place, NewYork. Con. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No. 4. EVIDENCE AS Chaxt;aI.-Tho TO F.K.S., HUXLEY? Natural MAN’S F.L.S.-With PLACE IN numerous illustrations. NATURE.-BY Tmm~s H. CONTENTS. of the Manlike Chapter IL-The Relations of Man to the Lower Animals. Fossil Remains of Mm. I Chapter III.-Some History No. 5 EDUCATION: INTELLECTUAL, HERBERT MORAL, AND CONTENTS. Chapter I.-What Knowledge is of Most Worth? Chapter III.-Moral Chapter II.-Intellectual Education. I Chapter IV.-Physical h-0. G. TOWN PHYSICAL.-BY SPENCER. the Rev. CHARLES GEOLOGY.-By Education. Education. 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THE THEORY OF SOUND IN ITS RELATION Yrofessor PIETRO BLASERNA, of the Royal University woo&?uts. TO MUSIC--BP of Rome.-With numerous CONTENTS. Chapter I.-Perfodio~Movements: Vibration.ChapterVI.-Helmholtz’s DoubleSiren.-Appli,@~orous Vibration.-Vibration of a Bell.-Vibracation of the Law of Simole Ratio to three or tmn of e Tuuing-fork.-Vibrstion of a String.-Of more notes.-Perfeet Major and Minor Chords: their nature.-Their inversion. Plates and Membranes.-Vibration of Air in R Bounung-pipe. - Method of the Monometric Cha ter VII.-Discords.-The Nature of Music Flame.- Concluai0n. rind E nshl scales. - Ancient Music. - @reek riChpter II.-Trmmnission of Sound.-Props tion in Air.-In Water and Other Bodies.- # elcwity of Sound in Air.- In Water and Other Bodies. Reflection of Sound.-Echo. Chapter IK-Chnraetartstics of Sound, and Differeuce between Musical Sound and Noise.-Loudness of Sound, and the Various Causes on which it de ends.-Prlnci le of the Superposition of s-mmx s.-soonding- e osrda 8bnd Kts”uawra. Chapter IV.- Measure of the Number of Vibrstions.-Pitch of Sounds: Limit of -4udible Sounds, of Yusical Sounds, and of the Human Voiee.The “Normal Pitch.“-Laws of the Vibrations of a Xtring, lrnd of Hurmonia. Chapter V.-Musical Sounds.-Law of Simple Noises aworn anying Musicd Sounds.-Quality Ratio.- Unison : interference.Beau : their ex. or timbre of e oeal xnsicnl sonnds. plnnatiou.-Resultant Notes.-Octaves, and other Harmonics.-Consonant Chords snd their limits. Chapter IX.-Difference between Science and -The Major fifth, fourth, sixth, and third: the Art.- Italian sod Qermnn Music.- Se aration d Minor thi1.d and sixth.-The Seventh Harmonic. the two Schools.-Influence of Pati.- e onclusion. -- Nos. 11 and 12: Record of THE _ NATURALIST_. . . ON -THE _ . RIVER_ AMAZONS.-A Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the E uator, during eleven years of travel.--% HEXRY WALTER BATES,9 .L.S., Assistaut Secretary ckf the Royal Ciieogwphical Society of England. CONTENTS. (I* Part.) t of ;he of the inhabitants-Sketches of Natural HistomChapter I.-Arrival at Par&-As country--First walk in the suburba of r ar&Bir&, nlms,wildfrult-trees,mining-wasps, me.sou-wasps, f ees,and sloths. lisards, and insects-Leaf-carrying ant-Sketch of Chapter IX.-Voyage np the Tapajos-Modes of zhe &nat.e.titory,and present condition of Par& obtainin fish-White Cebns,and habits and dispoChapter IL-The swampy &west of Par&A Porsitionso f Cebimonkeas-Adrentnrewithanaconda tuguese landed proprietor-Life of R Naturalist --Smoked&d monkey -Boa-con&i&x-I+under the Eauator-The dryer virgin fw-n%ta-Ra. cinthine macaw-Descent of river to Santarem. tired creeks-Aborigines. Chapter III.-The Towntins River and Cameti -Sketch of the River-Grove of fan-leaved palms -Native life on the Toeantina. Chap&V.-Caripl qd the Bat; of Mar+3e ‘o observanoe o Christmas-A erman famdy - B ats-Ant-eaters-Humming-bird8 - Domestic life of the inhabitants-Hunting excursion with Indians--White ants. &,Fter VI.--The Lower Amazona - Modes of travehng on the Amazons--Histories1 sketch of the early crplorntious of the river-First sight of the cocoons-Forwine ants--Blind anta. great river--Flat-to ped mountaina. Chapter XIIf.-kmmions beyond Ega-SteamChapter VII.-Vil Pe Nova its inhrrbitantaforeat, boat traveling on the Amazons-Various tribes of and animds-A rustic festival-giver MadeiraIndians-Deaeent to Par&-Qreat chnnges at P&&r6 Mura Inclhns-Yellow Fev%r. -Departure for England. Chapter~lII.-Ssntarem-Manuers and customs * This is one of the meet charming books of travel ever written, and is both interesting and inat&&. It is 8 graphic description of “a country of perpetual summer.-where trees yield flower and region where the animals and plants have been fashioned in Xatare’s fruit all the year round, “-“a choieesc moulds.” TIiE HTJIKBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 18 Lafayette Place, New York. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No. 13. MIND AND BODY: The Theories of their Relation.-% LL.D., i&IN, Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen. BLENDER CONTENTS. Chapter I.-Question Stated. Chapter II.-Connection of Mind and Body. Chapter III.-The Connection Viewed BS Cormspondence, or Concomitant Variation. No. 14. Chapter IV.-General Laws of Alliance of Mind and Body.-The Feelings and tho WiI1. Chapter V.-The Intellect. Chapter VI.-How sre Mind and Body united? Chapter VII.-History of theTheories of the&xl. -- THE WONDERS Tranulekxl OF from Actinoglyph ILn HEAVENS.--BY C.mILLET”LAMMAR~J.- THE Frauoh by Mrs. Locm-z&.-With NOKMAN thirty-two Illustrations. CONTENTS. (!haprer Chsptar Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter BOOK FIRST. I.--Night. IL-The Heavens. [W%e. III.- lndnits Space. IV.-General Arrangement of the UniV.-Clusters and hebuhe. VI.-The Milky Way. III.-The Sun (continued). I Chapter Chapter IV.-Mercury. Chapter v.- Venns. Chepter VI.-Mars. Chapter VII.- Jupiter. Chisytt:r -VIII.- Snturu. Chapter IX.-L%mranns. Cktpter Chapter Chapter BOOK SECOhl3. I.-The Sideron World IL-The Northern Constellations. I LI.- The Zodiac. lV.-Southern C!onstellationx. V.-The Number of the Burrs.-Their c!hpter Chapter C!hapter Chapter Cha ter 5. L3tXbllWS. Chapter VI.-V&able Stars.-Tomporery Staw suddenly visible or invisible. Chapter VII.-Distant, tJniverses.-Double, tiple, sud Colored Suns. Ch:\ptrr Ch:lpter No. I.-The IL-The X.-Neptune. XI.-Comets. XII.- Comets (co?~tinzted). BOOK FOURTH. Chapter I.-The Terrestrial Globe. Cha ter IL-Proofs that the Esrth is round.%I at it turns on nn tis, and revolves mund Stars. the Sm. Chapter III.-The Moon. Chapter IV.-The Moon (tinwd). chapter V.-Eclipses. Mul- BOOK THIRD. Planetury System. Snn. BWK Chapter I.-The Chapter IL-The FIJ!TH. Plurality of Inhabited Worlds. Contemplation of the Heavens. 15. LONGEVITY: THE AGE.-By MIDDLE MEANS JOHN OF PROLONGING GARDNER, LIFE AFTER M.D. CONTENTS. What is the +turLll @@on of Human Life? Is th_enzAytion of life m any degree within onr I The Kidneys and Urine.-Simple OverBow.-Albuminons Urine.-Bright’s DLnease.-Muddy 17tirilla - _____. Gravel __-___,.Stone.-Irritable __ Bladder.- Diabetes. The Loner Bowels. ?‘h; ~~~~t.-Air.p~sages.-LLnngc The Brainkind. The Means of bmeliorntinn and F&ardina Effects ot Age. Recuperative Power.-What is Life! z~tee;~ iwtip2ng on Health and Disease. the Stim~~entnts-S&ituons and wme. Ohm&, 3% Effects and Malt Liquors on Longevity. semi-monthly,-$3 Fncts .-cs ting Long0 Fntil ricer. r py. . n SummarY.- A n ~qmnnent rroposed. maw of Premature Death. 9 Collateral Topics.- (a). Longevity md Disregarded Deviations from He&h in Aged Persons.-(u). Faulty Nutrition-General Attenuation.-(4). Local Failure of Nutrition.(c). Obesity. P&l-the Use and Minnse of Narcotics.-c(n). Dolor-Senik(b). Narcotics.-(c). Sarsapa. rills rind nthar Rpmedi~l Agents. Gout-New Remedies for. Rheumstisnx-Lumbago. Limit to the Use of Narcotics. The Stomach and Digestion. The Liver. Published Establish.xl Diseasea %.-Bronchitis. &Iotive Power, Sllee$ Paralysis. in lna‘ent Time,.- lb). geviti.- (e). Popuhw Err& respeotmg langevity.(d). Waste of Human Life.-(e). Morel end Reli&us Aspect-s of Longevity.-(f). Imporrance of Early Treat. ment of Disorders.-( ). The Bones of Old People Brittle.(n). &ndition of very Old People.- (ii. One Hundred and FiveYews the Extreme Limit of Human Life.-(j). A &se of Recnporntion.(E). On the Water used in Guntry Towns.- (II. Pure Aemted W+ter.- (m). Anticipations.(n.) Adalteratmn of Food, &c., its Effects on Human Life.-(o). Oases of Prolonged Life.-(p). Applilrnces TJsefnl to Aged Persons for Immediste Relief of sutftlrillg. a year.-Single numbers. 15 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 16. ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES; or,The Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature,--A F.B.S., F.L.S., Professor Xnes, London. Course of Six Lectures.-By THOMAS H. HUXLEY, of Natural History in the Jermyn Street School of CONPRNTS. Chapter V.-The Gmditions of Existencn as af. fectin the Perpetuation of Living Beings, L%aptor A.- A Cr~tid Iremina~iiuu uf the Position of Mr. Darwin’s work on “The Ori ‘II of Species.” in relation to the Complete T s e. OTYof the Cause8 of the Phenomena of Orsranic of Living Bein Chap$r IT--The T erqet+ation of Liptq B&n@. eretitary Transmission and Vlmatlon. so. 17. PROGRESS: ITS LAW AND CAUSE--With other Diaqnisitious, viz., The Physiology of Laughter.-Origin and Function of Music.-The Social Use and Beauty--The Organism.- LESSONS Lecture IN ELECTRICITY. on Magnetism,-By fessor of Natural Simt,y Use of Anthropomorphism.-By To which is added an Elementary JOHF Philosophy HERBERT TPNDALL, D.C.L., in the Royal Institution LL.D., F.R.S., Pro- of Gre=at Britain.-IYith Illtmtrstions. CONTENTS. The Electricnl Machine. The Leyden Jar. Franklin’s Case~de Batte . Leyden Jars of the Simp? eat Form. Jgnition by the Eleetic S ark. iscoverp of Conduction and Insulation. Duration of the Electric Bpark. sh Electric Uqht ip Vacua El~~~~F~~ll-Electrlc.s. Lichtenberg s lQxes. rkztctm tk3pnlsioos.. snrfoe compared wall Masc. Fnmlamental Tmrw of Electric Action. Phystolo~acrl Effe& of the Electrical Disdmp. Double or “Polw ” Character of the Electic Atmospheric Electricity. Force. The Returnin Stroke. What is Electricity? The Leyden Btt&?y Electric Induction. APPENDIX.--An lementary L&me on &fagThe Elwtrophorns. net1m1. Action of Poiinta and Flames. Introduction. Hirrtorlc Notes. The Art of Experiment. Electric Attmotlonn. FAMILIAR ESSAYS ON SCIENTIFIC Storm, and Famine.- Distanoe.-Drifting Lightrwaves.-Thu Star-grouping, Star-drift, SUBJECTS, viz., Oxygenin New Ways of Measuring the &u’s Ntw Star which faded into Star-mist.- the Sun .-Sun-spot, and Star-mist.-By RICHABD A. PROCTOR. No. 20. THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY.--BY R. KALL~ MILLER,M.A., Fel- Iow and Assistant Appendix The Planet& Astrology. The moon. The sm. THE Tutor by &CHaED HUMBOLDT of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, A. England.-With an PRUCTOE. CONTENTS. The Comets. ~~la~~m’Jebular Hypothesis. I The Nob&o. FUBLISHINQ- APPENDIX. The Paat l&to of our Moon. I Ancient Babylo 3 BII Astmgony. GO., 28 Ldayatte Place, New YOr& THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No.31. ON THE PHYSICAL’ BASIS OF LIFE.-With Other Essays, viz., The Scientific Aspects of Positivism.-A Piece of Chalk.--Geological Contemporaneity.-A Liberal Education.-By THOXASH. HUXLEY, F.R.S., F.L.S. - No. 22. SEEING AND THINKING.-By fessor of Applied Mathematics and sometime Fellow WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD, F.R,S., Proand Mechanics in University College, London, of Trinity College, Cambridge. CONTENT& The Eye and the nrain. The Eye and Seeing. The Brain and Thinking. Of Boundaries in Qeneral. I No. 23. SCIENTIFIC cerning author SOPHISMS. Atoms, Apes, of “Christian A Review of Current Theories conand Men.-%’ SAMGELWAI~=IGHT, D.D., Certaiuty,” “The Modern Bvernus,” kc. CONTRSTS. I.-The Right of Seureh. alapter Chapter II.- Evolution. Chapter III.- “A Puerile Hypothesis.” Chapter VILI.-The Three Beginniugs. Chapter IX-The Three Barriers. Chapter X.-Atoms. Chapter XI.-Apes. Chapter +XxMen. Chapter XIII.-Animi Chapter IV.- “ Scientific Levity.” Chapter V.-A House of Cards. Chapter VI.-Sophisms. chepter VII.- Protoplssm. Ynndl. No. 34. POPULAR SCIENTIFIC LECTURES, viz., On the Relation of Optics to Painting.On the Origin of the Planetary System.-On Thought in Medicine. -On Academic Freedom in German Uniuf Physics in the University of versities.- By H. HE~J~EOLTZ, Professor Berlin. No. 25. THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS.-In tions,- On Ethnic Affinities, Camden Professor of Ancient History, CON PART I.-EARLY CI~ILI!&ATIOXW. I.-Introduction. Chapter H.--On the Antlqnity of Clvilizntlon Chapter in Egypt. Chanter III.-On the Antiquity of Civilization at Babylon. Chapter IV.-On the Date and Chsrncter of PhcesniciRn Civilization. V.-On the Civilizations of A& Minor Chapter -Phry&, Lydia. L cl& Trosa. Chapter VI.-On the Civilizations of CLntral Asls -Aaayria, Mdiu. Chapter VII.-OntheCivll~z$i?n Chapter VIK-On~;;~3~hzabon Chapter __.. IX.-Results Rzblished Persia, two parts.-On Early Civiliza&.-BY GEORGERAWLI~-SOX,M.A., Oxford. N T S. PART hCIERT Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Imlia. of the EtruFns of the Bnti II.-E~ariirc Chapter Chapter I.-The Chief Jrrphetic Races. IL-Subdivisions of the Jephetic Races. Qomer ma Javlm. III.-The Chief Hamitic Rsees. lV.-Subdivisions of Cnsh. V.-Subdivisions of Mlzrsim and cnnrurn. VI.-The Semitic Rnees. VII.-On the Subdivisions of the Semitic of the Inquiry. semi-monthly.-$3 A?FINITIES IN TBB WORLD. R&WA. a year.- Single munbers, 15 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 26. THE EVOLUTIONIST L-Microscopic IL- A Wayside AT LARGE.-% Gum &m~. XII.-Speckled Trout. Chapter Chapter XIII.-Dodder and Broomrape. Chapter XII-Dog’s Merenry find Plantain. Chapter .- Bnttertl y Psychology. Chapter XVI.- Butte+ iEsthetics. Chnpter XVII.-The Ongin of Walnuts. Chapter XVIII.-A Pretty Land.shell. Chapter XIX.-Does and Masters. XX.- Blackcock. :k;:: XXI.- Bindweed. Chapter XXU-On Cor?lish Cliffs. Brains. Beu~y. Clhapter VIL- Blue Ci~oter VIII.-C~ockoo.pint. Gnttpter IX.-Berries and Berries. (Ihnpter X.-Distant Relations. Chapter XL-Among the Heather. No. ?7. THE HISTORY FISHER, OF LANDHOLDING IN ENGLAND.--BY JOSEPH F.EI1.S. CONTENTS. I.- The Aborigines. II.-- The Roman% III.-The Scsudinavians. I IV.-The V.-The \-I.-The Nonmms. Plnntsgenets. Tudor% VII.-The V[11.-‘T11e I Stnsrts. ‘House of H~llOWl-. so. ?R. FASHION IN DEFORMITY, AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE CUSTOMS OF BARBAROUS AND CIVILIZED RACES.-% W!LLIAaf HENRY FLOWER, LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.S., P.Z.S., &e., Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anst.omy, and Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.--With illustrations. TO WHICH I8 ADDED MANNERS AND FASHION.--By HEKBERTSPENCER. No. 29. FACTS AND FICTIONS F.R.P.S.E., hnrgh of kts, OF ZOOLOGY.-BY &mREWWILSO%Ph.“., &e., Lecturer on Zoology and Comparative Did Schonl; T4ectnmr on Physiology, Watt Edinburgh, &c.- With nnmerous illustrations. Anatomy Innt,itution in the Edinand Sohonl COSTENTS. Pnrrrsites rend their Develo merit. What I Snw in an bt’s R est. No. 30. and h’o. 21. ON THE STUDY Archbishop [lS OF WORD&-By RICHARD cente CHENEFIX cooh TRENCH, nurubor D.D., of Dub!in. OONTI?lNl-S. Jeeturc Lecture Lecture Lectnre I.-1ntmdnctory Lecture. Leecure IL-On the Poetry in Words. I~turc III.-Ou the Morality in Wo&. Lecture IV.-On the J3istoly fn Words. V.-On VI.-On W.-The the Rise of New Words. the Distinction of Words. Schoolmaster’s Use of Words. No. 32. HEREDITARY PROCTOR, B.A., “ Saturn,” &c. TRAITS, F.R.A.S., AND author OTHER of “The ESSAYS.-%’ Sun,” “Other Worlds RJCHAmd. than Ours,?’ CONTENTS. I.-Hereditsry II.-Arti5eial THE Bodily Illness u B Nental Dual Consciousness. Trnits. Somnambulism. HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 2S Lafayette Plaoe, Stimulant. New York THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY [la No. 44 and No. 45. THE DAWN OF HISTORY.-An N.A., Study.-Edited by C. F. KEAW, Parts, each complete in itself. centa each number. to Introduction of the British Prehistoric Museum.--In Two CONTENTS. ‘PART Clmpter Chapter Cbnpter C1mpt.w Chapter Chapter Chapter I.--“. 44. I.-The Earliest II.-The Second III.-The Growth IV.- Families of V.-The ?Jations VI.--Early Social VII.-The Village Chanter Traces of Man. Stone Age. of Langtmge. Ianyrrge. of the Old World. Life. Community. dk.Tul es. [itian. and Atuthor- No. 46. THE DISEASES OF MEMORY,-By “English Psychology,“&c.Translated Cllnpter I.--NEMORY ~8 A BIOLOGICAL FACT. Memory essentially B biological fact, incident, ally a psychic fact.-Orgnnic memory.--Moditicationo of ncx~7e.elemsnt*: dvnemir asrrooh tions between these elnnetlts.-bonscious mcmory.-Conditions of consriousuess: intenrrity; dnration. - Unconwious cerebmtion. - Serveaction is the fund.wnentd condition of memory; consciousness is only an accessory.- Lwali2.a tiou in the past. or reeollectiou.Mech”nism of t,his operation.-It is not L simple and instantaneous act : it consists of the addition of sec. ondarv statas of consciousness to the vrineioal state 6f consrioasness.--femory is * Gsion’in rime.-Localization. theoretical and uraetical.Reference points.-F&semblanre nnd difference between loclrliation in the future and in the past.-All memory tan illusion.-Forgetfulnew R condition of mrmory.-Return to the startinginc. conscious memory tend8 little by little to Ecome antomutic. Chapter IL-&exRRAL AMNESIA. Classafficution of the diseases of memory.--Temporsay nmnasin.~EpileptI~e. Forgotfulncos of esnain eriods of life.-Errrmples of re-edueadon.-\ -Povv and sudden recoveries.-Case of provisional memory.Periodical or intermittent amnesia.-Formation of two memories. totally or artilrlly distinct.-Coxes of hypnotism reear Bcd by1Lwnish~Azam, and Dufay.-Progress. ire smneairc.-Its Importance.-Reveals the Iuw which g”wrns the destruction of memory.-Law of regression: enunciation of this law.--In what TEL RIBOT, aut!lor of “Heredity,” from the French by J. FITZGERALD, AK order memory fails.-Counter-proof : it is recoo. stitnted in inverse order.--Confirmat”rJrfacts.Congenital amncda.-Extraordinary memory of *ome idiots. Chapter III.-PABTIAL AMNE8Ik Reductfon of memory to memories.-Anatomical and physiological reasons for partial memories. -Amnesia of numbers, mames, dgures,forms.&c. -Amnesia of signs.-Its nature: aloss of motormemory.-Famination of thispoint.--Progressive amnesia of signs verities corn letely the law of regression. - Order of disso rntion : proper names: c”mmon nouns; verbs rind adjectives; intarjoetiona, rind language of tha ornotions: gestures.-Relation between this dissolution and the evolntion of the Indo-European langwges.Counter.proof: return of signs in inwrse order. Clhapter IV.-EXALTATION OP MEMORY. OB General excitation.-Partial excitation.-Reunn of lost memories.Return of forgotten [email protected] of this fact to the law of regression.-Case of false memory.-Examples. and H suggested explanation. Chapter V.-Co~c~nsron. Relations between the retention of perceptions and nutrition. between the repmduction of reeollection6 and the general and local circnlntion. -Influence of the quantity and quality of the blood.- Examples.- The law of re nected with D physiolo chological principle.- No. 47. THE CHILDHOOD of the CLODD, Birth F.R.A.S., Creation,” OF RELIGIONS.-Embracing a Simple Account and Growth of Myths and Legends.-% EDWARD author of “The Childhood of the World,” “The Story CONTENTS. [tion. C’bapter VIII.-Zaroastrianism, the Ancient C%aptcr T.-Introductory. Hgion of Persia. Chapter II.-Legends of the Past about the CkeaChapter IX-Buddhism. Cbnpter III.-Creation as told by Science. X.-The rtellplons Ot L’hinb ChaDter IV.-Leeends of the Past &bon& Mankind. [ tions. %f$% XL-The Semtie Nations. Chajrtsr V.-Ea’ily Races of Mankind. Chapter XII.-Mohammedanism, or IslBm. Chapter VI.-The Aryan. or Indo-European nsChapter XIII.-On the Study of the Bible. ChapterVIT.-The Ancient nud Mdodern Hindu Religions. Published of &c. semi-monthly.- $3 a year.-Single numbers, E&e- 16 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. JAMES HIBTOK, of Pain,” Brc. authotb of “Man so. 48. LIFE IN NATURE--By Place,” “The Mystery and his Dwelling- CONTENTS. Chnpter VIII.-N~tnre aud Man. Chapter I.-Of Function: or, How We Act. Chapter IX.-Tbe Pheuomeoal nod the True. Chapter II.-Of Nutrition: or. Why We Grow. Chapter III.-Of Nutrition; The Viral Force. C!hapter X.-For?<.. C:hq+zr XI.-The Organic sod the Inorganic. Chapter IV.- Of Living Forms: or. Morphology. Chapter XII.-The Life of M&n. Chapter V.-Livio Forms.-Tile Law of Form. C!hapterXIII.--Conclusion. Chapter VI.-& L if e Uoirerssl? CllPptrrVn.-TIm Liring Wv,-Id. so. 4Q. THE SUN : Its Constitution; Its Phenomena; its Conditiow- Bp NATAAS T. CARR, LL.D., Judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Indiana. With an Appendix by RICHARD A. PIKKTOK aul M. W. WILLIAMS. CONTENTS. section X7TI.-The Expnnsive Power of Heat. 008of this Essay.-Ditticulties SoetionXVII.-The LSun’s C’nlst. oTpthe Subject. Olrscons Theory. Section X\wJ.-lh Section IL-Distance from the Earth to tile Sun. Section XIX.-The Vapor Tboory. Section III.-The Dinmeter of the Suu. Sc=ction TX.-The Form of thn Sun. Section X.X.--The “Cloud-like” Theory. Section XXI.- Suowsed Summrts of the Fore. Section V.--Rotary Motion of the Sun. :“ing Th&ies. Section VI.-P~erturhntin~ Morement. Section XXII.-The Crust in a Fluid Condition. Section VII.-The Sun’s &bits1 Morement. Swtiou XXIII.- Production of the Sml-Spots. SectionVIII.-The SUII’XAttrsrtive Force.-DenSectioo XXIY.-The Aren of Sun-Spots Limited. sity or the Solar MHBS. Section XXV.-Periodicity of t,he Sp$s. $+:;;; IX-The Sun s Atmosphere. .Sectioo XXVI.-ThgnSyts are Cwitles in the X.-The Chromosphere. L Seetioll XI.-C~orona, Prominences.and Faculte. Section XXVII.- How the Heat of the Son reaches Section XII.-The Photos here. the Earth. Section XIII.-The Sun’s If eat. i5ectmnXXV,,.-T;, t- “,F,E’II of the LxOmction Section XIV.-C%mdition of the Interior. “k . Section XV.-Effects of Hent on Matter. Appendix.-ZGot.-The Sun’s Corona and his Spots.-By Rrcan~r~ A. WOCTOB. Second.-The Fuel of the Sun.-B RICEABD A. PROCTOR. Third.-The Fuel of the Sun.-A H eply, by W. M. WILL~US. Section L-Pu [15 cents r.wh number. No. 56 and No. 51. MONEY AND THE MECHANISM OF EXCHANGE.-BY Javulus, M.A., F.R.B., 1.‘LOf e-nor of Logic snd I’olitioltl College, Manchester, England.In Two Parts. Mr. STAxEY Economy in the Owens CONTENTS. Chapter XV.-The Mechanism of Exchange. Chapter XVI.--Rapresentntive Money. Chapter XVII.-The Nnture and Varieties of Promissory Notes. Chapter XVIII.--e~~~e~~fy~gulntmg a Paper Chapter XIX.--Credit Docu’ment% sys*m. c11npter XX.-Book Credit rmd the LBanking Chapter XXI.-The Ciearin -House System. Chnpter XXII.-The Check b ank. Chapter XXTIL-Ford Bills or Exchange. mFrency. Chapter XXIV.-The %i nk of EnglRnd rmd the Ohapter XI.- Fractions1 Currency. Mouey Market. Chapter XII.-The Battle of the Standards. Chapter XXV.-A Tabular Standmd of V~loe. C!hapter-XIII.-Terhnical bIatters relating to Chapter XXVI.-The Quantity of Money needed Coinage. by B Nation. chapter XIV.-Iotemat~onal Money. I.- Barter. No. 52. THE DISEASES eases of Memory,” OF THE Le.-Translated WILL.-By TH. RIBOT, author of “The Disfrom the French by J. FITZGERALD, A.M. CONTENTS. Chapter IV.-ImpnirmentofVolnntsryAttentlon. Chapter I.-1ntropuction.-The Qt$&iI$ttb~~ Chlrpter V.-The Reslm of Caprice. Chapter II.-Imp,R:,;m$,of the Chnptir VI.-Extinction of t,he Will. (mspterVII.--Conelusion. Chapter III.-Im nirmcnt of theWill.-Excess of Pmpulxion. THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 28 LtUayeffe Place, New York THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No. 5.3. ANIMAL AUTOMATISM, HENRY HIZGLEY, LL.D., F.R.S. AND OTHER ESSAYS.--Y T=OMAE CONTENTS. the Hypothesis that Animals LTB IV.-On the Border Terntory between the Antomatu, uod its History. Animlll and the Vegetable liiugdonu. II.- Seienre and Culture. V.-Universities : Actual and Ideal. III.- On Elementnry Instruction in Physiology. I I.-On No. 54. THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTHS.-BY F.R.A.S.. author of “The Childhood of the World,” ligiorm,” I1Ttu Slury uf Crva1iu11,” &c. “The EDWARDCLOD% Childhood of Re- CONTENTS. I.-Nature RRViewtxi by PrSmitire Man. XI.-Metemoarchosis and Tlxnsformation. I XII.-Transf&iuation in thr Middle Ages. II.-Personification of the Powers of Nature. HI.-‘JJhe Snn XIII.-The Belief in Tr.%nsformntionUniversal. -.. and --- Moon ____..in.- Mvthnlonv. E.--The ‘I‘heoy?es of Certa~ -i%i&rative XIV.--Be&-Fable c. Mytno1ogistr. XV.-Tote . V.-Aryan Myth1,logy. XVI.-Hem VI.- Tile Pllm*Glv~ B hanme-Myth Tnmafo”.wA. XYIL-surv. VII.-The Stars in Mythology. XVcII&.~“&~~ LRof King Arthur md Llewellyn. VIII.-Myths of the Dmtrnetive Forces of Nature. tic Myths snd Legends. XX.-Conclusion. IX.-The Hindu Sun-and-Cloud Myth. Appendix.-An American Indim Myth. X.-Demonology. I No. 55. THE SCIENTIFIC By ~VILLIA~ BASIS OF MORALS, AND OTHER ESSAYS. KI~QDON CLIFFORD, F.R.S. COKTENTS. I.--On tho Scientifle Be& of Morals. III.--The IV.-The II.-Right and Wronp: the Scientific Qround of their Distmction. I Ethics of Belief. Ethics of Religion. No. 56 and No. 57. ILLUSIONS: of “Sensation [US cents each number. A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY.-% and Intuition, ” “Pessimism,” Le.-In JAMESSULLY, author Two Park. ‘ENTS. CONT t%UClyOf IlluBlO11. Chapter L-The Chapter II.-The Clllssiflcation of Illosiona. Chapter III.-Illusions of Perception: General. Chapter IV.-Illusions of Perception kwnt+ed). Chapter V.-Illusions of Perception (conhnued). Chapter VI.-Illusions of Perception (continud). ChapterVII.-Dreami. Lxmpt8r T-III.- Il,lls*“nll Of 1,m”specaon. Chapter IX.--Other Qunni-Presentetire Illusious- Errors of Insight. chapter x.- Illusions of Mrmory. XL-Illusions of B&of. XII.- Rw11t.s Two double numbers. 30 cents each. No. !i8 rend No. 59. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for L&-By CHARLES DARWIN, MA., and latest English adition, with additions F.R.S.-New edltion, from the sixth and oorrections.-!lko (~OUML~suntbcrs. CONTENTS. Chapter X.-On the Imperfection of the &oI.-Variation under Domestication. Chapter logical Record. under Gture. Cbaoter II.-Vnriation Chapter XI.-On the Qeological Successionof Chabter III.-Struggle for Existence. Organic Beinga. Chapter IV.--h’aturHl Sciection; or. the Sur. Chapter XII.-Geological Distribution. vivnl of the Fittest. Chapter XIII.--0eological Distribution (conlin’d). V.-L8ws of Veriation. Chapter Chptar YIY.-Mutual AfEnities of Or rnio De cxmpter vr.--DLttleulWex or zho Thaury. ings: Morphology: Em %ryology: Chapter VII.-Miscelllrneous Objections to the Rudimentary Or an.% Theory of Natural Selection. Chapter XV.-Raeapit&.tion snd Canolnsion. Chapter VIII.- Instinct. Index.-Qlossary of Scientidc Terms. Chapter IX.- Hybridism. pnbliaheid semi-monthly.-$3 a year.- Sfngle n-b=, 15 cents, OF POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 60. THE CHILDHOOD in Early OF THE WORLD.-A Times.-BB.v of Religions,” EIJWAKI) Simple Account of Man CLODD, F.X.9.S., author of “The Childhood “The Story of Creation,” &c. CONTENTS. PaBT XIX.-Myths I. I.-Introdnctory. II.-Man’s First Wants. ~~I.~I’s First Tools. V.-Cooking and Pottery. VI.-Dnelltn VII.-use of %et.& on *e -xix-z&u?8 Great IX.-Mankind &n YS eoherda. Tmdem. XITT.-Man’s XX.-Myths XXI.-Myths XXII.-Myths XXIlL-M&m’s XXIV.--Belief about Sun and Moon. about about about Ideas Eclipses. Stars. the Earth rmrl Mm about the Soul. in M ic and Witchernft. XXV.-Mm’x Awe ro the Unknoan. -Worship. XXVII.-Idolatry. XXVI.-Fetish XXVIII.-xature - -Worship. 1. W&r-Worship. 3. ‘lkn -Wnrshin. 3. Animal -Worship. XXEL-Polvtheism, or Relief in Many Gods. XXX.--Du~ltam, XXXL--Prayer. xxxII.-sacri6ce. T or Belief in TWO (fads. XXXIIL-Monotheism, or %lief in One God. XXXK.-Three Stiries About Abraham. PAaT II. XVI.-1ntroductorY. XVII.-Mm’s First Questions. XVIII.-Myths. XXXV.-Nan’e XXXVI.-Sacred 13alief iu LL Future Books. Life. XXXVIL-Conclusion. No. 01. MISCELLANEOUS author of “The ESSAYS.--By RICRAI-XD A. PROCTOK, B.A., F.R.A.S., Sun!” “Other Worlds than OUTS,” “Saturn,77 &c. v.-strm I.-Strsn e Coinmdences. II.-C!oiuc fdences and Suuerstitions. III.-Gambling Supemtitiom. VI.-The VII.-Prayer IV.-Learning La~lguages. Seacreatmes. 6rigin of Whales. and Weather. [Double No. 02. THE RELIGIONS OF THE ANCIENT number, WORLD, including ::c) cents. Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece, By OEOR~E RAWLINSON, M.A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Rome.Oxford, and Canon of Canterbury.-Author of ‘(The Origin of Nations,” “The Five &eat Monarchies,” &c. CONTENTS. chaoter Chapter V.-The R&&ion of the I’hcenicians chapter Chapter chapter PROGRESSIVE MORALITY.-An Essay in Ethics.-% Tmm M.A., LL.I)., F.&A., Resident of Corpus Christi College, Wykehsm Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford. FOWLER, Chsptm Chapter THE CONTENTS. Chapter III.-Analysis I. - Introduction.-The L&nF.tfons of Gnduct. II.-The Moral Sanction or Moral Sentiment.-Its J?nnctions. md the Justfflcation of ita Claims to SUperiOrity. HUMBOLDT PwmmINo and Formation of the Moral Sentiment.-Its Eduea?ion and Tmnrovemant. Chapter IV.--The Moral Test audits Justification. Chapter V.-The Prtrcticnl A pliention of the Mom1 Test to E xisting Morality. Go.,28 Iaftwette PlaCe.NeWYork. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No. 6-i. THE DISTRIBUTION and Time--By OF LIFE, Animal and Vegetable, in Space ALFRED I%CSSELWALLACE and W. T. TEISELTOS DYER. cow SECTIONI.- D~STRIBUTIOXOF ANIMAK% Geographical Distribution of Land Animals. A.- Vertical Distribution of Animals. B.-Powers of Dis rsal of Animals. C.-Widespread 6x18” Locd Qroups. (mals. I).-B&r&m which Limit the Distribution of Ani. k;.-Zoiilogical Re ions. The PuPsxrcdc Region. The EthiODiao Repion. ;;; t?i$~gK$m; EKTS. Qener~l Relations of Marine with Terrestriai Zoiilogieal Regions. DistritKltion of Auimals in Time. THE NORTHERN FLOBA. The Arctic-Alpine Flora. The Intemodwh or Temperate Flora. The Mediterrsnso-Caucasian Flora. The Nesretic R&on. ’ Distribution of the Higher-Animals during the Tertiary Period. A.-Tertiary Faunas sod their Qeopphical F&latioos to those of the six Z&lo cal Regions. I%-l3irthpltxe sod Mi &ions o some Mammslian Families and &,ra. ’ Distribution of Marine Animals. Fornminifera. Spongida. Actinosoa. t,Bda& Turtles. K:ti~~emlata. Cnlst&33a. THE Trto~rcat, FLORA. The Indo-Malayan Tro id Flora. The American Tropics P Flora. Tha At&an Tropic4 Flora. No. 65. CONDITIONS By WILLIAM in University OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT, and Other Essays. late Professor of Applied KINGDOS CLIFFORD, F.R.S., Mathem&cs College, London. CONTENTS. III.-A Lecture on Atoms. some of the Conditions of Mental N.-The First and the Last Catastrophe.-A Qrit Development. icism on some recent speculations shout II. - 011$ot;rt; snd Instruments of Scicntitlc the duration of the unirersa. I I.-On No. 66. TECHNICAL AND EDUCATION, OTHER ESSAYS.-%’ THOMAS HEKRT HUXLEY, F.R.S. CONTENTS. Iv.-00 I.-Technical Edueetion. IL-The Connection of the Biological Sciences V.-On with Medicine. III.- Joseph Priestly. I Sensation and the Unity of Strnetnre of Sensiferous Oqpms. Certaiu Errors respecting the Structure of the Heart attributed to Aristotle. No. 67. THE BLACK DEATH: the Fourteenth Frederick William An Account of the Deadly Pestilence of Century---By J. F. C. HECKER! M.D., Professor in the Ulliversity, Berlin; Member of various learned societies in London, Lyons, Society, of London, New York, Philadelphia, CONT Chapter L?lspwr Chapter Chapbr Chapter Chapter I.-Generd Obserrations. I>iaeaau. III.- G.uws.- Sprexd. IV.-Mortality. V.-Morsl Effect& VI.-Physichms. pnblished &c.-Translated hy B. G. BABIYGTOF, M.D., IL-Tha semi-monthly.--3 for the Sydenham F.R.S. NTS. Appendix. I.-The Ancient 8ong oI the Fla@lants. IL-Examination of the Jews aceused of Poisoning the Welk a year.- Single numbers, 16 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 68. Speeisl number, 10 cmta. LAWS IN GENERAL, AND THE ORDER OF THEIR DISCOVERY. THE ORIGIN Three OF ANIMAL Essays by HEK~ERT WORSHIP.- POLITICAL FETICHISM, SPENCER. G,. 09. [Double number, 30 cents. FETICHISM.-A Religion.- Contribution By FRITZ to Anthropology and the History of SCHULTZE, Dr. Phil.-Translated from the German by J. FITZQERALD, M.A. CONTENTS. Chapter I.--Introductory. in its InChapter II.-The Mind of the Ssv tallectnal and Mom Y Aspect.% 1. The Intellect of the Savsge. 2. The Morslity of the Savage. 3. Conclusion. Chapter III.-The Relation between the Savage Mind and ita 0b)eet. 1. The Value of Objects. 2. The Anthro athic Apprehension oF. Ob. 3. The Csusnl t .onnection of Objects. Chapter IV.-Fetichism L.SB Religion. 1. The Belief in Fotiohsa. 2. Tbe Range of Fetich Inllnence. 3. The Religiosit of Fetish Worshipers. 4. Worshi aud I a&flee. 5. Fetich Ktie&hoods. 4 6. Fetichism among Non-Savages. Chapter V.-TheVarious Objects of FetichWor. 1. Stones sd Fetiches. [ship. 2. Mountains e.sFetichos. 3. Water 88 s Fetich. 4. Wind and Fire as Fetiches. 5. Plants 8s Fetiches. 6. Auimals ns Fetiches. 7. Men as l?etiches. Chapter VI.-The Highest Chde of Fetichism. 1. The New Object. 2. The Qradnsl Acquisition of Knowledge. 3. The Worship of the Moon. 4. The Worsht OI the Stars. 5. The Trsnsi tpon to Sun-Worship. 6. The Worship of the Sun. 7. The Worship of the Heavens. Chapter VIL-The Aim of Fetichism. 1. Retrospect.- 2. The New problem. No. 70. ESSAYS, SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL.-% HERBERT SPENCER. CONTENTS. IV. - Re~~o&o~Dlssentine; from the Philosophy III.- Morals and Moral Sentiments. No. 71. ANTHROPOLOGY.-By V.-What I DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., is El&trieity9 author of “Prehi&mic Man.” CONTENT& Chapter V.-Antiquity of hfsn. chapter VI.-Language. Chapter VU.-Development of Civilization. I TO wHK!H IS ADDED ARCHAEOLOGY.By E. B. TYLOR, F.R.S., author of “The Early History Mankind,” “Primitive Culture,” kc. Chsptor I.-Scope of the Soience. Chapter II.-Man’s Place in Nature. chapter III-Origin of Man. Chapter N.-Races of Mankind. of No. 72. THE DANCING MANIA OF THE MIDDLE ACES.-- BY J. F. C. HECKER, M.D., Professor in the Frederick William University, Berlin; author of “The Black Death.“-Translated by B. G. BABIXQTON, M.D., F.R.S. CONTENTS. Chapter I.-The Dancing Mania in Germany and the Netherlsnds. 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A. of Caius College, Cambridge. as Exhibited F.R.H.S., of the F.R.H.S., Study Exhibitioner Tendencies MALDEN, D.D., Scientific formerly yal AND Palace School of Art, Science,, in Hall, History.-% HEXRT ELIJOT Cambridge. Langu i?~$~~;~~~;~,~;;~~- TEORNTON, of St. Nos. 74. 15, 76, 77 (double number). THE DESCENT zgd OF ~~d)$---enCri~~s MAN, AND fjELECTl?N DARWrN.-with IN REl+TlON New Edmon, Re- Ilhatr&ons.- CIONTENTS. X.--Secondary Sexnnl Charscters of PAaT I. I aPt@r 1%3.&E. TBIE DEUCENTOB Osmrlv OP MAN. XL-Insects (contiwed)-Order LepiChpter ah8PtLT I.-The Evident? of the Doscent of dopte~(butterlflesandmoths) MB* from some IAIW‘X Form. Chapter XII.-Saeondsry Sexoal Cbarseters of IL-On the Manner of Development of Fishes.Amuhibians. and %DMan from some Lower Form. tiles. III.-Can srison of the Mental Powers Chspter XI&-~B~duy Sexnhl Charscters of o Man and the Lower Animals. Iv.-corn fn-imn of the Mentul Powers ;l~;;:; XI&.--Birds (&thud,. oHMan rind the Lower Animals .-Birds (00ntinw.d). (cuntind). &*pter XVI.- Birds (concluddd). chapter V.-On the Development of the IntelChapter XVII.-S~~~m~l$esusl Charscters of lectual and Moral Fscnlties during Primcrnl and Civilixad Thea Cbaptrr XVIII.-sSecuuatrry i&la1 Charnc1ersuf Chapter VI.- On-the Afllnities hna Qeneslogy of Mammals (cmrtinrud). Chapter VII.- On the Races of Man. PART In. SEXUAL SELECTION IN RI~UTION TO MAN, PAY-I. AND CONCLCBION. Chapter XIX.- Se$@ary Sexual Chars&w of SZXUAL,SELEoTI~N. mnn phs;z VIII.-Prlm?~ 10s (!f Sexual selectlo~. ohspter IX.-Sewn c!sry boxoal Chnrnoter in XX.- Secondary Sexual Chsractars;f a Man kxmtinued). the Lower CLsssesof the AnCba tar XXI. Oeneral Slunrm . and C!oopelxx: im*l I&l&om. 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New York THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY No. loo. SCIENCE AND hDREW POETRY, WILSON, I.-Science II---The and Poetry--A Place, Method, nary Education. III.-Science-Culture “People’s W.-The ValbdiCtOry Addreea to 8 Literary and Advantages for the of Biology Masses.-- Opening Society. in OrdiLecture at a and its Working. Likeness, Problems. F-rhlems. (C).-H&tory ESSAYS.-BY By JAMES SULLY, M.A. (A).-Metaphysical (B).-Bckmtiflo OTHER College.” Law of No. 101. AESTHETICS.-- AND F.R.S.E. of Systems. DREAMS.--By CONTENTS. II.-Qerman m.-PrOnch IV.-Italian V.--Euglish I Writers on Lesthetica. wtim= On 2kthotia. and Dnteh Writers on iEsthetics. Writers on fitbotics. JAMES SULLY, M.A. CONTENTS. Tbe Dream &s Immediate Objective Experience. The Sources ot Dream-Materials. The Dream as B Communication from * Super. The Order of Dream-Combinations. natnral Being. The Objectfre Reality and Intensity of Dreamlfodern Theory of Dreams. Imaginations. 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Doctrine of Descent and Demooraoy. 8ocial Clmpter W.-Ignorablmna et Restrlngamru. No. 106. FORCE AND ENERGY.-A Theory of Dynamics.--By @ROTALLEN. CONTENTS. I.-Power. IL-Force. VII.--The chapter VIII.-The Chapter IX.-The PIIcT I.-ABSTBACT 0~ ANALYTW. Chapter X.-The Indestrnctibilitp of Power. Chtlpte1 XI.- Th;o~e;tnal Interference of Chapter XII.-The S!+p&asion of Energies. Chapter XII&-Litwatmg Ener&les. . Chapter XI\ .-Nmcellaneous Il ustmttons. Klrlds of Kinesis. Chapter X%-.-The Dissipctio~~of Euergy. Persisteuce ot Force. Chapter XVI.-The h’atnre of Energy. Conservstion of Energy. Chapter XVII.-The Nature of Motion. PART IL-CONCRETE OB SPNTBETIC. I.-D amical Formula of the UniChpter V.-Organic Li:e. II.--Tg Sidereal System. [VWW. Chapter V.-The Vegetal Organism. Chapter III.-The Solar System. Chapter VII.-The Animlrl mlem. Chapter IV.-The Earth. Chapter WI.-General View OfB o Mundane PnerNo. 107. ULTIMATE WILLIAM FINANCE.NILBON A True Theory of Wealth.- BY BLAOK. PART SECOYD. CONTENTS. Chapter V.-The Creative and Benevolent Feat111’~of Fortune-Hunting. Chapter M.-Wealth an Enforced Contributor to the Public Welfxre. Chaptsr VII.-The Impai-cut and Destruclivu of Property. l *1 PART Frss~.-For the contenta of Pert First eee No. 102 of this Cstnlogne. No. 108 rind No. 109. ENGLISH: No. 108 1s a double number, 30 cents. PAST AND PRESENT.-- RICHARD CHENEVIX TREKCH, D.D., Lecture I.- The English Lecture II.-English as it Lecture III.-Gains of the Lecture IV.-&ins of the Lecture V.-Diminutions guw. THE WDKBOLDT Swiss of Eight Lecturesby Arohbishop of Dublin. CONTENTS. Vocabulary. Lecture VI.-Dlminntions of the English Lenmight have been. gunge pmtinwd)., English tiogosge. Lecture V’II~&~+I~~~~ the Me&mugof English English Langnaue (CO?di?Wd). Lecture W.-Ch8r#eqn the Spelling of English of the English LnuIndex of Subjects.-Index of -3Vordsand Phwws. PUBLISHING CO., 28 Lafayette Place, New York. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY Double Dumber, 30 c@eots. NO. 110. THE STORY OF CREATION.-A Plain Account of Evolution. author of ‘I The Childhood of the World,” “ The Childhood of Religions, ” “ The Birth und Growth of Myths,” &c.-Eighty Illwt~fioscs. By EDWARD CLOUD, COXTENTS. Chapter VIII.-THE ORIGIN OF LIFE~FOFSM. Priority of Plant or Animal. Cell.Structure and Development. Chapter IX.-THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Argument : 1. No two individuals of the samespeeiware alike. EmA ~eudato vary. 2. Variations are transmitted, and therefore tend to become permanent. 3. Man takes advantage of these transmitted nnlikeoessssto produce newvarieties of plauts and animals. 4. More or sniams are born than survive. 5. The read t is obvious: a ceaselessstruggle for plaae and food. 6. Natural selection tends to maintain the balance between living thin D rind their surround, ings. These surro~m3.mgs change; therefore Ii-&g things muat adapt themselvesthereto, or perish. Chapter X.-PROOFS OF THE DEBIVATIONOF SrncrEs. 4. Sueeesuionin Time. 1. Embryology. 5. Distribution in Space. 2. Moryholo Objections. 3. CltbaaiflearFon. Chapter IIL--Tm SUN tiD hH.‘ETS. The Earth: General Features. Chapter IV.-TEEPAT Lia~-I[u?roa~ OP TBE Clharacter and cOnt& uf Rocks of 3. Tertinry Epoch. I. Primary Epoch. 2. Secondary Epoch. 4. Quaternary Epoch. Chapter V.-PRESENT LIFE-F• FZMS. ;~y~&&Constitueu& aud Unity. 2. Flowering. 1. Flowerless. B. Animals. 4. Annulosa. 1. Protosoa. 5. JIolIn5?a. 2. tklenternta. 3. R,.hinndamsta. 6. Verrebrata. Chapter VI.- THE UNIVERSE: MODE OF ITS I)ECOYlNQ AND ~KOWTU. 1. Inorganic Evolution. 3. Evolution 2. Evolution of the SoEarth. lar system. filapter VII.-THE ORIQIN OF LIFE. Time.-Place.-Jlcde. of the Ctmpt.3 XL-Socra~ EVOLGTI~N. 4. Evolutiou of JIorals. I. Evolution of Mind. 2. Evolution of Society. 5. Evolution of Theol3. Evolution of Language, Arts, and Science. SUlZE&. -.. No. Ill. THE PLEASURES F.R.S., D.C.L., OF LIFE--By Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., X.P., LL.D. PART I.-Ambition. Chl3Pter Chapter II.-Wealth. Chapter III.-Health. Chapter lV.--Love. C%apter V.--Art. Chapter VI.-Poetry. Chapter VII.-Music. s** PABT FIBST.--Far SECOXD. CONTEYTS. Chapter VIII.- The Berrutiee of Natrrro. C$a;d& IX-The l’rouble~ of Lute. X.-Labor aud Rest. Chipter XI.- Religion. Chapter XII.-The Hope of Progress. Chapter XIII.-The Destiny of Dan. the contenta of Part First s&e No. 97 of this Catalogue. PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTENTION,-By French by J. FITZGERALD, J1.A. TH. RIBOT.-Translated from the CONTENT& action of simple feeliugs.complex Chapter I.-Purpose of this treatise: study of the mechanism of Attention.feelings,and habits.--Mechanism of Voluntary Attention.-AttanAttention defined. tion acts only upon the muscles Chapter II.-Spontaneous or Natural Attention. and through the muscles.-The Its cause always affective states. Its physical manifeatations.feeling of-effort. Chapter N.--Morbid States of Attention.-Dis. Attention simply the subjective traction.-Hypatimphyof Ittenside of the manifestatio~rs that tion. - Atrophy of Attentiouexpress it.--rigin of Spent+ Attention in Idiots. neous Attention. Chapter V.-Conelnaion.-Attention de ndent or Artificial Attention. Chapter III.-Voluntary ou -4ffective States - Kysice.1 How it is produced.-The three Condition of .4tt&on. principal periods of its genesis: Publfshed semi-monthly,- $3 a year.-Single numbers, 15 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. Double No. 113. HYPNOTISM: By 30 cents. ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT DEVELOPMENT. FR~DRIK Professor number, BJ&MT~&, M.D., of Psychiatry, l&ad late Royal Physician Swedish of the Medical Translation from the Second Swedish Edition, Director of the Boston School of Gymnast.&. Stockholm Hospital, Councillor.-Authorized by Baron NILS POSSE, M.Q., CONTENTS. I.-Hiatotica1 Ratranpact VII.--Psychierl Effeata of Hypnotism. VIII.-Suggestion. IL-Definition of Hypnotism.Susceptibility to IX.-Hypnotism as a Remedial Agent. Hypnotism. X.-Hypnotism as B Means of Education. III.-Means or Methods of Hypnotizing. 88 * Moral rbmeay. IV.-.% es or Degrees of Hypnotism. V.-Um f atera Hypnotism. Xl.-Hypnotism and the LRW. VI.-Physical Effects of Hypnotism. XII.-Misuses and Dan rs of Hypnotism. Bibliography of $ ypnotism. No. 114. Double CHRISTIANITY of papers THOMAS AND AGNOSTICISM.-A contributed H. HLYMPHRY HT~XTXY, number, 01 30 cents. Controversy.-Consistills to The Xvisteenth Ceatuy by HENRY WACE, D.D., BISHOP OF PETERBOROUQ~~, W. H. MALLOCK, THE Prof. Mrs. WARD. CONTENTS. I.-On II.- Agmoetiaism. - By &NRY Waco, of St. Paul’s Cathe. D.D., Prebenda dral : Principal o King’s Co&e London. r Professor F ao~ds Ii. Agrmntll~m.-By III.- Agnosticism.-A Re ly to Prof. HUXLEY. By HENRY Wacr. iiD. IV.-A~gnostlcis~o.-Bv W. C. M&BE, ‘D.D., Bisho of Peterborough. V.- Agnes tf cism. - A Rajomder. - By Prof. TROIKAS H. HUXLEY. VI.-CCMstianity and Agnosticlmn.-By HENRY WACE, D.D. VI-L-An Explanation to Prof. Huxley.By W. C. MAWR, D.D., Bishop of Peterborough. VIII.-The Value of Witness to the Mirae111nus.-By Prof. THOMAS kI H~x1.x~~ oetlcism and Christlanlty.-By IX.-A vi” I. THOMAS H. HUXLEY. X.- “ Cowardly Agmmticism.“A Word with Prof. HUXLEY.-By W.H.MALLOCK. XI. - The New Heformation. HUVPHRY WARD. - By Mrs. -.__ Two double numbers, 30 cents each. NO. 115 and NO. lltl. DARWINISM: AN EXPOSITION OF THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION, with some of its applications.-% ALFRED RUSSEL WALUCE, numerous UD., FL.&, illustrations. &-With Portrait of the Author, Colored Map, and CONTENTS. I.-What are “&mden,” and whrt is meant by their “Origin.” Stm le for Existence. . Vsria % duty of Species in n k3ttlt.e ot Nature. IV.--Variation of Domesticat Animals and Cultivated Plants. V.-Natural Selection b Variation and Survival of the 5.Mast. VI.-Diflicnlties and Objections. VII.-On the Infertility of Crosses between Distinct S elen. and the nsuul Sterility or their Hybrid OiYspring. Il.-The III.-The Chnoter VIII.-The Oriein and Uses of Color in Ani&& Caloration and Mimicry. X.-Colors and Ornaments characteri&c of Sex. Chapter XI.-The Special Colors of Plrmb.Their Cri ‘n and Purpose. of Chmter XII.-The Qeo@raoi?zeal Distribution an&s. eological Evidences of EvoChapter XIII.-The 2 Chapter Chapter IX-Wsming lution. Cbaptar XIV.-Fundamental Problems in Relntion toVnriation and Heredisy. Chapter XV.-Darwin&m applied to Man. The Present work treats the problem of the Origin of Species on the same general lines as we.** adopted by Dam: but from the standpoint reached after nearly thirty years of discussion, with an abundance Of new facts and the advocacy of many new or old theories. While not attempting to deal. even in outline. wiith the vast subject of evolution in general. an fndeavor has been made to give such an account of the theory of Ilatnral Selection as may enable any Intelligent reader to obtain a clear conception of Darwin’s work. and to nnderstaud something of rhe power and range of his great principle.-Eztrnct @nm Uu prclaa. THE HUMEtOLDT PUBLISHINGI CO., 28 Lakyette Place, New York. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY [Double number, Z30 cents. No. 117. MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.-A Clear and Concise View of the Principal Results of Modern Science, and of the Thought.--By Revolution S. LAIKa. which they have effected in Modern PART I. MODERN SCIENCE. Clmoter ChttDt.21 No. V.-Antianity VI.-?dMsn’s of PhUX (single 118. Man. in Nature. nmlber, 15 eenta. MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.-With a Supof Creation” and plemental Chapter on GJadstone’s “Dawn “ Proem to Genesis,” and on Drummond’s “Natural Law in the Spiritual World.‘“%’ S. L*rNo. PART II. MODERN THOUGHT. CONTENTS. Chmter W.-Modem Chapter VIII.-Mirw.les. SUPPLEPENTAL mend’s “Naturn Law Published Thou&t. of Creation” in tho Spiritual semi-monthly.- and “I’mem to &nesis.“- Drum- World.” $3 a year.--Single numbera, 1B oents, OF POPULAR SCIENCE. No. 1111. THE ELECTRIC How the LIGHT.-How Electric Current By GERALD MOLLOY, numerous illustrations. D.D., the Electric is made D.Yc., Current to yield l?ellow of the the is Produced. Electric Royal Light. Cniversit.y.- With CONTENTS. the Electric I.-How THE Current and same author.- With A Umanr,oos box “fel”ctric,ty”-What of enerpv-Exam”lea of “““mv **nb? RECENT PRCQRESS numerous Comnt is made to yield illustrations. is mcaant by tb” stored ““.-a 8Ub AND merit of the prlnc,p,“-Rftkr’a DEVELOPMEXT Unexpcted dltEcolttcsModificati”“~ of the I&r, rPIlIobrnal reslhnce dlminisbed--New mode “I pm~rin tb” platesA” “Ilog *ob#t,tukd for “re lead-l% psste 0i lead oxlde--Impmred mctbod of II,&P“taining insulation of the No. the Elec+ OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY--The Recent Development of the Storage Battery.-%. the STORING Progress 1 II.-How is Produced. OF THE plsteeXeaent avrd,&le ,,,q, drawn 05-App STORAQF, BATTERY. farm of cell--Buckling of the plates-The ofsrell - Hate st which the “,,a y can be ,eah”n to trsmcars and to electric 1rghhng. 120. THE MODERN THEORY OF HEAT, as Illustrated by the Phenomena of the Latent Heat of Liquids and of Vapors.-% GEKAI.I> merous I.-The D.D., MOLLOY, D.So., Fellow of t,hn Roytrl ITniversit.y.- With nu- illustrations. Latent CONTEXTS. I Heat of Liquids. K-The Latent Heat of Vapors. Modern theory of ha--Aeat a form of Ener.g-Familiu ilhutratimuCount Humfwd’s erpertment - Arymeat founded on the expriment-Heat produced by expwditw” of Electrical Lwg-Latent Uea-Black’s erperimcnrsHeat disappars when ice Iti welted-Expbntion of this fort accardlng to old theory--Rx tanation “lfen~ by the mndem theory--latent Heat vsrtea Pordr5”rent Iigulds-Frrrzing rldrlur-aral rlr;.r;l”pd Wkll II lkpld h‘x”“,.. 11”6-Water heated in freezing-Expwinwnt with wlutian of aolphate of adbhteot Heat in the economy of Nature. the TO WHICH1s *rmJm THE SUN AS A STOREHOUSE OF ENERGY.-immensity of the Sun’s Energy.-Source of the Sun’s Energy.-& the same author.- With numerous illustrations. CON? I.-Immensity of the Sun’s Energy. avaih,hte to n,m, i, derived from ENTS. II.-Sonrce of the Sun’s Emrev. the Only a small fraction of the energy which the ewtb dpriws from the sun i. uwd by msn-A”d the “nsr WlliCh the earth rrcelvest, only B mm,, fractmn of what tP e 8”” mds f”rtb-Men,ur”ment of energy writ nut by the su,,-Expertment~ of Pouillrt ““d ,Icrslrrl - Api’Bratad employed Llethod of adjustment--obser”ati”,,l made-CorrecnnnsPractical wthnate of the energy mnt ant by the sun--What R wodrrful atorehouw “f energy the sun must ln+-Fl”r in this ntorehouse .upp,i?d? THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 28 Lafayette Place, New York. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY su. 11’1. UTILITARIANISM.-LSy LiPrinciples of Political JOHN STUART XILL, author of ‘*A System of Logic,” Economy,‘7 1’ 011 Liberty,~’ &c. CONTEXI'S. Chapter IV.-0f whnt sort of Proof the Principle General R4xoarks. of 1:tility is suscepliblr. C’hnpter II.- What Utilitarianism is. Chapter V.-Of the Connccrion between Justice Chapter 111.--f the Ultimate Sanction of the and Utility. Rineiple of rtilitp. I ----._ .-~-___ .Chapter I.- [Xo. 122 is a double number, 30 cents. So. 122 and h-o. 12% UPON THE ORIGIN OF ALPINE AND ITALIAN LAKES; AND UpON GLACIAL EROSION.-Ry Sir A. C. RAMSAY, F.H.S., I’resi&ul of the Geologica Society.- JoHX BALL, M.R.I.A., F.L.S., &.x-Sir RODERICK I. MURcHISON, F.R.S., D.C.L., President of the Royal Geographical Society.Prof. B. STUDER, of Berne.-Prof. A. FAVRE, of Geneva.-EDWARD WHTYPER.With an Introduction and Xotea upon the Origin and History of the Great Lakes of North America, by Prof. J. W. SPEWER, State Geologist. of Georgia. CONTESTS. Me of the Earth. and in the agencyof Flonting Introduction. with Sotrs up011the Origin and Icebergs.- By Sir RODERICK I. MUBCHISON. History of the Great Lakkesof North dmerica.K.C.H. D.C.L., P.R.& &c. By J. W.SPEN('EK, Ph.D.. F.G.S.. State Geologist IV-On tbo Origin of tha SW& Lakea.-Ry of Georgia. Prof. 1%.STnnsE, of Bcrne. .I.-On the Glacinl Origin of Certnin Lakes in V.-On the Origin of the Al ine Lakes atld drvitzerlnnd. tho Bl,xck Forest, Great Britain, Valleys. A letter addressed to Hv RODEBICKI. Sweden.north Americs, axd Elsewhere.-By Sir A. C. Itaxsav, P.R..%.President of the Geological M~RCHISON.K.C.B.. D.C.L.. &c., b ?&ALPHONSE FAVBE. Professor of Geology in ti; e -4ccademyof Society. Geneva, author of the Geological Map of Save . IL-On the Formation of Alpine Valleys and VI.-The Ancient Glwiers of Aosta.-By %DAl dne Lakes.-By .JOHN BALL, M.R.I.A., WIRD WHYNPER. F.L.S. &e. VII.-Qlw:ial Erosion in Norway and in Hjgh III.-Glwfers of the Himslayan Mountains and L&itudes.- B Professor 3 W SPENCER. Ph.D., New Zealand corn wed with thosa of Europe.F.Q.S., State 6 eologiat of Georgia. 011LhaPowers of PT lacier3 m Modifying the SurNo. 124. THE QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM.--BY lated from the eighth German QI:ET: N.il., formerly Fellow Dr. a. ~~~~~Fm--‘hnf+ edition under the supervision of University of BERXART) BOSAS- College, Oxford. CONTEFTS. market for them, and of the system of advertise merit and of diiplay of ware*. chapter VI.- TRAN~FORXATION OF IX~WTU~10~s (continued.) The Socialistic critieixm of capital.-Profit 88 Abolition of metnllie money RBthe medium of “appropriation of surplus vdne.“- Property as exchange, and its replacement 88 “standard of theft.-False interpretations of these rrllegatiow value” by units of “no&l labor-time” (“labor. refuuted.-Ultimate buyiog-out of the modern uroncy”). The vduwraLiIImfe or me ROC1fl11stie Illutocrats. State compared with the present market.price. Chapter III. - PROPOSXDTI~ANSFORMATION OF THE SEVEB~LFONDAYENTALINSTITUTIO?IR OF chapter VII.- TRANSFORMATION OF INSTITUChapter I.-FIBST OF THE FUND& MEBTdL IDE.4 OF SocraLIsM. Chapter IL- THE MEANS OF AQITATION. OTTLIXES MODERN NATIONAL ECONO?dP. Determination of demsad.-Frwwlnm nf demand. Or ani.mrion of labor aud eapitnl into a system of co1f ectwe production.- F&e interpretations re. futed.-The doetrlue of value as derwzwilna on shecr hrbor-cost useless for a prrrctie& org&ization of ltrbor and capital. Chapter IV.-T~ANSPO~M~T~O~ OF INETITUTION8 WJntinwd). Abolition of all losn-capital. of credit, of lease, of hire, and of the exchange. Abolition of trsdo in “commodities.” and of the Published semi-monthly.- TIONS (continued.) The Bocialistlc aetermination .of wlue in cxchange, and freedom of labor in the Socialistic SW&e. Chapter VIII.- TRANSFORMATION OP IISTITPTIONM (cautinued). Income, and the u8e of income ill the formation of property. e.nd in consnmptiw.-Frirate property nod the law affecting it.-Family life and manirtpr.-S~ayingn-haIlk and insurance system. E enditurn on Fhnritable.humPnjtarian,rcligious, an‘g other ideal purposes. Chapter IX- CONCLlJsION. Summary of criticisms. $3 a year.- Single numbers. 15 cents. OF No. 125. OARWlNlSM ANO POPULAR SCIENCE. POLITICS,-B~ DAVID 0. RITCHIE, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Clxfnlui. COKTENTS. Huxley and Strauss.- Ambiguity of “Hatme.““The Strnggle for Existence” in Malthus and Conscious“Vnrlations.” Darwin-How the idea is applied to politics.-Is the strngglo “ henoficent“? Why iir ideas in institutions I- Custom : its use The Evolution Theory as applied to Human Soand abuse.-Institutions and “the social factor” ciety by Darwin, Strauss.Sneneer,Maine, Clodd qmarally are nrgleoted In the popmar scceptation of the doctrine of Heredity.-Mr. Galton’s views ambignity of the phrase “Survival of the Fitconsidered.- Darwin’s own opinion. test.“-Complexity of Social Evolution. Does the Doctrine of Heredity support Arlstoc. Are the Biological Formula adequate to express Social Evolution 1 mcy ? Does the Erolut.ion Theory j nstify Laiasczf&e ? Applications-(l) The Labor Question.-(Z) The Struggle between ideas for sorvlval.-ConsclousPosition of Women.-(31 The Popnlnrinn Qneation. nessas a factor m Evolution-Testimony of Prof. TO WHlCEl I8 ADDED ADMINISTRATIVE ~_ NIHILISM.--Ry Prof. THOHAS HENRY HUXLEY, F.R.S. No. 120 and No. 127. PHYSIOGNOMY Director Italian [Two double nmnhera, 30 cents each. AND EXPRESSION.-BY of the National %3i&y Museum of Anthropology, PAW M~TE~~zA, Senator; Florenoe; President of the of Anthropology. COHTENTB. PART I.- THE HUYAN GO~NTESAKCE. Chapter I.-Historical Sketch of the Science Chapter IV.-The Hair and the Beard.-Moles. of Physiognomy and of Human Wrinkles. Expression. Chapter II.-The Human Face. Chapter V.-Comparative Morphology of the Chapter III.-The Features of the Human Face. Human Face. PART II.- THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS. Chapter XVI.-The Expression of Thought. Chapter VI.-The Alphabet of Expression. Chapter XVII.-General Expressions.-Bepose Chamer W.-The Darwinian Laws of Exnression and Action, Dlqnletnde. lmChapter VIII.--Classitlc.etion of F r&ions.patience, Expectation, Desire. Qenernl view of all“g henomena Chapter XVHI.- Ftaclal and Professional Erof Expression. pression. Chapter IX.-The Expression of Pleasure. Chapter XIX-Tha Mnder~tern and Diat~rbors Chaptar X-The Ezpreasian of Psin. of Expression. Chapter XI.-Er reasloo of Love and of Benevchnpter XX.-Criteria for the Determination 0Pence. of the Strength of an Emotion Chapter XH-Expression of Devotion, of Venby the degreeof theExpression eration, and of Religions Feeling. Clmptsx XXI.-TheFveVerdlctS Onthe Hnman G%apt.erXIII.-Expression of Hatred, of Cruelty, and of Passion. Chapter XXII.-Criteria for Jndghig the Moral Chapter XXV.-The Espresuion of Pride, Vanity, Worth of a Physiognomy. Haughtiness, Modesty. and HuChapter XXIH- Criteria for .Jodging -the Intel. miliation. leotoal Value of a Face. Chapter XV.-Expression of Personal Feelings, Chapter XXIV.-- The Physiognomy of Chstnrea Fear.Distmst.-Description of and the Exprosslon of Clothes. Timidity. according to the old APPENDIX.- The Eyes, Hair, and Beard, in the Phyeiognomists. Imllan Raoes. I I This work. by Professor Mantegaam.a brilliant and versatile author, and the leading Italian snthro. pologist. has already been translated into severs1European languages. Professor Mantegazza.whose name is well known to readers of Darwin, has cooperated in the present English edition of his work by writing a new chapter ape&ally for it. TH.Z HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO., 28 Lafayette Place, New York. THE HUMBOLDT LIBRARY REVOLUTION OF [Two double numbers, 30 eente each. No. 128 and No. 129. THE INDUSTRIAL THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ENCLAN D,- Popular Addresses, Notes, and other Fragmen&-By the late ARNOLD TOYNBEE, Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford.Together with a short memoir bp B. JOWBTT, Master of Balliol College, Oxford. COSTENTS. RICARDOAND THE OIB I. The change that has come over Political Eeonamy.- Rfcnrdo responsible for the form of that Wdenae.- The ~smaesof hiu pat influeoce.-The economta assumptions of his trestisa.- Ricsrdo innorant of the mbttllre of Iris own method.&lthus’s protest.-Limitations of Ricsrdo’s doctrine recognizedby Mill and Senior.-Observation discouragedb the Deductive Method.-The effect of the Labor H ovement on Fmnomics.-Modifiestiona of the Science by reoent writers.- The flew method of economic investigation. POLITICAL ECONOMY. II. The philosophic assumptions of Rieardo.-They we derived from Adam Smith.-The worship of individtd liberty -It inoohes freedom of camtition and removrrl of industrial restrictions.&I e flaw iu this theory.-It is confirmed by the doctrine of the identit of individn~l and social interesta.-Ckiticinm or this doctrine.-The idea of invnriable l&w.-True nature of economiclaws. Laws and Prece ts.-The great charge brought agrdnut Politica P Economy.-IIts truth and its falsdlocKl. THE I~nus~aur. Ravoru~rotz VII.-The Mercantile System and Adirm Smith. I.-Introdnctory. VIII.-The Chief Features of the Revolution. IL-England in 176O.-I’opulat.ion K-The Growth of Pzmperism. III.-England in 1760.-Agriculture. [Trade, 5.-M~althun a& the ha of Popnlntion. IV.-Englrrnd in 1700.-~fenufactnres and XI.-The Wago-fund Theory. V.-England in l’iU).-The Decay of the XII.-Rieardo and the Growth of Rent. Yeomanry. XIII.-Two Theories of Economic F’rogress. VT.-hglnnd in 17CO.-The Condition of the XIV.-The Future of the Working Classes. W8g&f?XTWS. The Fdueation of Co-operators. ‘l’hc Idcal &l&on of ubunh rind State. POPI:UR ADDRESSES. 1. Wages and Nlrture.1 Law. 2. Industry and Democracy. 3. Are Radicals Socialists? Notes and .Jo;tings. [Two doltble numbers, 30 rents ewh. No. 130 and No. 131. THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS.-An Account of thy Prehistorie Ethnology and Citilizat.ion of Europe.-By ISAAC TAYI.OR, LA., JAitt. I)., Bon. LL.D.Illustrated. COSTlZNTS. Chapter I.-The Aryan Controversy. Chapter It-.-The Aryan Itice. 1. Tbo Prrmnnwxe uf &we. Chapter U.-The Prehistoric Racea of Eizrope. 2. The MutRhility of Ifinguage. 3. l:be Fimlie Hypothesis. 1. Tho Neolithic Age. 4. m3 C!elts. 2. The Methods of Au5. The Tberinns :: ;‘,“,e ::,:::: RHCCS. 3. Th;hrog>.crBtitai,,. ;; ;;; ~n&i&&ns. Chapter III.-The Neolithic Culture. 1. The Continuity of De- 7. Dreka. velopment. 8. Hnbitz+tions. 2. Metals. 0. The Umt. 3. weapons. 10. The c~x-w8golL 4. Cutle. 11. Trades. ; &sb,aandry. 12. Sorinl Life. 13. Relative Progress. Chapter V.-The Evolution of Arysll Speech. 1. The Aryltll Lwguages. 2. Dialect a11dLangwlge. 3. The Lost Aryan Languges. 4. The Wave-Theory. 5. J&ngoage and ace. 8. The Genesis of Aryan Speech. Chapter VI.-The Aryall Mythology. The last ten years have seen B revolution in the npinion of scbolarrt 8s 70 the wgion in which the Aryan race originated, und theolies which not long ago were univerwlly wcrpwd LS the wellfrom Asi8 established conclusions of scieure now hardly find B defender. The theory of mi&~~‘ntino hrts been displaced by A uew theory of origin in h%rthern Europe. Iu Qermauy serend works haoe been devotcxl to the nubjert.; but this is the first English work which has yet appeared embodying the results recently arrived nt by philologists, arrhwologists. rind anthropologists. This volume affords N fresh and highly interasting I\ccouut of the present state of speculation on &highly interesting subject. Published semi-monthly.- $3 a year.- Single numbers, 15 cents. OF POPULAR SCIENCE. [Two double numbers, 30 cents eruh. No. 132 and ?Jo.133. THE EVOLUTION OF SEX.-By THO~ISON.- V7it.h 104 illustretions. Prof. PATRICK GEDDES and J. ARTHUR CONTESTS. 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Flu11 of Lightning--Vnriuus Form8 of Lightning Identity of Lightning and Electricity-F1 a&. lin’s Eslw’inent-Fatal Experiment of Richman-Forked Lightning, Sheet Lightning, GlobeLightning--S:. Elm& Fire-Experimental Illustration Immediate ~:auaeof Lightning-Illustration from -Origin of Lightning-Length of a El& of ldght. Electric Spark--What B Fl.wb of Lightuiug isning- t’hy%ical C&use of Thunder- Roiling of Duration of R Flnsh of Lightning-Experiments Thunder-%ceession of l?eaIs-Vnriation of In. of Professor Rood-Whertstone‘n Esperimentstansity-Di8ttance of a Flaab of Lightning. Experiment with Rotating Disk-Erigbtness of a L&CTURE II. LIGHTNNQCONDUCTORS. ning-couduetor- Conditions of a Lightning-con. 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A CATALOGUE Containing enumerated are In the RAISONNE, all the works in THE HUMBOLDT GROUPED ACCORDING subject.8 LIBRARY, up to and including TO THEIR- SUBJECT-hllER, for the convenience of those who desire to become familiar with the results of scientific departments:- - No. 138, inquiry in any of the following .- ASTRONOMY. No. 14.-THE WONDERS OF TBE HEAVENS. No. “O.-THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY. No. 4D.-THE SUN: . , . . . So. I.-LIGHT ESSAYS OS No. W.-POPULAR SCIENTIFIC No. 41.-CURRENT DISCUSSIONS No. 8X-ILLUSIONS OF -No. 99.-NOTES GN No. HO.-THE SCIENTIFIC LECTURES. IN THE . SENSES, AND OF No. 43.-DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. DAK-WIN: . GENESIS OF OF PROGRESS h-08. 11 and l%.-THE OF . LIFE A>? , SCIENCE. SCIENCE NATURALIST EVOLUTIONIST No. XX-FACTS AND Ho. 33.-VIGNETTES No. 84.-STUDIES No. 92.-THE . . . . . . . . . . f!ARR. IN FICTIONS FROM NATURE. . DIt3TRII)UTION OF . OF ANIMATRD FORMATION OF OF . VEGETABLE See dso under THE HUBSBOLDT PUBLISHING . . . HBLMBOLTZ. . . n’~rmaus. . . 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Reproduced in Electonic Form 2006, Bank of Wisdom, LLC Freedom ! Equality! I Justice!!! These three; but the greatest of these is Justice^ HN 64 .M392 Copy 1 ON THE DELIVERED IN Music Hall, Boston, Thursday, Feb. 1,1872, AND THE Academy of Music, New York, Feb. 20,1872, BY / WOODHULL, CLAFLIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, No. 44 Eroad Street. * 1872. IMPENDING REVOLUTION. Standing upon the apex of the nineteenth century, we look back­ ward through the historic era, and in the distant, dim past catch sight ■of the feeble outreachings of the roots of humanity, which during thousands of years have evolved into the magnificent civilization by which we are surrounded. Mighty nations have risen and fallen; em­ pires have gathered and wasted; races and peoples have evolved and decayed; but the mystic ebb and flow of the Gigantic Spirit concealed within the universe has continued upon its course, ever increasing in strength and in variety of sequence. It is true that the results which have flown from this progressive course have very materially changed. Early in its history every -achievement was considered great or small, as its conquests by military prowess were great or small. But who in this era would think of plac­ ing a Sesostris, or a Semiramis, or even an Alexander, or Caesar, in comparison as conquerors, with the steamship, the locomotive engine, the electric telegraph, and last and greatest, collecting the efforts of all men, and spreading them world-wide—the printing-press. Where kings and emperors once used the sword to hew their way into the centers of barbarism, the people now make use of their subtle powers of intellect to pierce the heart of ignorance. The conquerors of the present, armed with these keen weapons, are so intertwining the mate­ rial interests of humanity that, where exclusion was once the rule among nations, intercommunication has made it the exception. Every year some new tie has been added to those which already bound the nations together, until even the continents clasp hands across the oceans, and 4 salute each other in fraternal unity, and the islands stand anxiously waiting for their deliverance. The grand results of all these magnificent changes have accrued to the benefit of nations as such. All the revolutions of the past have resulted in the building of empires and the dethroning of kings. The grandeur of the Roman Empire consisted in its power, centered -in and expressed by its rulers. The glory of France under the great Napoleon was the result of his capacity to use the people. We have no histories making nations famous by the greatness of their peoples. Centraliza­ tion of power at the head of the government has been the source of all national honor. Under this system grades and castes of people have built themselves, the stronger upon the weaker, and the people as indi­ viduals have never appeared upon the surface. Government has gone through various and important evolutions and changes. First we learn of it as residing in the head of the family, there being no other organization. Next, families aggregated into tribes, with an acknowledged head. Again, tribes united into nations, occupying specified limits, and having an absolute ruler. Then began a double process, which is even now unfinished—the consolidation of nations into races, and the redistribution of power to the people. That which was once absolute in the head of the family, the tribe and the nation, is now shared by the head with the most powerful among the people. These two processes will continue until both are complete— until all nations are merged into races, and all races into one govern­ ment ; and until the power is completely and equally returned to all the people, who will no longer be denominated as belonging to this or that country or government, but as citizens of the world—as members of a common humanitv. «/ * “ God loves from whole to part. But human soul must from indi­ vidual to the whole.” It is at once one of the most interesting as well as instructive of studies, to trace the march which civilization has described. Begin­ ning in Asia, it traversed westward by and through the rise and decay of the Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires, each one of which built successively upon the ruins of the preceding, and all 5 culminating in the downfall of the last, whose civilization was dissemi­ nated to impregnate that portion of the world then unknown. Modern Europe rose, and when at its height'of power, civilization still undeviatingly marching westward, crossed the stormy Atlantic, and implanted itself in the virgin soil of America. Here, however, an entirely new process was begun. Representatives from all nations, races and tongues here do congregate. Not only do the nations of Europe and Africa pour their restless sons and daughters westward, but the nations of Asia, setting at defiance the previous law of empire, send their children against its tide to meet it and to coalesce. To those who can view humanity as one, this is a fact of great significance, since it proves America to be the center to which the nations naturally tend. But this is only a part of its significance. The more prophetic portion is, that here a new race is being developed, into which will be gathered all the distinctive characteristics of all the various races. Each race is the distinct representative of some special and predominant characteristic, beinsr weak in all others. The new race will combine all these different qualities in one grand character, and shall ultimately gather in all people of all races. Observe the merging of the black and white races. The white does not descend to the black, but the black gradually approaches the white. And this is the prophecy of what shall be: ‘ ‘ For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right and wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame : In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim. ” As in this country the future race of the world is being developed, so also will the foundation of the future government be developed, which shall become universal. It was no mere child’s play or idle fancy of the old prophets, whose prophecies of a Christ who should rule the world, come trooping down the corridors of time, and from all eras converge upon this. Neither were the Jews entirely at fault when they looked for a Messiah who should reign over the world in temporal as well as in spiritual things, since it is beginning to be comprehended that a reign of justice in temporal things can only follow from the bap- 6 tism of them by spirituality. And it is the approach of these hereto­ fore widely-separated principles which is to produce the impending­ revolution. And that revolution will be the final and the ultimate con­ test between justice and authority, in which the latter will be crushed, never again to raise its despotic head among and to divide the mem­ bers of a common humanity. St. Paul said: “ Faith, Hope and Charity. These three, but the greatest of these is charity.” Beautiful as this triplet may appear to be to the casualist, it cannot bear the test of analysis. It will be replaced in the= vocabulary of the future by the more perfect one—Knowledge, Wisdom and Justice. These three, but the greatest of these is Justice. Charity, with its long cloak of justice escaped, has long enough covered a mul­ titude of sins. Justice will in the future demand perfect compensation, in all things, whether material, mental or spiritual. Heretofore justice has only been considered as having relation tomatters covered by enacted law, and its demands have been considered, as satisfied when the law has had its full course. With Freedom and. Equality it has been a mere abstract term with but little significance. There has never been such a thing as freedom for the people. It has always been concession by the government. There has never been am equality for the people. It has always been the stronger, in some sense, preying upon the weaker; and the people have never had justice. When there is authority, whether it be of law, of custom, or of indi­ viduals, neither of these can exist except in name. Neither do theso principles apply to the people in their collective capacity, but when the people’s time shall come they will belong to every individual sepa­ rately. Equality will exist in freedom and be regulated by j ustice. But what does freedom mean ? “As free as the winds ” is a common expression. But if we stop to inquire what that freedom is, we find that air in motion is under the most complete subjection to different temperatures in different localities, and that these differences arise from conditions entirely independent of the air simply as such. That is to say, the air of itself never changes its temperature. Therefore the freedom of the wind is the freedom to obey commands imposed by conditions to which it is by nature related. So also is water always 7 free to seek its own level. But neither the air or the water of one locality obeys the commands which come from the conditions surround­ ing another locality. That is to say, that while air and water as a whole are subject to general laws, when individualized, each separate body must be subject to its peculiar relations, and to the law of its con­ ditions. Water in one locality may be pure—hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen ; while in others it may contain various additional elements, as sodium, calcium or ammonium, and yet each is free. Air in one locality may be twenty degrees above, and in another twenty degrees below, zero; and yet each is free in its own sphere. Now, individual freedom in its true sense means just the. same thing for the people that freedom for the air and water means to them. It means freedom to obey the natural condition of the individual, modi­ fied only by the various external forces which are brought to bear upon, and which induce action in, the individual. What that action will be, must be determined solely by the individual and the operating causes, and in no two cases can they be precisely alike ; since no two human beings are precisely alike. Now, is it not plain that freedom means that individuals having the right to it, are subject only to the laws of their own being, and to the relations they sustain to the laws of other things by which they are surrounded ? . If, then, freedom mean anything, it means that no individual is sub­ ject to any rule or law to be arbitrarily imposed by other individuals. But several individuals may agree among themselves to be governed by certain rules, since that is their freedom to do so. And here is the primal foundation and the only authoritative source of government. No individual can be said to be free and be held accountable to a law to which he or she did not consent. In the light of that analysis, have the people of this country got freedom ? But should it be objected that such freedom would be liable to abuse, we reply that that is impossible. Since the moment one individual abuses his or her freedom, that moment he or she is encroaching upon the freedom of some one else who is equally entitled to the same right. And the law of the association must protect against such encroachment. And, so far as restraint is concerned, this is 8 the province—the sole province—of law, to protect the rights of indi­ vidual freedom. But what is equality, which must be maintained in freedom ? A good illustration of what equality among the people means, may be drawn from the equality among the children of a family in the case of an equal division of the property of the deceased father. If the pro­ perty is divided among them according to their respective merits, that would not be equality. Now, equality for the people means the equality of the family, ex­ tended to all families. It means that no personal merit or demerit can interfere between individuals, so that one may, by arbitration or laws, be placed unequally with another. It means that every individual is entitled to all the natural wealth that he or she requires to minister to the various wants of the body, and to »an equal share of all accumu­ lated, artificial wealth—which will appear self-evident when we shall have analyzed wealth. It also means that every person is entitled to equal opportunity for intellectual acquirements, recreation and rest, since the first is necessary to make the performance of the individual’s share of duty possible; while the second and third are the natural requirements of the body, independent of the individuality of the per­ son, and which was not self-created but inherited. Under this analysis have we any such thing as equality in this country ? And yet it should be the duty of government, since it is a fundamental portion of its theory, to maintain equality among the people; otherwise the word is but a mere catch, without the slightest signification in fact. What, then, should be the sphere of justice in maintaining equality in freedom? Clearly to maintain equal conditions among free indi­ viduals. But this will appear the more evident as we proceed. The impending revolution, then, will be the strife for the mastery between the authority, despotism, inequalities and injustices of the present, and freedom, equality and justice in their broad and perfect sense, based on the proposition that humanity is one, having a common origin, common interests and purposes, and inheriting a common destiny, which is the 9 complete statement of the religion of Jesus Christ, unadulterated by his professed followers. But does the impending revolution imply a peaceful change or a bloody struggle ? No person who will take the trouble to carefully observe the con­ ditions of the various departments of society can fail to discern the terrible earthquakes just ready to burst out upon every side, and which are only now restrained by the thick incrustations with which, customs, prejudices and authorities have incased humanity. Indeed, the whole surface of humanity is surging like the billows of the stormy ocean, and it only escapes general and destructive rupture because its composition, like the consciences of its constituent members, is so elastic. But, anon, the restrained furies will overcome the temper of their fastenings, and, rending them asunder, will sweep over the people, submerging them or cleansing them of their gathered debris, as they shall have located themselves, with regard to its coming. All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and gone have been for freedom—for freedom to think and for freedom to act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should come of that thought and action. But we are now entering upon a struggle for something quite different from this. Having obtained free­ dom from the despotism of rulers and governments, the rule and des­ potism of individuals began to usurp the places made vacant by them. Where once the king or the emperor reigned, capital, reinforced by the power of public opinion and religious authorities, now sits and forges chains with which to fetter and bind the people. Where, by divine right, men once demanded the results of the labors of their people, the privileged few, by the means of an ingenious system, facetiously called popular laws, now make the same demand, and with equally de­ cisive results. The demand is answered, by the return of the entire proceeds of each year’s surplus productions into their coffers. And this is no more true of the pauper laborers of Europe and the slave laborers of Asia than it is of the free labor of America. Six hundred millions people constantly toil all their lives long, while about ten millions sit quietly by gathering and luxuriating in their results. 10 Simple freedom, then, is not enough. It has not accomplished the redemption of the people. It has only relieved them from one form of slavery to leave them at the mercy of another still more insidious in its character, because more plausible; since, if penury and want exist, accompanied by suffering and privation, under the rule of a monarch, he may justly be held responsible. But when it exists under the reign of freedom, there is no responsibility anywhere, unless it may be said to be in the people themselves,which is equivalent to saying responsibility without application. . To illustrate this distinction without a difference, take the island of Cuba, with its half million inhabitants, and suppose it to be ruled by an absolute monarch, who administers his commands through the usual attaches of the court and the noblemen of the island. Virtually owning the people, he commands them to labor, taking from them all their pro­ ducts, and merely feeding, clothing and sheltering them. In this case it would be the non-laborers who, without any circumlocution, directly obtain all the produced wealth, they simply expending their time and talent in its securing, while the lives of the people who produce it would be simply maintained. Now advance one step toward popular government—to a constitu­ tional monarchy. In this the same results to the producing people will be maintained, while the noblemen will share the wealth among themselves, allotting a certain share to the monarch. Coming down to a representative government, of which personal liberty is the basis, the despotism of laws enacted in the interest of privileged classes are substituted for the personal despotism of mon­ archs and nobles. What the absolute monarch possesses himself of by the right of might, the privileged class in the popular government possess themselves of by the right of law, everything legal being held to be just. Now is not that precisely the case in this country? Do not all the results of labor accrue to the privileged few ? and are not the producing classes just as much enslaved to them as the subjects of an absolute monarch are to him ? With this mortification, however. In the last instance, they suffer 11 from conditions over which, they have no control; whilst in the former case the conditions by which they are enslaved are of their own forma­ tion. And I say, I would rather be the unwilling subject of an abso­ lute monarch than the willing slave of my own ignorance, of which ad­ vantage is taken by those who spend their time in endeavoring to prove to me that I am free and in singing the glories of my condition, to hoodwink my reason and to blind my perception. And I further say, that that system of government by which it is pos­ sible for a class of people to practice upon my credulity, and, under false pretenses, first entice me to acquiesce in laws by which immense corporations and monopolies are established, and then to induce me to submit to their extortions because they exist according to law, pursuing none but lawful means, is an infernal despotism, compared to which the Russian Czar is a thousand times to be preferred. This may at first seem a sweeping indictment ol our form of govern­ ment, but I say it is just. Suppose we take our railroad system, now amounting to fifty-five thousand miles. At an average cost of eighty thousand dollars per mile for construction and equipment, its total cost would be four billions four hundred millions dollars. To pay the share­ holders an eight per cent, dividend for doing nothing, the industries of the country would have to be taxed three hundred and fifty millions dollars over and above the cost of maintenance and operation. Did this enor­ mous drain from the products of the people stop here, the fertility of the country, made use of by the ingenuity of the people, might possibly keep pace with the demand. But it does not stop there. The net earning of the railroads enables their directors to make larger dividends than eight per cent. Do their managers relinquish this increase in favor of the people ? Never a bit of it. But they increase their stock either by selling new shares, or by making stock or scrip dividends, and to neither process has there been found any legal bar or cure. Now, what may the result of such a system be? Why, this. If the stock of all these railroads be increased in the same proportion that some of them have already been increased, it may be raised to a thou­ sand billions of dollars, and the people, instead of being compelled to pay three hundred and fifty millions dollars to provide an eight per cent, dividend on their cost, will have to submit to the extortion of eight hundred million dollars annually to satisfy the demands of these legal despots for an eight per cent, dividend upon stock, a large part of which represent absolutely nothing but the people’s stolen money. A person who would double the size of another’s note simply be­ cause the profits of his business would permit the payment of twelve per cent, interest, so that instead of paying twelve per cent, upon one hundred dollars, which would be an illegal charge, it would be six per cent, upon two hundred dollars, would be deemed and adjudged guilty of forgery. But these railroad magnates sit in their palatial offices and raise their notes at pleasure, and they are considered public bene­ factors. It is a crime for a single person to steal a dollar, but a corpo­ ration may steal a million dollars, and be canonized as saints. Oh, the stupid blindness of this people ! Swindled every day . before their very eyes, and yet they don’t seem to know that there is anything wrong, simply because no law has been violated. In their eyes every­ thing that is lawful is right, and this has become the curse of the nation. But the opposite—that everything which is right is lawful— don’t follow as a part of their philosophy. No matter what a person does if it is not actionable under the law; he is an honest man and a good church member. But Heaven defend us from being truthful, natural beings, unless the law says we may— since that is to be an infamous scoundrel. A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks, or make dividends, by which, in a few years, he amasses fifty millions dollars from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf of bread from his cupboard, to prevent starvation, she would be sent first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell’s Island. An Astor may sit in his sumptuous apartments, and watch the prop­ erty bequeathed him by his father, rise in value from one to fifty mil­ lions, and everybody bows before his immense power, and worships his business capacity. But if a tenant of his, whose employer had dis­ charged him because he did not vote the Republican ticket, and thereby fails to pay his month’s rent to Mr. Astor, the law sets him and his 13 family into the street in midwinter; and, whether he dies of cold or starvation, neither Mr. Astor or anybody else stops to ask, since that is nobody’s business but the man’s. This is a free country, you know, and why should I trouble myself about that person, because he hap­ pens to be so unfortunate as not to be able to pay Mr. Astor his rent? Mr. Stewart, by business tact, and the various practices known to trade, succeeds, in twenty years, in obtaining from customers whom he has entrapped into purchasing from him fifty millions dollars, and with his gains he builds costly public beneficiaries, and straightway the world makes him a philanthropist. But a poor devil who should come along with a bolt of cloth, which he had succeeded in smuggling into the country, and which, consequently, he could sell at a lower price than Mr. Stewart, who paid the tariff, and is thereby authorized by law to add that sum to the piece, would be cast into prison. How these individuals represent three of the principal methods that the privileged classes have invented by which to monopolize the accu­ mulated wealth of the country. But let us analyze the processes, and see if it is wholly by their personal efforts that they gain this end. Nobody pretends that Mr. Stewart ever produced a single dollar of his vast fortune. He accumulated it by dealing in the productions of others, which he first obtained at low rates, and then sold at a sufficient advance over the cost of handling to make in the aggregate a sum amounting to millions. Now, I want to ask if all this is not arriving at the same result, by another method, at which the slaveholders of the South arrived, by owning negroes ? In the case of the latter, the slaveholder reaped all the benefits of the labors of the negroes. In the former case the merchant princes, together with the various other privileged classes, reap the benefit of the labors of all the working-classes of the country. Every year the excess of the produced wealth of the country finds final lodg­ ment in the pockets of these classes, and they grow richer at each suc­ ceeding harvest, while the laborers toil their lives away; and when all their strength and vigor have been transformed into wealth, which has been legally transferred to the capitalists, they are heavy with age, and r 14 as destitute as when they began their life of servitude. Did ever Southern slave have meaner end than this ? In all seriousness, is there any common justice in such a state of things ? Is it right that the millions should toil all their lives long, scarcely having comfortable food and clothes, while the few manage to control all the benefits ? People may pretend that it is justice, and good Christians may excuse it upon that ground, but Christ would never have called it by that name. He would even give him that labored but an hour as much as he that had labored all the day, but to him who labored not at all he would take away even that which he hath. And yet we hear loud professions of Christianity ascending from the pulpit throughout the length and breadth of the land. And when I listen, I cannot help exclaiming, “ O, ye hypocrites, how can ye hope to escape the damnation of hell ? ” Am I asked, How are these things to be amended? I will tell you in the first place, that they must be remedied ; and this particular case of dealing in the labor of the people is to be remedied by abolishing huckstering, or the system of middle-men, and substituting therefor a general system of public markets, conducted by the people through their paid agents, as all other public business is performed. In these markets the products of the country should be received, in first hands, direct from the producers, who should realize their entire proceeds. In this manner the immense fortunes realized by • middle-men, and the profits made by the half-dozen different hands through which merchan­ dise travels on its way to consumers, would be saved to the producer. A bushel of apples, purchased in the orchard jit twenty-five cents, is finally sold to the consumer at a dollar. Now, either the consumer has paid at least a half dollar too much, or the producer has received a half dollar too little, for the apples; since, under a perfect system, the apples would go direct from the orchard to the market, and thence direct to the consumer. We are forever talking of political economy, but it appears to me that the most vital points—one of which is our system of huckstery— is entirely overlooked. Suppose Mr. Stewart, instead of having labored all these years for 15 his own selfish interests, had labored in tne interests of the people ? Is it not clear that the half-a-hundred million dollars he has accumulated would have remained with the people who have consumed his goods ? Place all other kinds of traffic upon the same proposed basis, and do you not see that the system which makes merchant-princes would be abolished? Neither would it require one-half the people to conduct a general system of markets who are now employed speculating in the results of labor. In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shop­ keeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. In this way there could also be a perfect control exercised over the quality of perishable goods, the want of which is now felt so severely in summer in all large cities, and a thousand unthought of remedies would necessarily suggest themselves as the system should develop. But let us pass to one of the other branches of this same system. We have in our midst thousands of people of immense wealth who have never even done so much to justify its possession as the merchant­ princes have done to justify themselves. I refer to our land monopo­ lists, and to Mr. Astor as their representative. Mr. Astor inherited a large landed estate, which has risen in value to be worth millions of dollars, to which advance Mr. Astor never contributed even a day’s labor. He has done nothing except to watch the rise and gather in the rents, while the whole laboring country has been constantly engaged in promoting that advance. What would Mr. Astor have been without the City of New York ?. And what would the City of New York have been without the United States ? You see, my friends, it will not do to view this matter superficially. We live in too analytic an age to per­ mit these things to go on in the way they have been going. There is too much poverty, too much suffering, too mueh hard work, too many hours of labor for individuals, too many sleepless nights, too many starving poor, too many hungry children, too many in helpless old age, to permit these villanous abuses to continue sheltered under the name of respectability and public order. But again, and upon a still worse swindle of the people. A person 16 having money goes out into the public domain and acquires an im­ mense tract of land. Shortly a railroad is projected and built, which runs through that tract. It offers a fine location for a station. A city springs up, and that which cost in some instances as little as a shilling per acre, is divided into town lots, and these are reluctantly parted with at five hundred dollars each. ’ Again, I wish to inquire, in the name of Justice, to whom does that advance belong ? To the person who nominally holds the land ? What has he done to entitle him to receive dollars for what he only paid cents ? Is there any equality—is there any justice—in such a condition ? He profits by the action of others; in fact at the public expense, since in its last analysis it is the common public who are the basis of all advance in the value of property. Now, I say, that that common public is entitled to all the benefits accruing from common efforts; and it is an infamous wrong that makes it accrue to the benefit of a special few. And a system of society which permits such arbitrary distributions of wealth is a disgrace to Christian civilization, whose Author and his Disciples had all things in common. Let professing Christians who, for a pretense, make long prayers, think of that, and then denounce Communism, if they can ; and denounce me as a Revolutionist for advocating it, if they dare. But, is it asked, how is this to be remedied ? I answer, very easily ! Since those who possess the accumulated wealth of the country have filched it by legal means from those to whom it justly belongs—the people—it must be returned to them, by legal means if possible, but it must be returned to them in any event. When a person worth millions, dies, instead of leaving it to his children, who have no more title to it than anybody else’s children have, it must revert to the people, who really produced it. Do you say that is injustice to the children ? I say, No ! And if you ask me how the rich man’s children are going to live after his death, I answer, by the same means as the poor man’s children live. Let it be remembered that we have had simple free­ dom quite long enough. By setting all our hopes on freedom we have been robbed of our rights. What we want now is more than freedom—we want equality ! And by the Heaven above us, earth’s 17 growing children are going to have it! What right have the children ot the rich to be born to luxurious idleness, while the children of the poor are born to, all their lives long, further contribute to their ease ? Do they not in common belong to God’s human family ? If I mistake not, Christ told us so. You will not dispute his authority, I am sure. If, instead of preaching Christ and him crucified quite so much, -we should practice his teaching a little more, my word for it, we should all be better Christians. And when by this process all the land shall have been returned to the people, there will be just as much of it, and it will be equally as productive, and just as much room on it as there is now. But instead of a few people owning the whole of it, and farming it out to all the rest at the best possible prices, the people will possess it them­ selves in their own right, through just laws, paying for its possession to the government such moderate rates of taxes as shall be necessary to maintain the government But I may as well conclude what I have to say regarding railroads, which must also revert back to the people, and be conducted by them for the public benefit, as our common highways are now conducted. Vanderbilt, Scott & Co. are demonstrating it better and better every day that all the railroads of the country can be much more economi­ cally and advantageously conducted under one management than under a thousand different managements. They imagine that very soon they will have accomplished a complete consolidation of the entire system, and that by the power of that consolidation they will be able to control the government of this country. But they will not be the first people who have made slight miscal­ culations as to ultimate results. Thomas Scott might make a splendid Secretary of the Department of Internal Improvements, for which the new Constitution, which this country is going to adopt, makes pro­ vision ; but he will never realize his ambition to preside over the rail­ road system of the country in any other manner. And I will tell you another benefit that will follow the nationaliza­ tion of our railroads. You have all heard of the dealing in stocks, of the “bulls” and the “bears,” and the “longs” and the “shorts,” and 18 the “lame ducks” of Wall street Well, they will all be abolished. There will be no stocks in which to deal. That sort of speculation, by which gigantic swindlers corner a stock and take it in at their own figures, will, to use a vulgar phrase, be “played out.” And if you were to see their customers, as I have seen them, rushing about Broad street to catch sight of the last per cent, of their margins as they dis­ appear in the hungry maw of the complacent brokers, you would agree with me that it ought to be “played out.” Under the system which I propose, not only will stock gambling be abolished, but also all other gambling, and the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied people who are now engaged in it, living from the pro­ ducts of others, will be compelled to go to producing themselves. But, says the objector, take riches away from people and there will be no incentive to accumulate. But, my dear sir, we don’t propose to do anything of the kind, nor to destroy any wealth. There will never be any less wealth than now, but a constant increase upon it. We only propose that the people shall hold it in their own right, instead of its being held in trust for them by a self-appointed few. Instead of having a few millionaires, and millions on the verge of starvation, we propose that all shall possess a comfortable competence—that is, shall possess the results of their own labors. I can’t see where there is a chance for a lack of motive to come in. It seems to me that everybody will have a better and a more certain chance, as well as a better incentive to accumulate. Will the certainty of accumulation destroy the desire to accumulate ? Nobody but the most stupid would attempt to maintain that. It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people. That country must be the most prosperous and happy where the people are most generally comfortably and happily circumstanced. And in this country, instead of a hundredth part of the people living in palaces and riding in coaches, while the balance live in huts and travel on foot, every per­ son may live in a palace and ride in a coach, I leave it to you to decide which is the preferable condition and which the more Christian. And why should the rich object to this ? If everybody has enough 19 nnd to spare, should that be a subject of complaint? What more do people want, except itw be for the purpose of tyrannizing over others dependent upon them ? But no objections that may be raised will be potent enough to crush out the demand for equality now rising from an oppressed people. This demand the possessors of wealth cannot afford to ignore. It comes from a patiently-enduring people, who have waited already too long for the realization of the beautiful pictures of freedom which have been painted for them to admire ; for the realization of the songs which poets have sung to its praise. Let me warn, nay, let me implore them not to be deaf to this demand, since they do not know so well as I know what temper there is behind it. I have tested it, and I know it is one that will not much longer brook the denial of justice. But there is another monopoly of which I must speak—I mean the monopoly of money itself We have seen how great a tyranny that is which arises from monopolizing the land. But that occurring from the monopoly of money, is a still more insidious and dangerous form of despotism, since its ramifications are more extensive and minute. It may be exercised by the person possessing a hundred, or by the person possessing a million dollars. But what is the process ? A person inherits a half million dollars for which he never expended a single day’s labor. He sits in his office loaning that sum of money say, in sums of one thousand dollars to one thousand different persons, each of whom conducts a little business which yields just enough to support a family and to pay the interest. These people live for forty years in this manner, and die no better off than when they began life. But during that time they have paid all their extra production to the amount of four thousand dollars, each, to the capitalist; and, finally, the business itself is sold out to pay the principal. And thus it turns out that the capitalist obtains everything those thousand per­ sons earned during their whole lives, they leaving nothing to their families. Now, what better is that result than it would have been had these people been slaves ? Could their owners have obtained any more from them ? I say they would have obtained less; since, had they been slaves in name, as in fact they were, there would have been times 20 during the forty years that they would not have earned interest over cost of their support. Now, look at the capitalist. For one million dollars, and without the straining of a muscle, he receives live million dollars direct, which, reinvested from time to time as it in­ creases, amounts at the end of the forty years to not less than fifteen millions dollars. But try another example of a somewhat different kind. A person having four grown children, whom he has reared in luxury, and given all the facilities of education, dies, leaving each of them a farm worth twenty-five thousand dollars. These children having never learned the art of farming are incapable of conducting these farms; but they lease them to four different people for a thousand dollars a year each,, and live at ease all their lives, therefrom, never so much as lifting their hands to do an hour’s labor. Now, who is it that supports those fourpeople ? Is it not clear that it is the people who work the farms? And how d:d it happen that they had the farms to lease ? Simply by an incident for which there was no legitimate general cause, else why do not all children have farms and live without work ? Nor can you, my friends, discover anything approaching equality, or ought that looks like justice in that operation. I tell you nay ! It is the most insidious despotism, with a single exception, that is possible among a people. It is a despotism which was condemned in all former times, even by barbarians, and which the Jews were only permitted to enforce upon people of other nations. It is the hideous vampire fastened upon the vitals of our people, sucking—sucking—sucking their very life’s; blood, leaving just enough to keep up their vitality, that they may manufacture more. It is the heartless monster that will have the exact pound of flesh, even if there be loss of blood to obtain it, and there is no just judge near to prevent the taking, or to hold him to account if he take it. It paralyzes our industries; shuts the gates in the way that leads to our inexhaustible treasures within the bosom of mother earth I strips the stars and stripes from the masts of merchantmen; compels our immense cotton lands to luxuriate in weeds; robs our spindles of the power to turn them; and lays an embargo upon every productive enter­ prise. Whoever makes a movement to compel the earth to yield her 21 wealth, or to transform that wealth into useful form, must first obtain the consent of this despot, and pay his demands for a license. Thirteen millions of laborers in this country produce annually four thousand millions dollars of wealth, every dollar of which over and .above the cost of living is paid over to appease the demands of this insatiate monster—this horrid demon, whose name is Interest. We are told that we cannot manufacture railroad iron in this coun­ try as cheap as it can be manufactured in England. Yes 1 And why ? Is it because we have no ore or no coal; or that, which is not as good ;as England has? No! We have on the surface what in England is hundreds of feet in the bowels of the earth, and coal the same; and both of better quality. But money can be put at interest in this country so as to double itself every four years, and be amply secured. What reason have capitalists to construct iron' works, or to have their care, when twenty-five per cent, per year is returned them, without care or risk ? And what is true of iron is also true of every other natural production. Is it any wonder that our manufacturers are obliged to demand that the people pay an additional per cent, upon everything they eat, drink or wear, that they may be protected in their various productive enterprises, when such exactions are laid upon them by this more than absolute monarch? No! It would indeed be a wonder if it were not so. Now, do you suppose our markets would be flooded with British 'goods if our producing and manufacturing interests had all the money they require without interest? If there are any borrowers at ten per cent, who hear my voice, let them answer. No; it is the tribute that industry is compelled to pay to capital that forces our government to exact ten, twenty, fifty, aye, even a hundred per cent, for the privilege of bringing merchandise into this country. But they tell us if we go to free trade that our country would be flooded with foreign products, so there would be absolutely no production of manufactured goods in the country. Now that would be true, if we should attempt free trade and leave the monster Interest with his grip upon our vitals. And here is the short-sightedness of Free­ Traders. If we want free trade, we must, in the first place, attack, 22 throttle and kill this demon, after which we may manufacture atprices that will not only absolutely forbid the importation of almost everything that is now imported, but which will also enable us to play the same game with Europe that Europe has played so long upon us. Free money in this country would abolish every European throne within ten years. And yet people cannot be made to see that this country is their support. With free money what need would we have for a pro­ tective tariff? Can any Protectionist answer that? You see, my friends, that it is the people who catch sight of an idea and pursue it to the death, regardless of relative ideas, who make reform so ridiculous. One reform cannot advance alone. All kinds of reform must go on together. Interest and free trade must go hand in hand; interest, if either, a little ahead. And in this regard I- am free to confess that the National Labor Union’s demand for a decrease of interest is the most reasonable single reform now being advocated. We want free trade; but we want free money first, so that not a spindle or forge in this country shall stop at the command of those across the ocean. But how are we going to get free money? Why, in the very easiest way possible. It is the simplest problem of them all I am not going into this discussion to prove to you that gold isnot money, since everybody ought to know that it has no more the properties of money than cotton, corn and pork have the properties of money. Now, money is that thing which, if every dollai in circulation should be destroyed, there would be no loss of wealth. Gold, cotton, corn and wheat are wealth. Destroy these and there is a loss. But when money is destroyed, there is no more loss than when a promis­ sory note is destroyed. A note is an evidence of debt It is not wealth, but its representative. So also is money not wealth, but its representative. And if we had a thousand million dollars in circula­ tion to day, there would be no more wealth in the country than thero now is, and we would have quite as much wealth if there were- twothousand millions dollars, since money and wealth are two entirely distinct things. But they tell us that unless money is made redeemable in gold, it 23 is not of any account, and that, too, in the face of our miserable green­ back system, which was so much better even than gold that it saved the nation when, had we stuck to gold, we should have been destroyed. Oh, but it was a depreciated currency, says some one. Yes, it was a depreciated currency, and we should have ample reason to be thankful if when we come to pay our bonds, we have a depreciated currency with which to liquidate them, instead of being obliged, as we shall, to pay a thousand dollars in cotton for what we realized less than five hundred in gold. It is not the gold only of a country that constitutes its wealth. What should we care if we had not a single ounce of gold, if we had a thousand million bales of cotton, ten thousand millions bushels of corn and wheat, and a billion dollars’ worth of manufactured goods to send to other countries ? So you see it is not the gold after all that makes a circulation good, but the sum total of all kinds of wealth. Now, that is what we propose to substitute for gold as the basis for a money issue. And instead of permitting corporations to issue it and remain at liberty to dispose of their property and let the people who hold their circulation whistle for its redemption, we propose that government, which can neither sell our property nor abscond with it, shall issue it for the people and lend it to them at cost; or if you will insist on paying interest for money, why, then, pay it to the government and lessen your taxes that much, instead of paying interest to bankers and supporting government besides. Now, don’t you think that would be rather a good sort of a money system ? I know that every manufacturer in the country would like it. But I can tell you who will not like it; and whom we may be compelled to fight before they will permit us to have it; and these are the money-lenders and money-changers, such as it is related the Head of the Christian Church—one Jesus Christ, of whom we hear a great deal said, but whose teachings and doctrines are wofully perverted—r scourged out of the Temple at a place known as Jerusalem. I have not been guilty of frequenting the temples of the country much of late, but if lam not misinformed upon the subject, and unless they have changed since I did frequent them, if Christ should pass 24 through, this land of a Sunday, scourge in hand,. he would find plenty of work to do in the same line in which he labored so faithfully among the Jews. But the National Labor Union say they won’t be so hard upon these money-lenders as we would be. They are willing that they shall be eased down from the vast height to which they have attained. They say they shall have three per cent interest instead of six, seven, eight and ten, or as much more as they can steal out of the necessities of the case, by the circumstances and discounts. But they shall be limited to three per cent, and in a way that they cannot evade, as they now evade, lawful interest. It is proposed that government shall issue this money, but that it shall be convertible into a three per cent, interest­ bearing bond; so that when money shall be so plenty that it will be worth less than three per cent in business, it can be invested in bonds drawing three per cent; and the bonds to also be reconvertible into money, so that the moment business shall demand more money than there should be in circulation—which would increase the value of money to more than three per cent.—the bonds would be converted into money again; and when there should be no more bonds to convert, and money still worth more than three per cent., then the Government shall issue more money to restore the equilibrium. In this way money would al­ ways be worth just three per cent. No more nor less, and there would always be just enough; or, in other words, money would be measured, as it never has been, and which has been the cause of all our financial troubles. What would you say to a person who should talk to you about measuring your corn in a bushel that had itself never been meas­ ured? But you complacently talk of money being a measure of values, and money has never had a measure regulating its own value. But this consideration is only a stepping-stone to what shall be. Money mu^t be made free from interest. In fact, I do not know but people who have money should pay something to have it securely loaned, the same as you must pay your Safe Deposit Companies for safely keeping bonds, jewels and other valuables. I think people ought to be made to pay for the safe keeping of money upon the same principle. Money under our present system is the only thing which 25 we possess that does not depreciate in value by use. The more money is used, the more it increases ; a proof complete of the fallacy and its despotism. The Government now pay the banks thirty millions dollars per year for the privilege of loaning them about three hundred millions national currency, which the banks reloan to the people at an average of ten per cent. It seems to me that is almost too good a thing to last long. If the Government can afford to do this thing, why can’t they better afford to loan directly to the people for nothing, and save thirty millions dollars annually? Do you think the people would object? Oh, no; but the bankers would. But for all that the cry of “Down with the tyrant” is raised, and it will never cease until interest shall be among the things that were. I also desire to call attention to the reduction of the Public Debt, ’ and to the means by which this reduction has been accomplished. « The Administration hangs almost all of its hopes upon this fact, while if it were thoroughly understood it would prove its condemnation. It has paid three hundred millions of the debt, they say. Who has paid it ? we inquire. It fails to answer. We say that that entire payment has be made by the producing classes of the country, while the capitalists have not reduced their cash balances in the least. In other words, the producers have got no more money now than they had before the debt was paid, while the capitalists have had their bonds changed into money. Now, who have paid that three hundred millions dollars? I repeat the laboring people have done it, just as they pay all public debts and all public expenses, besides constantly adding to the wealth of the capitalists themselves. Can such a state of things continue ? Again I tell you nay. This wrong must be remedied by a system of progressive taxation. 3 If persons having a hundred thousand dollars pay one-half per cent tax, let those having a million pay ten per cent, or two millions twentyfive per. cent. Let there be a penalty placed upon monopolizing the common property, and it will soon cease and equality come in its place. Now, the poorest woman who buys the cheapest calico pays a tax to 26 the Government, while the rich appropriate her labor to pay their' dues. Truly said Jesus, 11 The poor ye have with you always.” Another mode of remedying the existing ills in industry and the distribution of wealth, must be in giving employees an actual interest in the products of their labors, so that ultimately co-operation will be the source of all production, its results being justly distributed among all those who assist in the production. First, pay the employer the same rate of interest for his capital that Government shall charge for loans made to the people; next, the general expenses, including salaries to himself and all employees, the remainder to be equitably divided among all who have an interest in it. Do you not see what a revolu­ tion in industrial production such a constitutional provision would effect ? And do you not suppose if the workingmen and women of this country understood the justice of it, that they would have it? I intend that they shall have the required information. Already there have been half a million tracts upon these subjects sent broadcast over this land, and the present year shall see double as many more, until every laborer, male and female, shall hold in his or her own hands the method of deliverance from this great oppression. But there is another consideration, which, more forcibly than any other, shows the suicidal policy which we pursue. If the present rates of interest are continued to be paid upon only the present banking capital and bonds of the country, for twenty-five years to come, the interest, with the principal added, will have absorbed the total present wealth, as well as its perspective increase. And such a consumma­ tion as this are the European capitalists now preparing for this country. Europe holds not less than three thousand millions of bonded indebtedness of this country, which is being augmented every month by additional railroad bonds, or some syndicate operation. So do you not see that European capital is gradually, but nevertheless inevitably, absorbing not only all of our annually pro­ duced wealth, but also acquiring an increased mortgage every year upon our accumulated wealth? There is no escaping these facts. Figures don’t lie. Mathematics is an absolute science from whose edicts there is no escape. And mathematics inform us that we are 27 year by year mortgaging ourselves to European capitalists, who will ultimately step in and foreclose their mortgages, and possess them­ selves of our all, just as we foreclose our smaller mortgages, when there is no hope of a further increase from interest. Besides the monopoly of land, money and public conveniences, there is another kind of monopoly still, which may appear rather strange and new to be thus classed, but it is neverthless a terrible tyrant. I refer Vto the monopoly of education. I hold that a just government is in duty bound to see to it that all its children of both sexes have the same and equal opportunities for acquiring education, and that every person of adult age shall have graduated in the highest departments of learning, as well as in the arts, sciences and practical mechanics. Every person should be compelled to acquire a practical knowledge of some productive branch of labor, because the time will come when all people will be obliged to produce at least as much as they consume, or earn what they consume, as the paid agents of producers. What a revolution would that accomplish ? If every person in the world was to work at production two hours a day there would be a larger aggregate produced than there is now. Therefore every person must learn the art of production, and thus be equal in resources to any other person, and Government must undertake the compulsory indus­ trial education of all its children. Thus I could continue analysis upon analysis, until not a stone in the foundations of our social structure would be left unturned, and all would be found unworthy of our civilization—our boasted Christian civilization. I think Christianity has been preached at, long enough. I go for making a practical application of it at the very foundations of society. I believe in recognizing the broad principle of all religion— that we are all children of one great common parent, God, which, since it disproves the propositions of the Church, that at least a large portion of us are the children of the devil, and renders the services of the clergy to save us from that inheritance unnecessary, will abolish our present system of a licensed and paid ministry. Thirty-five thousand ministers are paid twenty-five millions dollars annually for preaching the gospel in cathedrals costing two hundred and fifty mil­ lions dollars; and how many of them ever teach any fact other than 28 that Jesus was crucified, just as though that would save us from the sloughs of ignorance in which we are sunk ? Which one of them dare tell his congregation the truth, as he, if he be not a blockhead, knows it? I here and now impeach the clergy of the United States as dishonest and hypocritical, since the best of them acknowledge that they do not dare to preach the whole truth, for, if they should, they would have to preach to empty seats—an admission sufficiently dam­ nable to consign them to the contempt of the world and to the hell of which they prate so knowingly, but whose location they have not been able to determine, and to light the torch which shall fire the last one of these palatial mockeries of true religion Why, should Christ appear among these godly Christians as he did among the Jews, he would be arrested as a vagrant, or sent to jail for stealing corn ; and in Connecticut, perhaps, for Sabbath-breaking, or for telling the maid at the well 11 all she had ever done” which is now called fortune-telling, or for healing the sick by laying on of hands, which they denominate charlatanry. Christ and his Disciples and the multitude which he gathered together had all things in common. But every pulpit and every paper in this Christian country launch the thunders of their denunciations when that damnable doctrine is now advanced. Now, Christ was a Communist of the strictest sort, and so am I, and of the most extreme kind. I believe that God is the Father of all humanity and that we are brothers and sisters; and that it is not merely a theoretical or hypothetical nothing but a stern reality, to be re­ duced to a practical recognition. And they who cannot accept and practice this doctrine of Christ, and who still profess to be his fol­ lowers, are simply stealing the livery of Christ in which to serve the devil in their own souls. I do not care to what length Christians may stretch their faces of a Sunday, nor how much they pay to support their ministers; nor do I care how long prayers they may make, nor what sermons preach, when they denounce the fundamental principles of the teachings of Christ, I will turn upon and, in his language, utter their own condemna­ tion: “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto ” Christ. And .they may make all the fuss, 29 call me all the hard names, they please; but they can’t escape the judgment. And I don’t intend they shall have a chance to escape it. I am going to strip the masks of hypocrisy from their faces, and let the world see them as they are. They have had preaching without practice long enough. The people want practice now, and when they get it, they can even afford to do without the preaching. These privileged classes of the people have an enduring hatred for me, and I am glad they have. I am the friend not only of freedom in all things, and in every form, but also for equality and justice as well. These cannot be inaugurated except through revolution. I am denounced as desiring to precipitate revolution. I acknowledge it. I' am for revolution, if to get equality and justice it is required. I only want the people to have what it is their right to have— what the religion of humanity, what Christ, were he the arbiter, would give them. If, in getting that, the people find bayonets opposing them, it will not be their fault if they make their way through them by the aid of bayonets. And these persons who possess the monopolies and who guard them by bayonets, need not comfort themselves with the idea that the people won’t fight for their rights. Did they not spring to arms from every quarter to fight for the negro ? And will you say they will not do the same against this other slavery, compared to which the former is as an gentle shower to a raging tempest ? Don’t flatter yourselves, gentlemen despots, that you are going to escape under that assumption. You will have to yield, and it will be best for you to do it gracefully. You are but as one to seven against them. Numbers will win. It will be your own obduracy if they are goaded on to madness. Do not rely upon their ignorance of the true condition. Upon that you have anchored your hopes as long as it is safe. There are too many reform newspapers in circulation. And though the columns of all our great dailies are shut to their truths, still there are channels through which they flow to the people—aye, even to those who delve in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, seldom seeing the joyous sunshine. And this education shall continue until every person who contributes to the maintenance of another in luxu­ rious idleness shall know how such a result is rendered possible. 80 Hence, I say, it lies in the hands of those who have maintained this despotism over the common people to yield it up to them and recog­ nize their just relations. And rembember what I say to you to-night: If this that is claimed is not granted—if, beside freedom, equality is not made possible by your giving up this power, by which the laborer is robbed of the re­ sults of his labor, before our next centennial birthday, July 4th, 1876, you will have precipitated the most terrible war that the earth has yet known. For three years before the breaking out of the slavery rebellion I saw and heard with my spiritual senses the marching of armies, the rattle of musketry, and the roar of cannon; and I already hear and see the approach of this more terrible contest. I know it is coming. There is but one way in which it can be averted. There was one way by which the slave war could have been avoided—the abolition of slavery. But the slave oligarchy would not listen to our Garrisons, Sumners, Tiltons and Douglases. They tried the arbitration of war, but they lost their slaves at last. Now, will not these later oligarchies —the land, the railroad, the money aristocracies—learn a lesson from their terrible fate? Will they not listen to the abolitionists—to the Garrisons, the Sumners, the Tiltons and the Douglases—of to-day? Will they try the arbitration of war, which will result as did the last, in the loss of that for which they fight? I would that they should learn yyisdom by experience. The slaveholders could have obtained compensation for their negroes. They refused it and lost all. Pon­ der that lesson well, and do not neglect to give it its true application. You can compromise now, and the same general end be arrived at without the baptism of blood. It shall not be my fault if that bap­ tism comes. Nevertheless, equality and justice are on the march, and they cannot be hindered. They must and will attain their journey’s end. The people shall be delivered. I have several times referred to the methods by which these things may be accomplished. They are impossible under our present Con­ stitution. It is too restricted, too narrow, to admit even an idea of a common humanity. True, its text is complete, but its framework 81 does not carry out the original design. Even George Washington, himself, was accused of treachery for countenancing so great a depar­ ture as was made ; and the late war justified the grounds upon which that accusation was founded. The text of the Constitution held these truths to be self-evident, “That all men (and women) are bom equal and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution should have been erected in harmony with those declarations. It was not. There is no such thing as equality provided for. Life and liberty have not been held inalienable under it; the pursuit of happiness has been outrage­ ously interfered with, and the government has been made to exist without the consent of the governed; and exists to-day against the protests of a large number of its subjects. Is it to be expected that anything so false as that is to its basic propositions can be made enduring ? It is against the constitution of nature itself that it should be so. Nature is always true to itself, anc[ will always vindicate itself. If hedged in and obstructed, it will burst through or find its way around. The needle is not truer to the pole than is Nature to the truth. And Nature is always just. Those propositions were deduced from human rights, regardless of any authority or despotism. Had they been elucidated—had their princi­ ples guided the construction of the Constitution itself, all would have "been well. What our fathers failed to do is left for this generation to perform; and it must not shirk the duty. It must look the condition squarely in the face, and meet the issue as squarely. What issues must be met and provided for in order that human rights may be respected and protected ? I have already referred to the * monopolies that must be abolished. But there are also many other V things. I will call attention first to minority representation, which lies at the base of a representative government. The State of Massachusetts has eleven representatives in Congress, and they are all Republicans. Justice would infer that there are no Democrats in the State. But such is not the fact. There are a large body of Democrats. They are not represented. That is the fault of the system of arriving at repre­ sentation. While it is true that majorities must rule, that is not equal 32 to saying that minorities shall have no voice. Butf the'practice; ip . Massachusetts does say just that. I suspect if it were possible^ for all the real differences, politically, to be represented, that the'Congress­ men would stand something as follows: The Democrats’ would have, say, four out of the eleven, the Republicans,' say,three,; while ‘ the remainder would be divided between the Labor and Temprence Re­ formers and Woman Suffragists. Indeed, I am not certain if the door were to be opened that there would be any straight Republicans left,1 since all reformers are, under the present system, compelled to con­ gregate together in this party, so as not to entirely throw away their; votes. The Democrats are always Democrats. Likethe hard-shell Baptists, you always know where to find them. They are always on hand to vote early, and often also, if opportunity permit. Admit minority representation, and the Republican party in Massachusetts would be abolished, except that part who carry,; the loaves and eat the fishes. They are as certain to be found A! right there” as the Democrats are. I think the Woman Suffragists'cover about one-half the Republican party. But a large body of them are Spiritualists and Temperance men, while as many more are Labor Re­ formers. But those who are more Labor Reformers than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Woman Suffragists than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Spiritualists than anything else, perhaps two-sevenths; and who are'more Tem­ perance men than anything else, one-seventh ; therefore, if the dele­ gation were elected by the representation of minorities,. it 1 would stand four Democrats, two Spiritualists, two Labor Reformers,’ two Woman Suffragists, and one Temperance man. But all of these, how­ ever, would be again swallowed up whenever a Human Rights party should be evolved, and that will be the party of the near future, in whose all embracing arms the people, long suffering and long waiting, will at last find repose, while the Goddess of Liberty, with her scales of equality, shall find no more of her subjects to whom justice is not measured out. Then will partisan politics have received its death warrant; then will the people become one in heart, one in soul and •one in common purpose—the general good of the general whole. The 33 “greatest good of the greatest number will be supplanted by: “the general welfare, is best maintained when individual interests are best protected.” The new government, then, must be the result of mi­ nority representation, and all legislative bodies, and, where possible, all executive officers, be so elected, while the people shall retain the appointing as well as the veto power. Our lawmakers must be made law proposers, who shall coifstruct law to be submitted to the people for their approval, in the same manner as our public conventions appoint committees to draft resolutions, which are afterward adopted or rejected by the convention itself. This will make every person- a legislator, having a direct interest in every law. The people will then no longer elect representatives to make laws by which they must be bound whether they approve or disapprove. The referendum is 1the • desired end. The referendum is what the people require, and it is what the new Constitution must provide. "So that in all future, time the ’people themselves will be their own lawmakers—will be the government. The people must appoint all their officers, heads of departments and bureaus at regular intervals, and all- under assistants, during faithful performance of duty. We want no Civil Service Commissions. Every £ person who shall be eligible to office under the new government will be competent and when-once familiar with the duties, will not be removed to give room for the friend of some politician belonging to the party in power, since it would be the people in power at all times. Another matter which must have attention is the sweeping away of thatjeu de esprit, our courts of justice, by making all kinds of contracts stand upon the honor and capacity of the contracting parties. All in­ dividual matters must be settled by the individuals themselves without '-appeal to the public. - Our present system of enforced collection of debts costs every year more than -is realized, and besides maintains a vast army of lawyers, constables and court officers in unproductive em­ ploy. All -this is wrong, entailing almost untold exactions upon the producing community, who in the end are made to pay all these things. Further,- our system of oaths and bonds must be abolished. This swearing people to tell the truth, and binding them to perform their 34 duty, presupposes that they will lie and neglect their duty. People are always placed upon the side of force and compulsion—never upon that of personal rectitude and honor. The results are what might be ex­ pected. It plunges us into the very things we would avoid. There is a philosophy, too, in all these things; since in freedom only - can purity exist Anything that is not free is not pure. Anything that is accompanied by compulsion is no proof of individual honesty. The new government must also take immediate steps for the aboli. tion of pauperism and beggary. It is an infamous reproach upon this country that there are hundreds of thousands of people who subsist themselves upon individual charity. I do not care whether this 'is from choice or necessity. I say it is a burning shame, requiring imme­ diate curative steps. The indigent and helpless classes are just as much a part of our social body as the protected and the rich are, and they are entitled to its recognition. Society must no longer punish and compel suffering and death for its own wrongs. It must evolve such a social system as shall leave no single member of the common body to suffer. When one member of the body suffers, the whole body sympathizes. So, also, when a member of the social body suffers, does the whole body suffer. And yet we have pretended philanthrophists and Christians who have never grasped that truth. Our civilization and our Christianity have been made too much a matter of faith in, and devotion to, the unknownable, divorced from all human relations. We must first recognize and practice the brother­ hood of man before we can be made to realize the Paternity of God, since “ if we love not our brothers whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen.” Our religious teaching has been too much of punishment, and too little of love; too much of faith, too little of works; too much of sectarianism, too little of humanitarianism; too much of hell-fire arbitration, too little of inevitable law; and too much of self-rightousness, and too little of innate goodness. And here I cannot forbear to depart from the strict line of my sub­ ject to say a word regarding a doctrine, from the effects of which even this country is but slowly recovering—that of eternal damnation ! I say, that a people who really believe in a God who could bum his own 35 children in a lake of literal fire and brimstone, “ where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” and from which there is no present escape nor future hope, for a single unrepented misdeed, and still pro­ fess to honor, love and worship a fiend so infernal as that would make Him, cannot be honest and conscientious, since they must mistake fear for love, and confound sycophancy with worship. It was such a be­ lief that kindled the fires by which the early martyrs perished, by which theQuakers of Massachusetts were burned and the witches hanged, and which invented the terrible Inquisition, with its horrid racks and tortures. These are the legitimate results of such a belief; and if the people of to-day really believed what they profess in their creeds, they would do precisely the same things. And they would be justified, since it would be merciful in them to subject a person to a few mo­ ments’ torture, to induce him or her to escape the eternal tortures of Hell, the horrors of which all the ingenuity men can command could not in­ vent a torture one-hundredth part as inhuman ; and yet they say our Heavenly Father has prepared this for nineteen-twentieths of humanity. Thank Heaven, however, the day has come when such libels upon the name of God are rapidly merging into the gray twi­ light, to soon sink in blank, unfathomable oblivion. Thank Heaven, for its own approach earthward, to strike off the chains of superstition from humanity, and for the first faint glimmering of light shed upon us by its angels’ faces, proving to us that humanity, whether of earth or heaven, is : “ One life for those who live and those who die— For those whom sight knows and whom memory.” The Jews would not accept Christ since he came not with temporal power. But Christ will come in the power of the spirit, and shall bap­ tise all humanity. Already His messengers begin to herald the “glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.” Already the music of the approaching harmonies are heard from the hill-tops of spirituality singing the approaching millennium. Already its divine notes have pierced some of the dark places of earth, making glad the hearts of their oppressed children, shedding light and truth and joy into their souls. The prophecies of all ages converge upon this, and 86 for their fulfillment, Christ, with all his holy angels, will come to judge the world, and to erect upon it that government already inaugurated-, in Heaven and long promised Earth, for “ Decrees are sealed in Heaven’s own chancery, Proclaiming universal liberty. Rulers and kings who "will not hear the call, In one dread home shall thunder-stricken fall. “ So moves the growing world with march sublime, Setting new music to the beats of time. Old things decay, and new things ceaseless spring, And God’s own face is seen in everything.” Therefore it is that there shall soon come a time in which the people will ask for universal liberty, universal equality, and universal justice. Heretofore all branches of reform have been separated each from the other—have been diffusive, working in single and straight lines from a principle outward, utterly regardless of all other movements. Reform has never yet been constructive, but destructive to existing things. Nevertheless, all reform originates primarily, from a common cause— the effort of humanity to attain to the full exercise of human right, only attainable through the possession of freedom, equality and justice. . Any reform which does not embrace these three principles must neces­ sarily be diffusive, instructive or educational. Each different branch is the squaring of a separate stone, all of which must be brought together and adjusted before even the corner-stone of the perfect and ■ permanent structure can belaid. Republicanism even was not integral­ in its propositions. It looked simply to personal freedom. Neither equality in its high, or justice in its broad, sense was a portion of its creed. Hence republicanism as represented by the party in power has done its work, and those who prefer to stick to it rather than to come out and rally around a platform perfect in humanitarian princi­ ples, will thus show themselves to be more republican than humanita­ rian. As a nation we are nearing our first centennial birth-day. A hundred years have come and gone since political freedom was evolved from the womb of civilization. Great as its mission was, great as itsresults have been, shall the car of progress stop there? Is there noth* 37 ing .more for humanity to accomplish? I tell you there are still mightier and more glorious things to come than human tongue hath spoken or heart conceived. Little did our noble sires imagine what a century would do with what they set in motion. From three to forty millions is a grand, I may almost say a terrible, stride. But with thi step we cannot stop. We must open new channels for the expansion of the human soul. Up to this time we have expanded almost wholly in a material and Intellectual sense. There is a grander expansion than either oi these. Wealth and knowledge have brought us power, but we lack wisdom- To material prosperity and intellectual acquirements there must be added moral purity, and then we shall get wisdom. Every­ body appears to live as though this life were all there is of life, andthat to get from it the most physical enjoyment were the grand thing to be attained. Wealth has been made almost the sole aim of living, whereas it should only be regarded as the-means to a better-end; asthe means by which to accumulate an immense capital with which to begin life in the next and higher stage of existence ; and he or she lives best on earth who does the most for humanity. In this view, what are professing Christians—the churches—doing for the general good to-day? What good can come from preaching with­ out practice, since, though people may be able to say, “All of thesehave I kept from my youth up,” Christ, when he shall come, will reply to them: “ Go sell all thou hath and give to the poor, and come and follow me.” What clergyman in this city dare stand in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday and insist upon such practice ? or what one dare to insist that his church should have all things in common ? or what one dare to eat with publicans and sinners, or say to the woman, “ Neither do I condemn thee.” Or which one of the people dare go to her poor, enslaved and suffering sisters and take them to her heart and home ? or be the good Samaritan ? I tell you, my friends, be­ ware lest those whom you scorn to know be before you with Christ, who knows the heart It is not what you pretend that shall make you Christian, but what you do, and if you do right, though the world curse you, yet shall you lay up treasures in Heaven thereby. There­ 88 fore, I say that the Christianity of to-day is a failure. It is not the following of Christ, nor the practice of his precepts. True religion will not shut itself up in any church away from humanity; it will not stand idly by and see the people suffer from any misery whatever. It is its sphere to cure all ills, whether moral, social or political. There are no distinctions in humanity. Everything to be truly good and grand, whether it be in politics, society or religion, must be truly moral, and to be truly moral is to live the Golden Rule. Therefore, it is foolish for the Christian to say, “ I have nothing to do with politics, as a Christian. It is the bounden duty of every Christian to support that political party which bases itself upon Human Rights; and if there is no such party existing, then to go about to con­ struct one. It is too late in the century for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to be a political thief and trickster as a politician, while he issues a call asking that the people inject God into the Constitution. Such consummate hypocrisy is an outrage upon the intelligence of the nineteenth century; and it will meet its just reward. If they would take the precepts of Christ and build a new Constitu­ tion upon them, nobody would object; but to be asked to recognize a God whom these people have themselves fashioned and set up, who hath noteven human sense of justice, is quite a different thing, and one to which this people will not submit. I could point out to you why this attempt is made just at this time, but I rather prefer to point out how this and all other attempts to put fetters upon the people must be avoided, and how to break the fetters by which they are already galled. Permit me to ask what practical good arises from the people’s com­ ing together and merely passing a set of resolutions. You may pa-s resolutions with whereases and therefores a mile long, and what will be the result unless they are made practical use of. What would you say to a person who should come before you with a resolution setting forth that whereas, thus and thus, are so and so, therefore some new invention ought to be made to meet the conditions. Why you would at once say to him, “ Give us the invention; then we shall be able to judge whether your therefore bears any relation to your wdiereas.” 39 Now precisely in. that way should you judge of resolutions for political reform. We have had resolutions long enough. We now need a working model which will secure freedom, equality and justice to the smallest of our brothers and sisters. Anything less than this is no longer worthy to be considered political reform ; and that is not only political reform, but it is also the best application possible of the pre­ cepts of Jesus Christ, and therefore the best Christianity, the best religion, since to its creed every human being who is not supremely selfish can subscribe. In conclusion, therefore, let me urge every soul who desires to be truly Christian to no longer separate Christianity from politics, but to make it the base upon which to build the future political structure. Instead of an amendment to the Constitution, which these hypocrites desire, recog­ nizing a God who is simply the Father of themselves, and a Christ of Whom they are the self-appointed representatives, give us a new Con­ stitution, recognizing the human rights of the people to govern them­ selves, of which they cannot be robbed under any pretext whatever, knd my word for it, humanity will not be slow to render due homage to their God. Let that Constitution give a place to every branch of reform, while it shall not so much as militate against the rights of a single indi­ vidual in the whole world—and we are large enough to begin to say the whole world—and to think of and prepare the way for the time when all nations, kindred and tongues shall be united in a universal govern­ ment, and the Constitution of the United States of the World be the SUPREME LAW. Around this as a New Departure let all reformers rally, and, with a grand impulse and a generous enthusiasm, join in a common effort for the great political revolution, after the accomplishment of which the nations shall have cause to learn war no more. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS iiHHiiniiiiiii. 0 027 293 716 3 Freedom ! Equality! I Justice!!! These three; but the greatest of these is Justice^ HN 64 .M392 Copy 1 ON THE DELIVERED IN Music Hall, Boston, Thursday, Feb. 1,1872, AND THE Academy of Music, New York, Feb. 20,1872, BY / WOODHULL, CLAFLIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, No. 44 Eroad Street. * 1872. IMPENDING REVOLUTION. Standing upon the apex of the nineteenth century, we look back­ ward through the historic era, and in the distant, dim past catch sight ■of the feeble outreachings of the roots of humanity, which during thousands of years have evolved into the magnificent civilization by which we are surrounded. Mighty nations have risen and fallen; em­ pires have gathered and wasted; races and peoples have evolved and decayed; but the mystic ebb and flow of the Gigantic Spirit concealed within the universe has continued upon its course, ever increasing in strength and in variety of sequence. It is true that the results which have flown from this progressive course have very materially changed. Early in its history every -achievement was considered great or small, as its conquests by military prowess were great or small. But who in this era would think of plac­ ing a Sesostris, or a Semiramis, or even an Alexander, or Caesar, in comparison as conquerors, with the steamship, the locomotive engine, the electric telegraph, and last and greatest, collecting the efforts of all men, and spreading them world-wide—the printing-press. Where kings and emperors once used the sword to hew their way into the centers of barbarism, the people now make use of their subtle powers of intellect to pierce the heart of ignorance. The conquerors of the present, armed with these keen weapons, are so intertwining the mate­ rial interests of humanity that, where exclusion was once the rule among nations, intercommunication has made it the exception. Every year some new tie has been added to those which already bound the nations together, until even the continents clasp hands across the oceans, and 4 salute each other in fraternal unity, and the islands stand anxiously waiting for their deliverance. The grand results of all these magnificent changes have accrued to the benefit of nations as such. All the revolutions of the past have resulted in the building of empires and the dethroning of kings. The grandeur of the Roman Empire consisted in its power, centered -in and expressed by its rulers. The glory of France under the great Napoleon was the result of his capacity to use the people. We have no histories making nations famous by the greatness of their peoples. Centraliza­ tion of power at the head of the government has been the source of all national honor. Under this system grades and castes of people have built themselves, the stronger upon the weaker, and the people as indi­ viduals have never appeared upon the surface. Government has gone through various and important evolutions and changes. First we learn of it as residing in the head of the family, there being no other organization. Next, families aggregated into tribes, with an acknowledged head. Again, tribes united into nations, occupying specified limits, and having an absolute ruler. Then began a double process, which is even now unfinished—the consolidation of nations into races, and the redistribution of power to the people. That which was once absolute in the head of the family, the tribe and the nation, is now shared by the head with the most powerful among the people. These two processes will continue until both are complete— until all nations are merged into races, and all races into one govern­ ment ; and until the power is completely and equally returned to all the people, who will no longer be denominated as belonging to this or that country or government, but as citizens of the world—as members of a common humanitv. «/ * “ God loves from whole to part. But human soul must from indi­ vidual to the whole.” It is at once one of the most interesting as well as instructive of studies, to trace the march which civilization has described. Begin­ ning in Asia, it traversed westward by and through the rise and decay of the Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires, each one of which built successively upon the ruins of the preceding, and all 5 culminating in the downfall of the last, whose civilization was dissemi­ nated to impregnate that portion of the world then unknown. Modern Europe rose, and when at its height'of power, civilization still undeviatingly marching westward, crossed the stormy Atlantic, and implanted itself in the virgin soil of America. Here, however, an entirely new process was begun. Representatives from all nations, races and tongues here do congregate. Not only do the nations of Europe and Africa pour their restless sons and daughters westward, but the nations of Asia, setting at defiance the previous law of empire, send their children against its tide to meet it and to coalesce. To those who can view humanity as one, this is a fact of great significance, since it proves America to be the center to which the nations naturally tend. But this is only a part of its significance. The more prophetic portion is, that here a new race is being developed, into which will be gathered all the distinctive characteristics of all the various races. Each race is the distinct representative of some special and predominant characteristic, beinsr weak in all others. The new race will combine all these different qualities in one grand character, and shall ultimately gather in all people of all races. Observe the merging of the black and white races. The white does not descend to the black, but the black gradually approaches the white. And this is the prophecy of what shall be: ‘ ‘ For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right and wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame : In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim. ” As in this country the future race of the world is being developed, so also will the foundation of the future government be developed, which shall become universal. It was no mere child’s play or idle fancy of the old prophets, whose prophecies of a Christ who should rule the world, come trooping down the corridors of time, and from all eras converge upon this. Neither were the Jews entirely at fault when they looked for a Messiah who should reign over the world in temporal as well as in spiritual things, since it is beginning to be comprehended that a reign of justice in temporal things can only follow from the bap- 6 tism of them by spirituality. And it is the approach of these hereto­ fore widely-separated principles which is to produce the impending­ revolution. And that revolution will be the final and the ultimate con­ test between justice and authority, in which the latter will be crushed, never again to raise its despotic head among and to divide the mem­ bers of a common humanity. St. Paul said: “ Faith, Hope and Charity. These three, but the greatest of these is charity.” Beautiful as this triplet may appear to be to the casualist, it cannot bear the test of analysis. It will be replaced in the= vocabulary of the future by the more perfect one—Knowledge, Wisdom and Justice. These three, but the greatest of these is Justice. Charity, with its long cloak of justice escaped, has long enough covered a mul­ titude of sins. Justice will in the future demand perfect compensation, in all things, whether material, mental or spiritual. Heretofore justice has only been considered as having relation tomatters covered by enacted law, and its demands have been considered, as satisfied when the law has had its full course. With Freedom and. Equality it has been a mere abstract term with but little significance. There has never been such a thing as freedom for the people. It has always been concession by the government. There has never been am equality for the people. It has always been the stronger, in some sense, preying upon the weaker; and the people have never had justice. When there is authority, whether it be of law, of custom, or of indi­ viduals, neither of these can exist except in name. Neither do theso principles apply to the people in their collective capacity, but when the people’s time shall come they will belong to every individual sepa­ rately. Equality will exist in freedom and be regulated by j ustice. But what does freedom mean ? “As free as the winds ” is a common expression. But if we stop to inquire what that freedom is, we find that air in motion is under the most complete subjection to different temperatures in different localities, and that these differences arise from conditions entirely independent of the air simply as such. That is to say, the air of itself never changes its temperature. Therefore the freedom of the wind is the freedom to obey commands imposed by conditions to which it is by nature related. So also is water always 7 free to seek its own level. But neither the air or the water of one locality obeys the commands which come from the conditions surround­ ing another locality. That is to say, that while air and water as a whole are subject to general laws, when individualized, each separate body must be subject to its peculiar relations, and to the law of its con­ ditions. Water in one locality may be pure—hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen ; while in others it may contain various additional elements, as sodium, calcium or ammonium, and yet each is free. Air in one locality may be twenty degrees above, and in another twenty degrees below, zero; and yet each is free in its own sphere. Now, individual freedom in its true sense means just the. same thing for the people that freedom for the air and water means to them. It means freedom to obey the natural condition of the individual, modi­ fied only by the various external forces which are brought to bear upon, and which induce action in, the individual. What that action will be, must be determined solely by the individual and the operating causes, and in no two cases can they be precisely alike ; since no two human beings are precisely alike. Now, is it not plain that freedom means that individuals having the right to it, are subject only to the laws of their own being, and to the relations they sustain to the laws of other things by which they are surrounded ? . If, then, freedom mean anything, it means that no individual is sub­ ject to any rule or law to be arbitrarily imposed by other individuals. But several individuals may agree among themselves to be governed by certain rules, since that is their freedom to do so. And here is the primal foundation and the only authoritative source of government. No individual can be said to be free and be held accountable to a law to which he or she did not consent. In the light of that analysis, have the people of this country got freedom ? But should it be objected that such freedom would be liable to abuse, we reply that that is impossible. Since the moment one individual abuses his or her freedom, that moment he or she is encroaching upon the freedom of some one else who is equally entitled to the same right. And the law of the association must protect against such encroachment. And, so far as restraint is concerned, this is 8 the province—the sole province—of law, to protect the rights of indi­ vidual freedom. But what is equality, which must be maintained in freedom ? A good illustration of what equality among the people means, may be drawn from the equality among the children of a family in the case of an equal division of the property of the deceased father. If the pro­ perty is divided among them according to their respective merits, that would not be equality. Now, equality for the people means the equality of the family, ex­ tended to all families. It means that no personal merit or demerit can interfere between individuals, so that one may, by arbitration or laws, be placed unequally with another. It means that every individual is entitled to all the natural wealth that he or she requires to minister to the various wants of the body, and to »an equal share of all accumu­ lated, artificial wealth—which will appear self-evident when we shall have analyzed wealth. It also means that every person is entitled to equal opportunity for intellectual acquirements, recreation and rest, since the first is necessary to make the performance of the individual’s share of duty possible; while the second and third are the natural requirements of the body, independent of the individuality of the per­ son, and which was not self-created but inherited. Under this analysis have we any such thing as equality in this country ? And yet it should be the duty of government, since it is a fundamental portion of its theory, to maintain equality among the people; otherwise the word is but a mere catch, without the slightest signification in fact. What, then, should be the sphere of justice in maintaining equality in freedom? Clearly to maintain equal conditions among free indi­ viduals. But this will appear the more evident as we proceed. The impending revolution, then, will be the strife for the mastery between the authority, despotism, inequalities and injustices of the present, and freedom, equality and justice in their broad and perfect sense, based on the proposition that humanity is one, having a common origin, common interests and purposes, and inheriting a common destiny, which is the 9 complete statement of the religion of Jesus Christ, unadulterated by his professed followers. But does the impending revolution imply a peaceful change or a bloody struggle ? No person who will take the trouble to carefully observe the con­ ditions of the various departments of society can fail to discern the terrible earthquakes just ready to burst out upon every side, and which are only now restrained by the thick incrustations with which, customs, prejudices and authorities have incased humanity. Indeed, the whole surface of humanity is surging like the billows of the stormy ocean, and it only escapes general and destructive rupture because its composition, like the consciences of its constituent members, is so elastic. But, anon, the restrained furies will overcome the temper of their fastenings, and, rending them asunder, will sweep over the people, submerging them or cleansing them of their gathered debris, as they shall have located themselves, with regard to its coming. All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and gone have been for freedom—for freedom to think and for freedom to act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should come of that thought and action. But we are now entering upon a struggle for something quite different from this. Having obtained free­ dom from the despotism of rulers and governments, the rule and des­ potism of individuals began to usurp the places made vacant by them. Where once the king or the emperor reigned, capital, reinforced by the power of public opinion and religious authorities, now sits and forges chains with which to fetter and bind the people. Where, by divine right, men once demanded the results of the labors of their people, the privileged few, by the means of an ingenious system, facetiously called popular laws, now make the same demand, and with equally de­ cisive results. The demand is answered, by the return of the entire proceeds of each year’s surplus productions into their coffers. And this is no more true of the pauper laborers of Europe and the slave laborers of Asia than it is of the free labor of America. Six hundred millions people constantly toil all their lives long, while about ten millions sit quietly by gathering and luxuriating in their results. 10 Simple freedom, then, is not enough. It has not accomplished the redemption of the people. It has only relieved them from one form of slavery to leave them at the mercy of another still more insidious in its character, because more plausible; since, if penury and want exist, accompanied by suffering and privation, under the rule of a monarch, he may justly be held responsible. But when it exists under the reign of freedom, there is no responsibility anywhere, unless it may be said to be in the people themselves,which is equivalent to saying responsibility without application. . To illustrate this distinction without a difference, take the island of Cuba, with its half million inhabitants, and suppose it to be ruled by an absolute monarch, who administers his commands through the usual attaches of the court and the noblemen of the island. Virtually owning the people, he commands them to labor, taking from them all their pro­ ducts, and merely feeding, clothing and sheltering them. In this case it would be the non-laborers who, without any circumlocution, directly obtain all the produced wealth, they simply expending their time and talent in its securing, while the lives of the people who produce it would be simply maintained. Now advance one step toward popular government—to a constitu­ tional monarchy. In this the same results to the producing people will be maintained, while the noblemen will share the wealth among themselves, allotting a certain share to the monarch. Coming down to a representative government, of which personal liberty is the basis, the despotism of laws enacted in the interest of privileged classes are substituted for the personal despotism of mon­ archs and nobles. What the absolute monarch possesses himself of by the right of might, the privileged class in the popular government possess themselves of by the right of law, everything legal being held to be just. Now is not that precisely the case in this country? Do not all the results of labor accrue to the privileged few ? and are not the producing classes just as much enslaved to them as the subjects of an absolute monarch are to him ? With this mortification, however. In the last instance, they suffer 11 from conditions over which, they have no control; whilst in the former case the conditions by which they are enslaved are of their own forma­ tion. And I say, I would rather be the unwilling subject of an abso­ lute monarch than the willing slave of my own ignorance, of which ad­ vantage is taken by those who spend their time in endeavoring to prove to me that I am free and in singing the glories of my condition, to hoodwink my reason and to blind my perception. And I further say, that that system of government by which it is pos­ sible for a class of people to practice upon my credulity, and, under false pretenses, first entice me to acquiesce in laws by which immense corporations and monopolies are established, and then to induce me to submit to their extortions because they exist according to law, pursuing none but lawful means, is an infernal despotism, compared to which the Russian Czar is a thousand times to be preferred. This may at first seem a sweeping indictment ol our form of govern­ ment, but I say it is just. Suppose we take our railroad system, now amounting to fifty-five thousand miles. At an average cost of eighty thousand dollars per mile for construction and equipment, its total cost would be four billions four hundred millions dollars. To pay the share­ holders an eight per cent, dividend for doing nothing, the industries of the country would have to be taxed three hundred and fifty millions dollars over and above the cost of maintenance and operation. Did this enor­ mous drain from the products of the people stop here, the fertility of the country, made use of by the ingenuity of the people, might possibly keep pace with the demand. But it does not stop there. The net earning of the railroads enables their directors to make larger dividends than eight per cent. Do their managers relinquish this increase in favor of the people ? Never a bit of it. But they increase their stock either by selling new shares, or by making stock or scrip dividends, and to neither process has there been found any legal bar or cure. Now, what may the result of such a system be? Why, this. If the stock of all these railroads be increased in the same proportion that some of them have already been increased, it may be raised to a thou­ sand billions of dollars, and the people, instead of being compelled to pay three hundred and fifty millions dollars to provide an eight per cent, dividend on their cost, will have to submit to the extortion of eight hundred million dollars annually to satisfy the demands of these legal despots for an eight per cent, dividend upon stock, a large part of which represent absolutely nothing but the people’s stolen money. A person who would double the size of another’s note simply be­ cause the profits of his business would permit the payment of twelve per cent, interest, so that instead of paying twelve per cent, upon one hundred dollars, which would be an illegal charge, it would be six per cent, upon two hundred dollars, would be deemed and adjudged guilty of forgery. But these railroad magnates sit in their palatial offices and raise their notes at pleasure, and they are considered public bene­ factors. It is a crime for a single person to steal a dollar, but a corpo­ ration may steal a million dollars, and be canonized as saints. Oh, the stupid blindness of this people ! Swindled every day . before their very eyes, and yet they don’t seem to know that there is anything wrong, simply because no law has been violated. In their eyes every­ thing that is lawful is right, and this has become the curse of the nation. But the opposite—that everything which is right is lawful— don’t follow as a part of their philosophy. No matter what a person does if it is not actionable under the law; he is an honest man and a good church member. But Heaven defend us from being truthful, natural beings, unless the law says we may— since that is to be an infamous scoundrel. A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks, or make dividends, by which, in a few years, he amasses fifty millions dollars from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf of bread from his cupboard, to prevent starvation, she would be sent first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell’s Island. An Astor may sit in his sumptuous apartments, and watch the prop­ erty bequeathed him by his father, rise in value from one to fifty mil­ lions, and everybody bows before his immense power, and worships his business capacity. But if a tenant of his, whose employer had dis­ charged him because he did not vote the Republican ticket, and thereby fails to pay his month’s rent to Mr. Astor, the law sets him and his 13 family into the street in midwinter; and, whether he dies of cold or starvation, neither Mr. Astor or anybody else stops to ask, since that is nobody’s business but the man’s. This is a free country, you know, and why should I trouble myself about that person, because he hap­ pens to be so unfortunate as not to be able to pay Mr. Astor his rent? Mr. Stewart, by business tact, and the various practices known to trade, succeeds, in twenty years, in obtaining from customers whom he has entrapped into purchasing from him fifty millions dollars, and with his gains he builds costly public beneficiaries, and straightway the world makes him a philanthropist. But a poor devil who should come along with a bolt of cloth, which he had succeeded in smuggling into the country, and which, consequently, he could sell at a lower price than Mr. Stewart, who paid the tariff, and is thereby authorized by law to add that sum to the piece, would be cast into prison. How these individuals represent three of the principal methods that the privileged classes have invented by which to monopolize the accu­ mulated wealth of the country. But let us analyze the processes, and see if it is wholly by their personal efforts that they gain this end. Nobody pretends that Mr. Stewart ever produced a single dollar of his vast fortune. He accumulated it by dealing in the productions of others, which he first obtained at low rates, and then sold at a sufficient advance over the cost of handling to make in the aggregate a sum amounting to millions. Now, I want to ask if all this is not arriving at the same result, by another method, at which the slaveholders of the South arrived, by owning negroes ? In the case of the latter, the slaveholder reaped all the benefits of the labors of the negroes. In the former case the merchant princes, together with the various other privileged classes, reap the benefit of the labors of all the working-classes of the country. Every year the excess of the produced wealth of the country finds final lodg­ ment in the pockets of these classes, and they grow richer at each suc­ ceeding harvest, while the laborers toil their lives away; and when all their strength and vigor have been transformed into wealth, which has been legally transferred to the capitalists, they are heavy with age, and r 14 as destitute as when they began their life of servitude. Did ever Southern slave have meaner end than this ? In all seriousness, is there any common justice in such a state of things ? Is it right that the millions should toil all their lives long, scarcely having comfortable food and clothes, while the few manage to control all the benefits ? People may pretend that it is justice, and good Christians may excuse it upon that ground, but Christ would never have called it by that name. He would even give him that labored but an hour as much as he that had labored all the day, but to him who labored not at all he would take away even that which he hath. And yet we hear loud professions of Christianity ascending from the pulpit throughout the length and breadth of the land. And when I listen, I cannot help exclaiming, “ O, ye hypocrites, how can ye hope to escape the damnation of hell ? ” Am I asked, How are these things to be amended? I will tell you in the first place, that they must be remedied ; and this particular case of dealing in the labor of the people is to be remedied by abolishing huckstering, or the system of middle-men, and substituting therefor a general system of public markets, conducted by the people through their paid agents, as all other public business is performed. In these markets the products of the country should be received, in first hands, direct from the producers, who should realize their entire proceeds. In this manner the immense fortunes realized by • middle-men, and the profits made by the half-dozen different hands through which merchan­ dise travels on its way to consumers, would be saved to the producer. A bushel of apples, purchased in the orchard jit twenty-five cents, is finally sold to the consumer at a dollar. Now, either the consumer has paid at least a half dollar too much, or the producer has received a half dollar too little, for the apples; since, under a perfect system, the apples would go direct from the orchard to the market, and thence direct to the consumer. We are forever talking of political economy, but it appears to me that the most vital points—one of which is our system of huckstery— is entirely overlooked. Suppose Mr. Stewart, instead of having labored all these years for 15 his own selfish interests, had labored in tne interests of the people ? Is it not clear that the half-a-hundred million dollars he has accumulated would have remained with the people who have consumed his goods ? Place all other kinds of traffic upon the same proposed basis, and do you not see that the system which makes merchant-princes would be abolished? Neither would it require one-half the people to conduct a general system of markets who are now employed speculating in the results of labor. In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shop­ keeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. In this way there could also be a perfect control exercised over the quality of perishable goods, the want of which is now felt so severely in summer in all large cities, and a thousand unthought of remedies would necessarily suggest themselves as the system should develop. But let us pass to one of the other branches of this same system. We have in our midst thousands of people of immense wealth who have never even done so much to justify its possession as the merchant­ princes have done to justify themselves. I refer to our land monopo­ lists, and to Mr. Astor as their representative. Mr. Astor inherited a large landed estate, which has risen in value to be worth millions of dollars, to which advance Mr. Astor never contributed even a day’s labor. He has done nothing except to watch the rise and gather in the rents, while the whole laboring country has been constantly engaged in promoting that advance. What would Mr. Astor have been without the City of New York ?. And what would the City of New York have been without the United States ? You see, my friends, it will not do to view this matter superficially. We live in too analytic an age to per­ mit these things to go on in the way they have been going. There is too much poverty, too much suffering, too mueh hard work, too many hours of labor for individuals, too many sleepless nights, too many starving poor, too many hungry children, too many in helpless old age, to permit these villanous abuses to continue sheltered under the name of respectability and public order. But again, and upon a still worse swindle of the people. A person 16 having money goes out into the public domain and acquires an im­ mense tract of land. Shortly a railroad is projected and built, which runs through that tract. It offers a fine location for a station. A city springs up, and that which cost in some instances as little as a shilling per acre, is divided into town lots, and these are reluctantly parted with at five hundred dollars each. ’ Again, I wish to inquire, in the name of Justice, to whom does that advance belong ? To the person who nominally holds the land ? What has he done to entitle him to receive dollars for what he only paid cents ? Is there any equality—is there any justice—in such a condition ? He profits by the action of others; in fact at the public expense, since in its last analysis it is the common public who are the basis of all advance in the value of property. Now, I say, that that common public is entitled to all the benefits accruing from common efforts; and it is an infamous wrong that makes it accrue to the benefit of a special few. And a system of society which permits such arbitrary distributions of wealth is a disgrace to Christian civilization, whose Author and his Disciples had all things in common. Let professing Christians who, for a pretense, make long prayers, think of that, and then denounce Communism, if they can ; and denounce me as a Revolutionist for advocating it, if they dare. But, is it asked, how is this to be remedied ? I answer, very easily ! Since those who possess the accumulated wealth of the country have filched it by legal means from those to whom it justly belongs—the people—it must be returned to them, by legal means if possible, but it must be returned to them in any event. When a person worth millions, dies, instead of leaving it to his children, who have no more title to it than anybody else’s children have, it must revert to the people, who really produced it. Do you say that is injustice to the children ? I say, No ! And if you ask me how the rich man’s children are going to live after his death, I answer, by the same means as the poor man’s children live. Let it be remembered that we have had simple free­ dom quite long enough. By setting all our hopes on freedom we have been robbed of our rights. What we want now is more than freedom—we want equality ! And by the Heaven above us, earth’s 17 growing children are going to have it! What right have the children ot the rich to be born to luxurious idleness, while the children of the poor are born to, all their lives long, further contribute to their ease ? Do they not in common belong to God’s human family ? If I mistake not, Christ told us so. You will not dispute his authority, I am sure. If, instead of preaching Christ and him crucified quite so much, -we should practice his teaching a little more, my word for it, we should all be better Christians. And when by this process all the land shall have been returned to the people, there will be just as much of it, and it will be equally as productive, and just as much room on it as there is now. But instead of a few people owning the whole of it, and farming it out to all the rest at the best possible prices, the people will possess it them­ selves in their own right, through just laws, paying for its possession to the government such moderate rates of taxes as shall be necessary to maintain the government But I may as well conclude what I have to say regarding railroads, which must also revert back to the people, and be conducted by them for the public benefit, as our common highways are now conducted. Vanderbilt, Scott & Co. are demonstrating it better and better every day that all the railroads of the country can be much more economi­ cally and advantageously conducted under one management than under a thousand different managements. They imagine that very soon they will have accomplished a complete consolidation of the entire system, and that by the power of that consolidation they will be able to control the government of this country. But they will not be the first people who have made slight miscal­ culations as to ultimate results. Thomas Scott might make a splendid Secretary of the Department of Internal Improvements, for which the new Constitution, which this country is going to adopt, makes pro­ vision ; but he will never realize his ambition to preside over the rail­ road system of the country in any other manner. And I will tell you another benefit that will follow the nationaliza­ tion of our railroads. You have all heard of the dealing in stocks, of the “bulls” and the “bears,” and the “longs” and the “shorts,” and 18 the “lame ducks” of Wall street Well, they will all be abolished. There will be no stocks in which to deal. That sort of speculation, by which gigantic swindlers corner a stock and take it in at their own figures, will, to use a vulgar phrase, be “played out.” And if you were to see their customers, as I have seen them, rushing about Broad street to catch sight of the last per cent, of their margins as they dis­ appear in the hungry maw of the complacent brokers, you would agree with me that it ought to be “played out.” Under the system which I propose, not only will stock gambling be abolished, but also all other gambling, and the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied people who are now engaged in it, living from the pro­ ducts of others, will be compelled to go to producing themselves. But, says the objector, take riches away from people and there will be no incentive to accumulate. But, my dear sir, we don’t propose to do anything of the kind, nor to destroy any wealth. There will never be any less wealth than now, but a constant increase upon it. We only propose that the people shall hold it in their own right, instead of its being held in trust for them by a self-appointed few. Instead of having a few millionaires, and millions on the verge of starvation, we propose that all shall possess a comfortable competence—that is, shall possess the results of their own labors. I can’t see where there is a chance for a lack of motive to come in. It seems to me that everybody will have a better and a more certain chance, as well as a better incentive to accumulate. Will the certainty of accumulation destroy the desire to accumulate ? Nobody but the most stupid would attempt to maintain that. It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people. That country must be the most prosperous and happy where the people are most generally comfortably and happily circumstanced. And in this country, instead of a hundredth part of the people living in palaces and riding in coaches, while the balance live in huts and travel on foot, every per­ son may live in a palace and ride in a coach, I leave it to you to decide which is the preferable condition and which the more Christian. And why should the rich object to this ? If everybody has enough 19 nnd to spare, should that be a subject of complaint? What more do people want, except itw be for the purpose of tyrannizing over others dependent upon them ? But no objections that may be raised will be potent enough to crush out the demand for equality now rising from an oppressed people. This demand the possessors of wealth cannot afford to ignore. It comes from a patiently-enduring people, who have waited already too long for the realization of the beautiful pictures of freedom which have been painted for them to admire ; for the realization of the songs which poets have sung to its praise. Let me warn, nay, let me implore them not to be deaf to this demand, since they do not know so well as I know what temper there is behind it. I have tested it, and I know it is one that will not much longer brook the denial of justice. But there is another monopoly of which I must speak—I mean the monopoly of money itself We have seen how great a tyranny that is which arises from monopolizing the land. But that occurring from the monopoly of money, is a still more insidious and dangerous form of despotism, since its ramifications are more extensive and minute. It may be exercised by the person possessing a hundred, or by the person possessing a million dollars. But what is the process ? A person inherits a half million dollars for which he never expended a single day’s labor. He sits in his office loaning that sum of money say, in sums of one thousand dollars to one thousand different persons, each of whom conducts a little business which yields just enough to support a family and to pay the interest. These people live for forty years in this manner, and die no better off than when they began life. But during that time they have paid all their extra production to the amount of four thousand dollars, each, to the capitalist; and, finally, the business itself is sold out to pay the principal. And thus it turns out that the capitalist obtains everything those thousand per­ sons earned during their whole lives, they leaving nothing to their families. Now, what better is that result than it would have been had these people been slaves ? Could their owners have obtained any more from them ? I say they would have obtained less; since, had they been slaves in name, as in fact they were, there would have been times 20 during the forty years that they would not have earned interest over cost of their support. Now, look at the capitalist. For one million dollars, and without the straining of a muscle, he receives live million dollars direct, which, reinvested from time to time as it in­ creases, amounts at the end of the forty years to not less than fifteen millions dollars. But try another example of a somewhat different kind. A person having four grown children, whom he has reared in luxury, and given all the facilities of education, dies, leaving each of them a farm worth twenty-five thousand dollars. These children having never learned the art of farming are incapable of conducting these farms; but they lease them to four different people for a thousand dollars a year each,, and live at ease all their lives, therefrom, never so much as lifting their hands to do an hour’s labor. Now, who is it that supports those fourpeople ? Is it not clear that it is the people who work the farms? And how d:d it happen that they had the farms to lease ? Simply by an incident for which there was no legitimate general cause, else why do not all children have farms and live without work ? Nor can you, my friends, discover anything approaching equality, or ought that looks like justice in that operation. I tell you nay ! It is the most insidious despotism, with a single exception, that is possible among a people. It is a despotism which was condemned in all former times, even by barbarians, and which the Jews were only permitted to enforce upon people of other nations. It is the hideous vampire fastened upon the vitals of our people, sucking—sucking—sucking their very life’s; blood, leaving just enough to keep up their vitality, that they may manufacture more. It is the heartless monster that will have the exact pound of flesh, even if there be loss of blood to obtain it, and there is no just judge near to prevent the taking, or to hold him to account if he take it. It paralyzes our industries; shuts the gates in the way that leads to our inexhaustible treasures within the bosom of mother earth I strips the stars and stripes from the masts of merchantmen; compels our immense cotton lands to luxuriate in weeds; robs our spindles of the power to turn them; and lays an embargo upon every productive enter­ prise. Whoever makes a movement to compel the earth to yield her 21 wealth, or to transform that wealth into useful form, must first obtain the consent of this despot, and pay his demands for a license. Thirteen millions of laborers in this country produce annually four thousand millions dollars of wealth, every dollar of which over and .above the cost of living is paid over to appease the demands of this insatiate monster—this horrid demon, whose name is Interest. We are told that we cannot manufacture railroad iron in this coun­ try as cheap as it can be manufactured in England. Yes 1 And why ? Is it because we have no ore or no coal; or that, which is not as good ;as England has? No! We have on the surface what in England is hundreds of feet in the bowels of the earth, and coal the same; and both of better quality. But money can be put at interest in this country so as to double itself every four years, and be amply secured. What reason have capitalists to construct iron' works, or to have their care, when twenty-five per cent, per year is returned them, without care or risk ? And what is true of iron is also true of every other natural production. Is it any wonder that our manufacturers are obliged to demand that the people pay an additional per cent, upon everything they eat, drink or wear, that they may be protected in their various productive enterprises, when such exactions are laid upon them by this more than absolute monarch? No! It would indeed be a wonder if it were not so. Now, do you suppose our markets would be flooded with British 'goods if our producing and manufacturing interests had all the money they require without interest? If there are any borrowers at ten per cent, who hear my voice, let them answer. No; it is the tribute that industry is compelled to pay to capital that forces our government to exact ten, twenty, fifty, aye, even a hundred per cent, for the privilege of bringing merchandise into this country. But they tell us if we go to free trade that our country would be flooded with foreign products, so there would be absolutely no production of manufactured goods in the country. Now that would be true, if we should attempt free trade and leave the monster Interest with his grip upon our vitals. And here is the short-sightedness of Free­ Traders. If we want free trade, we must, in the first place, attack, 22 throttle and kill this demon, after which we may manufacture atprices that will not only absolutely forbid the importation of almost everything that is now imported, but which will also enable us to play the same game with Europe that Europe has played so long upon us. Free money in this country would abolish every European throne within ten years. And yet people cannot be made to see that this country is their support. With free money what need would we have for a pro­ tective tariff? Can any Protectionist answer that? You see, my friends, that it is the people who catch sight of an idea and pursue it to the death, regardless of relative ideas, who make reform so ridiculous. One reform cannot advance alone. All kinds of reform must go on together. Interest and free trade must go hand in hand; interest, if either, a little ahead. And in this regard I- am free to confess that the National Labor Union’s demand for a decrease of interest is the most reasonable single reform now being advocated. We want free trade; but we want free money first, so that not a spindle or forge in this country shall stop at the command of those across the ocean. But how are we going to get free money? Why, in the very easiest way possible. It is the simplest problem of them all I am not going into this discussion to prove to you that gold isnot money, since everybody ought to know that it has no more the properties of money than cotton, corn and pork have the properties of money. Now, money is that thing which, if every dollai in circulation should be destroyed, there would be no loss of wealth. Gold, cotton, corn and wheat are wealth. Destroy these and there is a loss. But when money is destroyed, there is no more loss than when a promis­ sory note is destroyed. A note is an evidence of debt It is not wealth, but its representative. So also is money not wealth, but its representative. And if we had a thousand million dollars in circula­ tion to day, there would be no more wealth in the country than thero now is, and we would have quite as much wealth if there were- twothousand millions dollars, since money and wealth are two entirely distinct things. But they tell us that unless money is made redeemable in gold, it 23 is not of any account, and that, too, in the face of our miserable green­ back system, which was so much better even than gold that it saved the nation when, had we stuck to gold, we should have been destroyed. Oh, but it was a depreciated currency, says some one. Yes, it was a depreciated currency, and we should have ample reason to be thankful if when we come to pay our bonds, we have a depreciated currency with which to liquidate them, instead of being obliged, as we shall, to pay a thousand dollars in cotton for what we realized less than five hundred in gold. It is not the gold only of a country that constitutes its wealth. What should we care if we had not a single ounce of gold, if we had a thousand million bales of cotton, ten thousand millions bushels of corn and wheat, and a billion dollars’ worth of manufactured goods to send to other countries ? So you see it is not the gold after all that makes a circulation good, but the sum total of all kinds of wealth. Now, that is what we propose to substitute for gold as the basis for a money issue. And instead of permitting corporations to issue it and remain at liberty to dispose of their property and let the people who hold their circulation whistle for its redemption, we propose that government, which can neither sell our property nor abscond with it, shall issue it for the people and lend it to them at cost; or if you will insist on paying interest for money, why, then, pay it to the government and lessen your taxes that much, instead of paying interest to bankers and supporting government besides. Now, don’t you think that would be rather a good sort of a money system ? I know that every manufacturer in the country would like it. But I can tell you who will not like it; and whom we may be compelled to fight before they will permit us to have it; and these are the money-lenders and money-changers, such as it is related the Head of the Christian Church—one Jesus Christ, of whom we hear a great deal said, but whose teachings and doctrines are wofully perverted—r scourged out of the Temple at a place known as Jerusalem. I have not been guilty of frequenting the temples of the country much of late, but if lam not misinformed upon the subject, and unless they have changed since I did frequent them, if Christ should pass 24 through, this land of a Sunday, scourge in hand,. he would find plenty of work to do in the same line in which he labored so faithfully among the Jews. But the National Labor Union say they won’t be so hard upon these money-lenders as we would be. They are willing that they shall be eased down from the vast height to which they have attained. They say they shall have three per cent interest instead of six, seven, eight and ten, or as much more as they can steal out of the necessities of the case, by the circumstances and discounts. But they shall be limited to three per cent, and in a way that they cannot evade, as they now evade, lawful interest. It is proposed that government shall issue this money, but that it shall be convertible into a three per cent, interest­ bearing bond; so that when money shall be so plenty that it will be worth less than three per cent in business, it can be invested in bonds drawing three per cent; and the bonds to also be reconvertible into money, so that the moment business shall demand more money than there should be in circulation—which would increase the value of money to more than three per cent.—the bonds would be converted into money again; and when there should be no more bonds to convert, and money still worth more than three per cent., then the Government shall issue more money to restore the equilibrium. In this way money would al­ ways be worth just three per cent. No more nor less, and there would always be just enough; or, in other words, money would be measured, as it never has been, and which has been the cause of all our financial troubles. What would you say to a person who should talk to you about measuring your corn in a bushel that had itself never been meas­ ured? But you complacently talk of money being a measure of values, and money has never had a measure regulating its own value. But this consideration is only a stepping-stone to what shall be. Money mu^t be made free from interest. In fact, I do not know but people who have money should pay something to have it securely loaned, the same as you must pay your Safe Deposit Companies for safely keeping bonds, jewels and other valuables. I think people ought to be made to pay for the safe keeping of money upon the same principle. Money under our present system is the only thing which 25 we possess that does not depreciate in value by use. The more money is used, the more it increases ; a proof complete of the fallacy and its despotism. The Government now pay the banks thirty millions dollars per year for the privilege of loaning them about three hundred millions national currency, which the banks reloan to the people at an average of ten per cent. It seems to me that is almost too good a thing to last long. If the Government can afford to do this thing, why can’t they better afford to loan directly to the people for nothing, and save thirty millions dollars annually? Do you think the people would object? Oh, no; but the bankers would. But for all that the cry of “Down with the tyrant” is raised, and it will never cease until interest shall be among the things that were. I also desire to call attention to the reduction of the Public Debt, ’ and to the means by which this reduction has been accomplished. « The Administration hangs almost all of its hopes upon this fact, while if it were thoroughly understood it would prove its condemnation. It has paid three hundred millions of the debt, they say. Who has paid it ? we inquire. It fails to answer. We say that that entire payment has be made by the producing classes of the country, while the capitalists have not reduced their cash balances in the least. In other words, the producers have got no more money now than they had before the debt was paid, while the capitalists have had their bonds changed into money. Now, who have paid that three hundred millions dollars? I repeat the laboring people have done it, just as they pay all public debts and all public expenses, besides constantly adding to the wealth of the capitalists themselves. Can such a state of things continue ? Again I tell you nay. This wrong must be remedied by a system of progressive taxation. 3 If persons having a hundred thousand dollars pay one-half per cent tax, let those having a million pay ten per cent, or two millions twentyfive per. cent. Let there be a penalty placed upon monopolizing the common property, and it will soon cease and equality come in its place. Now, the poorest woman who buys the cheapest calico pays a tax to 26 the Government, while the rich appropriate her labor to pay their' dues. Truly said Jesus, 11 The poor ye have with you always.” Another mode of remedying the existing ills in industry and the distribution of wealth, must be in giving employees an actual interest in the products of their labors, so that ultimately co-operation will be the source of all production, its results being justly distributed among all those who assist in the production. First, pay the employer the same rate of interest for his capital that Government shall charge for loans made to the people; next, the general expenses, including salaries to himself and all employees, the remainder to be equitably divided among all who have an interest in it. Do you not see what a revolu­ tion in industrial production such a constitutional provision would effect ? And do you not suppose if the workingmen and women of this country understood the justice of it, that they would have it? I intend that they shall have the required information. Already there have been half a million tracts upon these subjects sent broadcast over this land, and the present year shall see double as many more, until every laborer, male and female, shall hold in his or her own hands the method of deliverance from this great oppression. But there is another consideration, which, more forcibly than any other, shows the suicidal policy which we pursue. If the present rates of interest are continued to be paid upon only the present banking capital and bonds of the country, for twenty-five years to come, the interest, with the principal added, will have absorbed the total present wealth, as well as its perspective increase. And such a consumma­ tion as this are the European capitalists now preparing for this country. Europe holds not less than three thousand millions of bonded indebtedness of this country, which is being augmented every month by additional railroad bonds, or some syndicate operation. So do you not see that European capital is gradually, but nevertheless inevitably, absorbing not only all of our annually pro­ duced wealth, but also acquiring an increased mortgage every year upon our accumulated wealth? There is no escaping these facts. Figures don’t lie. Mathematics is an absolute science from whose edicts there is no escape. And mathematics inform us that we are 27 year by year mortgaging ourselves to European capitalists, who will ultimately step in and foreclose their mortgages, and possess them­ selves of our all, just as we foreclose our smaller mortgages, when there is no hope of a further increase from interest. Besides the monopoly of land, money and public conveniences, there is another kind of monopoly still, which may appear rather strange and new to be thus classed, but it is neverthless a terrible tyrant. I refer Vto the monopoly of education. I hold that a just government is in duty bound to see to it that all its children of both sexes have the same and equal opportunities for acquiring education, and that every person of adult age shall have graduated in the highest departments of learning, as well as in the arts, sciences and practical mechanics. Every person should be compelled to acquire a practical knowledge of some productive branch of labor, because the time will come when all people will be obliged to produce at least as much as they consume, or earn what they consume, as the paid agents of producers. What a revolution would that accomplish ? If every person in the world was to work at production two hours a day there would be a larger aggregate produced than there is now. Therefore every person must learn the art of production, and thus be equal in resources to any other person, and Government must undertake the compulsory indus­ trial education of all its children. Thus I could continue analysis upon analysis, until not a stone in the foundations of our social structure would be left unturned, and all would be found unworthy of our civilization—our boasted Christian civilization. I think Christianity has been preached at, long enough. I go for making a practical application of it at the very foundations of society. I believe in recognizing the broad principle of all religion— that we are all children of one great common parent, God, which, since it disproves the propositions of the Church, that at least a large portion of us are the children of the devil, and renders the services of the clergy to save us from that inheritance unnecessary, will abolish our present system of a licensed and paid ministry. Thirty-five thousand ministers are paid twenty-five millions dollars annually for preaching the gospel in cathedrals costing two hundred and fifty mil­ lions dollars; and how many of them ever teach any fact other than 28 that Jesus was crucified, just as though that would save us from the sloughs of ignorance in which we are sunk ? Which one of them dare tell his congregation the truth, as he, if he be not a blockhead, knows it? I here and now impeach the clergy of the United States as dishonest and hypocritical, since the best of them acknowledge that they do not dare to preach the whole truth, for, if they should, they would have to preach to empty seats—an admission sufficiently dam­ nable to consign them to the contempt of the world and to the hell of which they prate so knowingly, but whose location they have not been able to determine, and to light the torch which shall fire the last one of these palatial mockeries of true religion Why, should Christ appear among these godly Christians as he did among the Jews, he would be arrested as a vagrant, or sent to jail for stealing corn ; and in Connecticut, perhaps, for Sabbath-breaking, or for telling the maid at the well 11 all she had ever done” which is now called fortune-telling, or for healing the sick by laying on of hands, which they denominate charlatanry. Christ and his Disciples and the multitude which he gathered together had all things in common. But every pulpit and every paper in this Christian country launch the thunders of their denunciations when that damnable doctrine is now advanced. Now, Christ was a Communist of the strictest sort, and so am I, and of the most extreme kind. I believe that God is the Father of all humanity and that we are brothers and sisters; and that it is not merely a theoretical or hypothetical nothing but a stern reality, to be re­ duced to a practical recognition. And they who cannot accept and practice this doctrine of Christ, and who still profess to be his fol­ lowers, are simply stealing the livery of Christ in which to serve the devil in their own souls. I do not care to what length Christians may stretch their faces of a Sunday, nor how much they pay to support their ministers; nor do I care how long prayers they may make, nor what sermons preach, when they denounce the fundamental principles of the teachings of Christ, I will turn upon and, in his language, utter their own condemna­ tion: “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto ” Christ. And .they may make all the fuss, 29 call me all the hard names, they please; but they can’t escape the judgment. And I don’t intend they shall have a chance to escape it. I am going to strip the masks of hypocrisy from their faces, and let the world see them as they are. They have had preaching without practice long enough. The people want practice now, and when they get it, they can even afford to do without the preaching. These privileged classes of the people have an enduring hatred for me, and I am glad they have. I am the friend not only of freedom in all things, and in every form, but also for equality and justice as well. These cannot be inaugurated except through revolution. I am denounced as desiring to precipitate revolution. I acknowledge it. I' am for revolution, if to get equality and justice it is required. I only want the people to have what it is their right to have— what the religion of humanity, what Christ, were he the arbiter, would give them. If, in getting that, the people find bayonets opposing them, it will not be their fault if they make their way through them by the aid of bayonets. And these persons who possess the monopolies and who guard them by bayonets, need not comfort themselves with the idea that the people won’t fight for their rights. Did they not spring to arms from every quarter to fight for the negro ? And will you say they will not do the same against this other slavery, compared to which the former is as an gentle shower to a raging tempest ? Don’t flatter yourselves, gentlemen despots, that you are going to escape under that assumption. You will have to yield, and it will be best for you to do it gracefully. You are but as one to seven against them. Numbers will win. It will be your own obduracy if they are goaded on to madness. Do not rely upon their ignorance of the true condition. Upon that you have anchored your hopes as long as it is safe. There are too many reform newspapers in circulation. And though the columns of all our great dailies are shut to their truths, still there are channels through which they flow to the people—aye, even to those who delve in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, seldom seeing the joyous sunshine. And this education shall continue until every person who contributes to the maintenance of another in luxu­ rious idleness shall know how such a result is rendered possible. 80 Hence, I say, it lies in the hands of those who have maintained this despotism over the common people to yield it up to them and recog­ nize their just relations. And rembember what I say to you to-night: If this that is claimed is not granted—if, beside freedom, equality is not made possible by your giving up this power, by which the laborer is robbed of the re­ sults of his labor, before our next centennial birthday, July 4th, 1876, you will have precipitated the most terrible war that the earth has yet known. For three years before the breaking out of the slavery rebellion I saw and heard with my spiritual senses the marching of armies, the rattle of musketry, and the roar of cannon; and I already hear and see the approach of this more terrible contest. I know it is coming. There is but one way in which it can be averted. There was one way by which the slave war could have been avoided—the abolition of slavery. But the slave oligarchy would not listen to our Garrisons, Sumners, Tiltons and Douglases. They tried the arbitration of war, but they lost their slaves at last. Now, will not these later oligarchies —the land, the railroad, the money aristocracies—learn a lesson from their terrible fate? Will they not listen to the abolitionists—to the Garrisons, the Sumners, the Tiltons and the Douglases—of to-day? Will they try the arbitration of war, which will result as did the last, in the loss of that for which they fight? I would that they should learn yyisdom by experience. The slaveholders could have obtained compensation for their negroes. They refused it and lost all. Pon­ der that lesson well, and do not neglect to give it its true application. You can compromise now, and the same general end be arrived at without the baptism of blood. It shall not be my fault if that bap­ tism comes. Nevertheless, equality and justice are on the march, and they cannot be hindered. They must and will attain their journey’s end. The people shall be delivered. I have several times referred to the methods by which these things may be accomplished. They are impossible under our present Con­ stitution. It is too restricted, too narrow, to admit even an idea of a common humanity. True, its text is complete, but its framework 81 does not carry out the original design. Even George Washington, himself, was accused of treachery for countenancing so great a depar­ ture as was made ; and the late war justified the grounds upon which that accusation was founded. The text of the Constitution held these truths to be self-evident, “That all men (and women) are bom equal and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution should have been erected in harmony with those declarations. It was not. There is no such thing as equality provided for. Life and liberty have not been held inalienable under it; the pursuit of happiness has been outrage­ ously interfered with, and the government has been made to exist without the consent of the governed; and exists to-day against the protests of a large number of its subjects. Is it to be expected that anything so false as that is to its basic propositions can be made enduring ? It is against the constitution of nature itself that it should be so. Nature is always true to itself, anc[ will always vindicate itself. If hedged in and obstructed, it will burst through or find its way around. The needle is not truer to the pole than is Nature to the truth. And Nature is always just. Those propositions were deduced from human rights, regardless of any authority or despotism. Had they been elucidated—had their princi­ ples guided the construction of the Constitution itself, all would have "been well. What our fathers failed to do is left for this generation to perform; and it must not shirk the duty. It must look the condition squarely in the face, and meet the issue as squarely. What issues must be met and provided for in order that human rights may be respected and protected ? I have already referred to the * monopolies that must be abolished. But there are also many other V things. I will call attention first to minority representation, which lies at the base of a representative government. The State of Massachusetts has eleven representatives in Congress, and they are all Republicans. Justice would infer that there are no Democrats in the State. But such is not the fact. There are a large body of Democrats. They are not represented. That is the fault of the system of arriving at repre­ sentation. While it is true that majorities must rule, that is not equal 32 to saying that minorities shall have no voice. Butf the'practice; ip . Massachusetts does say just that. I suspect if it were possible^ for all the real differences, politically, to be represented, that the'Congress­ men would stand something as follows: The Democrats’ would have, say, four out of the eleven, the Republicans,' say,three,; while ‘ the remainder would be divided between the Labor and Temprence Re­ formers and Woman Suffragists. Indeed, I am not certain if the door were to be opened that there would be any straight Republicans left,1 since all reformers are, under the present system, compelled to con­ gregate together in this party, so as not to entirely throw away their; votes. The Democrats are always Democrats. Likethe hard-shell Baptists, you always know where to find them. They are always on hand to vote early, and often also, if opportunity permit. Admit minority representation, and the Republican party in Massachusetts would be abolished, except that part who carry,; the loaves and eat the fishes. They are as certain to be found A! right there” as the Democrats are. I think the Woman Suffragists'cover about one-half the Republican party. But a large body of them are Spiritualists and Temperance men, while as many more are Labor Re­ formers. But those who are more Labor Reformers than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Woman Suffragists than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Spiritualists than anything else, perhaps two-sevenths; and who are'more Tem­ perance men than anything else, one-seventh ; therefore, if the dele­ gation were elected by the representation of minorities,. it 1 would stand four Democrats, two Spiritualists, two Labor Reformers,’ two Woman Suffragists, and one Temperance man. But all of these, how­ ever, would be again swallowed up whenever a Human Rights party should be evolved, and that will be the party of the near future, in whose all embracing arms the people, long suffering and long waiting, will at last find repose, while the Goddess of Liberty, with her scales of equality, shall find no more of her subjects to whom justice is not measured out. Then will partisan politics have received its death warrant; then will the people become one in heart, one in soul and •one in common purpose—the general good of the general whole. The 33 “greatest good of the greatest number will be supplanted by: “the general welfare, is best maintained when individual interests are best protected.” The new government, then, must be the result of mi­ nority representation, and all legislative bodies, and, where possible, all executive officers, be so elected, while the people shall retain the appointing as well as the veto power. Our lawmakers must be made law proposers, who shall coifstruct law to be submitted to the people for their approval, in the same manner as our public conventions appoint committees to draft resolutions, which are afterward adopted or rejected by the convention itself. This will make every person- a legislator, having a direct interest in every law. The people will then no longer elect representatives to make laws by which they must be bound whether they approve or disapprove. The referendum is 1the • desired end. The referendum is what the people require, and it is what the new Constitution must provide. "So that in all future, time the ’people themselves will be their own lawmakers—will be the government. The people must appoint all their officers, heads of departments and bureaus at regular intervals, and all- under assistants, during faithful performance of duty. We want no Civil Service Commissions. Every £ person who shall be eligible to office under the new government will be competent and when-once familiar with the duties, will not be removed to give room for the friend of some politician belonging to the party in power, since it would be the people in power at all times. Another matter which must have attention is the sweeping away of thatjeu de esprit, our courts of justice, by making all kinds of contracts stand upon the honor and capacity of the contracting parties. All in­ dividual matters must be settled by the individuals themselves without '-appeal to the public. - Our present system of enforced collection of debts costs every year more than -is realized, and besides maintains a vast army of lawyers, constables and court officers in unproductive em­ ploy. All -this is wrong, entailing almost untold exactions upon the producing community, who in the end are made to pay all these things. Further,- our system of oaths and bonds must be abolished. This swearing people to tell the truth, and binding them to perform their 34 duty, presupposes that they will lie and neglect their duty. People are always placed upon the side of force and compulsion—never upon that of personal rectitude and honor. The results are what might be ex­ pected. It plunges us into the very things we would avoid. There is a philosophy, too, in all these things; since in freedom only - can purity exist Anything that is not free is not pure. Anything that is accompanied by compulsion is no proof of individual honesty. The new government must also take immediate steps for the aboli. tion of pauperism and beggary. It is an infamous reproach upon this country that there are hundreds of thousands of people who subsist themselves upon individual charity. I do not care whether this 'is from choice or necessity. I say it is a burning shame, requiring imme­ diate curative steps. The indigent and helpless classes are just as much a part of our social body as the protected and the rich are, and they are entitled to its recognition. Society must no longer punish and compel suffering and death for its own wrongs. It must evolve such a social system as shall leave no single member of the common body to suffer. When one member of the body suffers, the whole body sympathizes. So, also, when a member of the social body suffers, does the whole body suffer. And yet we have pretended philanthrophists and Christians who have never grasped that truth. Our civilization and our Christianity have been made too much a matter of faith in, and devotion to, the unknownable, divorced from all human relations. We must first recognize and practice the brother­ hood of man before we can be made to realize the Paternity of God, since “ if we love not our brothers whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen.” Our religious teaching has been too much of punishment, and too little of love; too much of faith, too little of works; too much of sectarianism, too little of humanitarianism; too much of hell-fire arbitration, too little of inevitable law; and too much of self-rightousness, and too little of innate goodness. And here I cannot forbear to depart from the strict line of my sub­ ject to say a word regarding a doctrine, from the effects of which even this country is but slowly recovering—that of eternal damnation ! I say, that a people who really believe in a God who could bum his own 35 children in a lake of literal fire and brimstone, “ where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” and from which there is no present escape nor future hope, for a single unrepented misdeed, and still pro­ fess to honor, love and worship a fiend so infernal as that would make Him, cannot be honest and conscientious, since they must mistake fear for love, and confound sycophancy with worship. It was such a be­ lief that kindled the fires by which the early martyrs perished, by which theQuakers of Massachusetts were burned and the witches hanged, and which invented the terrible Inquisition, with its horrid racks and tortures. These are the legitimate results of such a belief; and if the people of to-day really believed what they profess in their creeds, they would do precisely the same things. And they would be justified, since it would be merciful in them to subject a person to a few mo­ ments’ torture, to induce him or her to escape the eternal tortures of Hell, the horrors of which all the ingenuity men can command could not in­ vent a torture one-hundredth part as inhuman ; and yet they say our Heavenly Father has prepared this for nineteen-twentieths of humanity. Thank Heaven, however, the day has come when such libels upon the name of God are rapidly merging into the gray twi­ light, to soon sink in blank, unfathomable oblivion. Thank Heaven, for its own approach earthward, to strike off the chains of superstition from humanity, and for the first faint glimmering of light shed upon us by its angels’ faces, proving to us that humanity, whether of earth or heaven, is : “ One life for those who live and those who die— For those whom sight knows and whom memory.” The Jews would not accept Christ since he came not with temporal power. But Christ will come in the power of the spirit, and shall bap­ tise all humanity. Already His messengers begin to herald the “glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.” Already the music of the approaching harmonies are heard from the hill-tops of spirituality singing the approaching millennium. Already its divine notes have pierced some of the dark places of earth, making glad the hearts of their oppressed children, shedding light and truth and joy into their souls. The prophecies of all ages converge upon this, and 86 for their fulfillment, Christ, with all his holy angels, will come to judge the world, and to erect upon it that government already inaugurated-, in Heaven and long promised Earth, for “ Decrees are sealed in Heaven’s own chancery, Proclaiming universal liberty. Rulers and kings who "will not hear the call, In one dread home shall thunder-stricken fall. “ So moves the growing world with march sublime, Setting new music to the beats of time. Old things decay, and new things ceaseless spring, And God’s own face is seen in everything.” Therefore it is that there shall soon come a time in which the people will ask for universal liberty, universal equality, and universal justice. Heretofore all branches of reform have been separated each from the other—have been diffusive, working in single and straight lines from a principle outward, utterly regardless of all other movements. Reform has never yet been constructive, but destructive to existing things. Nevertheless, all reform originates primarily, from a common cause— the effort of humanity to attain to the full exercise of human right, only attainable through the possession of freedom, equality and justice. . Any reform which does not embrace these three principles must neces­ sarily be diffusive, instructive or educational. Each different branch is the squaring of a separate stone, all of which must be brought together and adjusted before even the corner-stone of the perfect and ■ permanent structure can belaid. Republicanism even was not integral­ in its propositions. It looked simply to personal freedom. Neither equality in its high, or justice in its broad, sense was a portion of its creed. Hence republicanism as represented by the party in power has done its work, and those who prefer to stick to it rather than to come out and rally around a platform perfect in humanitarian princi­ ples, will thus show themselves to be more republican than humanita­ rian. As a nation we are nearing our first centennial birth-day. A hundred years have come and gone since political freedom was evolved from the womb of civilization. Great as its mission was, great as itsresults have been, shall the car of progress stop there? Is there noth* 37 ing .more for humanity to accomplish? I tell you there are still mightier and more glorious things to come than human tongue hath spoken or heart conceived. Little did our noble sires imagine what a century would do with what they set in motion. From three to forty millions is a grand, I may almost say a terrible, stride. But with thi step we cannot stop. We must open new channels for the expansion of the human soul. Up to this time we have expanded almost wholly in a material and Intellectual sense. There is a grander expansion than either oi these. Wealth and knowledge have brought us power, but we lack wisdom- To material prosperity and intellectual acquirements there must be added moral purity, and then we shall get wisdom. Every­ body appears to live as though this life were all there is of life, andthat to get from it the most physical enjoyment were the grand thing to be attained. Wealth has been made almost the sole aim of living, whereas it should only be regarded as the-means to a better-end; asthe means by which to accumulate an immense capital with which to begin life in the next and higher stage of existence ; and he or she lives best on earth who does the most for humanity. In this view, what are professing Christians—the churches—doing for the general good to-day? What good can come from preaching with­ out practice, since, though people may be able to say, “All of thesehave I kept from my youth up,” Christ, when he shall come, will reply to them: “ Go sell all thou hath and give to the poor, and come and follow me.” What clergyman in this city dare stand in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday and insist upon such practice ? or what one dare to insist that his church should have all things in common ? or what one dare to eat with publicans and sinners, or say to the woman, “ Neither do I condemn thee.” Or which one of the people dare go to her poor, enslaved and suffering sisters and take them to her heart and home ? or be the good Samaritan ? I tell you, my friends, be­ ware lest those whom you scorn to know be before you with Christ, who knows the heart It is not what you pretend that shall make you Christian, but what you do, and if you do right, though the world curse you, yet shall you lay up treasures in Heaven thereby. There­ 88 fore, I say that the Christianity of to-day is a failure. It is not the following of Christ, nor the practice of his precepts. True religion will not shut itself up in any church away from humanity; it will not stand idly by and see the people suffer from any misery whatever. It is its sphere to cure all ills, whether moral, social or political. There are no distinctions in humanity. Everything to be truly good and grand, whether it be in politics, society or religion, must be truly moral, and to be truly moral is to live the Golden Rule. Therefore, it is foolish for the Christian to say, “ I have nothing to do with politics, as a Christian. It is the bounden duty of every Christian to support that political party which bases itself upon Human Rights; and if there is no such party existing, then to go about to con­ struct one. It is too late in the century for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to be a political thief and trickster as a politician, while he issues a call asking that the people inject God into the Constitution. Such consummate hypocrisy is an outrage upon the intelligence of the nineteenth century; and it will meet its just reward. If they would take the precepts of Christ and build a new Constitu­ tion upon them, nobody would object; but to be asked to recognize a God whom these people have themselves fashioned and set up, who hath noteven human sense of justice, is quite a different thing, and one to which this people will not submit. I could point out to you why this attempt is made just at this time, but I rather prefer to point out how this and all other attempts to put fetters upon the people must be avoided, and how to break the fetters by which they are already galled. Permit me to ask what practical good arises from the people’s com­ ing together and merely passing a set of resolutions. You may pa-s resolutions with whereases and therefores a mile long, and what will be the result unless they are made practical use of. What would you say to a person who should come before you with a resolution setting forth that whereas, thus and thus, are so and so, therefore some new invention ought to be made to meet the conditions. Why you would at once say to him, “ Give us the invention; then we shall be able to judge whether your therefore bears any relation to your wdiereas.” 39 Now precisely in. that way should you judge of resolutions for political reform. We have had resolutions long enough. We now need a working model which will secure freedom, equality and justice to the smallest of our brothers and sisters. Anything less than this is no longer worthy to be considered political reform ; and that is not only political reform, but it is also the best application possible of the pre­ cepts of Jesus Christ, and therefore the best Christianity, the best religion, since to its creed every human being who is not supremely selfish can subscribe. In conclusion, therefore, let me urge every soul who desires to be truly Christian to no longer separate Christianity from politics, but to make it the base upon which to build the future political structure. Instead of an amendment to the Constitution, which these hypocrites desire, recog­ nizing a God who is simply the Father of themselves, and a Christ of Whom they are the self-appointed representatives, give us a new Con­ stitution, recognizing the human rights of the people to govern them­ selves, of which they cannot be robbed under any pretext whatever, knd my word for it, humanity will not be slow to render due homage to their God. Let that Constitution give a place to every branch of reform, while it shall not so much as militate against the rights of a single indi­ vidual in the whole world—and we are large enough to begin to say the whole world—and to think of and prepare the way for the time when all nations, kindred and tongues shall be united in a universal govern­ ment, and the Constitution of the United States of the World be the SUPREME LAW. Around this as a New Departure let all reformers rally, and, with a grand impulse and a generous enthusiasm, join in a common effort for the great political revolution, after the accomplishment of which the nations shall have cause to learn war no more. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS iiHHiiniiiiiii. 0 027 293 716 3 To Title Page To Contents Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http.'www archive.org/details/constitutionaleqOOcookrich r CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY A RIGHT OF WOMAN; J * ~0R— A CONSIDERATION OF THE VARIOUS RELATIONS WHICH SHE SUSTAINS AS A NECESSARY PART OF THE BODY OF SOCIETY AND HUMANITY; With Her Duties to Herself—together with, a Review of the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, SHOWING THAT THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS GUARANTEED TO ALL CITIZENS. ALSO A REVIEW OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN. IB-sr TETXTJNTTE CL CLAFLINT. NEW YORK: WOODHULL, CLAFLIN & CO., 44 BROAD STREET. 1871. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Tennie C. Claflin, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. FROM THE CO-OPERATIVE PRESS, 30 Beekman Street, New York. INTRODUCTORY. The importance which the movement for equal political and civil rights, with­ out regard to sex, is assuming, make? it incumbent upon those who have made the subject a study to spread before the inquiring public such phases of their experi­ ence and deductions as will tend to promote accurate thought upon the subject. It does not do in these times to stifle a new evolution of civilization by treating it with contempt. There are too many intelligent, unbiased minds now existing to allow this step to be utterly ignored, as has been proposed by those who oppose it. It will be obvious to the careful reader that the series of papers which are now offered have been prepared with the view of gradually leading the mind to acknowledge that women are something more than “ thingsthat they are think­ ing, reasoning, even accountable beings, and as capable of self-government as most men are. We feel that we are in duty bound to advocate the perfect equality of all human beings, which may, without assumption, be called the cause of humanity. We know there is a great amount of prejudice against women voting, in both sexes; but we also know that it is simply prejudice—the same prejudice which all new developments of thought and science are always met by—and that it only requires to be met by a persistent presentation of the realities of the question to in time divest the people of it. Our purpose in the construction of this book, in the beginning, development and ending, will be apparent to all who peruse it entire, and we make no apology for any seeming inconsistencies or seeming change of argument. But this we will say: The basis of all true humanitarian reform—or rather growth—lies in the “coming generation.” With the present little can be done; with the future everything. We request a thorough examination, and afterward a rigid though just judg­ ment ; and thus we commit our work to the care of the public, with whom “ the right always comes uppermost” in the end. TENNLE C. CLAFLIN. New York, February 1,1871. 931032 CONTENTS PAGE Equality for Woman,............................................................................................. 1 Woman’s Position,..................................................................................... 8 The Future of American Women,......................................................................... 10 Woman as a Social Element,............................................................................. 14 Woman as a Political Element,.......................................................................... 18 Woman as an Economist,......................................................................................22 Woman as the Companion,.................................................................................. 26 Woman as the Reformer,........................................................................... . 29' Independence or Dependence, which ?.................................................................. 32: Prejudice vs. Justice,.............................................................................................. 38: What does the XVI. Amendment Imply ?.........................................................41 Will Women Accept the Consequences of Equality ? . . . . 44 Who are Representative Women ?........................................................... 47' The Mr. Temples of Society,............................................................................. 50* Equality a Necessity,..................................................................................... 54 Are Women Individuals, or are they Political Nonentities ? . • • 58" Importance of the Woman Question,........................................................... 61 Rapid Spread of the Woman Question,................................................... 65 One of the Main Issues of the Coming Canvass,................................................ 69 The XVI. Amendment,............................................................................ W Woman’s Duties,.............................................................................................. Suffrage and Marriage,............................................................................ CONTENTS. PAGE Intolerance and Bigotry,.................................................................................. 84 The Question of Dress, No. 1,..............................................................................87 “ “ No. 2,.......................................................................... 01 Constitutional Equality, No. 1,............................................................................. 96 “ “ No. 2,........................................................................ 101 “ “ No. 3,............................................................................ 106 Marriage and Divorce,..................................................................................113 Children, their Rights, Privileges and True Relations to Society, . . 123 EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. There seems to have been from time immemorial connected with the word “ Woman,” a certain sense of servitude. Woman has always been considered something less than “ Man ” in many distinguishing respects. Even in infancy, before the light of intelligence sparkles in the eye, the daughter is mourned over by the fond mother, because she is not a son who may rise to honor and fame, and live long ages in the memory of the world. The facts of history, personal observation, and sad experience, perhaps, compel the mother to feel that, for her child, lying in innocent helplessness upon her breast, there is no hope in the future, other than the common fate of woman, unless, perchance, God may have bestowed upon her the germ of extraordinary beauty. With this thought start­ ling her soul, her prayers ascend to heaven that her infant may be so endowed, and that thus, in after years, she may find favor in the eyes of some one high in authority, riches or position, and may be able to compensate him with her beauty, who should condescend to woo her. Beauty has risen from the cot to the palace; from the shepherdess to the queen. It is not to be wondered, then, that mothers pray for the bestowal of this gift in which lies their daughter’s only hope; although they remember that its possession, rich as it is in itself, appeals directly to that portion of man’s nature which, finding expression through such appeals, has left a blight upon the very name of woman, when beauty has fled from her. It is not desired to weave around the condition of woman a veil that shall hide her true worth and nobility, nor to convey the idea that beauty, or its lacking, is the sole determining power of her destiny; but 2 EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. it is desirable that what there is of disgrace and misfortune in her con­ dition should be kept up to the enlightened gaze of mankind and re­ ceive its verdict of disapproval. In the tender years of childhood, and the more important ones of youth, a variety of influences govern the growth of the body and the development of the mind. The boy i§ educated with some distinct per­ sonal point to be gained. He is taught that if he will, he way, that he has but to make the requisite effort, and success will surely crown him. With the stimulus of future attainment constantly poured upon the growing youth, by those to whom he looks for nothing but good coun­ sel and adyice, is it tQ be-wondered that so many bom even in obscurity and extreme poverty,'have'become brilliant lights in the world of sci­ ence^ literature, and government ? '■ As*the youth apprdafch&rmanhood, he is pressed into some special channel of thought and culture, for which his mind and talent seem to be inclined, and all the aid, material and intellectual, it is possible to famish, is extended to assist and encourage. Thus strengthened and accoutered, he prepares to commence life for himself How different is it with the girl! • Is it instilled into her mind, morning, noon and night, that, by stem trial and application in any particular direction, she may attain to eminence before the world, and fill a niche in its temple of honor and fame ? Is she taught to apply herself to philosophy, that by an under­ standing of its already known laws and principles she may discover some new light ? Is it to astronomy her attention is called, that in deep re­ search and calculation some new world may be added to our present known systems; or some law discovered that shall explain motions and influences not yet accounted for ? Is she taught to dive into the bowels of the earth and bring up new treasures with which to break away the shackles of superstition, ignorance or fear, and, by chemical analysis thereof, unveil some of the hidden mysteries of association whereby so very few elementary principles produce so great variety and diversity as all nature, animate and inanimate, presents to the delighted eye and the wondering mind ? Is her intuitive mind and brain directed to natural philosophy to discover new modes of applying or generating power, whereby the muscular world shall be relieved from some of its burdens of labor and fatigue, and the mind given time for growth and expan­ sion ? Are the intricate workings of the mind held up for her solution ? . Does she seek for the laws that direct and govern the association and in­ terchange of unspoken thought ? Is she asked, Whence cometh that EQUALITY FOR WOMEN. 3 new thought, never before expressed—that new idea, never before pre­ sented ? Is her attention attracted to the study of the laws of nations and of society, that from their defects something new and better may spring ? Is her mind ever directed to these channels, with the sugges­ tion that she must some day, and that not far distant, be prepared to assist in the halls of Legislation, state and national, to frame and pro­ pose laws better adapted to the growing condition of mankind than those now existing? Is the fact that begins to stand so prominently before the eyes of this country, that woman must become associated in the administration of its laws, presented to her growing mind, and she encouraged to be­ come fitted therefor ? Aye, and more. Is it ever hinted to her that the woman may even now be who shall fill that highest office in the gift of the people ? In the name of the demand now going up for female suffrage, have any preparatory incentives been held before the growing girl, the blush­ ing maiden, the budding woman? In vain may we listen for any general affirmation, and scarcely may we expect any special exceptional cases ; and if, perchance, there are, it will be found, upon close analysis, they are the result of inspirational, rather than educational, causes. The parents of the present generation can but hang their heads in shame, and confess that they have seen no beacon-light in the future for their daughters for which they should trim their sails and set their rudders, with a stern determination that, come storm or raging sea, it shall be reached; on the contrary, what have they done ? this and noth­ ing more: they have taught the coming generation, as all past ones have been taught, that, in the duties of the wife and the cares of the mother the destiny of woman is attained ; and, adhering to the princi­ ples of Paul, insist that, to reach beyond those well-defined boundaries, is indelicate and unfeminine in the extreme. To be accomplished is of much.greater importance, in the general estimation, than to be useful; to ape the past a much more ready way to become accomplished than to delve into the present and future; to commit the sayings and doings of others to memory, a much better and easier way to prepare to show themselves well-bred, well-read, and well-disciplined for all occasions, than to search out and stand true and firm upon principles, and to rely implicitly upon deductions therefrom for support and guidance; to shine by personal ornamentation and bor­ rowed light, is held in higher esteem than a polished interior, lighted by clear intuition and uncompromising reason. 4 EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. How common is the remark that all educated women write alike! Pursue the inquiry a little further and deeper, and see if they do not closely resemble each other in veiy many things. Little else can be ex­ pected. Are they not all educated to the same point—trained for the same purpose ? Overlooking or ignoring all the natural capacities and inclinations of the mind, they are and have been trained specially for the matrimonial market, and it can be called nothing else. Nor has their training looked to any point beyond the mere fact of marriage— just as though in that point existence ceased. How many know aught of the duties, cares, responsibilities, trials, sufferings, that fall to her after reaching what should really be considered the beginning of her actual, individual life ? A general answer rises from woman, Few, very few! Still less is the number wise enough in themselves to find in all those seeming sources of sorrow the never-exhaustible fountain of joy and happiness, which the Great Creator has ordained shall flow to all who enter its sacred portals with wisdom, understanding, and love sufficient to make the life currents of two, flow in and through the same channels of peace and harmony. No relation on earth so sacred as that of husband and wife. Round it gathers a halo of light and divinity before whose potent power the lowest of human beings falls down and worships, and from whose holy purity the basest shrinks in shame. > In the potent charm that attends the association of man and woman is found the strongest argument for her emancipation. It is a power needed everwhere, and the world cannot much longer afford to deprive itself of its benefits. It is argued by the superficial thinker of either sex, that if woman enters the busy outer world and mingles with its scenes, she must necessarily lose that peculiar charm and characteristic that now everywhere commands the respect and admiration of man. This is a conclusion arrived at without evidence, reason or argument, and will not stand the test of either. • Is a woman less a woman because she stands before an audience and holds it spell-bound by her eloquence and logic ? Because she argues for her client in the halls of justice ? Because she maintains her propositions in legislative and congressional assemblies ? Because she assists in executing the country’s laws ? Because she is president of a bank, a railroad? Because she invents some labor-saving machine? Because she alleviates the distressed invalid ? In short, is a woman any less a woman because she aspires to and performs any of the duties Which the Creator has given her faculties to perform, and which justice, EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. 5 honor and a noble ambition inspire every well-born sonl to accomplish for humanity ? Anything less than an utter repudiation of the prejudices, the ignor­ ance of the past, is unworthy the enlightened sense and reason of this century. May we not, before its close, expect to see such absurd libels upon the name of woman and the consistency of man blotted from the hearts and minds of mankind, and expect to see woman welcomed to any and all spheres of life and action for which, by nature or inclina­ tion, she is fitted ? Henceforth let it go broadcast to the world—from every woman’s lips, at least—that the more she accomplishes by her own exertions in any direction or honorable calling, the more a woman she is ; and, in­ stead of detracting from her native graces, this shall add to the beauty and lustre of all her perfections, making her more to be admired by all. Nor need it be feared that contact with the busy world will result disastrously to woman’s general standard of purity and morals. On the contrary, very much benefit may reasonably be expected from the union of her influence with that of man in every department of life and activity. Very few of man’s imperfections and vices find expression within the bosom of his home circle and its connections. Suppose home influences are extended everywhere. Will they not produce the same saving, healthful effects upon action and thought without deteri­ orating the fountain whence they flow ? How long would drinking-saloons, gambling-hells, houses of pros­ titution exist, did the wife and sister go hand in hand with the husband and brother in the various pursuits of life, aiding in all their endeavors and cheering their every effort, and, by so doing, make their interests mutual, their wishes one and their privileges equal ? Nothing can be more fallacious and unfortunate than the proposi­ tion that man is entitled to special immunities in transgressing the laws of purity, honor and virtue. Man and woman alike should be amen­ able to the same judgment of society and law. Man should be held to the same moral law that is now imposed on woman, and the latter should enjoy the same choice of action and occupation that is now ac­ corded to the former. The claim for equality does not imply that she shall wildly and recklessly rush from her present paths into the ways of dissipation and vice which man frequents. It is not an equality of degradation and disgrace that is sought, but one of the noblest devel­ opments of her powers and faculties. 6 EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. Let it be asked, Where lies the cause of the condition in which all inharmonies between the sexes arise, and where the solution, the rem­ edy? Can it be sought out and overcome by direct legislation? Years of fruitless attempts have demonstrated the futility of this, even as a palliative. Will the right of suffrage extended to woman produce the desired result ? Scarcely; although this would undoubtedly be a step in the right direction, and, as such, a mitigation, in so far as it lessens the distance between the respective standpoints of man and woman. While, then, you are asking earnestly for this extension, do not forget that far behind its withholding lie the roots of what you wish destroyed. Were your vision outraged by an unsightly, poisonous tree, you would not attempt its destruction by first lopping off a few of its long­ est branches, and thus work from the circumference inward, but you would lay your axe to its very roots, and, by one grand felling, destroy it forever. Where, then, are the roots of the pernicious tree that has grown to such dimensions and extended its branches in such alarming directions ? How shall what is desired be reduced to a proposition so simple and plain that all may understand it ? Is it not that there shall be per­ fect equality to man and woman in all things, wherein equality can, by nature, exist ? Man is educated toward this point; woman away from it. In woman, then, lies the cause, and in her must be found its solution, and she must apply the remedy. It cannot be denied that both sexes are born equal, possessed of the same essential germinal qualities of character, conscience and intellect, and entitled to the same blessing of growth and devel­ opment, the reception of which would conduce to their continual equality. The point of divergence between the sexes, then, commences just were similarity of education leaves off, where self-reliance is taught the male, and future dependence the female. The legitimate conse­ quence of this teaching is “servitude.” Woman must be grown and educated with the idea of equality always before her, and not the fact that, at some future time, she is to surrender herself into the keeping of a hus­ band, upon whom forever after she is to be dependent The past rec­ ords of this condition stand fair of sorrow before us, stained all over by the tears of the broken-hearted wife, mother and sister, and call loudly and earnestly that they never again be reproduced. Be sure, then, mothers and daughters, that you be prepared to demand and receive, measure for measure, what is asked of you and granted. Become selfreliant and self-supporting. How many women are to-day adding to EQUALITY FOR WOMAN. 7 the wealth of the world by productive labor, or are even self-support­ ing ? How many fortunes are squandered in the vain attempt to make up by external show what is lacking in interior wealth ? Thank God 1 the time is rapidly approaching, and even now is, in which woman begins to be valued and appreciated for the amount of brains she can command, rather than the extent of show she can make. This standard already holds with men, but it is to be regretted that women of intellect are still regarded by so many of their own sex with a feeling bordering upon disdain.^ Equal rights call upon women to look upon the sacred relations of marriage as of joint and perfect equality in all respects, and at the same time so mutual that all individual interest and desires become one in aim, purpose and pursuit; anything short of this, no matter with how much solemnity husband and wife may have been pronounced, is no perfect marriage in the sight of Heaven. A question asked is often productive of as much good as a propo­ sition demonstrated ; then let it be asked: What woukj. be the condi­ tion and relations of men and women twenty-five years hence, could it be possible that to-morrow an edict should go forth, sufficiently' potent and general, demanding that henceforth the education and incentives of the sexes should be the same, according to the natural faculties and not accord­ ing to arbitrary rule ; that the same responsibilities and duties would be imposed upon them, and it should be theirs to accept and perform them without the possibility of a doubt ? Do you think at the end of that time conventions would have to be held to organize efforts, asking legis­ lation about your rights ? Rather do you not know that the fact of your having prepared yourselves to incur and exercise those rights, would appeal to existing laws of nations and customs of society, with a power nothing could resist, and if resisted, the obstacles would be swept away as by the hurricane ? • In conclusion, let us remember that while the various unphilosophic, unfortunate and incongruous conditions of women are receiving separate and divided attention from separate and divided efforts, these, good and acceptable as they are in themselves, may fail to do all that is expected of them. At the same time let it be remembered that re­ forms, based upon principles and ideas, and which deal with causes, though their seeming progress may be slow, are as certain as the com­ ing sun’s rising, or the ebb and flow of old ocean’s mighty tidal breathings. WOMAN’S POSITION. HER NECESSITIES AND HER NEEDS.—THE REASONABLENESS OF THEM— EXTENSION OF THESE NECESSARY TO INDUCE PREPARATION. It cannot be denied that the position of woman in all practical mat­ ters is inferior to man. While she at present is incapable of maintaining such an equality, she excels in other respects; but these are chiefly such as do not add to personal fame or real importance. However much dis­ tinction there may be in the natural characteristics of the sexes, the time is now come when woman shall enter an enlarged sphere of action and use. In making the innovation upon customs which the present condi­ tion contemplates, it is of essential importance that the boundaries of nature be not overstepped. Every advance made, should have the sanc­ tion of adaptetion and use. When brute force was the ruling power— when vast armies decided the rights of kings—woman was but of little importance. The general influence woman is now capable of exerting is immense, and it will be used either for good or ill; by being diverted into unfortunate channels, it becomes a source of sorrow and misery, but when properly directed no power is more healthful and productive of good. Could all the noble qualities of the sex be well directed, the world’s progress would be vastly accelerated. If we admit the present condition of woman as unfortunate, and that this arises from her being man’s practical inferior, she must then become his equal by the same means he became what he is. She must be educated to serve the same general purpose?') She is not possessed of the qualities necessary to face breastworks bristling with bayonets, and from which the screaming shell and rattling grape pour unmercifully forth. The means of conquest being modified, woman’s talent is re­ quired to meet the new demands arising from the situation ; besides, it is necessary to open channels for the expenditure of her growing power. Instead of the prevalent idea that in the duties of the wife, the in­ dividuality of the woman must be lost, there must obtain the wider view, that when she becomes the wife, the truer and better part of her mission begins. Instead of that condition being the chief end to be attained, it b woman’s position. 9 must be regarded, as but one of the incidents of life which leads to wider fields of usefulness. Marriage does not interfere with the general duties of man. He is not educated with the idea before him, that he is pre­ paring to be the husband ; from childhood the thought of independence is the main one; he strives to become fitted for some special sphere of ac­ tion to which his inclinations tend. Let woman pursue the same course; let her learn to be independent; self reliant; self supporting; then she will never be thrown upon the mercy of the world nor driven to condi­ tions against which her soul revolts. With such changes in the preparation of woman for the active, du­ ties of life, the greater one now demanded will come. Though woman can never be like man, she can be his equal in all the rights and privi­ leges of life. Among these privileges, none seems more just than that of having a voice in choosing those ; who shall make the laws to which she in com­ mon with man must be subject Reverse the situation: would man quietly submit as woman has, and does ? Should he then deny to wo­ man this privilege ? It is no argument that the majority of women do not desire suffrage. If but one in a thousand does, she should not be restrained from it, upon any plea of indifference on the part of the 999. Suffrage alone cannot elevate woman. It will prove, however, an in­ centive for her to attain wider experience. Ambition is as common in woman as in man; if her sphere of action is enlarged her realm of pos­ sibilities will be proportionately extended. In this sense, and for this reason, suffrage is desirable. It will open a new avenue for thought and action ; it will tend to draw attention from the frivqlities of fashion and society, and in many instances to protect her from the debasing allure­ ments of immorality and vice. With new incentives offered, change in education would come. Accomplishment, simply as such, would be dis­ carded and practical life anticipated. Woman will not prepare for responsibilities, or duties she is de­ barred from entering upon. She will not educate to practice law, while she is denied admission to the bar. But if this and other spheres are opened, she will prepare to enter them and compete for the prizes they offer. Let man acknowledge that woman has the right to become his equal by removing all barriers, so that the charge of domination may no longer be used against him. Let there be an opportunity for practical equality so that equal justice can obtain. Let there be practical freedom so that limited equality may cease to exist THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN. THE WITHHOLDING OF PRIVILEGE THE CAUSE OF —THE UNDEVELOPMENT DUTIES OF MOTHERS—WOMAN’S INTEREST IN GOVERNMENT EQUAL TO MAN’S—MOMENTOUS EVENTS ABOUT TO TRANSPIRE. In the past there has been little to stimulate women to the ac­ quisition of practical knowledge. They have thought of little else than trying to be most attractive to the eye of man. They give no consideration to the possibility of ever being called to step from the common routine of a wife’s life; even for this they. have been badly prepared. In short, the idea has been “the conquest” that should “make their market,” without any understanding of the duties in­ volved. True, the avenues to distinction have mostly been closed against them. They have never been encouraged to break the barriers down, to obtain an entree to the race being run beyond, by their brothers, who have guarded their “special rights” and privileges with such jealous care that they have shut out all knowledge of them. Whenever a brave soul has attempted innovations upon these rights and privileges, the anathemas of both sexes have been hurled indiscriminately at her. Persuasion first, anything next, is used, to force her to retire to the needle and the kitchen. Perhaps, stung by defeat and driven by bitter experience to think all the world a mock­ ery, she flies to the only seeming escape from herself—to the brutality of her pursuer, and becomes thereby the proscribed of society, while he remains its ornament. And this is the equality guaranteed to woman. This has been: it remains to be determined what shall be, though what is, is ominous of it Revolutions based upon principles of right never go backward. If they be resisted by conservative indifference THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN. 11 or pharisaical godliness, the spirit which compels them will the more certainly destroy the obstacles and their raisers. The demand has been made by woman for equality, in the matter, duties and privileges of life. It will never be recalled until they are fully accorded. The more and longer those who have them at their command say “No!” the severer will be their reckoning. Gentlemen, yield gracefully while you may. If delayed until you must, it will not be graciously received. The signs of the times are full of meaning. Mothers, are you awake to their portentions ? Have you no stern duty to perform in view of them? You know from bitter experience much which your daughters have not even dreamed of, or at most, have seen from such an enchanting distance, that the deformities have appeared beautiful You have learned woman’s lesson of life. You have not taught your daughters what you have learned. You will still compel them to acquire by experience what you could have taught them. Society is hollow, false and untrue, but you did not learn it at the “ boarding school” where you “ finished your edu­ cation,” Heaven save the mark! You were not taught independent self-reliance, but that it was a shame to soil your delicate hands by labor. When death or other cause has taken your reliance, what has your finished education done toward maintaining your family? To do this you have been driven to all manner of expedients—to hasty and detestable unions and often to revolting necessities—simply because you were not properly educated. By the wisdom acquired through your experience let your daughters profit. Let them not be able in after life to remember you as having failed in any single duty, they will or may learn you could have performed. Let not one experience, how­ ever disagreeable, escape them, for that very one may prove the rock of their salvation. It is time for woman to become earnest, practical—competent to pursue the journey of life alone, if need be, to maintain an equality with men wherever the order of nature permits, and to cease to be friv­ olously accomplished for the drawing-room, the ball-room and society, and especially is it time to cease to be man’s mere appendage. Many men may choose the weak, yielding woman, with no positive individuality. If they do, it is because their practices are such as their equals would not endure. Man may affect perfect simplicity in women, but when they fall within the sphere of intellect and capacity, exhibited With earnestness and purity, they will worship there, and so long as he remains within the reach of this influence, “ duties” are lost sight of. 12 THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN. If all women receive similar advantages in education, there will still be grades of attainment Nature, in all her operations, presents gradations. Woman is an object of it; so is man. Similar grades gravitate toward each other. The lower may admire the higher, but under this law cannot attain it This series of grades constitutes the fabric of society. The end to. be attained by education, is, to fit individuals to fill the various positions in society. Education, in the strictest sense, is life-long. We use it relatively and as applying to the rudiment­ ary part of life, and in inviting the attention of mothers to the im­ mediate future, we ask them, if their duties will have been performed, in view of it, if they make no modifications in the preparation of their daughters to meet it? Suffrage will be extended to woman, and will open the way to various fields of industry for her, and will give her equality therein. Woman has as much at stake in government as man, and should feel as great interest in its proper administration. To do this she must understand its principles. How many of the mothers of the countries understand the processes and forms of gov­ ernment, or the policies that underlie it; or can explain the difference between a tariff for revenue and protection, between ad valorem and specific duties and the policies that indicate them, or can tell the sig­ nificance of “moving the previous question,” or rising to a “privileged question,” or to a “point of order?” It is to such and other practical directions, in which you have never even looked, that the attention of your daughters should be called. They should be taught that they will be obliged to participate, in all branches of the public service which are now conducted solely by men. They should be ambitious to be well prepared to accept and perform these duties well Music, French and drawing are excellent in their places, but they will scarcely help you maintain political equality, and thus it is with the greater part of female education. Social conditions are volcanic, and are so pregnant with danger, that none may tell what the situation a dozen months hence may be. It be­ hooves woman to be prepared for whatever may come, so that, if deprived of support from one source, she may not be forced to obnoxious means to obtain it from another. As soon as your daughters attain sufficient age and experience, put them to practical tasks, as you do your sons. They are as capable of assuming responsibilities and performing regular duties as your sons are. They should be made to regard labor as hon­ orable, never as disgraceful They should be taught that every morsel THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN. 13 of food, every article of raiment and every expense incurred, which depend upon the price of another’s labor, is dishonestly appropriated, for the£ 1 workmen is worthy of his hire. ” If he be willing to part with his “ hire,” to supply the demands of your ignorance, stupidity or indolence, it is none the less shameful of you to accept it, and still more so, to be obliged to do so. Momentous political, moral, religious and social prob­ lems are about to be solved. Be warned, mothers and daughters, so that they come not upon you and find your lights dim and your lamps untrimmed. Be not called upon to perform a single duty, and find yourselves unprepared to assume it, and thereby disprove your right to the equality you seek WOMAN AS A SOCIAL ELEMENT. ARE WOMEN A PART OF SOCIETY?—HAVE THEY ANY RIGHTS?—WHO SHALL DEFINE THEM?—THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY BEHIND RE­ SPECTABILITY—THE DIFFERENCE. The larger portion of the human family is female; the disparity comes from death in battle and from casualties, arising from man’s pe­ culiar employment, rather than from difference in numbers born. Society is male and female. The science of society—sociology—teaches the relations that should exist between them, and the special sphere of each in them. One of the legitimate, because natural, results of these relations, is offspring; these, it is woman’s mission to bear, as it is so determined by the order of nature, everywhere. The ultimate earthly end attained by the creation—evolution—of man, was the elimination of spirit—life—from matter; the individualization of souls, from the homogenious mass of life existing in the material universe. Whatever other parts the human family play in earth life, the one of reproduction is that upon which they hinge. But is this all that is allotted to man and woman to perform ? Do their duties begin and end in the purely domestic ? . From childhood, unless compelled by the pecuniary circumstances of her parents, woman does little else than eat, drink, sleep and flirt, and prepare for the marriage market* So far as practical utility is con­ cerned, she is a mere cipher in value to society. Married, she assumes the onerous (?) duties of the household; and thus one half the human family are born, live and die, reaching nothing beyond this. Allowing that, on an average, five years of woman’s life are neces­ sarily withdrawn from all other duties by those of maternity, what becomes of the remainder ? Are the remaining thirty to be spent in WOMAN AS A SOCIAL ELEMENT. 15 nothingness because these five must be so devoted ? Suppose for the moment there was no such institution as marriage, and that the world was replenished by other means, would the life of man be materially different from what it is? Would he cease his money getting, his business vocations? Would there be fewer cities built, less grand prog­ ress made? Scarcely. Man, then, is the positive element in society, while woman idles her time away in vain nothings, living merely as his appendage to minister to his caprices and passions, and when she cannot prevent, to bear him children. It is but little to say, she has charge of the home; the duties are all performed by servants, and would proceed as regularly, were she engaged in some other duties, as she is, a large part of her time, in the pursuit of fashion. The children are in the hands of the governess or at school, and scarcely give her a thought Her domestic duties, then, are reduced by present practice to child-bearing, and these, be it said to her shame, she is pretty effectu­ ally disposing of ’Tis true that women can and oo exert great influence over men, often swaying them into courses they would not otherwise pursue; but it will be found that this influence rarely proceeds from the wife, and is as often deleterious as beneficial. The influence of the wife, as such, forms no part of the power of society; while the influence of the woman as a member of society is powerful, and is more frequently detrimental to her as the wife and to home relations than otherwise. Man, having once felt this decided influence from woman, becomes dissatisfied, thinks any woman better than his wife, takes no pleasure in home, spends his time at his “ club,” or with the woman who has taught him, that some of her sex are a power in the world. In the meantime his home becomes the scene of legitimate results. The wife, finding she is no longer an attraction, that her society is distasteful, and she barely tolerated, grieves at first, next remonstrates, and then threatens: thus the breach is begun. Temptation, lying'in wait for this, steps in, and she too often follows the example set her, and thus the rupture is completed, never again to be completely healed. It is useless to attempt to blind our eyes to the present social con­ dition ; facts, too numerous and hideous, stand too prominently before us. We cannot escape them if we would, and should not if we could. Nor will it mend matters to gloss them over and label them sound, when they are only putrid. Unveil New York at midnight—or, as for time, at midday—the scenes disclosed would show our social system to be ripe for revolution, and that to defer it is to make matters worse. 16 WOMAN AS A SOCIAL ELEMENT. It is the duty of every one to sound the alarm. Wives will no longer quietly submit to their husbands’ spending time and money upon other women, nor husbands to seeing their wives decked with the “ furbelows” of fashion paid for by their dishonor. Women will not be satisfied to remain a social unit any longer. They are verging on the determination to assert equal privileges, and to share no more responsibility than men do for it Or, if they are for­ ever to be under the ban of society for one false step, they are deter­ mined their partners who accompany them shall be held equally culpable. Nor can man evade the point at issue. He must be willing to conform to the same rules he compels woman to do, or admit her to those he prac­ tices. The extent this condition has actually reached, without his consent, is little dreamed of by the unlearned in the ways of the times. Public prostitution is but nothing compared to that practiced under the cloak of marriage. The latter is increasing to such an extent as to threaten the existence of the former, whose representatives every year become lower and more fearfully debauched. Deplorable as this condition is, it will only gain strength and limit by attempted concealment It is a vile carbuncle on the body of society that requires the lancet from the hand of every one who can use it fear­ lessly. It cannot be absorbed again into the body;. it must ripen and discharge, after which the body may become healthy. The cure, how­ ever, does not lie in this direction. Prevention is the only competent remedy, and that lies in the hands of the women, who are still the representatives of purity and self-honor, and with them only. Let every woman who esteems virtue and abhors prostitution in her sisters equally abhor licentiousness in her brothers. If it is disgraceful for her to asso­ ciate with the woman, who has overstepped the boundary, let it be held equally so for her to associate with the man who accompanied her. (We know we are approaching forbidden ground, nevertheless we pro­ ceed.) Woman cannot do this—we speak generally—for she is depend­ ent upon man for the means of subsistence. She has not learned to be independent, and must, therefore, condemn the woman while she tolerates the man. What is the actual distinction in the debasement of the two ? Both endure it for the same reason—support. One has merited her disgrace by her willing association with the man whom the other is com­ pelled to tolerate. Whitewashing this condition will no longer hide its black deformity. Both sides of this question must be held up—exposed to the light of reason—then let those without taint or tarnish among you cast the stones that shall designate who are the most guilty. WOMAN AS A SOCIAL ELEMENT. 17 The scales of justice in which woman has been weighed have been fearfully against her, and in favor of man. She demands that they be balanced; and we demand, in the name of all that is still pure and holy, that woman shall no longer shield man, by her toleration, from being weighed with her sister, and having equal judgment pronounced against him. From such an equality as must arise from such practice, and from the additonal equality that can only flow from pecuniary independ­ ence on the part of woman, can the most perfect beauty and purity in manage be evolved. Round it will gather a halo of light and divinity, from which all baseness, impurity and license will shrink in shame, and woman will become a social element of power and importance WOMAN AS A POLITICAL ELEMENT. WHAT MAINTENANCE COSTS HER—HER POWER AND INFLUENCE AS A LOBBYIST—COULD THEY NOT BE DIRECTED IN BETTER CHANNELS ?— WOMAN THE “LEAVEN” WHICH SHALL LEAVEN THE “WHOLE LUMP” OF HUMANITY. Woman has been considered the negative element of the social world. In society she has been the necessarily submissive portion. She has had no direct means of making herself felt as a positive power in shaping the current of events. She has been in the stream, has floated with it, and has formed the producing part of it, but has not had the necessary power to either modify or direct its course. She has been allowed the opportunity of education, but the avenues for applying it have been closed upon her. She has been permitted to stand beside man, and to be called his “ better half,” while he has had the absolute control of all she is, except the possibility of thought. For this- slavery she has been allowed the miserable compensation of support and main­ tenance. She has had the privilege of being possessed of property de. creed to her, and at the same time denied the right to control it She has been obliged to contribute to the support of government, but has been barred, not only from performing any of its functions, but from having any voice, in any way, in its construction and administration. She has been a political slave. There have been exceptional instances of women rising above these limitations; being denied the privileges they feel an inherent right to be possessed of, they have exhibited finesse, when they otherwise would have operated by direct means. Where a noble possession of talent should have had the privilege of exhibition, a presumptive impudence has been obliged to manifest itself, which, relying upon the considera­ tion conscious superiority generally accords, to supposed or actual in­ WOMAN AS A POLITICAL ELEMENT. 19 feriority, approaches, insinuates and accomplishes. By such methods woman has made the power she really possesses, felt, politically, and has thereby demonstrated that she would become in a better sense than in name “ man’s better half,” were the avenues opened to her. It is remarked that woman will lose what present influence she possesses, by the extension of political usefulness to her. It may be answered, that this would be only true in exceptional cases, and that ninety of every hundred have no extent of influence of this kind to lose. ’ Tis true that the most successful lobbyists are women; equally so that all grand pecuniary schemes, which require to be forced through legislation, seek the aid of their most accomplished representatives. If this is the species of influence she is to lose by the acquisition of politi­ cal equality, and this the argument against it, it only requires to be so presented and understood to become an exploded fallacy. Women in general know nothing of these things, and, we regret to say, are easily lulled into satisfaction by the simple presentation of argu­ ments which have no possible application to the point their attention is to be diverted from. Woman’s sphere is held up before her and painted in most vivid colors, in the consideration of which she fails to perceive that it is man who makes its limits and embellishes its area. Women are well aware that but few men are impervious to the free use of the various charms they possess; but how lamentably insulting to their dig­ nity is it to accept this possession as an equivalent for the voluntary acquiescence in that which leaves the decision of all they may influence by it in the hands of man. If we must judge from the position assumed by the opponents of political equality, it must be decided that it is entirely one of selfishness. The power they have they do not wish to divide. One-tenth of all available males are in one way or another connected with governmental affairs. It would be a considerable surrender of patronage to divide this with woman; besides, man has not arrived at that stage of even justice that will give to every one his due unless compelled; and most stoutly of all does he deny that political equality is due woman. By what principle of right is this denial made by those who possess the power only by sufferance ? Who has ordained that man only is a political ele­ ment ? The truth of the matter is, that in the evolution of society, man has become possessed of a privilege to which he knows he has no special inherent right, but which he is not disposed to relinquish one iota of his hold upon, even to those, he professes to hold in such reverence and esteem; his objection to doing so being that he does not desire her to 20 WOMAN AS A POLITICAL ELEMENT. become contaminated by the debauchery and villainous practices it is supported by. If the political system of yours, that you would so jealously guard woman from, is so frightfully debased and corrupted that it will defile her to touch it, it is full time its condition be thoroughly exposed. Least of all will women, who have regard for the future, remain quiet under a system of abominations that will not admit of contact without pollution. If she cannot join your caucusses, because of the roughness there exhibited, let that element be cast out If she cannot attend the polls, without fear of violence and riot, let those who produce violence and riot be put in charge of the strong arm of government, which should, at least, be powerful enough to compel order in its most im­ portant branch Women will neither be violent nor riotous; must she forego any privilege because others less worthy are? It should be your first duty to guard these special privileges you possess from such fal­ lacious arguments lest your own rights be demolished by them. What can be expected to result from a system of governing that finds root in such evil? What but subserviency to the powers that elevate can be expected from position acquired through the means of packed cau­ cusses and fraudulent elections? Every person who is pushed into office, by the power of money, expects to double his investment during his tenure. So long as these things are so, it is presumptive folly to talk of the purity of legislation or of administration. There is but one remedy, and that is to infuse into the body poli­ tic a new and purifying element—a leaven that shall leaven the whole. In woman this element, this leaven, can be found. Look where you will in nature, upon unequal distributions of the male and female elements, and you will find suffering resulting therefrom. Such distributions are not in accordance with the natural order of things. Creation is male and female throughout A part of its operation, is the evolution of so­ ciety. Society is male and female. Government is the most important feature of the evolution of society, but here the female element is de­ nied admission. Woman a politician ! And why not, if by so being politics can be made healthful and pure ? To be a politician does not necessarily imply that one must be a knave. Nor does it follow, if wo­ man is allowed political position, that either politics or woman will suffer degradation thereby. Rising to the consciousness of the inferior position she has so long voluntarily occupied, woman begins to realize that she is not only pas­ WOMAN AS A POLITICAL ELEMENT. 21 sively declining privileges, but actually ignoring duties. To whatever depths of degradation some of the sex have fallen, woman, as a whole, is possessed of a healthful, saving, purifying power that is needed every­ where. The basest sensualist bows and worships in the presence of a pure and holy woman, and loses the power to think of such a being fall­ ing to his level And this is the saving element that is required by the body politic, to arrest its present tendencies to complete corruption. WOMAN AS AN ECONOMIST. HOW SHE ASSISTS THE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMY—THE USELESSNESS OF THE DEVOTEES OF FASHION—HOW SOME ESTABLISHMENTS ARE SUPPORTED—HOW FASHION IS REGARDED BY MEN OF SENSE— DETHRONE THE GODDESS FASHION. Woman, as a general proposition, contributes but little to the wealth of the world by productive labor. All wealth comes from production; it does not exist Trade, speculation and general finance cause special movements and distributions of wealth, but do not in­ crease its sum total. It necessarily follows that those who are not producers are consumers of what others produce. Under this rule woman isz a consumer. Economy is one of the fixed principles of the universe, and is exemplified in all the movements of nature; there is a constant receiving and giving sustained that guarantees the equilibrium of elemental nature, as well as its combinations in form. Woman, as a whole, is no exception to this general law. She performs the negative requirements of nature and, in all her relations to mankind, sustains the equilibrium of the sexes in the general economy. In the human, as one of .nature’s representatives, we have not only the material universe illustrated, but in the illustration is contained a controlling mind, representative of the divine—though it be ever so imperfect—which, being an individualized power, as such, exerts its peculiar determining power over itself and surroundings, receiving in return not only the gifts of material things, but also the contributions of mind. Thus a poisonous mind exerts a certain malign influence over all that comes within its range, just as the poisonous tree or flower gives off its deleterious exhalations. When the various classes of women are considered separately, and their peculiarities and influence weighed, a vast difference is found in the amount of their power for beneficial or deleterious effects. Espe­ cially does this obtain, when she is viewed from the point of economy. Not only are some of these classes entirely non-productive, but rapa­ ciously consuming. In a pecuniary point of view they know no WOMAN AS AN ECONOMIST. 23 boundary to their caprices, no limit to their extravagance, and are entirely outside the sphere of economy. To these classes we present, for special consideration, some remarks regarding their uselessness to the public welfare. Has life any general purpose in the system of economy instituted in nature, whereby individuals spring from the original life in mass ? Has woman any special sphere to fill, whereby her own and the general good should be promoted ? or is she bom to grow up, live and die to earth, without having added anything to its value, either materially, intellectually or morally? We gladly accord to all our sex the full measure of their usefulness—to the mother, for the number and beauty of souls she has individualized; to the sister, for all the sympathy she has expended in allaying the trials and suffering of humanity; to the daughter, for all the tenderness bestowed upon the aged and infirm, and to them all, for everything done, in the cause of general progression. Many have labored earnestly^ devoutly, devotedly, whose names will live through centuries. To them all honor the ages can confer belongs. The only cause for regret is, that their number is so few. Shame upon us that it is so. The other extreme is represented by the woman of fashion. Her allotment in the scale of use is a difficult one to make. She is neither the willing, health-giving mother, the generous, whole-souled sister, nor the tender, assiduous daughter. The woman of fashion has no time for the display of these weaknesses that mar the marble contour she adopts. Her heart is steeled to every inherent womanly sentiment, and her entire thought devoted to garnishing and bedecking the exte­ rior. In her estimation, it is of much greater importance to pass through the world under full spread of sail than to give any care to the character of her ballast In her philosophy, externals cover, in more than material matters, the nakedness of the individual. If she be perfect in appearance, of what consequence is the shallowness of her mind, which she permits no one to measure; or the depravity of her soul, which no one can see ? What does the woman of fashion do for the world ? She begins and ends by deceiving it in part, and herself wholly. Walk up Broadway and count the windows wherein are exposed for sale huge, vile bunches of hair, tortured into all conceivable, unnatural shapes, to transform the natural beauty of the head to a hideous, affected thing. The amount expended on these outrages upon common sense, alone, would educate and render comfortable every child of distress and pov­ erty. What right have you, Woman of Fashion, to thus consume 24 WOMAN AS AN ECONOMIST. wealth, while children in the next street are crying for bread ? Your laces and diamonds, and other superfluous articles of ornamentation which you filch from the public welfare, seeking thereby to hide your deformities or to add to your attractions, would mitigate all the distress that stalks among us, with pale, wan cheek, tearful eye and bleeding feet The general economy of the universe will hold you responsible for all these inequalities. How many fortunes have you squandered, homes made desolate, and husbands driven to distraction in the pursuit of your insatiable desire for dress ? and how many, when the purses of your husbands or fathers have failed to furnish what you require, and would have, have sold yourselves to others to obtain it ? Demand of those who know— of the keepers of houses of prostitution and assignation of New York— then confirm their testimony by that of our police! They will declare unreservedly and positively, that in the insane love for dress, they find their support Go behind this more prominent form of prostitution, to that prac­ ticed under the garb of marriage, and you will find immense establish­ ments, complete and luxurious in their appointments, supported by the dishonor of their mistresses. To such an extent does the love of dress and display lead women to prostitute themselves, that fashion is becom­ ing a stench in the nostrils of every one of her sex who values purity and devotion to her family more than the display of fashionable toi­ lets and equipages, which, purchased by her own desecration, destroys all that is holy in marriage. Every new movement made in dress is to render the concealed reality more deceptive. Calves, hips and breasts are padded to make the form more deceptively voluptuous, and thereby to appeal with more direct force to the passions of man. So notorious has this condi­ tion become, that men are beginning to beware of women, and to hesi­ tate to make them wives, not knowing whether the forms they present themselves in are natural or artificial. This and the knowledge of the expense of a fashionable wife, are deterring thousands from marrying. It is man who will not and woman who cannot Woman has still to learn that men of sense most admire due regard for personal appearance, when combined with attractions of the mind and heart. Capacity of mind before profusion of dress, and intellectual attainment before knowledge of the latest styles, are always recommendations to the con­ sideration of every man who should be desired for a husband. A rich mind will always command respect and admiration, though it be clothed WOMAN AS AN ECONOMIST. 25 in the greatest simplicity; a barren soul always merits contempt, though it be decked with all the fineries fashion can invent Fashion, then, is one of the direct inducements to prostitution, and is so testified of by all who are competent to testify; and when prac­ ticed to gratify an insane desire for display, it is in its most debasing form, for these votaries carry their pernicious influence into the bosom of their families, and outrage all the delicate sensibilities of relationship, besides entailing no one can tell how great curses upon their children. The damnation of a common prostitute begins and ends with herself and abettors, but private prostitution entails untold miseries upon all who come within, or belong to, the sphere of its influence. If the first can, by any stretch of imagination, be considered a “ necessary evil ” for man, the last is a burning shame upon the name of woman, to the mitigation of which every possible effort should be directed. No more direct attack upon this condition could be made than to dethrone the Goddess Fashion. Let every woman—and every man who comprehends the situation ever so little—remember that she owes it to her daughter to demand of others, and to practice herself, such re­ form in dress as shall put it beyond the pale of decency to indulge as those do who devote themselves entirely to the pursuit of fashion. De­ mand and practice artistic simplicity that shall contribute to ease, com­ fort and health, and which will permit you to follow any of the new vo­ cations that are to be opened for your competition: present modes, in ’ many of them, would be impracticable, while the multiplicity of their requirements would be simply ridiculous if fully practiced. A wide field for reform can here be opened. How many are there possessed of sufficient honesty, purity and devotion to your sex’s interest to step forward and take the initiatory ? Thousands will follow a cour­ ageous lead, and tens of thousands will bless it when it is once made. In such action the satisfaction may be felt of knowing that it is a move­ ment in accordance with the general order of nature, which commands economy in all things; of becoming the benefactors of our sex and the admiration of the other, and of being a living embodiment of a true, nat­ ural woman, who deems it disgraceful to appear to be what she is not. A single extract from the diary of the late Mrs. Dr. Lozier ex­ presses the sentiment of every true, noble and pure-hearted woman. She says: “ A wearisome day shopping. I pity the votaries of dress, if the thought they give to it, and time and money, are as empty of happiness to them as to me. Father, keep my heart pure and my eye single! ” WOMAN AS THE COMPANION, HER FAILURE ‘ TO INTEREST MAN—MAN ADVANCES, WOMAN STANDS STILL—HOME LOSING ITS ATTRACTIONS—THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE SEXES—THE CAUSE OF IT SUGGESTED. Were women trained to business pursuits from childhood, as men are, the largest successes in business would be obtainable by them. Because they are not thus educated for any line of occupation they remain through life complete failures, so far as practical avocations are concerned. Woman appears upon the scene of life as a commercial nonentity, passes through all its changes, and disappears, considering herself a success if she has been so fortunate as to have amused man, so that his leisure moments have passed cheerfully. Of late years she is even failing to do this. There is a growing preferment on his part for his club, his billiards, his chess, his anything, so that he is removed from the society of those who, failing to interest, amuse or instruct, become * actual bores upon his sensitive patience. When man returns from his regular daily cares and duties, he seeks such amusement and recreation as will divert his mind from them; or such companions as can assist him in solving some business or finan­ cial problem he is engaged upon. Nine chances in ten he finds neither in the limits of his family; failing here, in what he most desires, any­ thing, anywhere, is an acceptable substitute. It is a general rule, that if one finds those he should naturally go to for advice incapable of giv­ ing it, he accepts it from others still more incapable. The minds of all men, everywhere, are being roused into a more comprehensive state of action. They are daily brought into contact with the progressive ideas and thoughts of the world, which continually modify their opinions, views, and even their methods of thought, so that those they associate with at home, who are debarred these advantages, or are slow to obtain them, lose the capacity to any longer attract, WOMAN- AS THE COMPANION-. 27 These advantages are obtainable by certain classes of women who mingle largely with the world. They imbibe its inspirations, acquire its rea­ sons and adopt its conclusions, and are pretty thoroughly competent to convince the husband that his family is behind the times, especially when he is already too painfully aware of it Men in this respect are so thoughtlessly unjust; they make no allowance for lack of opportunity ; they simply take the fact They do not consider while they are con­ stantly engaged with a continuous change of circumstances, each one of which develops some new thought, illustrates some new idea or demonstrates some mooted question, that their families are shut up at home, away from all the world, except those who are in like conditions. And so it comes, that man is better amused and more wisely instructed away from home than at home. Acknowledging to herself the loss of the power of home attractions for man, it L not to be wondered that woman is attempting the games man plays at, nor that her success is immense when so employed. It is quite to be expected that they should assemble in secret conclave to discuss their grievances and to provide remedies. Equally so, that they should organize clubs in satirical spirit, at which they drink their tea and lemonade, and under its exhilarating influence “ do ” the last sensation—perhaps project a new one. Nor is it very surprising, that organizations having in view still more general male practices, should be found existing in the very heart of fashionable society. In these various ways and numerous others, women are successfully managing to imitate man. True, such things have not obtained to any consid­ erable extent, though quite sufficiently so to indicate the direction they are inclined to take to be revenged—that is the spirit—upon man, for failing to longer be amused by the hereditary customs of their fathers. One important point woman seems to have totally ignored, and this is, that as the conditions of men’s minds develop toward comprehensive­ ness, they require equal proportionate development in all their surround­ ings from which they expect recreation. Thus the distance between man and woman, as the husband and wife, is gradually widening, and the home of the family every year be­ comes less and less the central point of attraction for all concerned. This appears a most grievous fact, unless regarded strictly philosophical­ ly. It indicates a revolution in domestic life, such as the world has never known. Does woman comprehend whither she is floating? Does she realize that as a sex she is becoming estranged from man ? Does she understand what estrangement of the sexes means for her ? If, as 28 WOMAN AS THE COMPANION. a sex, woman is content to remain in political "bondage—if she is willing to remain the mere appendage of man, with no individuality outside of wifely submission, such as was commended by Paul—would it not be wise in her to make better preparation for that sphere ? Should she not make such progress in it as would be in accordance with the gen­ eral progress of the world, so that she should be capable of making home minister to all man’s requirements ? However indefinite man’s desires regarding woman may be—and that they are indefinite his course indicates but too well—he does not wish a mere cipher for a wife, but a companion, capable and willing for all occasions. If the reality could be known, though he is far from confessing it, he would honor the woman who could fill his position during his absence. So much for the condition! What of the cause ? If we do not widely err in tracing effects back to their cause, the chief thing that has caused and is causing domestic infelicity has never yet been touched—has been shut out from sight and consideration. It is the growing aversion on the part of women to bearing children. The means they resort to for their prevention is sufficient to disgust every natural man, and to cause him to seek the companionship of those who have no fear in this regard. Every wife should be wise enough to know what the result of this course must. be. She should remember it is not in harmony with the general processes of nature^., and that it must induce conditions unfavorable to her continuance as the sufficient attraction for the man who has chosen her from among the whole. The trite saying that “ there are two sides to all ques­ tions ” is very applicable in the inharmonious domestic relations of the sexes. Man does not wander from home, wife, and perhaps children, for no cause. There is a beginning to everything short of absolute existence. The basis of the relations of the sexes is in the fact that they are male and female, the union between whom is requisite for the purposes of reproduction. For this end they are male and female, and for this are they brought into the relationship in which so much unhappiness now exists. Here is the primal attraction, and here must we look for the primal causes of separation. With the profoundest regard for the gravity and delicacy of the question, we ask wives to ex­ amine themselves, to see whether the first cause of discontent on the part of husbands, which inclines them to seek other female society, is not their unnatural conduct regarding their special maternal functions ? WOMAN AS THE REFORMER. NO RESTRICTIONSIN THIS SPHERE—WHY SHOULD THERE BE IN OTHERS ? —TURKEY AND UTAH—THE BASIS OF REFORM. In no department of civilization can woman exert so much influ­ ence as in that usually denominated reform, though, strictly speakingthere is no meaning in the term. In this specific department her lacking equality does not militate so greatly against her general usefulness as in most other spheres. To all the requirements of this situation she is allowed admission, and is recognized in her true relations therein. When woman is herself the unfortunate, who lingers among the lower and barbaric forms of civilization, it is true that her degradation seems of greater depth than that of man does, when sunk in equal filth; it is also true, that greater effort is required to encourage her to grow out of such conditions than man usually requires. We have often thought that this grows out of the fact that the scales of justice in which society weighs woman are fearfully loaded against her, and that double depth of iniquity in man does not weigh so heavily, nor damn him so much, as one-half the depth in woman. A single false step, socially, is sufficient to stain woman’s whole after life, and to ex­ clude her most rigorously from the society of woman; but man may continuously mingle with the society constituted of those thus ex­ cluded with impunity. The verdict of society is, that man does not become defiled by contact with impurity, but that woman does, and when once defiled, the stain is too deep to be ever eradicated. It is not man, however, who is thus inconsistent—who thus proposes one rule for himself and another totally different for woman. It is herself that does it, but the condition itself comes from quite another direction. It comes from the inequalities of the sexes. It comes because woman is virtually the 30 WOMAN AS THE REFORMER. dependent—the slave of man. Though it may not be so regarded, a strict analysis pronounces her the slave; for she has no determining power over her own condition. She cannot make or unmake a law she finds she suffers from; she cannot determine what shall be the penalty that shall affix to any crime she shall commit, or that she shall suffer at the hands of man; she cannot even accord to herself the rights to pos> sess property nor to deal in or dispose of it if possessed. What bettei than a slave is such a condition as this ? Ask yourselves, women, and see if this is not so, though it must be confessed the condition has been draped with many allurements to those who are willing to remain non­ entities in the affairs of the world, in place of possessing a noble inde­ pendence, and the right to be the arbiter in their own condition. If we mistake not most seriously, the basis of the work of reform' . has not been reached as yet by the majority of women. How can those who are in a subjugated condition expect to wield the power of a re­ former, either in matters pertaining to that condition or in those outside of it ? Would you look for reformers in a Turkish harem, or among the wives of the Mormons ? And why not ? It is because they are in a condition only worse in degree than all other women are. Are harems confined to the Turks or Mormons to Utah ? It must be remembered that it takes all the rounds of a ladder to form it. complete, and that those of the elevated part are only higher in degree than the lower, and that all are rounds of the same ladder. So, too, is it with the condition of women, viewed as a whole. What is the difference, except in de­ gree, between the women of Utah and Turkey and those of the rest of the world ?" They are all the subject of conditions over which they have no control, and are therefore everywhere the same. The work of the reformer, to be successful, must begin by remov­ ing this condition of subserviency. All women, everywhere, must have the same rights, both as individuals and as parts of society—neither of which is possessed by them now—as all men have, with whom they as­ sociate ; there must be an equality, an operative equality, a constructive equality, between the sexes, before either man or woman can obtain a fair entree upon that race for perfection which it is the heart’s desire of all to obtain. Do you not think that a vigorous attack would be made upon many of the existing imperfections of society, were our halls of legislation occupied by the best representatives of both sexes ? And here lies the basis of all reform. Legislation should be conducted by the representatives of the whole of society, male and female. Women, to become powerful as reformers,, must first become the ^political equals WOMAN AS THE REFORMER. 81 of those they seek to reform. To obtain their equality, it must be de­ manded by the voice of the majority. To teach the majority the ne­ cessity of making the demand, is the beginning of reform, and to show women the actual condition they are submitting to, is one of the princi­ pal duties of those who recognize the relations of causes to effects, or rather the common order of the universe in its march from elemental conditions to those represented by perfected combinations of elements, which is continually pursued onward, and never by retreat. We, there­ fore, enter our declaration, that all who are opposed to the political equality of woman, are opposed to the first principles of progress, and are therefore enemies to the race. INDEPENDENCE OR DEPENDENCE, WHICH? WOMAN BEHIND IN THE GENERAL RACE FOR ADVANCEMENT—HER FORMER POSITION BEING GRADUALLY INVADED—THE FUTURE OF HOUSEKEEPING—WOMEN OF INTELLECT MUST HAVE OCCU­ PATION—SHALL SHE LONGER BE HELD A VIRTUAL NONENTITY ? In this age of progress, wherein rapid strides are being made in all branches of civilization, woman seems to be about the only constituent feature which is devoid of the general spirit that controls. All the ele­ ments of society are becoming - more distinctly individualized with in­ creasing heterogeneity. Its lines of demarkation, while' increasing nu­ merically, become more distinct. The whole tendency is to individual independence and mutual dependence. It is most true that in the aid which progress receives from peoples, that the female element is but poorly represented, but its effects are sufficiently obvious and diffusive to demonstrate, even to her, that there must be a forward movement made by the sex, else it will be left entirely too far in the rear to perform even an unimportant part in the great wants that the immediate future will develop. The wife was formerly the housekeeper; she is becoming less and less so every day. Many of the duties that once devolved upon her, are now performed by special trades. Each branch of housewifery is coming to be the basis of a separate branch of business. Schools per­ form all the duties of education that once devolved upon the mother, and tailors and dress-makers absorb the labor of the wardrobe. The grocer and the baker pretty nearly supply the table, while the idea of INDEPENDENCE OR DEPENDENCE, WHICH ? 33 furnishing meals complete, is rapidly gaining acceptance. Thus, one by one, the duties of the housewife are being taken from her, by the better understanding and adaptation of principles of general economy. While the revolution is in progress, the preparatory steps to co-op­ erative housekeeping are being taken. Thousands live at one place and eat at another, where once such practice was unknown. Dining saloons are increasing more rapidly than any other branch of business, and more transient meals are eaten every day. The result of this will be a division of living, under the two systems represented by the two classes of hotels—the table d'hote and the a la carte. The residence portion of our cities will be converted into vast hotels, which will be arranged and divided for the accomodation of families of all sizes. A thousand peo­ ple can live in one hotel, under one general system of superintendence, at much less expense than two hundred and fifty families of four mem­ bers each, in as many houses and under as many systems. As a system of economy, this practice is sure to prevail, for progress in this respect is as equally marked as in attainment, and, if we mistake not, is of a higher order. To obtain more effect from a given amount of power, is a higher branch of science than to obtain the same by increasing the power. To lessen resistance is better than to increase power, and on this principle progress in the principles of living is being made toward co-operation. Allowing that the practice will become general, what will become of the “ special sphere ” of woman, that is painted in such vivid colors by the opponents of the extension of female privileges ? Are the pow­ ers of women to be wasted upon vain frivolities so widely practised now, where this principle is already operating, or are they to be cast in some useful channel—some honorable calling? Is fashion to consume the entire time of women of the immediate future, or shall they become active members of the social body, not only forming a portion of its numbers, but contributing their share to the amount of results to be gained ? True, the beginning of this practice is forcing women into wider fields of usefulness; forcing them without preparation into com­ petition with man, who has been trained to industry from youth—a vast disparity, over which the complaint of unequal pay is sometimes raised without real cause. • Does woman foresee what these things are to lead to, or does she prefer to remain blind to the tendencies of progress in this re­ gard? It is evid to every mind, not wilfully blind, that woman is gradually merging into all the employments of life. They are being • 2 34 INDEPENDENCE OR DEPENDENCE, WHICH? driven to it by the force of circumstances, coming from new develop­ ments. It is a necessity. Occupation they must have; for not all women even will be content to lead useless lives. This condition is gradually increasing, both in volume and extent, and, with a persistency which overcomes all opposition custom offers, it proclaims its intentions. Why cannot its drift be recognized as a matter of course, and all provisions made to help thecause along? Women who do not perceive, these things, from habitual blindness to all that usefulness indicates, may be excused for their supineness; but men, who are habitually provident, stand condemned of inconsistency for all the opposition manifested to the course events will pursue. In consideration of the fact that woman is entering the active sphere of life, and is every day widening this sphere, can she sit in ut­ ter quiescence, saying she has no desire to establish herself as an ele­ ment of power, politically ? In this she voluntarily acknowledges her inferiority, and her willingness to remain the political slave, which is but a shade removed from the slavery that cost the country so much life to extinguish. However much man may at present resist the bold demands of the few, now calling for political equality, were the sex, as a whole, to rouse itself into a comprehension of the situation and its prophecies, with the determination to’ assert equality of privilege, in the control of that in which they have an equality of interest, he would not dare refuse. Let the question be put home to yourselves in the light of rising events, and considered with calmness and wisdom. Are you willing to remain a political nonentity, a dependent upon the consideration of those who do possess political rights, and be subservient to masters of others’ mak­ ing ? Shall you not the rather demand political equality, basing it on an equality of interest, in the results to be obtained through the exer­ cise of political rights ? The first means continued dependence; the last means the beginning of independence. These are the questions. Consider them. WOMAN’S SPHERE. GLITTERING- GENERALITIES AND TERRIFIC PHANTASIES—THE PRINCI­ PLES WHICH CAUSE REFORM—WHAT NEGRO EQUALITY MEANT— WHAT EQUALITY FOR WOMAN MEANS—DOES THE PAST TEACH ANY LESSONS?—WHAT PROPERTY OF SOCIETY DOES WOMAN REPRESENT? —IS SHE SOMETHING OR NOTHING?—ABSOLUTE MONARCHY. The glittering generalities which surround this phrase, and cast over it such impenetrable mysteries, such inscrutable relations and phantomatic beauties, are in danger of being analyzed. All mysteries fear the touch of whatever will rend the veil that conceals their true character. Most formidable assumptions vanish before the scrutiny of reason. Terrific phantasies become pleasing realities when bereft of their allegorical shroudings, and the most improbable theories plain facts, when reduced to practice. The hue and cry of negro equality, made by those who knew its shallowness, to influence the thoughtless, is now found to have been a myth. They would have persuaded us that, if slavery was abolished, every white daughter would be compelled to mate with a negro, and that every son would incline to color. Slavery is dead, and the negro remains to all purposes the same as he was, except that he is free. He has the rights of a citizen ; but the privileges of society he must obtain as others obtain them—by capacity, adaptability and attractability. If your sons and daughters incline to color, it is not because black has been raised to the dignity of white, but because white has descended to the level of black, and for this, if blame is to attach, it should belong to those who had their youth in charge. The cry of equality is now generally conceded to have been a fic­ tion of the first water. It has been abandoned as too improbable for even a burlesque. All who were engaged in raising it acknowledge the issue dead, and that the negro who in 1820 was little better than a beast 36 woman’s sphere. —a fit subject for the block and lash—casts his ballot the same as whites, to express his political preferences. Fifty years of strife accom­ plished this for him. His advocates were not from his own ranks. Principles of justice and common right, singled them from the more favored class. They were those within whose souls the principles of freedom were predominant, which brought them forth to battle for the common rights of humanity. All forms of persecutions were hurled against them. They were laughed at, scorned and stoned. Still they lifted their voices for freedom for all; and nature, ever true to herself and consistent, decided that the new should supplant the old. Ever since creation the same process has produced similar results. Has the enfranchisment of the negro any lesson for the conserva- * • tives of the world ? or njust the same battle be fought for every step of general progress ? There are those who still think they can bend the common order of the universe, to meet their selfish and impossible con­ clusions. Therefore, those who are now striking for enlarged spheres of action, must expect to encounter the same opposition that has been offered to all previous forward movements. Every revolution that ever occurred brought into positions of control, more and more of the sum total of the people. Once an Alexander and a Caesar dictated to the world. Later a Napoleon attempted it and failed. In this nine­ teenth century the voice of every son and daughter must be heard and acknowledged a sovereign power. What is woman’s sphere ? Is it to be marked and defined by others than herself and nature ? Does man inherit from Paul the author­ ity he seeks to maintain over her, so that she shall not have the privilege of speaking her wants ? Does woman, or does she not, form a part of the body of society ? Is it male and female, or only male ? Is it her sphere to shrink before the dicta of man, and bow in submission to his will? Is it hers to be ruled and bound by laws he shall compel her to ? Has she no individual authority except that which he may graciously accord to her ? The horse and ox are free to enjoy the privileges their masters allow them—to eat, drink and sleep, and when not required for use to roam within the limits marked for them. And this is woman’s sphere! She is free to do everything, except the very thing that determines her condition. She is as much a slave as the negro was. He had the power of persuasion, but no right to demand. So, too, have women. Have they aught else ? Can they say that this or that shall be thus or thus? Try it and be convinced that you have no more real power than the negro had. It is said that there are those woman’s sphere. 37 who desire to remain in this condition, caressing the hands which bind them, and receiving consideration from those who regard them as only fit for such a condition. It does not seem possible that either they or you comprehend the situation. We would not be other than respectful to our self-constituted lords and masters; but we must first respect our selves. If we mistake not, charity, no more than other virtues, should begin at home. We have never elected that man should fashion governments to rule us. By what right does he do so, and then refuse us hearing ? Man’s sphere is just what he chooses to make it within the limita­ tions of nature. -We demand that woman’s shall be what she shall elect to make it, subject only to the same limitations, and our demand is entitled to the same respect that man’s possession receives. We claim, that when we come before you and ask a voice in legislation and administration, which you have reserved to yourselves, that you have no other than the right of might—the tyrant’s right—to deny us. So far as you do deny us, just so far are you tyrants and we slaves. All the coloring it may be glossed over with can make it nothing better, nor can it be made to appear, that we are aught but your subjects, the same as a people are the subjects of an absolute monarch—the only difference is that he is one while you are multitudes. He makes the laws for his people • you make them for us. They are obliged to submit; so are we. Where is the difference, except in degree? We claim, on the contrary, that we have rights, as individuals, which you can neither give nor take away. You may prevent our making use of them. Just so far as you do are you just and we free; or you tyrants and we slaves. PREJUDICE vs. JUSTICE. THE ROAD THE REFORMER HAS TO TRAVEL—THE CHARGE OF “EAT­ ING WITH PUBLICANS AND SINNERS”—“MOTES” AND “BEAMS”— DENUNCIATION, RECRIMINATION AND BOMBASTIC DISPLAY—MAN NOT WILLINGLY PART WITH ANY PRIVILEGE—MOST HONORABLE WILL EXPONENTS OF THE RIGHT SPIRIT. It is but the old story, so oft repeated, that those who have the hardi­ hood and devotion to go out into the world, the representatives and ad­ vocates of convictions of right, are met, not by reason and common sense, nor yet by any plea of impropriety as to time and place, but by wholesale .denunciation, or such sweeping accusations as are believed to be, and are, ^sufficient to overwhelm all, except such souls as alone undertake these :Steps. Probably most who thus attempt what, to the initiated, appear 'impossibilities, are not at first conscious of the storms they must encoun­ ter, .-and step boldly forth with no preparations to battle against its fury, nor protect themselves from being swept hurriedly away by its ruthless torrents. More especially is this true, when any appear as the advocate •of what, if triumphant, shall interfere with some time-honored institu­ tion, custom, privilege or creed. During all the past this has been con­ tinually exemplified. Even Christ was vilified for eating with “ publi­ cans and sinners.” Unfortunately, all are not the possessors of that ready wisdom that can retort that “ he that is without sin among you cast the first stone.”1 Still more unfortunate is it for the present, that the accusing multitude, if so rebuked in these times, would not retire from the presence of the judge, covered with shame for its unwar­ rantable usurpation of the right of accusation, though as fully convicted as the Jews of old were. They do not realize that, though not defiled PREJUDICE VS. JUSTICE. 39 by the exact sin it accuses their would-be victims of, they have others still more damning or contemptible, of which they stand convicted before their God. It were well for all who have any desire to lay claim to progress­ ive ideas or to Christian precepts, to examine themselves well to see if they have not a “ beam ” in their own eyes, before attempting to cast out the “ mote ” they think to have discovered in their neighbor’s. Lit­ tle does the reckless asserter of scandalous reports know what he does, when he bandies a name upon his lips, with such connections as would traduce purity itself and throw a mantle of distrust over all its actions. When driven to his authority it often eludes him, and he is fain to de­ clare he must have dreamed it .But he has repeated the curse to thoughtless ears, and these have spread it among the eager crowd, and thus it comes that those who have endeavored to live the principles that have developed in their souls are adrift upon the waves of society, bereft of all the necessary means to gain the port desired. Thus are the pioneers in the cause of a common equality met by those who certainly are not their superiors in any way, except in their knowledge of, and as participators in, the vice and immorality of the times. All of the members of this class of opposers are possessed of col­ ored glasses, through which they view the presumptuous petitioners. Of course, they are all “ black ” in some sense, and are straightway thus proclaimed. Do they ever meet the petitions presented with answering reason. Oh, they have no reasons to offer, and therefore must resort to the only line of reasoning the blockhead and the blackguard have—to denunciation, recrimination and bombastic display of self-importance, thus endeavoring to crush their petitioners out by the very weight of their displeasure. 11 What! ” they say, “ you equal to us ? Preposter­ ous I ridiculous I absurd! Equal to us, who have these many long years held you in complete subjection? The presumption of your claim is too barefaced to allow us to think it is made in sincerity, and the best you can do is, to get you back to your washtubs and needles before the compassion we now have for your imbecility is turned into vinegar by your persistence. Get you away before we are forced to call our lackeys, who are our equals, to 1 put you out,’ for out we are deter­ mined you shall go. We already have to share our rights with too many. Foreigners who come to us from abroad with the determination to become citizens, we cannot keep in a condition to do our bidding.’ The negro we are forced to vote with, do jury duty with, sit in the halls of Congress with. We cannot divide our spoils anew with you, for to do so is to take the larger half of all we have remaining. Whatever 40 PREJUDICE VS. JUSTICE. your claims may be, whatever of justice they may be founded on, what­ ever of argument you may support them by, we will not consider them. If there are those among'us so weak and foolish as to entertain your de­ mands, and bring them before us, and thus compel us into action upon them, why, we must perforce vote you Nay, and decide the matter at once, for it is useless to waste time in listening to arguments, when we are determined not to be convinced.” This course is the only one that can be followed by those who, hav­ ing power, are determined not to part with it. As for arguments, there are none to offer. The same line of opposition is practiced regarding position in all matters heretofore held exclusively by the “ Lords of Creation. ” If any innovations are attempted upon preoccupied grounds, straightway the forces are combined to expel the invader. All man­ ner of practices known to the “ sharps ” are attempted; and money even, which they all part with so unwillingly, is freely offered, if some one will only “make up” something that will effectually extinguish them. Failing in everything else, schemes are planned to work upon the points of weakness that it has been discovered they possess, and their own sex is played against them to entangle them in some net set to catch them, or to lead them into some quagmire in which they shall sink beyond hope of escape. Most honorable opponents, you put your talents to most worthy uses ! How sweet your dreams must be when you are so just! The time will most surely come when your hypocrisy .. will be unmasked, and you be made to appear before the bar of public opinion as you now appear before the bar of Divine Justice. Public opinion is not entirely unregenerate, and wofully will you repent it, if you rely fully upon it for your continuous-justification. It may justify you to-day, but beware, lest to-morrow it shall reverse its decision, and condemn you for the prejudiced usurper of rights of sex which you really are. We ask every conscientious man to be more just, and not to wait the time when he must be. Hear our demands; listen to our arguments ; treat our attempts to maintain a womanly in­ dependence in the same spirit they are made ; and permit us to think that we at least have the right to support ourselves, if we do not all choose to make use of it. Do away with your unwarrantable prejudices, and extend us the right hand of fellowship, the same as you do to many whom we believe to be far less worthy of it than we are. We do not ask favor. We only desire justice, and that equality of privilege which is due us from the equality of interest we have in the results to flow from its possession. WHAT DOES THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT IMPLY? THE WEAPONS USED AGAINST ITS ADVOCATES—THE OBLIGATIONS OF WOMAN—THE REDEEMING QUALITIES OF WOMAN. To hear the terrible anathemas that- are continually hurled against the advocates of woman’s rights, the uninitiated would suppose the proposition involves the most radical and unreasonable changes in the present order of society. Especially, if one listens to the imprecations called down upon the movement by the representatives of “ the old time religion,” would he imagine its advocates were from that region so familiar to their vernacular, where the devil reigns supreme, the precise locality of which, however, they fail to inform us of It is enough that it is of the devil, and as such it is worthy of the denunciation it receives from them. But how far does this opposition meet any single issue of the question involved ? Let the question be analyzed, and what does it contain that it should arouse such bitter vituperation and should bring down upon its advocates such wholesale denunciation ? We ask simply to be received and acknowledged as one of the constituent parts of society, and as such to be admitted to its counsels, and, with man, to be responsible for its conditions. As it now is, woman is subjugated, is utterly powerless to do other than as her master shall direct; and whether this involves the recep­ tion of brute force from him, or a semi-acquiescence in the things that he demands from her, it matters not, the principle is the same. And in whatever sphere of life woman may be, this domination is the power that determines her condition. In some of the cities of the Eastern • States, especially Massachusetts and Rhode Island, a very large propor­ tion of the population is female. Lowell and Lawrence, Pawtucket and Blackstone are good illustrations. In what way can it be shown 42 WHAT DOES THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT IMPLY? that the factory girls of these cities are free—are in a condition very far removed from slavery ? There they toil day after day, for weeks, months and years, and finally die without ever fulfilling the best mission of woman, and why ? Would this be so very long were woman raised to the level and dignity of an equality with man ? Are they destitute of the common sentiments of womanhood, among which maternity stands prominently forth ? Another not commonly known fact has a powerful bearing in forming a judgment of the character of woman. It is true, as a general proposition, that the woman who does content herself to work, work, work for her sustenance and for that of those dependent upon her, prefers to do this rather than resort to that far easier way many do. The laboring woman is the virtuous woman. All laboring women are, as a rule, virtuous women. It would be a source of the greatest aston­ ishment could it be generally known and appreciated how much real labor woman does. It is true that it is that kind of labor which does not bring the subject into special notice, nor such return in money or position as renders her in any sense, the equal of the man laborer. Nev­ ertheless it is certain that nearly, if not quite, one-half of all labor that is accomplished is performed by women. There are many instances among the wealthy where the women of the family do nothing. On the contrary how many are there among the very poor, where the woman of the family is its support; where the men spend all their time and money, and often much of that earned by the women, in debauch and drink. It will not do to look only on one side of a question that is under consideration, if a just decision is desired, and hence it is that we declare, that a sufficient proportion of the actual labor of the world is performed by woman, and to demand for her, in the name of justice, a substantial equality—an equality that shall enable her to determine her own condition. The union of the sexes is the natural condition, and man and woman should enter it from an equal dignity of position and equally volunta­ rily. Society should be so that no woman should feel obliged to marry or connect herself with man for the object of support, and she should be in such condition that she should never enter upon the new relation, from any other reasons than natural law, and from the fact that there exists a mutual attraction. A more momentous question is involved in this apparently simple matter than the superficial ever supposed possible. Let the question be proposed, Whence come all these puny, imperfect, even idiotic children the world is filled with ? They come WHAT DOES THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT IMPLY? 43 simply from the relations existing between the father and mother which should have prevented their union. Not only are diseases of the body engendered, but the still worse infirmities of the heart, soul and mind result therefrom. Thus it is that disease, crime and all other evils the world is sub­ jected to, are perpetually resurrected in each succeeding generation. The first step to be taken for the removal and cure of this condition, is, to extend equality to such women as desire it and to show those who yet prefer to remain subjugated to the domination and rule of man, that theirs is, in fact, the condition of the slave, willing though it be. What man is there who would surrender his independence and the possibilities of his condition to become to woman what all wives now are to men? Would he become dependent upon her he would marry, surrender to her his rights and the rights to preferment which are prophetically every man’s ? It is becoming somewhat the rule now, that men do not care to be bound to a wife. What will result from such a procedure if continued ? Society may well stop and consider where the wrong lies, that is engendering all these false and unphilosophic conditions; it may affect surprise and hold up its hands in holy horror, but it nevertheless comes from one fact, and that fact is, that one-half the world is subjugated to the other half, and has no voice in the general conduct of affairs, by which its parts become either to itself or society, necessary and important factors, except in the matter of obedience and labor. What would be the legitimate result of the admission of woman to the ballot? Would it necessarily or probably lead to any worse filling of office than now obtains? Would there, could there, be more general corruption exhibited in legislation and in the administration of law, by people chosen, by men and women promiscuously, than there is now on the part of those chosen by men alone. To assert such a result, or to affect to believe that such a result would follow, is ridicu­ lously absurb. Whatever depths of degradation members of the sex have fallen to, the sex, as a whole, is possessed of a purifying and exalting power that man is devoid of, and in debarring this power from entering into political arenas, they are depriving themselves of an element of salvation; and they will some day repent of having done so. WILL WOMEN ACCEPT THE CONSE­ QUENCES OF EQUALITY? EQUALITY SHALL IN MILITARY DUTY—NON-COMBATANTS OF ALL KINDS, THEY LOSE THEIR CITIZENSHIP?—INTELLECTUAL WOMEN VS. THE IGNORANT MILLION. It is frequently advanced as an argument or rather set off against giving woman the right of the ballot, that if she votes she should be subject to draft for military duty. Well, we have no objection. All we would ask is that when the conscription is made, none may be ac­ cepted save those who are really physically competent. This number would be found so small that we doubt if the whole State of New York could furnish a regiment But in case of a call for volunteers, there is not a doubt if women were permitted to serve, a great many more would come forward at their country’s call than would be found able to carry arms. Let women do as they please. Restrict them by no laws that would not equally bind men. Give to both men and women the guide of a properly educated and developed conscience, and there will be no need of arbitrary laws binding either to their separate duties. They who contend to the contrary prove themselves practical infidels and unbelievers in the Christianity they profess. Christianity gives free scope, and tolerance needs no law to enforce its precepts. We may engraft Christianity with civil institutions as they exist, but never insist that those institutions are Christianity. We would “ render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Never insist that God and Caesar shall be united or are one. If women should not vote because they are non-combatants, then all non-combatants should be deprived of the ballot All infirm and WILL WOMEN- ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES OF EQUALITY? 45 disabled men, from any cause, should be debarred from ad legislative and civil representation by ballot John Randolph, of Roanoke; Alex­ ander Stephens, of Georgia, and many other men of giant minds but weak physical developments, would, by this rule, be consigned to what has been considered woman’s sphere. What is woman’s sphere ? 'Twould be difficult to define its lim­ its. Is it where nature places her ? Then let us not insist that those who are not fitted by nature for marriage and maternity shall be wives and mothers, or submit to the old maid’s fate—the tolerated sister­ in-law, meekly wielding the crochet needle. Let each individual woman, as well as each individual man, seek her being’s highest, noblest, truest, best development Let her do the duty that lies nearest to her, whatever that duty may be; and if our great republic and the govern­ ments of the world give her the right of self-representation by the bal­ lot, let her not Airink from the responsibilities involved in her new political privilege. Let her prepare herself for her enfranchisement by education, self-discipline and self-abnegation, not like a fool, rush in where angels should fear to tread. The ballot for women ? Most assuredly, yes. As they are mentally and physically the equals of men, why should they not be so politi­ cally ? The question answers itself. That answer embraces the fact that women, although but the mental and physical equals of men, are also their moral superiors. The cynical skepticism born of cliques and clubs and smoking-rooms may have a word here, but the teachings of experience light our judgment and confirm our faith. White women are certainly as capable of exercising discrimination as are the negro and heathen voters who now overrun the land; and they are fully as intelligent If they are really inferior, why do men hesitate to permit the self-deluded creatures to, work their own ruin by signal proofs of that lack of knowledge which is suspected in their cases only? We are continually hearing fine speeches about justice and the necessary purification of the ballot Now this is all sham. If one part of creation were really anxious to be just to the other part, they would commence their praiseworthy work without loss of time. The pretended fear of wives and daughters being used as mere tools in the hands of designing men, is a silly argument which does not even rise to the dig­ nity of an excuse. Women are not necessarily obliged to accept the views of certain men as the guiding principles of their lives. They are • quite capable of forming opinions, and doubtless could maintain them publicly, and that, too, without outraging any of the decencies of hu- 46 WILL WOMEN ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES OF EQUALITY? inanity or civilization. They need pursue none of those courses which brand some of our greatest men with indellible infamy. Their follies need never degenerate into vices, and their should be no reason why their moral tone must necessarily become so lowered and degraded as to disgust their fellow beings. By persevering unselfishness and devo­ tion they might accomplish their great mission of regeneration. There could never be any necessity for them to encourage license and disorder by making of themselves but poor copies of very bad originals. We are fully aware that this subject of female suffrage is not quite new, but it never lacks interest and can lose nothing in importance by being seriously discussed. Even the most prejudiced must admit that this claim is strongly defined and has been ably advocated. Its ad­ vancement is not prompted by a desire for the triumph of any particu­ lar political party, but simply as a means of elevating women and of immeasurably improving their condition. It remains then for the pioneers in reform to crown the edifice of political liberty by accord­ ing to the importunate ones those social rights and the legal status which they claim. Having conscientiously considered the desirability of feminine voters, let men at once inaugurate the revolution so earnestly demanded. It can but be productive of good results. ■ WHO ARE REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN? WHO ARE GREAT WOMEN?—ONE SCALE OF JUSTICE FOR MEN AND ANOTHER FOR WOMEN—POLITICAL EQUALITY THE REAL BASIS OF ALL OTHER KINDS OF EQUALITY. We ask this question, with the view to bring the minds of the people of the present to a calm consideration of what it is that constitutes representative women. We take it that the word representative means the best representatives of her sex in all general things; and that best, means those who accomplish the most for individual and general good. Napoleon once replied, that she is the greatest woman who bears the most children. We take it that a woman may be very great in this sense and still be very small in all general senses. Even in this special respect the woman who bears the greatest number of children cannot be considered the greatest woman. But if we add a modifying clause and say, that she is the greatest woman who bears the largest number of the most perfect children, we should come much nearer expressing the true greatness of woman, in this special sense, than Napoleon did. ’Tis true that the special and distinctive feature of woman, is that of bearing children, and that upon the exercise of her functions in this regard the perpetuity of the race depends. It is also true that those who pass through life, failing in this special feature of their mission, cannot be said to have lived to the best purposes of woman’s life. But while maternity should always be considered the most holy of all the functions woman is capable of, it should not be lost sight of, in devo­ tion to this, that there are as various spheres of usefulness outside of it, for woman, as there are for men outside of the marriage relation. If the same line and process of reasoning is allowed outside of the 48 WHO ARE REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN? marriage relations that obtains within, then it is obvious that woman has an equal mission with man, in all things which go to make up a useful and a profitable life. Unless woman is an inferior being in the scale of creation to man, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that she is his equal in all that pertains to life, and that any assumption of superiority over her, by man, is as purely tyrannical and arbitrary as assumption of authority by man over man is. The denial of equality then, in any sphere of" life, to woman by man, irremediably stamps him as the tyrant io the extent of such denial, and equally stamps her as the slave to the same extent. We hold it to be an undeniable and incontrovertible proposi­ tion that all the special ills which woman is the victim of, as distin­ guished from man, are the result of withholding from her—the denial to her—of equality in all respects. Why is there one scale of justice in which prostitution is weighed and its representatives condemned, and scales of an entirely different bal­ ance in which licentiousness is weighed and its representatives judged? It is because the inferiority of woman in the scale of independence makes her subservient to the conditions, that she may thereby obtain what man, by his superior and self-assumed position, can obtain by different methods. She is the slave of the conditions man imposes upon her; and this is true, though perhaps in a less degree, of very many who are not in the above condition. What proportion of mar­ riages are marriages of convenience; and what proportion of married life only differs from prostitution, by having the consent and approval of law, which can neither produce nor maintain that l&w, which should alonb be the basis of all marriage. Why are not men prostitutes ; and why do they not live upon the sale of themselves as women do ? It is because the demand for money is from the other side.; Were men in the forced condition of inferiority women are, prostitution would be reversed, and men would become the prostitutes and women the re­ spected libertines, whom no contact with man could so defile, but that they would be received and acknowledged in the best society, and she who had ruined the most men would be the special favorite among the inferior sex. Political equality is the equality that woman lacks,’ the having of which will remove all those special deficiencies that place her at the foot of the scale of importance. When those who have gained inde­ pendence enough, and have solved the problem of inequality, come out and demand for themselves and their sex, the right to determine HO ARE REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN? 49 their own conditions, and for it are called all the abusive names oppo­ sers can rally and fling at them, it is but natural that these should be hurled back in the teeth of their progenitors with- a vehemence which conscious equality must feel. Who shall speak for her who demands the right of suffrage and say that she is not a “good woman and true ? ” Such representatives of fossilized humanity ought to be well preserved, that coming generations might look upon them and wonder that they could have existed in the latter part of the nineteenth century. But when we are reminded, even as jocose illustration, that there are peo­ ple in certain remote counties still regularly voting for Andrew Jack­ son for President, we should not be utterly lost in amazement at the arrogance and ignorance which denounces the woman as base and false who makes political speeches and desires to vote. It seems, then, that the wanting of the power to control their own conditions, equally with man, is the want in which all the ills of the sex, as contradistinguished from the ills of man, germinate and flour­ ish ; and that woman can never arise to a plane of equality in any­ thing until this determining power is accorded to by those who, for purely selfish motives, now withhold it to themselves, and make use of the power thus arbitrarily possessed. This is the root of the evil, and they are “ the representative women ” of the day and age who boldly face the opposing hosts and lay the axe to the root with a re­ lentless persistence. 4 THE MR. TEMPLES OF SOCIETY. PUTTY WOMEN} OR WOMEN AS IS WOMEN, WHICH? — SHALL WIVES BE INDIVIDUALS OR MERE PUPPETS?—SENSIBLE ADVICE—WHAT IS EXPECTED OF WOMEN. The Evening Telegram of the 12th inst contains the following : Feminine Women.—“ I think, if I marry,” said Mr. Temple, glancing across at Florence, “ I shall educate my future wife to suit my requirements. I like a feminine woman, and in our day when the gen­ tler sex compete for honors at our universities, and what not, it is time for men who want wives in the old sense of the word, to have a school of their own in which to educate them. Only a few days ago, I read of single, married and widow ladies having taken degrees. I grant there are some men who might like to marry a female M. D., but I am not among the number, for I believe we have round comers which need planing and polishing; and I hold that a woman’s tenderness and gentleness is the greatest safety a man has, and therefore I do not wish her to lose her identity in Gradgrind study. Let her be well-read by all means, but eschew competition with men. Only imagine a husband and wife going up to the counting-house bent on the same business 1 We have hardness enough to deal with daily. Why should women be edu­ cated in the same rough school? Give me, rather, a womanly wife, who would be one with me in all my pursuits; who would sympathize with me in all my difficulties; who would cheer me with her honest advice; and who would beguile me from money-making by her affection; and not a manly woman, who would bore me with argument, weary me with her politics, or boast of her degree. Just so, Mr. Temple; you are in the same fix in which all those men are who desire to dominate over and compel women to be what they wish, instead of what they would otherwise be. That is just THE MR. TEMPLES OF SOCIETY. 51 what we have been endeavoring to convince you of all this time; and now you have unwittingly exposed your true colors, and have admitted the fb.ll truth of all we have claimed, regarding the determination of man to release no part of the power he now possesses over woman, to compel her- to his conditions on the one hand, and, on the other, to question their right to determine anything for themselves. If what women shall make of themselves when they shall have the opportunity of choosing does not happen to suit such as you, Mr. Temple, they will not only have the infinite satisfaction of being satisfied with them­ selves, but also of being able to provide for themselves, even if you will not condescend to marry and support them; and this, too, without being forced to the only resort unprepared women have when man fails them—to prostitution. “ I shall educate my future wife to suit my requirements.” Just so, again, Mr. Temple; and this it is your right to do, if you can find so simple and weak a tool as to submit to such degradation; far be it from us to question your right to any such woman; no doubt your practices will require just such submission on the part of a wife as such willingness would imply. You want a woman “ moulded ” to your de­ sires. But how about your suiting her requirements; or has she no voice, no right in the matter ? Is she the thing to be picked out and used, with no reservation on her part of individual rights ? Are all women to forever quietly submit to being made the docile, tractable persons your requirements indicate; or so appear to be, because they know what your requirements are? The greatest lengths of deception are practiced by women upon those who require such sur­ render of selfhood and womanhood, and such descent into nonentity as to submit to all your caprices, whims and passions without any choice of their own. It may be that a large majority of women are content to forever remain “ putty women,” to be moulded to suit the tastes of men, but there happen to be just a few, Mr. Temple, who have individuality enough to know what they desire for themselves, a little better than you can inform them, and, withal, who have strength of purpose enough to accomplish it, even if when accomplished they shall know they will not suit the requirements of the Mr. Temples of society, who will only have for wives such as can and will bend themselves, in the very meek submission that their “requirements” demand, and who cannot endure to be “ bored ” with women who are capable of argument, nor wearied with those to whom politics are possible, nor humiliated by those who 52 THE MR. TEMPLES OF SOCIETY. have attained “ degrees ” worthy of pride, and which may, by the faint­ est possibility, outshine your own. The harems of the Turks, and tne multiplicity of Mormon wives, are held in professed contempt and abhorrence by the Mr. Temples and their “ requirements; ” but to our mind a more disgusting, humiliating and acquiescent servility cannot be imagined than is required by the above formula for wifely preparation. The Mr. Temples, however, are either grossly ignorant, very blind, or unpardonably forgetful, when they imagine that they have so thoroughly subjugated an independent mind, that it cannot think outside of them, nor see outside of their limit of vision. Every mind, when neither profitably, pleasantly nor honestly employed, is employed in directions to which these adverbs cannot be applied. You do not stop to think that theperson, whom you suppose embodies all your requirements, may possibly have a touch of self-pride still left, that will show itself when not overwhelmed by the majesty of your presence, and upon objects not mentioned in your well-selected list of requirements. It may be that when you think these are all met, she may be capable of others not set down, and and which she may not practice, except when from under vour direct surveillance. Do you flatter yourselves that your wives, whom you have educated to suit you, devote all the time of your absence to the duties of family and home, especially when you are so very liberal as to supply them with nurses to take the children off their hands and servants for all work ? Do you ever even think how their leisure time is employed, and for what purposes ? In your overweening self-importance they find the very means of deceiving you. You think they are subjugated to you, whjle in reality they seek every possible opportunity to demonstrate to everybody else that they are perfectly free, and thus you are duped, while laboring under the very pleasing illusion that you have a verita­ ble slave to your requirements. And these are the conditions you force upon those whom you make your wives, because, forsooth, they must be wives, lacking as they do the necessary accomplishments to be individuals. Now we will, by your permission, gentlemen Temples, suggest that it would be far better for you in the end to possess yourselves of a little common sense, even if you are thereby obliged to part with a portion of your self-complacent importance; and also that you would permit those whom you make your companions to possess a little com­ mon sense of their own, if in some things it does not exactly fill your THE MR. TEMPLES OF SOCIETY. 53 requirements. No certain happiness is possible in marriage unless two individuals meet, who, while being two distinct individuals, are so con­ stituted as to be in their constitutions, naturally, the husband and the wife to each other. When this principle of marriage is practiced and admitted, and is acknowledged to be the real bond of marriage, in the place of the present required ceremony that now constitutes it, there will be fewer McFarland cases to disturb the harmony and shock the sensibilities of the truly refined of society. The legal requirements are perfectly proper and right, always supposing that the deeper and truer first exist If these are lacking, were the legal bonds a thousand times stronger than they are, they would be constantly sundered by those whom they hold against their will. No, Mr. Temple, if you would have good wives and true, you must permit them to be first good and true to themselves; you may then expect them to be so to you. True charity, as well as all other virtues and graces of mind and spirit, begin at home. And why should woman “ eschew competition with man ? ” Does she become defiled thereby, or does she trespass upon some self-assumed right he has ? And are you really the harder person and the rougher, because you habituate your counting-rooms ? If so, it is time your wives should accompany you there. If not, why should they become so by going there with you ? How can she be “ one with you in all your pursuits how can she “ sympathize with you in your difficulties,” give you hon­ est advice,” if she is not practiced in the things that you “ pursue,” “ have difficulty in,” and require “ advice ” upon ? Such shilly shally as this stuff and nonsense is, could only be born of a mind that regards woman as a thing, given to him simply for his own comfort and gratifi­ cation, and not as his friend and ambitious equal, entitled to all the rights’decreed her by character, ability and inviduality. EQUALITY A NECESSITY, THE SCHOOL OF DECEPTION—THE OBJECT OF FEMALE ITS HAPPY RESULTS—WHO ARE AT FAULT—SHALL EDUCATION— SUCH PRAC­ TICES CONTINUE? Women, as a general thing, are held by men in a state of semi-in­ dividuality. While they admit that, as personalities, they are different from themselves, yet as determinate characters they propose to ignore them, and to count them as but attachments to themselves. They con­ tend that it takes two, a male and a female, to make a complete one, reserving to themselves all the power of determining what these two in one shall be. The female position being an utter negative in all that goes to*make up the external affairs of the world, it follows that women bear about the same relation to the world, when compared with man, that the moon does when compared with the sun, that is to say, they shine when men will permit them. We would not charge that men are entirely at fault for the unim­ portant position which women occupy in the world ; much of the error is their own ; they are not all of them willing to take upon themselves the burden of becoming individuals; very many of them are content to be simple automatons, to move only at the option of their controlling master, to whom they have surrendered all selfhood, to the full extent of body and souL It is to meet the requirements of this demand upon them gracefully, becomingly, bewitchingly, that all their education is modified and directed to. Almost the first thing a girl is taught is, that she must not soil her hands, nor spread her hands or feet, because that would make her ugly EQUALITY A NECESSITY. 55 in the eyes of men, whom it is made her first duty to study to please. All the way up from girlhood to maidenhood and to womanhood, the same kind of precept is constantly instilled into her receptive mind. All her studies are accomplishments rather than what can be reduced to use for practical ends. The single practical end girls are made acquainted with is how to catch a husband—who shall be the best “ catch.” Oh, the ignoble things that are instilled into the beautiful, fresh and innocent souls of our maidens ! It is enough to make the angel world weep showers of tears. External adornments is placed so far above that of interior beauty and wealth that the mind and the soul are almost ignored. Of what consequence is it to our modern belles whether they are truthful, honest and earnest, so that they are beautiful and accom­ plished? Their whole lives are devoted to falsifying their natural selves. From head to toe they are a living lie. When they lack hair, they overload their heads with that which is false to such an extent that they become hideous in the sight of the true devotee to nature and art. Art consists in making nature more beautiful, not in compelling contor­ tions ; and if the heaps of stuff worn by ladies to adorn their heads and to carry the idea to men that they are possessed of a magnificent quan­ tity of hair, are not contortions or abortions of the designs of nature, we are at a loss to know what may be so designated. Next in order are their faces, which, lacking Nature’s bloom of youth, they resort to “ Laird’s but the attempt at deception is equally as apparent as in the case of the hair, and equally as destructive to the little natural beauty possessed as the resort to false hair is to the natural Thus far the attempts at de­ ception may be forgiven, for they are transparent frauds; but other practices that are resorted to are not thus entitled, because the extent of the deception practiced cannot be known so long as there is any ne­ cessity in its practice. And here the question naturally arises, For what purpose do ladies wear stuffed corsets ? For what purpose do they pad their hips and calves, if it is not to appear more voluptuous and more enticing to the passions of men—which is the result pro­ duced ? This is the effect, and they know it is the effect, and it can be for no other purpose that they practice it. None can suppose that because a woman appears to be possessed of a beautifully developed form that that will make her intellectual ac­ quirements or beauties of soul more prominent On the contrary, such a person appeals directly to the animal instincts of the opposite sex. We would not have it understood that we deprecate physical beauty, 56 EQUALITY A NECESSITY. but, on the contrary, we would have it distinctly accepted as one of the best gifts of G-od to the human family; and further would we dis­ tinctly assert that the highest degree of spiritual and intellectual beauty possible to be attained by human beings, is so possible only in that form which is the highest type of physical beauty. What we do dep­ recate, and what we proclaim against, is the false pretence, the appear­ ing to possess it when it is painfully lacking. It is this deception so widely practiced that contributes one-half to the unhappiness of married life. It has become so general that men are beginning to fear women when regarding the marriage state. When they marry, they do not know whether they are marrying natural development or that which is basely artificial and deceptive, and they too often awake to find the latter to be the truth. The case stands thus: Women dress to make themselves appear attractive to men: marriage with them is the one and only thing they are educated to; hence, this attractiveness with them has a first and second intention—first, to appear generally attractive to the other sex as a whole, and thereby to gain general admiration; second, that each woman may be able to be especially attractive to him whom she shall decide to allow the opportunity of wooing her. By these artificial means she is assisted to win the man whom she consents to become at­ tached to. Thus far the matter progresses finely; but how about the sequel! Those of you who have gained husbands thus must expect to lose them after the same fashion, by the charms of some other than yourselves; and we assert that you deserve to thus lose them, or to be subjected to some other righteous judgment. It is scarcely to be wondered that so many men regard with a su­ preme contempt women who assert privileges beyond those included in a genuine wifely subjection. They know that women generally are born, grow up, and. are educated with the one idea of becoming the wife of somebody who shall be able to take care of her physical needs. Why should they not affect and really feel disdain when some woman stands gloriously forth as independent and free—as entirely above depending upon anybody for anything; and competent to choose for herself whom she shall marry, or whether she will marry at all, and determined never to be under the necessity of so doing if her preferences shall decide other­ wise. Men may affect to think, and they may really think, they love a wo­ man who is “ moulded to their requirements; ” but when they come in contact with one of nature’s noblewomen, an admiration will be drawn EQUALITY A NECESSITY. 57 from them which they cannot control, and which is, as a general thing, utterly destructive to any attachment previously possessed for the “ pretty woman,” who bows in wifely submission to her husband’s supreme con­ trol. We, therefore, contend that there can be no true and securely last­ ing and natural attachment between the sexes in the marriage state that is not based in truth, in nature and in perfect equality of condition pre­ vious to its being entered upon. The sooner women awake to the con­ sciousness of the truth about this matter of false pretences, and come to the resolution to stand or fall upon their true merits or demerits, so much the sooner will they cease to enter upon miserable and unprofita­ ble lives. If you would be wise, be true to yourselves and speak truth to man with both your tongue and form. To deceive with the latter is as much a lie as to speak untruth with the former. ARE WOMEN INDIVIDUALS, OR ARE THEY PERSONAL NONENTITIES? CONDITION OF WOMEN UNDER THE MENT, POLITICALLY, SOCIALLY, DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERN­ INTELLECTUALLY—INEQUALITY MEANS INFERIORITY—THE INCONSIDERATENESS OF WOMEN—INDI­ VIDUALITY FOR ALL. In surveying the situation occupied by woman, it is not surprising that this query should arise in the minds of those who observe realities rather than the glittering appearances, by which things are often shrouded by those who desire that realities should not become apparent. We do not believe that many women realize the whole truth regarding themselves. Aside from a certain degree of moral power possessed in some quarters, there never were representatives of humanity more com­ pletely subjugated than are the women of countries that profess to be republican. They are in precisely the same condition of those men who, by some overt act, have lost their citizenship. We challenge you who say us nay to show that this is not the case. In countries despotic and monarchical there is not that vast difference of condition between the sexes that exists in republics. Women there come nearer possess­ ing an equality of political power, as it is not under all constitutional and limited monarchies that all men have a political voice. Under other forms of government the women are still more nearly equal, for in many countries voting is unknown. Do women ever stop to consider that under republican forms of government, as distinguished from monarchies, the privileges of men generally are vastly augmented and those of women remain unchanged ? Do they always desire to re- ARE WOMEN INDIVIDUALS OR POLITICAL NONENTITIES? 59 main in this dormant condition regarding their privileges? It is not merely political privileges that women voluntarily forego. In the domain of commerce and finance they have, like the serfs of Russia, to some extent, made inroads; but these exceptional cases are those where women have been obliged to resort to them, because thrown upon their own resources; or because they have had no master to determine for them that they should not take such steps. Intellectually, also, women have exhibited some brilliant examples of individuality ; so, too, have they done in all ages; but here even they lack that positive power which always proceeds from a consciousness of superiority of condition. Socially, the instances of individuality are always those of ignominy, and the individuals are made a curse and blight of society. They do not receive the consideration of “ neighbors ” at their hands. But for all these inequalities there is a prime inequality which conduces directly to them, and this is political inequality, or the ab­ sence of the female element in the control of those things upon which all others hinge, and by which all others, to a very considerable extent, are determined. Political inequality is a direct admission of inferiority on the part of those subjected to it, and a direct assertion of inferiority on the part of those who prohibit equality. All inequalities are the direct result of a lack of individuality, and a lack of individuality is the result of our system of educating the young. To become individualized presupposes being independent, self-re­ liant and self-supporting. This is individuality. All individuals, therefore, must have a direct interest in the rules and regulations under which they shall be compelled to be self-reliant While women depend upon men to provide for all their pecuniary interests, individuality is a thing of little importance, and those women who have never known what it is to earn the supply of their daily wants, can well say that they forego political equality, and consider every woman who demands it as “ strong-minded ” and almost masculine. But let revolution come ; let these dependent women be thrown upon their own resources, and their convictions would soon change. They would not only demand that legislation should be somewhat in their interests, but they would also demand an equal right to form a part of legislation. * We would ask, then, what is the objection to extending the politi­ cal rights possessed by man to such women as are similarly conditioned to men; to those who are independent and who have an equal interest with man in the laws under the operations of which they must provide for themselves. 60 ARE WOMEN INDIVIDUALS OR POLITICAL NONENTITIES? If Congress deny to women generally the privilege of suffrage, upon the plea that women generally are averse to it, let them grant it to women who demand it, and whose conditions warrant the demand being made. Place women upon the same footing with men, when they occupy similar positions, and are similarly conditioned. Surely this measure of justice cannot be denied by the most conservative men, nor ridiculed by the most “ sensible” feminine women, unless, forsooth, there is a determination on the part of men to hold women in continu­ ous vassalage, and on the part of the majority of women to willingly submit to being vassals. There is,- however, one tendency in the human family which neither “conservative” men nor “feminine” women can prevent, by any of their fondness for old customs and things—that is, Individuality; and it is this characteristic in women, as well as in men, that will not only demand, but obtain all the common privileges for themselves that are enjoyed by any individuals under the same government Suffrage may be denied a little longer to women who demand it, but equality, as applied to both sexes, must and will obtain in all departments of life; in those of duty as in those of privilege. IMPORTANCE OF THE WOMEN QUESTION. A QUESTION OF HUMANITY—FEAR OF THE TRUTH DAPARTING---- STRONG-MINDED WO MEN'AND WEAK-MINDED MEN—SUFFRAGE ONLY THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT—THE ULTIMATE PERFECTION OF THE RACE DEPENDENT UPON THE FREEDOM OF WOMEN AND HER INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO HERSELF—FALSE PRETENCES OF THE OPPONENTS OF SUFFRAGE — THEY UNDERSTAND THE REAL QUES­ TION AT ISSUE—THE POSITIONS OF THE SEXES IN THEIR RELA­ TIONS TO EACH OTHER TO BE TRANSPOSED. i There is no single question which is agitating the public mind that possesses the magnitude and the importance of the so-called “Woman Question.” We cannot coincide in the appropriateness of this title; instead of being thus called, it should much more properly be called The Question of Humanity. It has heretofore been very gener­ ally overlooked that woman has fully as great responsibilities to per­ form, and those that have fully as great influence upon humanity as man. It is beginning to be possible for the very few who appreciate this fact to be heard, without receiving the slush of all the opproprious epithets a filthy world has at its command to daub with. Until quite recently, it was sufficient to condemn a woman to know that she was “ strong-minded,” and equally sufficient to damn a man, to know that he was weak-minded enough to sympathize with such strong-mindedness, not to go so far as to advocate it It is astonishing to see how much better people understand, appreciate and adopt truths, when they are presented by those who occupy an unquestionable position 62 IMPORTANCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. in society. So evident is this sometimes, that it has very much the appearance that it is the person and not the truth which is adopted. Still, when we take a more comprehensive view of mankind, we have reason for a better hope for individuals, and that each will weigh, and discard or accept, whatever is presented them, upon its merits, and their con­ ception of them’, without regard to the channel through which it shall come. That the Woman Question is the question of humanity may be a somewhat new and novel idea to many, if not to most, minds. To con sider it as such, however, raises it far above the simple question of suf­ frage ; indeed, suffrage is that portion of it that shall open up the real question for consideration, and not only open it, but will force all others into being considered. And it is this undefined portion of the involve­ ment that brings down upon the cause such general and sweeping de­ nunciation from that portion of men who are constitutionally predis­ posed to advancement, and to the extension of liberty and equality to those over whom they have control. We have heretofore shown that the women of this country are possessed of less proportionate rights and privileges than those of any country not republican: that is to say, that while the men have greatly advanced their own privileges, they have assumed for themselves the same position occupied by the despots of the world—that of determining the condition of all those under them. Women have remained stationary. It practically amounts to to this, and to nothing less. It may be said that women now have vast power and influence. Granted, in individual cases; but they would still remain possessed of this power and influence were their further natural rights and privileges extended them, whereby they would become still more potent. Nor can this fuss about the moral power of the sex much longer divert its atten­ tion from the fact that it is despoiled of all material power. The ac­ quisition of political power cannot be construed to mean loss of moral or social power, or purity. If this is an argument against female suf­ frage, it is equally a plausible one against male suffrage. This hum­ buggery about the distinctions of sex in political considerations has lasted just about long enough. If suffrage is good for men, it is also good for women, upon the same rule ; and if it is the part of despot­ ism to deny men the right of governing themselves, and if they that do so deny them, are despots and tyrants, so, too, are they who deny to women the right to govern themselves despots and tyrants, upon the same rule. When Ihe Congress of the United States refuses to extend IMPORTANCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. 63 the privilege of suffrage to women when asked for it, they are only re-enacting the part played by those who desired to hold our forefathers in subjection by the same withholding of privilege. But, as we have said, this part of the Woman Question is simply the entering-wedge that shall open the more important parts of it Upon women, as the mothers of society, devolve the great task of perfecting the race. If the millennium ever come—and we have the most perfect faith that it will—it must come through the mothers of humanity. Millennium presupposes humanity arrived at such a degree of development as to admit of the operation of perfect laws, based on those principles that will apply during all times, to all people, in all nations. So long as women are the mere slaves of men, forced by the laws of marriage to submit their bodies to them, whenever and wher­ ever they may so determine, and by thus being subjected are still further and more barbarously forced to become the unwilling mothers of unwished-for children, so long will the millennium days be delayed. In other words, so long as women are forced to prostitute themselves by law, just so long will the sex remain in a degraded and undeveloped condition, and be utterly incapable of producing children of healthy minds and bodies. The mothers of humanity are treated in the matter of maternity more like brutes than humans; while the n^others of brutes are treated more like human beings than brutes. The offspring of brutes are the subjects of much greater consideration, in all senses of the term, than the offspring of humanity are; and it is just here and nowhere else, that the main part of the Woman Question begins, for it is here that the perfecting process of the race must begin, and therefore this is the real point at issue. As we said, it is the undefined consciousness of this in the hearts of men that causes them to treat the initiatory step of suffrage with such affected contempt; they do not care so much for what the future of humanity may be, as they do for the retention of the power they now possess over women. It is all bosh and nonsense for men to continue the delusion, that to introduce women into politics is to debase her. If politics are really so damned and debased as to corrupt all who have anything to do with them, it is 'quite time that it should be so known, and quite time that women should force themselves into politics, for the purpose of expos­ ing their actual condition. We are perfectly aware of the festering and rotton conditions that exist, and that the process of sloughing must soon begin; we know that money is the power that controls the suf­ 64 IMPORTANCE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. frage of many men at all elections, and, for this special reason, we de­ sire the suffrages of women whom money will not buy. The positions assumed by men in denying suffrage to women are the advanced redoubts, guarding the way to and protecting the main citadel, which they desire to remain wholly in their control; these once gained, they know that the citadel is no longer safe; while we protest that the gaining of the outer works are merely for the purpose of mak­ ing sure of the surrender of the citadel within, the command of which, women are determined upon having, as a matter of right and justice to the sex. The Woman Question, then, rises high above the simple question of political privilege to that of what shall determine the future condi­ tion of the race; hence the suffrage privilege is regarded by those who comprehend it, as was before stated, simply as the entering-wedge, that shall open the main questions, and reveal their real and general im­ portance, not simply to women as a sex, but to humanity as a whole. When women who have heretofore refrained from the woman move­ ment shall be brought to this understanding, they will no longer remain in the passive and acquiescent state they now occupy. Being conscious of their real importance to the future of the world, they will gain just so much the more dignity, as that position presupposes over that they now occupy, as the simple attachments to men. Men under the new regime will become the companions of women instead, and will receive it as a special favor if so permitted to be. And this is the ultimate of the Woman Question. THE RAPID SPREAD OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. ITS EXTENT UNAPPRECIATED—EVIDENCES—THE LEAVEN THAT IS LEAVENING THE WHOLE LUMP—PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATION—THE NEXT MEN GENERAL TO ELECTIONS—WOMAN’S DEMAND DUTY—ONE POLITICAL EQUALITY MILLION WO­ FROM CONGRESS—WILL CONGRESS IGNORE THEM—ARE WOMEN IN EARNEST? Very few people comprehend the real extent of the Woman Ques­ tion. It is very young in years still, but its strength and growth are not to be measured by its age; that must be judged from other rules. It is, however, true, that for a long time after the question was mooted as one that was to agitate the sentiment of the country, it made but little perceptible progress. There were but a few brave persons who would proclaim what they conceived to be the right and the justice of the points involved. A very great number of persons, who received the new doctrine, harbored it secretly in their minds against the time they were confident it could and would be broadly proclaimed, and in being so would not necessarily injure the reputation of its advocates, nor commit them to the ban of society as dangerous members of it. One of the best evidences that the time draws near when justice shall know no distinctions of sex is, that where once obloquy attached to the advocacy of “ the question ” the deepest respect is now com­ manded from all, by its earnest advocates. There are but a very few of the best newspapers that attempt to burlesque it any longer; they treat it as one of the open questions of the day, which, for such 5 66 THE RAPID SPREAD OF THE WOMAN QUESTION, constitutional devotees to the popular side of all new questions as they are, is wonderfully refreshing. Even the unreasonable dogmatism of some of the so-called Christians is becoming “ leavened,’’ and the signs are promising and numerous, that the little “ leaven ” years ago added to the lump of humanity is rapidly progressing in its work, throughout all its strata and ramifications. Certain it is, that, where five years ago one paper in a hundred only, contained something about the progress of the Woman Question, now only one in a hundred can be found that has not a very considera­ ble space devoted to it; and this has only become true to this extent within the present year. This fact is attributable to a variety of causes, but specially to two causes. Since the settlement of the slavery question and the virtual recon­ struction of the country, the radical sentiment of the country that be­ fore expended itself in that direction, has found vent upon this question, which is the next great question of universal justice that comes up for consideration and adjustment Again, it was not until quite recently that women made any prac­ tical application of what had been previously asserted, that they were competent to do whatever man could do, subject only to the limitations of nature, function and constitution. Since women first began to show their capacity for individuality, they have done it in such faint and unobtrusive ways that no impression was made by it upon the public mind. The result of all their dress-making, fancy store-keeping, school, teaching, &c., &c., did not amount to sufficient moral force to carry any considerable weight of conviction home to the hearts of practical men. ' But now that women boldly advance into the heat and strife of active business life, and show themselves competent to coippetc with the shrewdest and most experienced men, and also show an administrative capacity equal to all emergencies in all directions, the heretofore mat­ ter-of-fact business men begin to open their eyes in amazement and astonishment. Some have already recovered sufficiently from this con­ dition, to question, whether they have not been doing themselves as well as women an irreparable wrong, by denying them the rights and privileges of a perfect equality. Some even exclaim in the most ex­ travagant terms of admiration regarding capacity, when exhibited by woman, and with the utmost readiness and gallantry withdraw all op­ position, saying it is not for me to say any longer what shall be the limits that woman ” shall be confined to. THE RAPID SPREAD OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. 67 Talk, fuss and confusion, which is pretty nearly the amount of progress attained by the majority of women advocates, was all very well, and led the way to what should follow; but it required repre­ sentatives, who could do something more than this, and those who have demonstrated the practical side of the Woman Question are the ones that have wrought the recent remarkable change in the treatment of the subject, at the hands of the press and public generally. In other words, one ounce of practice has done more than all theoretical teach­ ing, though the teaching necessarily preceded the practice. Even the demonstration that women are equal to the severest tests of business was not sufficient to accomplish all this, but when it was also demonstrated that women, politically, philosophically and scientifi­ cally, could be, and were, the equals of men, which capacities were deemed entirely lacking in the sex, then the last possible objection was removed, and the sex in reality was lifted at once into the realm of pos­ sibilities common with man. What is now the practical lesson of this result ? It is this: that every woman should mark out for herself some distinct course to pur­ sue, which shall not only be an exemplification of her individual rights and capabilities, but also her contribution to the sum total of efforts and possibilities of the sex. Women will never be lifted from their present positions of inferiority by man ; they must rise from them them­ selves, and boldly—defiantly if need be—advance, capture and maintain positions of equality. If the capacity to do this is once seen, men will not stand in your way long. If they do they will not be able to resist the general uprising the present decade will witness. In*the coming elections the women should be in the field, and for all important offices should have their candidates, and should advocate their election by all possible means. This will, at least, convince those, still stubborn, that we are in earnest, which would be a good way to­ ward ultimate victory. We need not fear that the small results will injure the cause. The Abolition party, which grew into the grand, mighty and magnificent Republican party, was once so small that it numbered but one advocate. In twenty years that one advocate made it the mightiest power that has yet existed on the face of the Western Hemisphere. If such results grew from so small a beginning in so short a space of time, what may we not expect for the woman movement in this still later and more rapidly progressive day ! After the next general State elections in the country, let it be pos­ sible for us to show to the Congress of the United States that there are 68 THE RAPID SPREAD OF THE WOMAN QUESTION. 1,000,000 earnest and untiring women demanding the right and privi­ lege of suffrage. Then let Congress ignore the question if it dare. This is eminently a practical age, and men require demonstration. This once obtained, the adoption of the thing demonstrated is only a ques­ tion of time. Women have been most persistently impractical, and for this reason: the claims of the few who have been bold enough to make them, for an equalty in all things with man, have been laughed at, as having been made in jest. Let it be no longer possible for this shaft to be hurled against us. Let us convince all men that we are fear fully in earnest, and, if it need be, do this in a quarter that will bring them to a perception and consciousness that we mean it. We have the power; let it no longer be wasted in obtaining favor, but applied in demanding equality—first, from gallantry; second, as of right, when gallantry fails. Thousands of women know their power; let these same thousands use it for different purposes, and for the benefit of a suffering humanity, in unloosing the chains that bind woman, and thus make her, individually, her own free self ONE OF THE MAIN ISSUES OF THE COMING CANVASS. OLD PARTIES WITH NEW ISSUES — PRINCIPLE THE INSPIRATION OF ALL PARTIES — WHICH PARTY SHALL CHAMPION EQUALITY FOR WOMEN?—THE QUESTION CANNOT BE IGNORED—IT MUST BE MET AND SETTLED. It is getting to be pretty generally conceded by the best judges of political tendencies, that all the special issues that have divided political parties during the past few years are now dead, and that the parties representative of them are defunct. All the various general questions of finance, revenue, tariff and general home and foreign policies, form no dividing lines; they are held pro and con, promiscuously, by both Dem­ ocrats and Republicans. All the leading questions that developed the Republican party, and upon which the war was fought, are forever dis­ posed of, while the Democratic party that was its opponent was com­ posed quite as much from the old Whig party as from the Democratic party that existed previously. It will be seen, then, that though the same terms or names remain, the individuals that form the component parts of the parties are contin­ ually changing; thus, those who were once Whigs have since been Democrats, while those who are Republicans were once both Democrats and Whigs. It is quite possible that the names Democrat and Repub­ lican may extend into future politics, but it is still mord certain that they will never be represented by the same persons nor representative of the same issues. It is more probable, however, that one of these party names will disappear as the Whig did, and its members be dis­ tributed among the remaining and the new. 70 ONE OF THE MAIN ISSUES OF THE COMING CANVASS. When the Republican party based itself upon the Slavery Ques­ tion, that question was fully as unpopular as the Woman Question now is, nevertheless it flourished upon it, and attained a power and influence never attained by any previous party. The Woman Question will be one of the principal questions that will divide the general mind previ­ ous to the close of the next Presidential canvass, and will be adopted by one or the other of the parties that contests that election. It would not be wise nor politic for the citizens of the United States who are en­ titled to suffrage, to form a party upon the distinct issue of female suf­ frage. The real .strength of such a party could not be made felt, and such efforts would be wasted; but they who are favorable to such suffrage being extended, must become incorporated with a party, and thereby shape its movements favorably to it It properly belongs with the new labor party, and the question is more likely to find general favor there than in either the Democratic or Republican parties, provid­ ing they should both survive. When it comes that one of the great political parties becomes the advocate of female equality, the other will naturally be opposed to it; then, and not till then, will it be known how diffusively the question has taken root in the popular mind. Never having been in position to divide the sympathies of the people, there have been no means of know­ ing their real sentiment Besides, when even an unpopular question is brought prominently before the public, if based in justice it will constantly gain strength by being agitated. Thus, before the South at­ tempted to compel the North into acceptance of their theory of States Rights regarding slavery, very many who were at heart opposed to the principle of slavery, had never taken sides, and never would have, so long as the South remained satisfied with what it had; the moment that they desired slavery to become virtually national, the whole people sided either for or against it, and thus precipitated the dread issue that followed. If negro slavery were wrong in principle and altogether behind the age, how much more so should present female inequalities be consid­ ered—surely you would not deny woman a privilege you have extended to the negro ? The growing requirements of women to be able to be independent, self-reliant and self-supporting, make it an absolute neces­ sity for her to have her influence over the legislation that is to govern the circumstances under which she must be so. It is this plain state­ ment of the case that makes it evident to all thoughtful and sensible men, that women must know what they desire better than they do or ONE OF THE MAIN ISSUES OF THE COMING CANVASS. 71 can for them. Even if men were to grant women all the legislation in her behalf that she herself would enact were she admitted to legisla­ tion, that would not suffice. No man would like to surrender his right to suffrage, even if he knew legislation would be just the same. It is not a question, in the first instance, of benefit; it is a simple question of right; and if it is good for men to vote, why should it not be better for women, who have more need of special protection in the time com­ ing, when she is to be thrown more and more upon herself, in all things regarding life, liberty and happiness ? This being, then, a question of principle that has been raised, it will never be possible to crush it out; it will continue to spread and to attract attention until the principle is acceded to on the part of those who now are either opposed or indifferent to it The Negro Question vitalized the- Republican Party, because there was a principle involved in it; so, too, will the Woman Question vitalize the party that shall become its champion. If the Republican party did a great service to the cause of general civilization, the party that shall lift the banner of female freedom and equality will do it a much greater service. Negro slavery involved a few millions of individuals. The Woman Question involves hundreds of millions scattered all over the face of the earth. It is meet that the country which was almost the last to abjure slavery should be the first to enfranchise woman. We lost much prestige by clinging to slavery; let us gain what we lost by boldly meeting and settling this newer, greater and graver question, which other nations have scarcely begun to talk about; that they have not is not strange, for there is not the degree of inequality attaching to woman in other countries that there is here. This question will be forced upon the attention of our next Con­ gress, and by being so will grow into one of immense impbrtance to the parties that shall contest future elections, if it does not in fact become the question upon which they will hinge. THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. ITS NECESSITY TO AROUSE WOMEN TO AN APPRECIATION OF THEM­ SELVES—FEMALE APATHY—ALL MOVEMENT, PROGRESS—THE APPLE OF EDEN—WOMAN’S AMBITION—WOMAN’S CONDITION ANALYZED— FREEDOM FOR WOMEN AS WELL AS FOR MEN—THE TRUE PRINCI­ PLE BEHIND THE SCENES—SUFFRAGE FIRST—INDEPENDENCE NEXT FREEDOM NEXT—NATURE OUR BEST TEACHER. Nothing is more astonishing to one who has gained her freedom than to regard the utter apathy with which women in general accept their condition. “Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise,” seems of almost universal application to the relations sustained by women to the world at large. Either this is so, or otherwise they, “having eyeg see not, and having ears hear not,” what immediately concerns their salvation. Salvation has but one signification to the people of earth since the explosion of the doctrine of a local hell of fire and brimstone which is paved ,with infants’ skulls. Salvation to man is just what growth—evolution—is to all the departments of the universe; it is going from lower to higher condi­ tions, or, strictly speaking, making a progress from one condition into and through new conditions, each one of which produces growth. Movement is progress and progress is growth; a condition once expe­ rienced can never be retrograded; it is an acquisition ; and in this view of the subject all movements are progressive, whether the acquisition seem beneficial or deleterious for the time. “ No punishment for the present seemeth joyous but grievous, but afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.” Thus it is with all acquisition of THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. 73 experience, whether that experience for the time seemeth “joyous ” or “ grievous J ” and this is the philosophy of life ; the science of growth; the religion of all nature. ’ While all nature bustles and hurries to improve its conditions and to change its relations, woman, specifically as woman, remains indiffer­ ent, apathetic and fixed; while all the human capacities are rapidly en­ larging ; while the human mind is constantly becoming broader and deeper, and capable of greater, sublimer, diviner things, woman rests content within her circumscribed limits of action. “Thus far shalt thou go and no further,” seems to her a line over whose limits she dare not break, lest the beyond shall lead to forbidden fruits, whose tasting shall as really damn man, as the eating of the apple by Eve has symbolically damned the race to this day. Under this accu­ sation about the apple, woman rests, with all the patience that could possibly belong to a conviction of its justice; through the absurdity of the narration as having actually occurred has been completely shown by the keen analysis of science, still the effects of its having so long been taught as fact, hang like a pall over the brightest hopes of the mothers of humanity. The doctrine that woman was createa for man still holds the dom­ inant position in the world’s mind ; this is strictly true, but not more so than that man was created for woman; nor more so than that all things were created for each other. This intimate system of relation­ ship extends from the simplest forms of organic life upward, and when thoroughly understood, teaches the great lesson of life, to wit: that we are, because all things have been; and that nothing within the realm of the whole earth can be so isolated as not to bear relations to every other thing in it. These great general truths are gradually dawning upon the minds of men, and are every day making the position that woman has resigned herself to, more and more to be deprecated. Taking woman as a unit, what are her aspirations ? to what are her thoughts and hopes directed ? what purposes has she in her soul to live to work out? From the cradle to the grave it is but one thing ; the substance of which is to captivate man. For this she is born, reared, educated and moulded; for this she lives; for it she dies. Were the possibilities which might grow out of this taken at all into the consid­ eration, there might be some wisdom even in this; were the probabili­ ties that are very certain to grow out of this even considered, there would be great wisdom exhibited; but neither the one nor the other enters into “ the means and schemes” in one case in a thousand. 74 THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. How many that enter the marriage state know absolutely anything either practically or theoretically about the duties and responsibilities that they are to incur ? The one thought is to get well married off; that accomplished, life, which should then just begin, in fact comes to its real end; they can no longer be said to retain their individuality; what they may have exhibited previously, then becomes either merged into the man she has sworn to obey, or is by him first modified, next controlled, and then subdued. Some may question these assertions, but let any woman ask herself if she can do what her own inclinations prompt her to, and she will find she must either answer that she can­ not, or that she is inclined to do just what will please her lord and master, and nothing beyond. Now, what is wanting in the relations of the sexes is, the power on the part of both to be themselves, while at the same time they are harmoniously united; that is, that each has the first and best right to himself or herself and all opinions, and that in possessing them and acting upon them, no cause of dissatisfaction or even of unpleasantness to the other should arise therefrom. Marriage, as practiced, simply means subjugation and support for the wife; the right to command and demand for the husband. In this relation, when the very first requisite should be equality of right and interest, that of woman is completely submerged by the force of the contract, supported and made possible by the custom and the long practice of society un­ der the intolerent rule of Mrs. Grundy. Behind all these false conditions, customs and their results, and in the very heart and core of society, is practiced a very great deal of the true principle of freedom; but this is done in a way that shuts the eye of the public and its self-constituted censors. One of the first needs of society is to be able to do openly what it already does secretly; every person needs the moral courage to do whatever his soul tells him he should do, openly and before the world, neither courting its notice nor dreading it With the full assurance and approval of their own consciences, everybody should become their own law-givers; and com­ mon decency and respect‘for self should stop the universal question: If I do this that my soul tells me I should, what will people say ? This is the slavery society needs freedom from. Every member of society should be so full of their own rights and desire to act them, that they could find no time to busy' themselves about others’ pursuit of the same. The possibility for woman to assert this right to self-government and to self-control, depends upon one thing which lies at the very basis THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. 75 of all movements in this direction, and that is the capacity to be inde­ pendent. The whole tenor of the education of women must change ; she must be educated to know that she is an individual, liable at all times to be compelled to take sole care of herself. The immediate re­ sult of such a course would be to make her still more attractive to man, to whom she would not be obliged to surrender herself to become his mere slave, for that is the only word that expresses the truth of the condition. The difficulty every one encounters who enters upon the advocacy of more and better freedom for woman is, that “ Free love ” is at the bottom of it. That is just what we would have said : for if to advo­ cate freedom is “free love” as contra indicated from forced love, then by all means do we accept the application. If there is one foul, damn­ ing blot upon woman’s nature and capacities, it is this system that com­ pels her to manifest and act a love that is forced; this kind of love is all the prostitution there is in the world. None of the acts that may be suggested by a genuine love can be held to be the prostitution of the power or capacity exhibited. It is unfortunate that terms should have such sweeping applica­ tion, and in reality so little real meaning, and still be so freely used by those who know not what they are saying. All the natural attrac­ tions nature has within herself, are representatives of the principle of free love; and it is quite time the bugaboo that connects itself with this term should be exploded ; and quite time that people should call things by their right names. And just at this point we1 declare as a principle and rule of action, that whatever lessons nature, in all her most beauti­ ful variety and modes of action, teaches, it is quite safe for humanity to pattern after. Nature is our best and only authoritative teacher. If we look to or accept other than her laws, we shall be under the neces­ sity, sooner or later, of revolting, to free ourselves from the voluntary bondage we place ourselves under. Yet nature even has her grades of beauty and development; but they all proceed by the same general law; the lower and the higher exemplify by their action the real de­ gree of ascent they have attained, and in freedom of expression there is no cause of censure but simply of comparison to determine that degree. In this question of woman’s condition that must necessarily occupy the public mind, until a solution is arrived at, a grand advance would be made toward a solution, could everybody be freed from the slavery imposed by superstition, tradition, ignorance and authority. All 76 THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT. these are so many blocks in the way of progress, and are firmly held by those whom the ages have to drag along. Those who are desirous of remaining the willing subjects of such slavery have the undoubted right to do so; but we protest against the right of those who desire it, to force others who do not, to submit themselves to its rule. What every woman wants who has arrived at a just perception of her pow­ ers, capacities, possibilities, rights and should-be privileges is, the free­ dom to avail herself of them, to her own use and benefit, and not to their use and benefit as expounded and understood by others interested in their withholding. The necessity of the Sixteenth Amendment to enable woman as a sex to come into possession and control of herself, must be evident to all reasoning minds; she now is in the possession and control of man, and must and does submit to all his domination; though some may at times rebel against the too severe administration of this privilege of control, the privilege remains, and all women are subjected to it, be­ cause there is no authority to which she can appeal. The privilege of the ballot will open.the direct way to individuality and independence, and these will prepare women for freedom; freedom will give opportu­ nity for the outworkings of woman’s better nature and instincts, and in these the regeneration of the race will be a possibility. As has been before stated,r the Woman Question is not merely one of suffrage, but one of humanity, to which suffrage will open the direct way ; and as such it is the most important question that agitates the public mind, and one that cannot, must not, will not, shall not be ig­ nored. WHAT ARE THE DUTIES WOMAN OWES HERSELF; AND WHAT DOES SHE OWE TO MAN? — NO RESPONSIBILITY WITHOUT FREEDOM — COMPELLED HONESTY AND LOYALTY ONLY DISHONESTY AND DIS­ LOYALTY—GREATER FREEDOM INSURES MORE VIRTUE—PRINCIPLE MUST BE THE BASIS OF ALL VIRTUE. “ Charity begins at home,” is an axiom that has been acknowledged by the great and good of all ages and climes. Even in semi-barbarous times, the signification was of considerable force; but as centuries have rolled away, its pertinence has become with each of them more explicit and sharply defined. Rendered in different language, and applied specially to humanity, it would mean that whatever it is good for a person to render to others, should first be rendered to him or herself In fact, a person cannot be just to others unless self-justice lie at the foundation of it Viewing the Woman Question from this standpoint, what are the aspects it presents to the present for its consideration and solution ? In the first instance, woman must first be true to herself before she can be true in any sense to man. The possibility of woman being true to her own nature depends wholly upon her capacity and her right to freedom of choice in all things that relate specifically to her as woman. We examine the course society and its customs have laid down for her to follow, and vainly endeavor to find the first instance wherein woman has positive, determining power. She is bom, and in childhood is nurtured, and in youth is educated, not for herself, but for man; this process completed, she is then bound, soul and body, to him, by bonds 78 woman's duties. which, prove they never so obnoxious, she may not be released from except after having performed some atrocity of which the law can take advantage to forever after put a blight upon her. Whatever aspirations she may have, whatever ambitions may have birth within her soul, whatever intuitions may spring from her warm, generous-natured heart, they are each and all circumscribed by this formula of growth, which has been so rigorously insisted upon. The first duty, then, that woman owes herself is, to demand for herself her right to freedom, without which there can be no individual responsibility. Government existing everywhere, gives to its respective subjects its different degrees of freedom, ranging from that in which the voice of one man is the law of the country to that of republican­ ism, in which the voice of all men is the law of the land. The only difference between an absolute monarchy and republicanism, so far as they apply to woman, is, that the first is the “ one-man ” power, while the last is the “ many-men ” power, in both of which woman is as com­ plete a subject, without power or the right to appeal from power, as man is under the absolute monarch. Woman, then, under a republican government, is under an abso lute monarchy. It does not matter that there may be—that there is— a difference in the kind of power exercised, or in the stringency of the laws that were and are in force—the principle is the same. What kind of freedom is it that a people has by sufferance, compared with that en­ joyed by right ? In this question there is contained all the advantage there is to be gained by self-government. There have been monarchs in the past under whom the people enjoyed as much freedom and equal­ ity as woman does under the republic. If she have any power in or over government, it is obtained by her personal power as woman over man; this same power has been possessed and exercised in all ages and nations. There is, then, no difference in principle between the absolute government now exercised over woman and that which was exercised over the whole people ages since. From that power and rule man has freed'himself, but his sisters still linger under its baneful influence— baneful, because it militates against her obtaining individuality. When woman obtains the same kind of freedom and exercises the same rights that man does, she will begin to live for the same ends that man does. At present marriage is the all in all for woman. It is the end of woman’s individual existence, instead of being, as it should be, a means to a still greater and more glorious consummation. Whatever greatness man has ever attained, has been gained by the exercise of his woman’s duties. 79 individual powers; his adapting his acquirements to some grand prac­ tical and general result Had there been some lesser object for him to generally consider the end of attainment, there would have been much less of progress for the world. Now, woman is naturally more intui­ tive—perceptive—than man, and therefore a better perceiver of the real requirements of the ages than he is or can be. She would be, un­ der equal circumstances, more inventive than he, while he would be better adapted to working out her inventions. It would be an instinctive lesson were all the great attainments made by woman analyzed, to find which were made by her as the womanj and which by her as the wife. It has been the free women who have been great, or those who, by nature, could not be subjugated, even by the marriage contract It is proverbial that husbands do not wish their wives to become conspicuous, even by great actions. They wish to ever remain the “ I am.” Greatness brings honor and homage, which men cannot endure to see paid by others to their wives. In this practice they deny that they have confidence in their wives. When wives are brought into active contact with the world, it has been, and still is, to a great extent, the rule to consider her as “abandoned.” In fact, men make it their special duty to attempt to stigmatize all women who move outside of the specific circle of the wife as “common wo­ men.” If they were to be judged by the same rule, it is much to be feared they would generally be found just what they endeavor to make it seem that women are. It is this difference in the rule of judgment that obtains between man and woman that must be eradicated. One law for him and an­ other for her cannot be much longer exercised. It is not that woman, in demanding freedom, desires it that she may make use of it in the same directions man does his freedom. With her delicate sensibilities and warm-natured, devoted soul, absence makes those whom she loves still “ more ” to her. It is not within her to be dissolute when not un­ der the personal influence of home. No man is willing to allow his wife the same privileges he makes use of when away from home. Look to the numerous houses of prostitution in all large cities; they are sup­ ported by men whose wives are at home performing their duties and maintaining their loyalty as wives. .The knowledge of the extent of these practices is fast diffusing itself among wives, and if it obtain firm hold in their hearts, man may not expect them to remain loyal while they are disloyal. If it is such a luxury—such a relief—for hus­ bands to play truant, why should not wives imitate their well-set and 80 woman’s duties. long-maintained example ? Do many husbands dream how much they already do ? But this is not the direction freedom moves in. All legitimate liberty and equality which is guaranteed by a government leads to virtuous practices, and all illegitimate freedom obtained in spite of law and order leads directly in the reverse direction; and this is the philosophy of government Greater freedom is always followed by more virtue; thus it has been in all stages of government, and thus it will remain so long as government exists. Woman’s duty to herself is thus, first, to demand and obtain the same freedom, the same equality, the same rights to privileges that man has. This gained, there are other duties that will legitimately follow from it, such as the duties of individuality in education, practice and support To man she owes the duties of the sister and the wife, in just the same proportionate measure that man owes her the duties of brother and husband. This and no more. First, she must be herself ; being this weZZ, she is competent to be the good sister and the devoted wife, which means a great deal more than to be the wife custom now exacts of her. It means to be so from principle. A person who thinks in his heart that he will perform such and such things, and yet has not the personal courage to carry them out, is no less the thief or murderer at heart; all such persons are in just as much need of regeneration as those are who carry out their thoughts and plans. Virtue, in the common acceptance of that phrase, should be judged by the same rule. If a man is honest because the law compels him to be, it is no virtue that he possesses that can claim the reward. Honesty for the sake of honesty—from principle rooted in the heart—is what constitutes virtue; so, too, is loyalty between husband and wife to be • adjudged. It then appears by this rule, that if husbands and wives are loyal only because law and custom compel them to be so, there is no virtue in such loyalty; and, consequently, that there would be just as much real loyalty were there no restricting power. Devotion to truth, right and high morality, then, is only to be gained by greater apparent freedom—and this it is the duty of woman to obtain. SUFFRAGE AND MARRIAGE. THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT; ITS RELATION TO MARRIAGE — FREE­ DOM TO WOMAN MEANS THE PURIFICATION OF ALL THE RELATIONS OF THE SEXES—THOSE WHO THROW DIRT SHOW THEIR OWN FILTHI­ NESS—OUR OWN POSITION DEFINED SO THAT FOOLS, EVEN, MAY COMPREHEND IT. There has been very much written and said regarding marriage, in connection with its relations to the question of suffrage. With this as with all imperfectly understood (imperfectly understood, because not yet demonstrated by facts) questions, very crude, antagonistic and unphilosophic positions are assumed by both its advocates and its oppo­ sers. It is one of those questions which, above almost all others, most nearly affect the basis of society, and should, therefore, be dis­ cussed with the utmost calmness, deliberation and sound sense, and whoever attempts discussion, whether by mouth or pen, should divest themselves of every prejudice that custom may have endowed them with, so that the actual conditions may appear without embellishments of any kind or color. The processes of demonstrated science should teach the manner of treatment which should be practiced in all inves­ tigation. They say that if it is attempted to make the desired results to conform to the laws of custom, or the authorities of prejudice, the investigation might just as well be discontinued until a clear field is opened. Very much, if not the most, of opposition the suffrage movement encounters, is raised because it is supposed that its success will in some unaccountable and inexplicable manner interfere with the relations of the sexes; in other words, with marriage. If there is one absurdity more completely absurd than all other absurdities, it is the supposition that anything, anywhere, raised by anybody, can ever abolish marriage; 6 82 SUFFRAGE AND MARRIAGE. and we make this assertion with all the emphasis that it is possible to be conveyed by words. The union of the opposites in sex is a part of the constitution of nature, which, if any individual member of the human race can dispense with, they are those who should be raised above the Ruler of the universe, and into a greater than God. “ Ah ! but,” says the objecter, “ nobody supposes that there can ever be complete separation of the sexes, but what we do mean is, that the written formula by which their union is consented to will be abol­ ished.” Why did you not say that it was the form of marriage that the “Woman Movement” would change, and not marriage itself? In this we agree with you perfectly. It will change, and no further gen­ eral progress can be attained by the race until it has been changed. It will change, because woman is to be the proud equal of man in all things, and if there is one thing in which a superior should be recog­ nized, it is in this very question of the relation of the sexes, and the superior should be woman. . The ulterior results of the union of the sexes is reproduction of their kind, and we hold that in this matter woman should be the de­ termining power, and whatever there is in present forms of marriage that militates against her supreme right in this respect, we again assert should be changed. The progressive tendencies of the age have de­ nounced the submission of woman to man, and the time, if not already come, will come shortly, in which, with or without the consent and ap­ proval of present customs and forms, she will no more submit that a law, no matter how sacredly held, shall bind her to bear children by a man who has taught her to abhor him or whom she holds in disgust No such forced associations as present systems compel can ever receive the sanction of God’s marriage law. “Whatever God hath joined together let not man put asunder,” applies to no such abortions of nature as compel a delicate, sensitive-natured woman to endure the presence of a beastly constitutiohed man. Many men are really brutes in nature, and what woman, except she, too, is a beast, can be by God joined to any such? This matter might just as well be considered now aas to be forced off; it might be attempted to be put off, but individual­ ity is being developed in women to too great a degree to make such an attempt successful. While assuming this ultra position we also occupy the other ex­ treme, and declare that of all relations that exist in the universe there are none that should be so holy—so sacred, so reverenced, honored, worshiped—as the true unity—the true marriage—the marriage by God SUFFRAGE AND MARRIAGE. 83 ■—of two pure, trusting, loving, equal souls. Before the shrine of such devotion no impurities can kneel; within the influence of such holiness the highest angels come,,and around its temple heaven lingers. Never were any more wide of the mark than when they think we would re­ duce the relations of the sexes to common looseness. To us there is nothing more revolting in nature than such a condition implies. What we would do, and with all our might, is, to bring the attention of the world—and especially of women—-.to the realities of marriage, that no relations it presupposes should ever be entered upon, except after the maturest deliberation and the acquisition of the perfect knowledge that God will officiate at the nuptials and approve the union. Of what necessity would laws then be to compel people to live together ? Are we understood? If not, let those who open - their mouths to condemn, or those who use their pens to defame, show that they pos­ sess the least bit of consistency by withholding the evidence of their ignorance and incapacity. The time is passed for any to manufacture lasting capital by resorting to such methods in the place of reason; and let those who call this a “dirty sheet” examine their specs to see if their surface be not somewhat soiled. “ To the pure in heart all things are pure; ” to the vile in heart all things are vile,*and to the “ dirty” in heart all things are dirty. Take this home and consider it, and sleep over it, and wake to the conclusion that we can neither be frightened nor injured by the dirt thrown at us. We shall continue to deal with the conditions of society which we consider behind the times, though the self-constituted conservators of society do array themselves in oppo­ sition and denounce us, according to the most approved and respectable style of pharisaical godliness. The whole tendency, then, of the Woman Question is toward the perfection of the relations between the sexes. It is not to be expected that anything like perfection can be presently attained, but the way to it can be broken, and the conditions of improvement can be instituted ; woman can be made free, can be made the mistress of herself, and can be placed in conditions of equality with those who now hold absolute sway over her. We have said before that the Woman Question was not simply a question of suffrage, but a question of humanity, and it is so, because to the perfect relations of the sexes does the future of hu­ manity look for the disposal of the necessity of regeneration. In con­ clusion we assert that, Whatever God hath joined together no man can put asunder—hence the inconsistency of attempting it by the continua­ tion of laws enforcing present marriage customs. INTOLERANCE AND BIGOTRY; COMMON SENSE AND REASON. ARBITRARY DISTINCTIONS BELONG- TO THE AGE OF BRUTE FORCE. Notwithstanding the experience the civilized world has had in its pursuit after a better religion and more diffusive science, it still blindly pursues the same courses regarding every fresh question which comes up for solution, with that bigoted opposition that knows and sees nothing but some time-honored custom or revered authority. Those who have arrived at a tolerable liberality in religious matters, through the most bitter opposition, are just as inconsistently bitter to that which is still ahead of them as those who differed from them were to their ad­ vanced thought It is not a little to be wondered at, that the most inconsistent intol­ erance and the most determined pharisaical bigotry with which the Woman Question is met, is found inside of the Church. Though, when we remember that there are those still who declare that Joshua com­ manded the sun to stand still, and that it obeyed, because such an as­ sertion is found within the Bible, it should not appear so terribly strange. So long as there are any who will be led by blind authority, regardless of all use of common sense or reason, so long may the advo­ cates of equality for women expect to meet the most inconsistent oppo­ sition from the churches, especially from those which teach that “it is a shame for a woman to speak in church,” and that it is the duty of wives to “submit yourselves unto your husbands.” The fact that such ideas prevailed centuries ago, is no reason why we should, in these enlightened INTOLERANCE AND BIGOTRY. 85 days, still subscribe to them. The teachings of Jesus himself inculcate the adoption of new ideas. Moses taught, “An eye for an eye,” etc., but Jesus taught, “But I say unto you, love your enemies,” etc. Thus, on the evidence of their most sacred authority, self-styled Christians are condemned for the unreasonable opposition they show to new truth All the means by which science is demonstrated, and all the ways in which new truth is evolved, teach that this recently-begun agitation, called the “Woman Question,” is the question of the hour. There are others which perhaps some look upon as more important, but if the “ Common Sense ” and the “ Reason ” of the age is questioned, they will answer that it is not only the question of the hour, but that it is the gravest of all questions. Upon the relations of the sexes does the fu­ ture condition of humanity depend. It is these relations which lie at the basis of society, and too long already have they been left to be de­ termined by the blind suggestions of passion; too long has science been denied entry into their realm. In the production of everything that society requires for its subsistence, comfort or pleasure, the lights of science are made constant use of to point the way,; but in the much graver matter of the production of society itself, science is denied all entrance, and it is left to be just what it can, without government or guide to assist its formation. There are a certain class of persons who denounce, with holy vehe­ mence, any attempt to show up the conditions of society. The appa­ rent argument is, that to touch anything that is diseased is evidence of the existence of disease in those who perform that operation. Thus, if any argue to show that there are had things in the present structure of society, they are the “ dirty ” ones, instead of those they touch. The same argument would make those who assail polygamy, polygamists. We often wonder if it were possible for such argumentists to be imper­ vious to the feeling of contempt which they call forth from those who understand the situation. They are looked upon just about as one would be to-day who should endeavor to convince the people that the world is a plane instead of a globe. The end of the argument would be that he would convince them, instead, that he was an exceed­ ing simpleton, and more a subject of pity than contempt So, too, are they who cry “dirt” more worthy of pity than contempt, for they only convince those who are worth seeking to convince that they are a class of very narrow and contracted-in-all-ways minded persons. For all this they assume the most sublime dignity and self-complacent assurance, 86 INTOLERANCE AND BIGOTRY. and tread the world much as though they were saying, “ Did not I tell you so ? ” The days of arbitrary rule have departed. All things move by the more enlightened rule of equal right In one department alone does absolute sway still linger. Woman is subjugated still by man ; woman, as a sex, is under the absolute sway of man as a sex. All rules of life are by him laid down for her to be guided, governed and con­ demned by. We flatter ourselves that this America is a free country, in which all enjoy the rights of equality. Not a bit of it Never were you more thoroughly, more radically mistaken. There is no such thing as female freedom, or female equality, before the law, in the land. Rather, she has less of them, comparatively, than she has in almost any other country. Of this most apparent fact, however, American women are entirely ignorant or purposely oblivious, and sometimes we almost despair of any immediate possibility of an awakening to the reality of the degradation and slavery which a large part of them submit to with such great indifference. However, the fires of liberty are burning upon the altars of many aroused hearts, and these shall be the flames that will spread world-wide, and destroy the vain illusion of a dependent ease which is substituted for independent self-reliance. THE QUESTION OF DRESS, NO. I. THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL ON WOMEN AT WATERING-PLACES— IT TELLS ONLY ONE-HALF THE TRUTH—THE MEANING OF DISINCLI­ NATION TO MARRIAGE ON THE PART OF MEN—THE ABSURDITIES OF PRESENT STYLES OF DRESS—WOMAN’S RIGHT TO DECIDE FOR HER­ SELF. . A writer in the Phrenological Journal, in endeavoring to answer the question, “ What makes women unhappy? ” says: At all the watering-places and seaside resorts there has been a no­ ticeable decrease in beaux. Daughters, chaperoned through empty par­ lors, look in vain for that necessary commodity—suitable gentlemen attendants—while planning mammas grow frantic over the hopeless task of husband hunting. These mothers and daughters, like many others elsewhere, are, with all their lack of innate refinement, women, of aver­ age capacity, who, from lack of occupation, spend the best years of their lives in trying to entice men, for the sole purpose of having some one to supply, in a genteel way, the funds required for display. Night after night these daughters attire themselves in the costumes remarkable for their scantiness in one direction and abundance in the other, and expose their persons, unblushingly as they tread the mazes of the voluptuous dance in the arms of any worn roue who may hap­ pen to be on hand. The extravagance of these women keep all honest marriageable men away from their presence; they are afraid to go even for a few weeks’ pleasure where they are liable to be tempted to marry women 88 THE QUESTION OF DRESS. whom they could not possibly support, and so they stay at home wish­ ing all the time they could find some sensible girls who would be con­ tent with competency. I wish I could tell these wretched girls how many solid, substantial men are at their places of business this sum­ mer, kept at home by their thoughtless conduct, and how very many well-meaning, moderately cultured men are wishing every day for wives, but who see no chance in the present state of society. They don’t care to wed a woman whose eyes are familiar with fashionable in­ decencies, and whose tastes are so perverted that they are willing to let unclean men handle their person in the waltz, or gaze with pleased eyes upon their naked arms and shoulders. That the above is only one-half the truth, every woman who will be honest enough to say what she knows will testify, while every un­ married man’s thoughts are reproduced therein. It was quite “ the rage ” not many years ago among young men to consider themselves particularly fortunate to be able to carry off these “summer butterflies” as wives. This was when “ watering-places ” were not so well patron­ ized as they are now, and not for the same purposes. It is getting to be pretty well understood now, that watering-places are stocked with those who are specially in the market for sale to the highest bidder ; and that a bid seldom goes unfilled; hence the bidders are few. These facts show a growing indifference on the part of man for marriage, and the showing is anything but promising to such of the female sex as are un­ prepared to meet the responsibilities and duties of life for themselves. It is a subject of considerable importance to rightly understand the meaning of these things, and in what it finds its life. There are many reasons assigned, but the root of the matter lies in the growth of freedom in the general heart of man. The mere fact that marriage is considered practically as an indissoluble tie, hinders those who have comprehensive ideas of freedom from entering upon it. It is seen that on all sides there are people bound together by this tie who live lives of utter misery because of it, and that it really becomes the incentive to a deal of demoralization, that would not be so were it not for the shackles it imposes. The day for limitations to be continued upon matters wherein the individual is the one primarily interested is nearing its close. The community has no right to impose conditions, or enforce restrictions, upon the individual, which the general good of the com­ munity does not demand. The realization of this fact is the real reason of the growing disfavor with which men regard marriage. This is from the male standpoint THE QUESTION OF DRESS. 89 There are other reasons which obtain among a certain portion of women, which assist this disposition on the part of man. Every year there are more and more women becoming individualized—that is, each year a larger proportion of the sex is becoming independent and self­ supporting. There are very few women who, once having arrived at the condition of ability to provide for themselves well, will ever sellthemselves to any man for the sake of support We use the word “ sell ” in its fullest significance, as meaning an actual transfer for a con­ sideration. A large part of the marriages which are contracted are nothing more nor less than bargains and sales, into which consideration the questions of love and adaptation do not enter. What is more com­ mon than to hear women remark, “She has made her market,” or, “She has done well? ” and what, withal, is more decidedly vulgar? The truth of the matter is, that “young ladies” are set up, adver­ tised and sold to the highest cash bidder, and where a mutual attrac­ tion does not exist, a strict analysis finds no difference between it and the other association of the sexes denominated prostitution. It is true that it is regarded in an entirely different light; but that is equally true of many other things between which there is still less real distinction. Technically speaking, it is a dictinction without a difference, the dis­ tinction being that, whereas in the former case it is a transfer—or sale —for life, in the latter it is at the option of the contracting par­ ties, and the lacking of difference being, that both are for a considera­ tion given by the man and received by the woman. We would not have it understood that we denounce true marriage. We are the most profound believers in those marriages which are made “in heaven,” and which man cannot put asunder—that is, in marriages which have the sanction of God and nature, which no marriage of con­ venience can have. At the same time we confess to being utter disbe­ lievers in marriages which lack this approval. Neither would we have it understood that we sanction prostitution; but, on the contrary, we would assert in the most strenuous, pointed and positive terms, that prostitution, whether practised under the sanction of the law or without it, is a withering, blighting curse upon a woman and a foul blotch upon the fair face of humanity. • We do not quote the above as a text for the discussion of mar­ riage, but for the purpose of considering the matter of dress, which, in connection with woman, has an intimate relation with the question of freedom and equality. A woman rigged with the entire paraphernalia of fashion is only a fit subject for a show. There is so much of artificial 90 THE QUESTION OF DRESS. ornamentation that nature, whatever her beauties are, retires in disgust, before superfluity on the one extreme and brazenness upon the other. Ladies who would affect to blush when subjects are spoken of which are of the greatest interest to humanity generally, and who would hide their faces behind their handkerchiefs to cover the blushes they would have it supposed were there, appear at balls and receptions and at the opera, with the most perfect self-assurance, virtually naked to the waists, and if by such exposure of their persons some admirer is made bold enough to presume upon it, the “ big brother ’’ has business on hand to punish the insult These things bespeak a superficiality and a mock­ modesty that is robbing the sex of all its natural beauty and its real at­ tractiveness. Practically, the present styles of dress for women of business, so far as convenience is concerned, are simply absurd, not to say ridicu­ lous, while from the health point of view they are suicidal While women remain mere dolls, to be admired for the external appearance they can present, it does not matter very much how they dress; but when any of them shake off the shackles of dependence, and become their own support, they should certainly have the right to accommo­ date their dress to their new modes of life, without being exposed to the ridicule of the fashion apes of either sex. In this view of the question we challenge any one to offer a single reasonable argument in favor of the skirts now universally worn by women, but, on the contrary, we assert that they are open to objection from every point of consideration. * There are no limitations, either of law or custom, against men dressing to suit the business they are engaged in. Neither should there be against the same right for women. Therefore we protest against all laws and all customs which place limitations upon the rights of women to change their present styles of dressing so as to meet the reasonable demands of their growing freedom and independence. In our next we shall consider some of the special objections to present fashions. 91 THE QUESTION OF DRESS. THE QUESTION OF DRESS. NO. II. THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT ; ITS RELATION TO AND EFFECT UPON “DRESS”—PRESENT STYLES RUINOUS TO HEALTH—THE NECESSITY OF MODIFICATIONS TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF WOMAN’S NEW SPHERES OF ACTION. It may be thought far-fetched, by some, to assert that the subject of dress has any legitimate bearing upon the Sixteenth Amendment Question; if so, it comes from lack of thought and attention to the many-sided bearings of the Woman Question. Taken as a whole, it must be considered as one of the most important Humanitarian move­ ments of the age, and every part of it which is not already based on fixed principles of right, or upon demonstrated facts, should be analyzed, to the end that the right may be separated from the wrong, so that the Jatter may be discarded or supplanted by something better. It is more than a privilege ; it is more than a right—it is a duty, stem and imper­ ative, that if there are any hindrances hanging around, which prevent the legitimate use of their newly-acquired freedom, woman should shake them off. But how does dress relate to woman's freedom? We have said that it was impossible for a single argument to be offered in favor of the style of skirts now almost universally worn by women of refinement and intelligence (?) and just as little for all other external parts of their dress. One of the first principles of dress, regarding health, is, that all portions of the body should je evenly coverd, so that there shall always be a free and uninfi* need circulation of blood. As women dress now, the great am/ ^nt of clothing worn about the lumbar regions of the body, which at all jtimes keeps that portion of the body warm, even 92 THE QUESTION OF DRES& when the extremities may be nearly frozen, produces a powerful de­ termination of blood to those parts. These parts being a large part of the time kept at a very much higher temperature than any other por­ tion of the body, the extremities are deprived of the vitality requisite to continue healthy conditions. It is a well known fact, that since the present fashions of padding and bustle-wearing came in vogue, the class of complaints known as Female Weakness have increased a hundred fold. While it would not be true that this increase is entirely owing to this overheating process, it is true that it will reasonably account for a very large proportion of it And when we remember that with this over­ dress of central parts of the body, the neck, shoulders, and upper parts of the breast and. bacx nave been almost deprived of covering, which, when allowed, has been of the nearest approach to nothing, we need not wonder that there are so many frail women, weakly wives, and fragile or scrubby children. The same is also true of the dressing of the feet, which, of all parts of the body, can least bear uneven exposure. A person may possess vitality enough to bear the exposure of the upper parts of the body, which are near the centre of circulation ; but a person who has cold feet habitually, cannot retain health for any length of time, and with .women nothing is more conducive to all forms of irregularities than this foolish, criminal practice of light dressing for the feet and ankles. These practices, if allowable or reasonable at all for women of fashion, who are never obliged to expose themselves, cannot be tolerated a moment by the sensible business woman. She requires the same de­ gree of protection, and even more care, than man; but women who, from choice or necessity, become regularly attendant upon business," have not, as a rule, been sensible enough, or independent enough, to meet the situation. What is more common of a rainy morning or evening than to see hundreds of shop women going to, or returning from, business, with nothing but thin-soled, lasting gaiters on their feet, and with wet skirts draggling their limbs ? If this is morning, they remain all day in this condition, which practice, continued sufficiently long, will in every case produce its legitimate results. Again: What sense is there in long skirts for business women at any time. ’Tis true that they are pretty nearly aft the dressing or pro­ tection the lower limbs have; but what kind of protection ? Sufficient, perhaps, when worn for nothing, but to hide the limbs, but what against dampness, dust and the bleak wintry winds. Against these, clothing more nearly adjusted to the limbs is required; ^o that it comes down THE QUESTION OF DRESS. 93 to this at last: that long skirts are worn, not for clothing, but for the purpose of hiding the limbs. Dress is either for the purpose of protec­ tion or for disguise. If for the last—and it is indelicate or revolting to the nature of woman to so dress her legs that they can be free to per7 form the functions of locomotion—why should it not be just as indeli­ cate to go with arms naked to the shoulder, as thousands do who would scream if their leg to the knee were exposed ? And why should it not be considered a hundred fold more indelicate to expose, virtually, their breasts to the waist, as thousands do, than it is to tastefully and reason­ ably dress their legs ? The fact of the case in this matter of female dress is, that a blind and foolish custom has decreed that women must wear skirts to hide their legs, while they may, almost ad libitum, expose their arms and breasts. For our part, we can see no more indelicacy in a properly clad leg than in a properly clad arm; but we can see a deal of sentimental and hypocritical mock modesty in the custom which demands skirts and allows bare arms, shoulders and breasts. It is time to call things by their right names, and to be honest enough to speak the truth about these things, which are fettering and diseasing women and producing a generation of sickly children. If those who affect a great deal more modesty and delicacy than they are willing to allow that those have who are bold enough to discuss this question truthfully, vent their spleen and show their virtuous indignation, by calling us bad names, we simply assure them that our estimation of truth, and our desire to promote the true interests of our sex, rises far above all care for what­ ever they may say or think, and that we are perfectly willing to intrust the vindication of our course to the next ten years, when such un­ sightly and health-destroying things as our present system of dressing presents will be among the things which were. What we have said thus far upon this subject may be considered as simply suggestive, when compared with what might be said in direct attack upon the system from the standpoint of delicacy. We have often been in stores when it became necessary for the female employee to climb a step-ladder to obtain articles of goods from high shelvings ; and we have often witnessed the exposure of ladies getting into omni­ busses; in either of which cases, had they been properly and judi­ ciously dressed, they would have been the extreme of delicacy com­ pared with what they were; and hence it is that we reassert, that the system prescribed by present custom has nothing to recommend it, but everything to denounce it. When women take the equality which we 94 THE QUESTION OF DRESS. are showing they are entitled to under our Constitution, just as it now is, it is to be hoped that they will also exercise the right to dress them­ selves according to the requirements of their callings, even if that de­ mands the proscription of skirts with which women have been dragged to death so many years. The World says: “ The average weight, all the year round, of that portion of woman’s clothing which is supported from the waist, is be­ tween ten and fifteen pounds. Are weak backs a wonder ? Put on suspenders, girls I ” CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. STARTLING ANNUNCIATION — A ^NEW POLITICAL PLATFORM PRO­ CLAIMED—woman’s RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE FULLY RECOGNIZED IN THE CONSTITUTION AND COMPLETELY ESTABLISHED BY POSITIVE LAW AND RECENT EVENTS—THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT A DEAD LETTER—CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN 1872. [The progressive world has been considerably aroused and set to thinking by the second pronunciamento of Victoria C. Woodhull, which, as it has a direct connection with these articles, is here presented in full:] In my address to the people, published on the 2d of April last, an­ nouncing myself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States in 1872,1 called their attention to the disorganized condition of parties, and briefly commented upon the issues which were most likely to re­ quire a settlement by that election. I pointed to the changed sentiment which had brought the negro from slavery to freedom, and raised him to equal political rights. I alluded to the aspirations of woman for complete recognition of equality of right, socially and politically, as intended in her creation and announced by Divine Word that she should enjoy. I stated that these aspirations had caused the question to exist, whether this equality should be longer denied, and that its issue would be tried and settled before the next Presidential election. I knew then that woman’s complete political equality with man bad been provided for and secured by our fathers in the Federal Con­ stitution ; that its entire exercise could not* be denied under it one mo­ 96 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. ment after it should be permitted in any State of the Union, and that when permitted in one it would be legal in all. The time had not come for this announcement It was necessary that woman should agi­ tate the question of her rights, that its clear bearing and all that it cov­ ered of social or political advantage should be fully comprehended and appreciated. This agitation has been made in the claim for “The Six­ teenth Amendment” Under the discussion of this claim, the knowledge and apprecia­ tion of her rights has developed. In the period required for this dis­ cussion, the irrefragable evidence of their complete legal recognitionr has come forth. As I have been the first to comprehend these Constitutional and legal facts, so am I the first to proclaim, as I now do proclaim, to the women of the United States of America, that they are enfranchised. That they are, by the Constitution of the Union, by the recognition of its Congress, by the action of a State, by the exercise of its functions, henceforth entitled in all the States of the Union, and in all its territo­ ries, to free and equal suffrage with men. This has been established by Wyoming. In the elections therein held women voted. By their votes an election was made perfect, they having thus, in the language of Sec. 2, Art I., of the Constitution, the “ QUALIFICATIONS REQUISITE FOR ELECTORS OF THE MOST NUMEROUS State Legislature ”—which branch, as well as the State Senate and members of Congress, were elected by their co-opera­ tive suffrage with men. Thus one of the requisite conditions of the Federal Constitution was fulfilled, and it is the most important of all, for it is the culminating or closing one by which all are made perfect in the joining and blending together in one act the independent, though legally precedent, State act, with the Federal condition and act, to secure an in­ alienable right of suffrage to the women of Wyoming. Their members of Congress are their direct representatives in that body. Their Sena­ tors are again their representatives as consolidated through a legislative vote for a longer period—the legislative vote directly dependent upon the vote of the people for the legislative existence of the voters. This brings us to a further condition of the Constitution, namely, the last clause of Article V., which is, “ that no State, without BRANCH OF THE ITS CONSENT, SHALL BE DEPRIVED OF ITS EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN TBE Senate.” It follows that if one State by the votes of women elect a Legislature which, by its constitutional functions, elects senators of the United States, and that other States do not, that the absolute element­ CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 97 ary principle of equal suffrage therein is lost, unless each State not so represented shall, by an act of its whole people, “consent” thereto. From this exercise of female suffrage in Wyoming comes the legal, the undeniable fact, that each State has now imposed upon it the neces­ sity, not of granting the right of suffrage to woman, for it exists, but of denying it if it is to be restrained—but how ! Not by a legislative act, that is not sufficient, but by a convention, with its act to be ap­ proved by a vote of the people of whom the women would be voters also! Until a denial is accomplished in this manner woman has now, and will retain, the right of suffrage in every State and Territory of this Union. A woman is as much a “ citizen ” in all that relates to “ lue, lib­ erty and independence ”—in all that relates to property and personal protection, under the Federal and State Constitutions, under the Na­ tional and State laws—as man is or can be. This being so, and it cannot be gainsaid, the question is forever settled by Article IV. of the Federal Constitution, Sec. 2, first clause, which says: The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all THE PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS IN THE SEVERAL States.” That the framers of the Constitution had Woman’s Rights clearly in their minds is borne out by its whole structure. Nowhere is the word man used in contradistinction to woman. They avoided both terms and used the word “persons ” for the same reason as they avoided the word “slavery,” namely, to prevent an untimely contest over rights which might prematurely be discussed to the injury of the infant re­ public. „ Our political fathers believed in the Word of God—they knew that he had said, “ I have created man and woman in my own image,” that “ God blessed them and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it.” Jointly was this done, with equal right; no superiority to the male, but a perfect equality in all things was recognized ; and what “ God thus joined ” they dared not attempt to sunder, and did not, but recognized the Divine Word as their guide in forming a perfect equality for “ male and female ” under the Constitution made through them by Divine guidance for the rule, government and blessings of future gen­ erations. The issue upon the question of female suffrage being thus definitely settled, and its rights inalienably secured to woman, a brighter future 7 98 ' CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. dawns upon the country. Woman can now unite in purifying the ele­ ments of political strife—in restoring the government to pristine integ­ rity, strength and vigor. To do this, many reforms become of absolute necessity. Prominent in these are A complete reform in the Congressional and Legislative work, by which all political discussion shall be banished from legislative halls, and debate be limited to the actual business of the people. A complete reform in Executive and Departmental conduct, by which the President and the Secretaries of the United States, and the Governors and State officers, shall be forced to recognize that they are * the servants of the people, appointed to attend to the business of the people, and not for the purpose of perpetuating their official positions, or of securing the plunder of public trusts for the enrichment of their political adherents and supporters. A reform in the tenure of office, by which the Presidency shall be limited to one term, with a retiring life pension, and a permanent seat in the Federal Senate, where his Presidential experience may become serviceable to the nation, and on the dignity and life emolument of Presidential Senator he shall be placed above all other political posi­ tions, and be excluded from all professional pursuits. A reform in our financial relations, by which the public debt shall become the security, and the basis representation of a national cur­ rency—the one exchangeable for the other, as required for use or inter­ est investment—and • when currency is taken out for a deposit of national debt, all interest to cease on the sum of the latter so deposited, until it is again issued for currency paid in lieu thereof. A reform in the method of intercommunication between the States, by which railroad corporations shall not extend their ownership to lines of railway beyond the State which gave them existence, and by which the general government, in use of its postal powers, shall secure the transportation of through mails, passengers and merchandise upon physically connecting or locally relating lines of roads at fair rates of compensation; and due safeguard for life and property be enforced; and also to destroy one of the fertile sources of corrupt influences in State Legislature, by imposing the condition that all members of the National and State Legislative bodies shall, by law, have the right of free passage over any railroad in their respective States. A complete reform in commercial and navigation laws, by which American ships and American seamen shall be practically protected by the admission of all that is required for construction of the first, or the CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 99 use and maintenance of either, free in bond or on board, and that only American registered ships, entitled thereto by home building, by cap­ ture, or purchased after stranding and American repairs, shall have the privilege and protection of the American flag. . A reform between the relations of the employer and employed, by which shall be secured the practice of the great natural law, of onethird of time to labor, one-third to recreation and one-third to rest, that by this intellectual improvement and physical development may go on l to that perfection which the Almighty Creator designed. A reform in the principles of protection and revenue, by which the largest home and foreign demand shall be created and sustained for products of American industry of every kind—by which this industry shall be freed from the ruinous competition of the class-created, classoppressed pauper labor of Europe—by which shall be secured that con­ stant employment to American workingmen and working women which never fails—by developing skill to reduce average costs in products to a minimum value—to bring competency to the employed, and unlimited national wealth upon which the ratio of taxation for government expense becomes insignificant in amount, and no burden to the people. A reform in the system of crime punishment, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted—by which the hardened criminal shall have no human chance of being let loose to harass society until the term of the sentence, whatever that may be, shall have expired, and by which, during that term, the entire prison employment shall be for—and the product thereof be faithfully paid over to—the support of the criminal’s family, instead of being absorbed by the legal thieves to whom, in most cases, the administration of prison discipline has beerx intrusted, and by whom atrocities are perpetrated in the secrecy of the prison inclosure, which, were they revealed, would shock the moral sense of all mankind. In the broadest sense, I claim to be the friend of equal rights, a faithful worker in the cause of human advancement; and more espec­ ially the friend, supporter, co-laborer with those who strive to encourage the poor and the friendless—who patiently and zealously, day and night, toil to promote the cause of labor, to secure to the great masses of working people, “ male and female,” their rights and their rewards. I claim from these, and from all others in the social scale, that support in the bold political course I have taken, which shall give me the strength and the position to carry out the needed reforms, which shall 100 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. secure to them in return, the blessings which the Creator designed the human race should enjoy. If I obtain this support, and by it the position of President of the United States, I promise that woman’s strength and woman’s will, with God’s support, if he vouchsafe it, shall open to them, and to this country, a new career of greatness in the race of nations, which can only be secured by that fearless course of truth from which the nations of the earth, under despotic male governments, have so far departed. V. C. W. New York, Nov. 19, 1870. In accordance with the above, we shall assume the new position that the of rights women under the Constitution are complete, and hereafter we shall contend, not for a Sixteenth Amendment to the Con­ stitution, but that the Constitution already recognizes women as citi­ zens, and that they are justly entitled to all the privileges and immuni­ ties of citizens. It will therefore be our duty to call on women everywhere to come boldly forward and exercise the right they are thus guaranteed. It is not to be expected that men who assume that they alone, as citizens of the United States, are entitled to all the immunities and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution, will consent that women may exercise the right of suffrage until they are compelled ; and without doubt the highest judicial tribunal of the country will be obliged to give its de­ cision in woman’s favor before men will allow women this privilege. Already quite a number of “ gallants ” have exhibited altogether too much fiendish delight to make us hopeful that they will yield grace «fully. They retort, when we pin them down to the letter of the Con­ stitution, by saying in substance: <:Get us to acknowledge your Con­ stitutional right if you can, and that you will have to do before you can vote.” Such is the opposition we shall have to confront and conquer ; for, believing as we do that we are now being debarred from privileges which rightfully belong to us, we will never cease the struggle until they are recognized, and we see women established in their true position of equality with the rest of the citizens of the United States. 101 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. NO. II. WOMEN ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE STATE IN WHICH THEY RESIDE—KEEP IT BEFORE THE PEOPLE. 1. “ That all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State in which they re­ side.” 2. “That citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” 3. “That no State without its consent shall be de­ prived OF ITS EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.” And 4. That as the women citizens of Wyoming do possess the “ quali­ fications REQUISITE FOR ELECTORS OF THE MOST NUMEROUS BRANCH of the State Legislature,” through which they obtain suffrage in the Senate, it follows that the citizens of each State, though entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, are de­ barred from exercising these privileges and enjoying these immunities, and, therefore, that the United States does not guarantee to every State a common form of Republican Government Such are a few of the declarations of the Organic Law of the coun­ try, which point out the inconsistencies which mark the administration of so-called government, but which would be much better defined were it called tyranny instead. 102 / 4 .CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. AOnewcrylearned “limb1 of the law” declared that there was noth­ * i 1 “ 1 iL <• 1 c e ** 4 * c *” J U c ingv iir the Constitution 'than could be construed into recognizing wo­ men as citizens in the full sense of that word as applied to men. . We called his attention to Section 1, Article XIV., of Amendments to the Constitution, and desired him to interpret the following language : “ Alt. PERSONS BORN OR NATURALIZED IN THE UNITED STATES AND SUB­ JECT TO THE JURISDICTION THEREOF,, ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED States and of the State wherein they reside.” “ Oh,” replied he, “ that’s unconstitutional, and will be so declared, by the Supreme Court of the United States before ten years; and,” continued he, “ suppose that is in the Constitution, every State has the right to determine for itself who shall vote; ” and cited several States where constitutions say every “ male citizen,” etc.. We then requested him to complete reading the section, which is as follows: “ No State SHALL MAKE OR ENFORCE ANY LAW WHICH SHALL ABRIDGE THE PRIVILEGES OR IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.” Now, if women are persons, nre they not also citizens ? and if citi­ zens, no State has any right to enforce any LAW that shall deprive them of the right OF suffrage, which is one of the privileges of all citizens. . . “ But,” says another, “ Congress did not intend by the said amend­ ment ‘ to include women; ’ but they did define, fully and unmistakably who are citizens.” Now, if it can be proved that women are not “per­ sons,” it can then be said that women are not entitled to all the privi­ leges of citizens of the United States, and consequently that they are not entitled to suffrage. Unless this can be done, we shall hold that the women of the United States are already enfranchised. States may and should prescribe the duties of citizens to make themselves recognizable by the administrators of the law, but they have no right, to completely abridge the right of any citizen of legal age to vote. This aspect of the case entirely changes the programme which wo­ men should pursue to obtain the exercise of the right of suffrage. Every woman who desires to exercise this right, which we have shown is hers, should comply with all the prescribed preliminaries for voting, and should, at the next election for officers in the State in which they severally reside, use their utmost endeavors to cast their votes, which being debarred from doing, they should, every one of them, appeal to the necessary legal or judicial tribunals, for the required redress of the denial of rights the Constitution grants them as individuals. It is time now for every woman who feels the condition of servitude in which the sex has been CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 103 restrained so long, to arouse to the necessities of the situation, and to never cease the struggle until their fall guaranteed constitutional rights are accorded to them by man, and they are fully secured in the exer­ cise of them. There seems to be a peculiar sensitiveness on the part of a large majority of men regarding this matter of suffrage for women. They exhibit the same spirit that the slaveholders of the Sonth used to ex­ hibit when the right of slavery was questioned. Let the question be broached, and straightway they fire up, and show evident symptoms of a design to demolish somebody. The question touches them in a very tender place, and they wince whenever they are touched. Will you explain, gentlemen, why it is that you exhibit so much uneasiness about this matter ? The slaveholder had something that emancipation was to take from him. What is it that you have that emancipation of women is going to take from you ? Think of it as you may; try to evade it if you can; attempt to ignore it if you will, men do regard women as their subjects, not to say their slaves, and, therefore, when we talk of ’ freedom it touches a power they have exercised over us, which is one they will no sooner give up than the South would give up their negroes. The questions are parallel . The Fifteenth Amendment has additional saving power. It is as follows: . “ The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be de­ nied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” We should be glad to have some of the exalted political authori­ ties of the country inform us wherein the condition of servitude the negro was the subject of differed from the servitude of which woman is the subject, except in the degree in which it was maintained? What constituted slavery for the negro ? He was obliged to render involuntary service to a master, for which he generally received no compensation other than the common necessities to support life. He had no right guaranteed him to acquire, hold or convey property. He was subject to the arbitrary will of his master, who became such to him by birth or purchase, and he was not a recognized citizen. Theoretically, most of the conditions which constituted the negro the slave do not apply to unmarried women; so long as they remain single they are in a partial sense free, and do have the rights to compensation for service rendered, to acquire, hold and convey property, and are not subject to the arbitrary control of any. The moment the 104 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. woman becomes the wife the conditions are changed wonderfully. The wife is not entitled to compensation for service rendered except to the extent of the common necessities of her station in life. The condition of many negroes in this respect was to be preferred to that of many wives, who are compelled to labor day, week, month and year, to have their compensation taken possession of and controlled by their husbands, who have the right to use it or spend it in whatever way they may decide; for this there is no redress except to separate from their masters, and by so doing be enabled to obtain partial control of themselves ; though this must be without the protection of law. In some States the wife is held to be property by the law ; if we mistake not, the old English law which makes the wife the subject of attachment and sale is still in force in this State. It is in but a very few of the States that a married woman has the right to acquire, hold and convey property in her own right, and in these few it has been lately granted ; and in all she is subject to the arbitrary will of her master, who is named husband, who can, if he desire, compel her to endure all manner of indignity, and to conform to all his numerous requirements, whether such conformity is her choice or her necessity. Though a declared citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, woman is in various ways denied, the freedom, privi­ leges and immunities which are guaranteed to other citizens. The class of privileges and immunities, and the kind of freedom specially referred to here, may be well illustrated by the practice of public hotels, which are bound to extend their hospitality to all citizens who comply with the requirements of law and order. Any man can apply at any hotel in the United States, at any hour of the day or night, and without ques­ tion he is admitted to the hospitalities of -it. But let a strange woman apply at our so-called first-class hotels, and unless she carries a certifi­ cate of character with her, which will be closely inspected, or she is in­ troduced by a respectable (?) gentleman acquaintance—personal or by common report1—of the hotel, she is liable to the indignities of being denied admission. Thus, while every man, though known to be what is considered disreputable in woman, is admitted to, and protected in, the hospitality for which hotels receive the protection of the law, wo­ man, unless traveling with endorsements, is obliged to submit to the indignity of being classed among the abandoned. Many cases of this kind have come to our knowledge lately, and we shall, when opportu­ nity permits, give the circumstances in detail, with the names both of the women thus treated and of the hotels so treating them. CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 105 It is well known that this is the practice of nearly all hotels, and we are determined to know whether the same law that protects hotel­ keepers in their pursuit will not compel them to extend their accommo­ dations to all applicants, female as well as male, and protect them so long as they comply with the common .rules of hotels, and conduct themselves with decency and propriety. We are determined to know whether they have the right to discriminate as to the character of their guests, and whether the female citizens of the United States and of the States in which they reside, are to be considered guilty until so proven. Even the person under arrest, charged with a heinous crime, is consid­ ered innocent until proven guilty by a jury of his peers, by whom he is entitled to be tried and convicted before any one has the right to de­ clare him guilty of the crime charged against him. There are many other conditions in which women are made ex­ ceptions to the common laws of the land, the discrimination always be­ ing against her and favorable toman; these extend all the way up from the smallest uses and customs of the times to the denial of right to a voice in the laws of the land to which she, equally with man, is amena­ ble. All of them are so many conditions of servitude, when considered in the strictly analytic sense and according to the letter of the law; they are conditions of inferiority—of compelled servility—and hence it is that on account of woman having been the subject of these conditions, the United States nor any State has the right to deny or abridge her right to vote. Congress should have made a restricting clause in the Fifteenth Amendment if it were not the intention to include women. Why did they not make it to read, The right of male citizens, etc., etc. ? If this were only intended to cover the negro, what is the position of the female of the colored race under it ? Hers was, according to common interpreta­ tion, a “condition of servitude,” and she was of the previously pro­ scribed race and in color black. Besides, sho is a person who was bom in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof and conse­ quently is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides. Thus being a citizen of the United States, neither the United States nor any State shall deny or abridge her right to vote. This denial of right should have been made expressly against women if Congress did not intend to enfranchise the females who had been slaves. Thus every step taken in analyzing the Constitution of the United States makes it clearer and better defined that women are not only citi­ 106 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. zens of the United States and of the State in which they reside, but that they are enfranchised and equal with men; or, in other words, that our mothers, sisters and daughters stand on a footing of perfect equality before the political law of the land with our fathers, brothers and sons. CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. NO. III. [We present the following, which is the best of many similar argu­ ments we arc in receipt of against our position regarding the Constitu­ tional guarantees to women citizens:] New York, November 21, 1870. Mesdames Woodhull & Claflin: Permit me to say that you misconstrue that part of the Constitu­ tion of the United States which reads—“That no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” What is here meant is the vote of two, which each State, through its senators, has in the Senate. The word State is not used in the Constitution for the citizens as individuals, but for the people as an aggregate or corpo­ rate body, except when it is used to denote the territory or both people and territory. “ All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and citizens of the State wherein they reside.’ But this does not make them vo­ ters; if it did, the smallest child would have the right of suffrage. Children are citizens and not necessarily voters. Women are citizens and not necessarily voters. “ The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citzens of the United States.” The right of suffrage is not a privilege common to all citizens in any State. In no one is a child a voter. The words privilege and right are not synonymous. A privilege is a law made in favor of an individual or set of individuals. If a privilege becomes common to all, it thereby ceases to be a privilege. A right may belong to all or only to a part CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 107 The women of Wyoming have no suffrage in the Senate of the United States. As already stated, it is the State or States which have suffrage there through the voices of their senators; each State, no mat­ ter how big or how little, having two voices and no more than two. In order that a State may have a republican form of government, it is not necessary that all its citizens should have the right of suffrage. I call your attention to the above that you may examine into the exact meaning of the Constitution. . When you have done this, it is probable that you will conclude that to obtain the right of suffrage you must secure the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, or its equiva­ lent, from the several States. Respectfully, etc., James M. McKinley. And such is the negative sum total of the constitutional argument against the rights of women citizens of the United States and of the several States comprising it Let it be distinctly borne in mind that it is purely negative from beginning to end, while the enumeration of the privileges and immunities of citizens, the requisite qualifications of electors, and the definition of who are citizens in the Constitution are all positive. In general reply, we would ask our correspondent why this discrimination under the Constitution is made as against women; why should it not have been made against man instead; and why should not the women citizens of the United States, they being in the majority, now declare that they, instead of man, are the enfranchised class? We would also respectfully ask, What kind of a republican form of govern­ ment is that which the minority of a country’s citizens formulate ? We perfectly agree with our correspondent that “the word State is not used in the Constitution for the citizens as individuals, but for the people as an aggregate body ” of individuals, of which, if we are not entirely without our senses, women form just as important a part as the self-constituted rulers do. A State does not mean the territory comprised within certain geographical limits, but the citizens who oc­ cupy these limits; and as women, alike with men, are citizens, and with men occupy these limits, so too are they represented in the Senate, where they are not denied the right of voting. It therefore follows that in a State where both the male and female citizens do vote, the aggregate of individuals obtain representation in the Senate ; but in a State where its female citizens are denied the right of voting, the aggregate of citi­ zens comprising the State do not obtain representation in the Senate of the United States—only a part of such aggregate, who do not make up the whole State, are represented, and hence such a State does not pos­ 108 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. sess a republican form of government Our correspondent says: 11 The women of Wyoming have no suffrage in the Senate of the United States. ” We would ask him whether the women of Wyoming would have suffrage in the Senate provided they, voting an .entirely separate ticket from the men, should elect a majority of the State Senate and Legislature, and they in their capacity should elect a woman as senator, and she should sit in the Senate Chamber and vote with other senators ? Such a con­ tingency would be possible under the present equal enjoyment of rights, and privileges in the State of Wyoming; and when viewed regardless of the influences of precedents of custom, fully and forever establishes the fact that all the citizens of all States are entitled to equal exercise of rights with the citizens of Wyoming, under that provision of the Constitution which provides “ That no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” “ Children are citizens and not necessarily voters. Women are citi-. zens and not necessarily voters.” Is all this quite true? Are women, as citizens, denied the right of voting for the same reasons that children are ? Children, until they arrive at what is made lawful age, do not possess the common rights of adults outside of voting. At certain ages they are not held responsible as citizens for the result of their ac­ tion—their parents stand responsible. They cannot hold nor convey property in their own right—their guardians must do it for them. The common privileges and rights of citizens are denied to children, both male and female, until it is presumed that they have arrived at years of discretion, until which they are subject to the will of their parents, and can be made to obey that will Is this the argument our corres­ pondent would advance to show that women should not exercise the right of voting? Would he class women as always minors, and say in practice that they never arrive at years of discretion? Would he have it that the Constitution thus stigmatizes women ? The States do pro­ vide a lawful age, which all adult citizens, male and female, are agreed upon; but when that age shall have been attained by females, there is no power but the usurped and arbitrarily exercised power of man, which denies them the right of exercising what should be a common right for all citizens who have arrived at lawful age, having attained which they are admitted to the common privileges of citizens, such as the right to hold office, to serve as jurors, &c., &c., from which children are debarred. We do not say that children too are not deprived of their rights under the Constitution, but we are just now arguing that women are; at another time the rights of children will be considered CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. 109 There can be no foundation found in the Constitution for denying the common rights of citizens to any citizen of any State, except upon forfeiture by individual action; and such denial, therefore, is as purely a usurpation of power over women by men as that would be were a sin­ gle person able to subject the United States to his control, which would be just as much a republican form of government in principle as that is which denies women the common rights of other citizens. We do not agree with our correspondent’s definition of privilege and right A u right ” is something inherent within the individual. A privi­ lege is something that can be extended to the individual; and a govern­ ment which denies the first or abridges the last is not a government found­ ed in the equality but in the inequality of its citizens. We hold that our government is based on the equality of all its citizens, and, therefore, that the provisions for its administration should be regulated by the equal ex­ pression of all the rights of equality by all. A privilege is something that is granted to individuals for specific reasons which should have two con­ siderations : primarily, of benefit to the individual seeking it, and sec­ ondarily, to the public by the exercise thereof. Now, voting, or rather the process by which the making and administering of law for the good of the public is obtained, is either a right or a privilege. If it is the former, it is something that can neither be given nor taken away, but is simply suppressed where a portion of the citizens are prevented by the other portion from its exercise. If it is the latter, and it is denied by a portion of the citizens to another portion of them, it is an exercise on their part of arbitrary power which, if it is not actually denied by the Constitution, cannot be justified by any construction or any part thereof. Kings are not the only rulers who can and do exercise arbitrary power which is not derived from the people. Women are forced to contribute to the support of government in every way that men are, but at the same time are prevented from having any voice whatever in it If this is not the exercise of arbitrary power without any consent whatever on their part, we should be made happy by having our fallacy pointed out. If it is the exercise of power without their consent, we should also be made happy to have some shrewd political authority point out wherein our government is republican in form as administered on the part of thirty-six of the thirty-seven States which constitute its various organic members. If it is not necessary that all the citizens of a State should have the right of suffrage in order that it may have a republican form of government, what part of such citizens is it necessary should have such > 110 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. right in order to give it that form. If one-half of a State’s citizens do possess the right of suffrage, and the State thereby becomes repub­ lican in form, why may not one-fourth of the citizens formulate a re­ publican form of government ? if one-fourth can, why cannot one-tenth or one-hundredth or one-thousandth part do the same ? If this is a matter of arbitrary distinction, why not have the distinction distinctly asserted, so that a few of the citizens of no State could seize upon its government and say that it was still republican in form, and that in permitting it to continue Congress was guaranteeing to the people of such a State a republican form of government? Or is a republican form of government a form that is sufficiently strong to maintain itself* against all civil opposition, and that because the part of the citizens of the United States who are debarred from exercising their right to gov­ ern themselves are too weak to assert their rights that the government is republican in form ? Which horn of the dilemma will our self-con­ stituted rulers take? We are not attempting to interpret the meaning of the Constitution of the United States; we are taking it just as it stands and according to what it says. We can understand what it says, but if it mean some­ thing that it does not say, we must at once confess not only our inability to interpret it but also our disinclination. If so important an instru­ ment as the Constitution of our country must need be interpreted to find out its meaning, we think it high time that it should be remodeled and made so plain there could be no mistaking its provisions; besides, there is danger that the time may come when a sufficient number may interpret it diffierently from those of you who are now debarring women from exercising the rights of citizens to self-government, to rise to the point of asserting their rights somewhat differently from what they are doing now. If the Government of the United States intend to prevent one-half its citizens from having any voice in its councils, let it at once come to the point and amend the Constitution, by providing that women shall not be entitled to vote, and thus prevent the women citizens of Wyo­ ming from exercising rights which the women citizens of every other State are prevented from doing. The Constitution, in declaring who are citizens, and in providing for a government to emanate from them, was evidently better legislation than was known or thought But such has been the result The silent acquiescence of women to the arbitrary authority of men was so com­ plete that the framers of the Constitution so penned its provisions that CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. Ill women are now enabled to come forward and claim their rights under it, they having grown into an appreciation of them. Rights which are not appreciated may as well not exist, but rights appreciated should never be withheld by any government from any of its citizens. Sec. 2 of Art XL provides “ That each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress.” By the State it is evidently meant its citi­ zens, and the number of its representatives is determined by the num­ ber of such citizens. When we pass to Sec. 2 of Art XIV., of Amend­ ments to the Constitution, we find this construction still further favored, for therein it provides that “ Indians not taxed,” and “ male persons to whom is denied the right to vote,” shall not form a part of such basis of representation. These provisions, taken in connection with Art. L of Sec 4 of Art I. of the Constitution, which provides that “ The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State, but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choos­ ing senators,” evidently vests the determining power regarding elections in Congress, and the legitimate inference is that the basis of representa­ tion is also the basis from which government shall emanate, this basis being all citizens of the United States. The times, places and manner of holding election, is given to States subject to Congress, but this does not say that the States may debar citizens of the United States from co­ operating in such elections. When any special provisions are made, the discrimination is dis­ tinctly marked, as between males and females, which legitimately leaves the construction of all the rest of the Constitution to be made to apply to citizens without regard to sex. We have thus specifically considered the objections made by our correspondent to our position regarding the necessity of a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. We do not infer from his communica­ tion that he is opposed to female equality, but that he considers it nec­ essary to amend the Constitution before women can exercise the right to vote. Before the women citizens of Wyoming obtained the recogni­ tion of their right to vote, the common construction of the Constitution, strengthened by long practice and custom, might have made it requisite to obtain an amendment, but, as the rights of citizens of the United States in each of the States should be equal, that necessity did not exist after this recognition in Wyoming. 112 CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY. Finally, we call attention to the construction of the Fifteenth Amendment “ The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on ac­ count of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” From this it would seem that the rights of citizens of the United States to vote had been denied and abridged, on account of race, color or previous condi­ tion of servitude by the United States; or that there were citizens of the United States who, having the right to vote, from cause did not exer­ cise that right, which was the exact condition of the negro. There can be but one inference from the language of this Amendment, and that inference is, that all citizens of the United States are possessed of the right to vote, and if its framers did not intend such a construction to be placed upon it, and if the States did not intend to ratify such Amend­ ment, they now stand under the necessity of passing a supplementary Amendment providing that the rights of women citizens of the United States to vote may be denied by the States because they are women, which provision would not only include all white females, but also all colored females formerly in a “ condition of servitude ” to whom, under this Amendment, no State has the right to deny the right to vote. This construction is made perfectly clear and applicable by Sec. 2 of Article VI. of the Constitution, which provides as follows: “ This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof * * * shall be the supreme law of THE LAND * * * anything in the Constitution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” Therefore it is that in blending all those various parts and constructions together that we arrive at the conclusion that women as much as men are citizens of the United States, and that no State has any right to abridge the rights of citizens of the United States to vote, which, from the general con­ struction of the Constitution, is guaranteed to every citizen, irrespective of sex or any other considered condition of inequality. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. CONSIDERATIONS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF COMMON SENSE — THE MISAPPLICATION OF TERMS—WHO WOULD BE AFFECTED—WHAT IS MARRIAGE ?—WHAT IS DIVORCE ?—THE COMMON CRY FOR LAWS TO GUIDE EVERYBODY ELSE BUT OURSELVES. When we observe the utterly senseless course adopted and followed by some pretended advocates of political equality, and the self-assumed Pharisaical positions of others, we are at a loss to decide whether they are not in a deal worse condition of servitude than that is from which they profess to wish to rescue woman. They are determined that if woman passes from Dan to Beer-sheba, she shall go by their route, and that if she shall avail herself of any other easier, freer or less distant route, that she shall be denied admission at the gates on her arrival. They are like nearly all the religious sects that “ preach ” that there is no way to heaven except by the way they point out; just as though there are “ sects in Heaven,” and just as though God, the common pa­ rent of humanity, should care which way his children come home, so that they come. . ■ We do not believe there would be one-half the insane opposition to political equality for all, were it not that it involves an equality which to many is of much greater importance than it is. Political equality cannot be granted to women, without their also obtaining sexual equal­ ity, a legitimate sequence, and just here is where all the hell-a-bell-loo 8 114 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. begins to show itself. If the enfranchised woman should still be com­ pelled to remain the servile, docile, meekly-acquiescent, self-immolated and self-abnegative wife, there would be no difficulty about the voting. At the ballot-box is not where the shoe pinches, nor where the com stings. It is at home where the husband, as in pre-historic times of anarchy, is the supreme ruler, that the little difficulty arises; he will not surrender this absolute power unless he is compelled. But in spite of all opposition on the part of dominating man and submissive woman, the free of her sex are determined to obtain not only the political equality they seek, but also all other equalities which will naturally flow from its possession: having obtained which they will stand upon a broader platform of rights and see more distinctly what further legitimate, practical equality belongs to them. Marriage, as consummated by present law, reduces the previously free, single woman to a condition of virtual slavery, in which she can­ not proceed beyond certain boundaries without meeting the limitations of the contract which custom has prescribed. It is by no means an equal partnership. Tne wife has liberty within limits; the husband has license outside of all limits, and exercises it, too, whenever consistent with his inclinations. Political equality will soon settle this “ little un­ pleasantness.” What is marriage ? Is it a legal union between a male and female of the race of animals known as man; or does it have a wider and deeper significance? Are the “unions” between the males and females of the types of animals below man, marriages, or are they something else? Are the “ unions ” between the male and female species of plants, by which they reproduce and increase, marriages, or should they be designated by some other term ? If these are marriages, who is there that will prepare some marriage law not in harmony with natural law, that shall compel each of these to forever remain mated, whether they would or no, and, by so being compelled, be enabled to ever remain respectable (?) members of their “society?” Marriage, it is admitted by all, is some kind of a union of the op­ posite in sex; but, What constitutes it? Where is the point before reaching which is not marriage, and having passed which is marriage ? Is it where two meet and realize for the first time they have found their other self; or is it where the priest or the squire reads a soulless formula over two who know no outreaching of souls and commingling of life’s wishes, hopes and fears ? Or does it require both these: first the mar­ riage without the law, to be afterward made certain and lasting by the MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 115 law ? If the latter, does the marriage still continue if one of the terms which were necessary to first complete it should chance to depart ? If, after marriage has transpired according to all requirements of law, and the law afterward declares a divorce, does that completely annul the marriage, supposing the primary terms of union still exist? Or, does marriage still continue if the first requirements cease to exist and the legal requirements do not cease to exist? Will they of the respecta­ bility (?) persuasion please give us an analysis of these things, so that ' we may be able to decide just what marriage consists of according to their “ way to Heaven.” For our part, we are free to confess that we believe that any de­ parture from nature’s marriage law will be followed by disastrous con­ sequences to all involved. We would not have it understood that we denounce all marriage laws; they may be very proper, and we are quite sure they are very harmless, and can very well be observed with perfect impunity by all who are truly possessed of the previous union. At this very point, however, begins the real question. Everybody who do not require a legal enforcement of law to hold them married want a legal law to hold everybody else married, whether such is their indi­ vidual wishes or no. It is the same old story repeated. Everybody want laws to compel everybody else to do just as they want to do themselves. It is the same spirit that wishes every one to be guided by his standard. It is the same spirit that thinks self a great deal bet­ ter than anybody else, and that everybody else must conform to the dictum of that self It is the. same spirit that says, “ I do not require a law to punish theft, but my neighbor across the way I am fearful would steal from me if there were no such law.” “ Oh! you horrid wretches, who would compel us all to become prostitutes, by annulling the law of marriage,” came to us not long since from a person signing herself “A Reformer.” We reply to all such: Oh, you horrid wretches who would compel us to prostitute ourselves, by compelling us through your marriage laws to remain the legal wives of those who have become detestable to us; who have time upon time forgotten their vows to us and have gone after strange women, and who, returning to us satiated with impurity, impose upon us the most frightful, the most horrible, the most loathsome results, which be­ come not only an eternal curse to us but to our children. We tell you would-be “Reformers,” that this is prostitution of the most damning kind, compared with which that commonly thus denominated is as white as snow and as harmless as the dove. 116 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. Suppose that all marriage laws were abolished, what would be the result? It is extremely doubtful if one-fourth of the present married would think of separating at all; and fully one-half of all who would separate would be extremely happy to return to their allegiance wiser and better within a short time. The final result would be simply this: that there would remain separate just those who by all rules of nature should not be allowed to live together as husband and wife. We con­ scientiously believe that the real—the natural, the religious, the philo­ sophic, the scientific—want of the advancing, present age, is not a law to compel illy-assorted people to remain married to external appearances, but to separate them, so that the curses bf their inharmonies may not be repeated in their children “ even unto the fourth generation.” Among those who would permanently separate, were marriage laws abolished, there is a constant effort to obtain freedom. Most of them have established connections outside of their legal relations which they pursue whenever opportunity allows. Many of them resort to all man­ ner of crime to be rid of their irksome bonds. They do not hesitate to peijure themselves even, to accomplish their desire; very many men actually have and support two families, sometimes more, spending most of their time with the natural marriage, and only what they are com­ pelled to do for “ appearance sake ” with the legal marriage. No one who has not been extensively acquainted with society behind appearances could ever guess at the extentt to which bigamy is practised. There is noth­ ing that is terrible enough to prevent two who are determined in these things from putting that determination into practice. The writer now knows a "married woman who has six pressing suits for marriage from as many married men! What will be the result of such conditions ? As was wisely remarked by one of our leading papers a few days since, “ Much crime would be prevented were those who are determined not to remain husband and wife permitted to separate in quiet and peace.” The effect of a marriage .law, which to all intents and purposes is irrevocable, is to make the subjects of it become careless and indifferent to each other, unless they are bound by a more powerful bond. They know they are safely bound together past all probability and nearly all possibility of separation. It becomes a matter of course that they are married for life, and all thought of those delicate attentions which are so heart-touching at all times from those we love, gradually passes away in indifference or becomes merged in the cares, perplexities and duties of life; whereas married life should never descend to the plane of duty, but should, ever remain upon the plane of love’s suggestions. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 117 Very frequently married life is entered upon with very little thought of or care for the real conditions of union, because they do not fear that any trouble can come after the performance of the legal ceremony. Some even await that performance to afterward reveal their true pur­ poses of fiendish complexion. Were it realized that marriages could only last while an approximate union of souls existed, there would be a deal more caution exhibited about entering that condition; there would be a deal more anxiety to know how much real union exists be^. fore taking on the final consummation. It comes, therefore, that those who enter the marriage state most freely, are they Who have little real attachment, their real object being to gain some other point rather than that of a perfect union; while those who give it the most consideration, regarding it as the gravest of life’s movements, and who therefore think most of the true basis of marriage, are deterred from entering such engagements as are sufficient to practi­ cally ruin them if severed. These are of two classes: One consists of those men who fear that behind all the professions of love made them, motives of an entirely different character may rest, being the real main­ spring which moves the person to profession, and which after marriage may develop themselves as the rule of conduct, and thus despoil a whole life of all the beauty and happiness to be obtained from marriage. The other consists of those women who, having given their hearts to men in whom past associations have wrought detrimental effect, fear that though married to them irrevocably they will not be reformed thereby, and that they, knowing they have their victims secure, will neither heed their vows nor their victims’ entreaties or demands that the common usages of marriage shall be respected. It is easily to be seen that in all cases where caution should be ex­ ercised and is not under present conditions, that it would be exercised to a very .considerable extent were there no law binding bodies together whose hearts were found to be incompatible or which should become sundered; and these constitute a very considerable portion of all mar­ riages ; while in the cases recited above, the subjects having married and finding their fears too true, would not be virtually compelled to continue an existence of misery until death should dissolve the union. It is not impossible, if this question of marriage could be entirely divested of all precedents of use, custom and other disabilities, and it could receive candid and unbiased discussion, and all its bearings could have unprejudiced analysis, that the public mind would soon learn that it has been clinging to a soulless idol, which has resulted in much of 118 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. general misery, crime and ill to the race, having given for such no ade­ quate return of increased virtue. The present race of human beings is not altogether unregenerate. There are bad samples enough, heaven knows; but they are bad with the law, and they would be no worse without the law. Common expe­ rience is the great teacher, and it teaches in the matter of the union of the sexes that all the real happiness it is possible for humanity to know is in the pure and sacred relations of marriage, in which pure, holy and bright children spring into existence to gladden the prime of life and to lead with tender hand and firm the steps which descend the hill of life upon the other side, and who stand by your side upon the river’s bank which soon will for a space separate you, and with one great, soul­ inspiring love, realize that the bonds of flesh are but released that you may become still more closely united in spirit; and that of all the real misery there can be in life none is so terrible as that coming of marriage where the heart rests outside the limits of legal bonds. There are a certain class of so-called or pretended advocates of equal­ ity for women, who seem to have but little just appreciation of the re­ lations which exist between causes and effects; or, if they have any of this appreciation, they succeed in pretty effectually ignoring it They take special pains to state, in the most emphatic and unmistakable language, that while they desire social equality with man, they do not want to vote, or to divest men of any of their superior political ad­ vantages which accrue to them from the exercise of that right which designates a republican government The gist of their discourse is, “ Give us everything else, but do not give us that by which we can have everything else by our own right” It is the same old story: “ sub­ jugated.” Do these advocates expect that those having the power will render the sex justice, any more than the slave masters rendered their 11 property justice?” It would have been the height of folly for the negro to have cried out, “Give us justice! ” when the law of the land recognized no justice for him. So, too, it is folly for woman to expect justice; she has first to take justice—that justice which is her inherent right with man to equality. Poetic fancy, and soft, sweet sentimentali­ ties amount to but little in this matter-of-fact age, and when these speech-makers talk so submissively they of course gain the plaudits of men who fear that women are going t? rebel against the superior family authority they have held unrebuked so long; they know that they now hold woman by the halter, which is long or short according to their inclination. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 119 They see that the general tendency of all things which relate to the relative positions of men and women is to drift toward the obtaining of one rule of judgment and one rule for the execution of judgment In this obtaining they know that their heretofore unquestioned authority, privileges and exclusive rights are to be extended, where they have thus far succeeded so well in excluding them, and that they must share rather than possess them. Those who comprehend the real meaning of the Woman Move­ ment are offering social equality as a compromise to those persons who refuse to labor in their interest. Social equality, forsooth ! Will they please inform their next audiences which is the higher equality, political or social ? If we understand this matter, we should say that social equality is the foundation of all equality, which having, all equality is possessed; perhaps our philosophy may be unsound, and that women may possess social equality and still be denied political equality. It, however, seems to us that the philosophy of these pseudo advocates of woman’s equality teaches them an utter impossibility; for how can a people or any part of a people—in short, how can women enjoy social equality, unless they have a voice in making the laws that govern social life ? Such a social equality as this would teach, our “ fathers” pos­ sessed when King George ruled them; such an equality as this would teach is now enjoyed by everybody who lives under an absolute mon­ arch Perhaps it may not be an absolute authority which persons ex­ ercise over others whom they allow no voice in determining what that authority shall be; but we must confess that our dim senses cannot see it or feel it in that light These players upon words want a great many laws altered. Do they expect to get this done by acknowledging their political nonentity and subserviency ? This maybe the theoretical way to reach that consummation, but the plain, practical^ way would be to take hold of the matter themselves and assist in making the alterations. If woman is man’s equal, let her demand the rights of an equal to assist in making her own laws: demand her rights, having obtained which, do with them as she will These are the privileges of free men and equals. If she is not man’s equal, Reformers (?) should cease ask­ ing for social equality for her. But it is nearing the time wherein it must be settled what woman’s status is, and what it is going to be. Men must either do one thing or the other; they must say women are equals and entitled to the privileges of equals ; they must say that wo­ men are not equals and are not entitled to the privileges of equals; or, that being equals, and entitled to the privileges of equality, that they 120 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. will not permit them to exercise such privileges because they are de­ termined never to share their exercise, nor divide the patronage which would naturally flow from such exercise. The point cannot be very much longer ignored. The reason of the desire to continue woman in political bondage must be made apparent, whatever the attempts of female matrimonial bidders may be. If woman’s acquisition and practice of equality is going to break up the family, as these lecturers prophesy, we should say it had better be broken. If man cannot and will not submit to that practice, he had better have no family, and thus practically place women upon the same plane men occupy. As for the virtue side of the question, we confess we hang our heads in veriest shame to hear our sex confess that all the virtues they have is because they are bound by law to be virtuous, or which means the same in other words, that if all marriage laws should^ be abolished women would necessarily, become prostitutes. Legal vir­ tue has already become a cheap commodity, which is hawked nearly as unblushingly by daylight as prostitution is under cover of night. Who can tell how much prostitution there is which is shielded or hidden by the law ? Everybody who knows anything knows it is alarming, not to say a great deal worse. If there are no virtuous wives nor virtuous husbands, except those made so by law, we would say, G-od help such virtue! for, modifying scripture to suit the times, those who look upon others to lust after them have already committed adultery in their own hearts No! a thousand times, no! Virtue and every other noble quality is of the heart, and he or she who possesses it, does so whether there is law or not, and should such be entirely removed from the force of law, it would not follow that they must necessarily “ advance or retreat to license.” We have more faith than this in human nature as a whole; at the same time we aver.that those who would.not be vir­ tuous without a compelling law, will not with one. But all that this school of speakers and writers of the female sex say sounds exceedingly nice, and we have no doubt that “ The Mr. Tem­ ples of society, who want wives moulded to their requirements,” will thank them contiguously, and encore them as frequently as opportunity offers, for doing their battles for them, and set them all down as the veriest pinks of womanly—wifely—perfection. The argument they make it possible for men to urge against equality is the strongest and the only real one there is: that women themselves don’t want to vote. This very specious argument is heralded as sufficient and convincing, though in reality there is so little basis to it that it will stand analysis MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 121 no better than a sieve will hold water. Exceptional cases exist where women have stated that they do not desire the elective franchise; perhaps one in every hundred—not more—women have so expressed themselves. Do they affect to speak for the other ninety-nine ? It may be replied that the same argument may be applied to the other side of the ques­ tion, and that those who advocate suffrage for women are in equal dis­ proportion to the total of women. And this brings us to the point, and the point is this: The advocates of equal suffrage advocate it upon the general principles of equality, and affirm that women being equal to men in all general privileges, that it is their right to exercise the right of suffrage which belongs to every American citizen of legal age who has not forfeited it by crime. Whether every woman, one-half, one-tenth, or one-hundredth part of women, avail themselves of the right or not is perfectly immaterial. The right exists, and it is theirs to choose whether they shall use it or not; which position is somewhat. different, we take it, from that which denies the exercise of an existing right One is freedom; the other is tyranny. And that is just the difference. With you who retort upon us with this question, we pro­ pose you take this consideration home, and when next you speak against extending suffrage to women, do not forget that your opponents deal with principles of freedom while you deal with the assumptions of tyranny. We would, therefore, venture to suggest that before entering the arena for the discussion of reforms based on principles, these persons should study the relations of political and social equality, which will undoubtedly teach them, as everybody else is taught, that if a wrong is to be remedied, the direct way to right that wrong is to go to the root of the matter at once, and the root of the inequalities which flourish between man and woman lies in the lack of possession and exercise of social equality. Political equality may be possessed and social equality still be lacking; but with the possession of social equality all equality is gained. If they do not do this they will lay themselves liable to be set down as the representatives of that very large class of women who prefer to remain under the dominion and support of man rather than to take on themselves the responsibilities and duties of freedom and a noble independence and self-reliance. So that it comes down to this at last: that it is maintenance that women want who “ don’t want to vote,” instead of freedom, which others are seeking. If this freedom should chance to change the forms of relationship between the sexes it will do nothing more serious than to give equality in them. The re­ 122 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. lations themselves can never be done away with. Hence we conclude that marriage and divorce in the abstract are meaningless terms, and that at best they are only names for continually changing forms, which always have changed and always will change, until the time when it will be possible for “Unions” to exist in their greatest perfection, whether the form continues or not CHILDREN. THEIR RIGHTS, PRIVILEGES, AND TRUE RELATIONS TO SOCIETY. NO. I. A series of papers, relating specifically to women, cannot well be closed without something being said relative to their offspring. We say their offspring, because it is they who, by nature, are appointed to the holy mission of motherhood, and who, by this mission, are directly charged with the care of the embryotic life, upon which so much of future good or ill to it depends. It is during this brief period that the initials of character are stamped upon the receptive, incipient mentality, which, expanding as it grows, first into childhood and on to manhood or womanhood, reveals the true secrets of its nature. The rights of children, then, as individuals, begin while yet they are in the foetal life, and it is to this consideration that attention is most required to be called, for here lies the cause of a great deal more of the conditions of life than we have been taught to think. Children do not come into existence by any will or consent of their own. With their origin they have nothing to do, but in after life they take upon them­ selves individual responsibility, and thus become liable for action which perhaps was predetermined by circumstances which occurred long prior to their assuming personal responsibility. In all those years before in­ dividual responsibility and discretion, which are by common consent accorded to youth, children are virtually the dependencies of their pa­ rents, subject to their government, which may be either wise or mischievous, and is as often the latter as the former. But, having arrived at the proper age, they step into the world upon an equality of footing • 124 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. with, others previously arrived. At this time they are the result of the care which has been bestowed upon them from the time of concep­ tion, and whether they are delivered over to the world in such condi­ tion as to promise to be useful members of its society, or whether they go into it to prove a constant annoyance and curse to it, seems to be a matter which cannot be made into such shape of personal responsibility as to make it a subject of their own determining. At this period they find themselves possessed of a body and a partially developed mind, in the union of which a harmonious disposition and character may have resulted; respectively, they are possessed of all shades of disposition and character, from the angelic down to the most demoniacal; but all these are held accountable to the same laws; are expected to govern themselves by the same formula of associative justice, and are compelled by the power of public opinion to subscribe to the same general cus­ toms. This system of unequal justice is the legitimate result of the doc­ trine of free will, which says, in practice, that a devil who has been produced and cast upon the world by some of its members, is expected to act under all circumstances and changes just as well and justly as a perfect man does. That he will or can do so everybody knows is im­ possible. All are obliged to meet the world and all its variety of cir­ cumstance and change* with the characteristics with which they have been clothed, and which they had no choice in selecting. How inconsistent it is to suppose that, with so great diversity, which is so extensive that there can, by no possibility, be two who so nearly sesemble each other as to be mistaken for each other, there can be unity of action, or the same rule of compliance to the requirements of society on the part of all its members. Thus when all things which go to make up society are analyzed and formulated, it comes out that society holds its individual members responsible for deeds which it is itself indirectly the cause of, and therefore responsible for. Have not the offending members of society been generated, born and grown under its own prescribed rules, which they had no choice of or escape from ? and yet they are made the responsible parties. It is a scientifically demonstrated fact that the mind of every individual mem­ ber of society is the result of a continuous series of impressions, which are the product of it as a community and which are continually being received from it by their senses and by them transmitted to, and taken up by consciousness, which thus becomes the individuality of the person. H any one doubt this, let him listen to what Prof. J. W. Draper, Presi­ CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 125 dent of the New York University, Medical College, says upon this sub­ ject He certainly is authority which none will dispute without con­ sideration, however quickly they might attempt to gainsay the simple assertion of others. This subject is worthy of the most serious atten­ tion which can be bestowed upon it, for it is the point which determines where the real responsibility of individual action rests, as well as the point which, properly and legitimately considered, should govern all attempts at reform in the present condition of society. In a lecture de­ livered Prof. Draper says as follows • “ There are successive phases * * * in the early ac­ tion of the mind. As soon as the senses are in working order * * a process of collecting facts is commenced. These are at first of the most homely kind, but the sphere from which they are gathered is ex­ tended by degrees. We may, therefore, consider that this collecting of facts is the earliest indication of the action of the brain, and it is an operation which, with more or less activity, continues through life. * Soon a second characteristic appears—the learning of the relationship of the facts thus acquired to one another. * * * This stage has been sometimes spoken of as the dawn of the reasoning faculty. A third characteristic of almost contemporaneous appearance may be remarked—it is the putting to use facts that have been acquired and the relationships that have been determined. * * * Now this triple natural process * * * must be the basis of any right system of instruction.” It appears, then, that contact and constant intercourse with external manifestations is not only necessary for the production of thought and its collaterals, but that to retain the con­ sciousness which makes thought possible such manifestations must be continuously impressed upon the individual. This seems to be conclu­ sive that mind is the result of the experiences of the manifestations of power. Without these experiences children would grow up simply idiotic. The “ Professor ” says, emphatically, that a recognition of this process must be the basis for any right system of instruction. Nor is it to be understood that he would make the application of this simply to intel­ lectual education. It applies with equal force to all kinds and relations of education; or, to state the proposition comprehensively, the educa­ tion of children should consist in surrounding them by such circum­ stances and facts as will produce upon them those effects which will tend to develop them toward our highest idea of perfect men and wo­ men. When this system shall have been introduced and made general, education will have attained to its proper sphere. How imperfect all our present methods are need scarcely be mentioned. It is patent to 126 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. all who have candor sufficient to allow them to admit it, that perfection has not yet been gained in any of our systems and forms of instruction. A great deal has been said and is being done in the matter of reform­ ing them, but we fear very .little of it is based on Professor Draper’s propositions. The chief difficulty about all these things is that their direction has been left to, or assumed by, the professors of religion rather than by scientists with whom religionists have, until quite recently, been at a dead lock, ana still remain at great divergence from, in regard to these matters. Science is eminently progressive; religion is as eminently conservative. Science, in its analysis of the facts of the age, comes in direct conflict with the authoritative theories of religious sects, whose ad­ vocates having the possession of the general system of common education, are not inclined to admit it to the platform of scientific deduction. Hap­ pily, these things are now undergoing rapid change, and they who once taught that the world was created out of nothing in six days and nights, of twenty-four hours each, have given way to the demonstrations of geology, and are forced to admit that their previous belief was founded in an allegory. The ice which has held firm so long, being broken, is gradually though surely disappearing, and the day is not far distant when all things will be submitted to the test of demonstration, and everything which will not stand it will be discarded as good for nothing except to deceive. In nothing is this needed so much as in determining what education should consist of, so as to furnish to the world the best sam­ ples of physical, mental and moral excellence combined. Neither of these departments can be neglected ; they must all be merged together into one system, and that must be guided by the deductions to be de­ rived from the previously stated proposition. The common practice of the world, in all things which it desires to modify or remedy, is to begin at the extreme, where the effects are found, and from them to work backward toward the beginning. The whole course of the world regarding crime has been to punish rather than to prevent it; to work with the effects of education—for it comes down to that at last—rather than to perfect the system of education. And if we begin the statement by saying that education ’commences almost at the period of. conception and extends until men and women take control of themselves, we shall have been only comprehensive; enough to have included that portion of life for which the community— society—is strictly responsible. And there is no escape from this, con- CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 127 elusion. What the man or woman is at the time they become recog­ nized citizens, society makes them. They are its production as much as the apple is the production of the tree. If the apple is a bad apple it is not its fault; that lies in the tree. If men and women are bad men and women when they arrive at legal age, it is not their fault but it is the fault of society in which they are born, raised and educated. . No. II. Having in a previous number come to the deliberate conclusion that society is responsible for the character of the children which it rears to become constituent, responsible members of itself, it now becomes necessary to examine the conditions and circumstances through which they are compelled to attain to their responsibility, and to decide which, if any part thereof, is not in keeping with the logic of responsibility after majority. In making this examination there can be no departure from the most inflexible applications of principles allowed. The clear, the full, the broadest generalizations and specializations must be maintained, while in immediate practice such approaches to the same will be advo­ cated as are possible in present conditions. It is the worst failing—it has always been the worst failing—of all advocates of reform based in principles, that they can see nothing but an immediate abandonment of all present customs and the full and com­ plete adoption of all the legitimate deductions of these principles, which, though they may be abstractly correct and logically unavoidable, are too widely separated from prevailing practices to admit of an instant transfer from the old to the new. The practical reformers are they who, while keeping a steadfast hold of the full and broadest application of principles, instead of endeavoring to compel society to gain this by one leap, guide it toward it gradually. To society the process may be almost imperceptible or so nearly so that on arriving at the desired point it will not be conscious of the advance it has made. It is not without reason that the world calls all reformers in new fields “ impracticables,” and it is for just the reason which we have endeavored to point out Particular stress is laid upon this, that our own course may not be deemed inconsistent While we shall advocate the extent of all that should be, regarding the preparation of children to become active and 128 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. useful members of society, we would have it distinctly understood that its practice must be reached by degrees. If we are hungry and can­ not get a whole loaf of bread, it would be most foolish to starve when the half of it could have been had and our craving thus partially satis­ fied. So, too, is it with reform. If all that the keenest analysis teaches cannot be arrived at immediately, the practice of a part should satisfy for the time. It is scientifically true that the life which develops into the indi­ vidual life never begins. That is to say, there is no time in which it can be said life begins where there was no-life. The structural unit of nucleated protoplasm, which forms the centre around which aggregation proceeds, contains a pulsating life before it takes up this process. As the character of the herve stimula which this is possessed of and which sustains this evidence of life must depend upon the source frofn which it proceeds, it is first of all important that the condition of this source should be favorable to the new organism which it is to furnish the nucleus of. In other words, and plainly, the condition of the parents at the time of conception, should be made a matter of prime import­ ance, so that the life principle with which the new organism is to begin its growth should be of the highest order. There are various evidences which have been collected from time to time by the medical profession which leave no doubt as to the im­ portance of beginning life according to the strictest requirements or harmony. Cases of partial and total idiocy have been traced to the beastly inebriation of the parents at and previous to the time of conception. On the other extreme, some of the brightest intellects and the most noble and loveable characters the world ever produced owed their hap­ py condition to the peculiarly happy circumstances under which they began life, much of the after portion of the growing process of which having been under unfavorable circumstances; Many‘mothers can trace the irritable and nervously-disagreeable condition of their children to their own condition at this time. It must therefore be allowed that the condition under which every child is generated has an important bearing upon the whole future life. . . How important it is, then, that proper consideration should govern in this the beginning of life. It is surely a matter of sufficient moment to be reduced to a strictly scientific basis. 4 We are aware that these subjects are not only avoided, but are almost unanimously ignored by society; also, that society pretends to CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 129 blush at the mention of them ; and well it may blush, for the abortions of nature which it is continually turning upon the world to be its pests, its devils, its damnation and their own worst enemies, are sufficiently hideous to make all humanity blush with well-founded shame. We have no doubt that the noble dames of society, the mincing, supercil­ ious, affected graduates of those hot-houses of female depravity—board­ ing-schools—with all the ignorant and bigoted, will hold up their hands in holy horror to think that women should so degrade themselves as to attempt to discuss these subjects. But the time must come wherein they will not only be discussed, but must be understood and practiced according to the understanding—when a full knowledge of what per­ tains to conception, foetal life, birth and growth to full manhood and womanhood, will be an important part of every child’s education. Virtue nor modesty does not consist in the avoidance, the ignoring, or ignorance of these most important things; but true virtue, true modesty and true general worth, consist, in part at least, of a complete knowledge and practice of them. It is full time that we have done with all the sham modesty and affected virtue with which humanity has been cursed already too long and unnecessarily. As has been said before, reformers are all working at the wrong end of the matter, foolishly, blindly, uselessly; they attempt to control effects, not to remedy causes. Such reformers never have and never will accomplish much except to set others thinking. e It is required in this subject of the life of children, that we begin at the very root of the matter; and that lies in the condition of persons, about to become parents. The mere matter of the observance of formula and customs of society is not, by one thousandth part, as im­ portant as that is which shall decide the character of a future individual­ ized human being. And just to this point, as we have said before, is where the Woman Question leads. It is the important question of the age, and it will rise to be thus acknowledged. All present humanity has a direct interest in it; and all future humanity demands of the pres­ ent its ‘right to the best life which it is possible to have under the best arrangement of present circumstances which can be formulated. And there are those who will not permit that their rights be much longer ignored. There will be “ John the Baptists ” preaching in the wilder­ ness, “ Prepare ye the way,” and humanity must and will heed them. Such is the prophecy of the present; and the present will do well to listen to its teachings. The holy mission of fathers and mothers is the most sacred of all 130 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. earthly duties, and to be able to faithfully and perfectly perform them, in a full knowledge of their importance, should be the ambition of every human being. Very much of the fashionable external nonsense, which forms so great a part of young ladies’ education, might well be dispensed with, and they, instead, be instructed in their mission as the artists of humanity; artists not merely in form and feature, but in that diviner sense of intellect and soul: No. III. We have often wondered that, among all the medical authorities, there have not been more who devoted some part of their profuse writ­ ings to the ante-natal care and treatment of children. No more import­ ant addition could be made to our system of social economy, nor to our pathological literature, than a strictly scientific analysis of foetal life for popular and familiar circulation. While so much has been said and written—much of which, to be sure, is very foolish' and unprofitable— regarding children’s care and treatment after birth, that part of their life previously has been entirely ignored. It would be just as proper to ignore their life after birth until some still future period, say three, five or seven years of age, as to do so previously. To lay a good foundation for a good life, it is required that the proper care should be bestowed upon it from its very point of begin­ ning. The same rule should apply and govern, which applies and governs in all similar matters outside of and below the most important of them all. Even the tiller of the soil exercises special care and his best wisdom in the matter of preparation for the future harvest He knows, from oft-repeated experience, how important it is, first of all, to have the very best seed, of the very best variety, to plant. For this he selects the choicest and most perfect of his preceding crop, or pur­ chases from others who have better than he. He knows that seed thus selected, planted side by side with unselected seed, and receiving no more care, will yield not only larger harvests but also that they will be of choice quality. . Having obtained the best seed possible, his next step is to have the ground properly prepared, into which, at just the proper season, he de­ posits it All these introductory and preparatory measures of care and otuay are a part of the process by which our fruits, grains and vege­ CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 131 tables have been brought to their present state of perfection. Every­ body knows that fruits and vegetables which grow wild and are poison­ ous, are oftentimes capable of being brought, by cultivation, to be useful and delicious articles of diet Everybody knows that it has been only by the strictest study and care that our most celebrated breeds of horses and other stocks of domesticated animals have been obtained. Everybody knows that deep scientific research is constantly being made regarding almost every department of production, and that those en­ gaged in the respective departments, eagerly seek and systematically apply every new fact which science makes clear. And it is, scientific­ ally, an admitted fact, that the future character of what is to be produced can be very nearly, if not absolutely, determined by those who have charge of the process through which it is to be produced. Even the color which the herdsman desires for his cattle can be literally ob­ tained ; and what is true regarding color is just as broadly true regard­ ing all other indices of individuality. Notwithstanding all these accepted facts which are coming to be the rules and guides of all people, when we approach the subject of making the same rules and guides so general in their application as to include children, the world stands aghast, and, with one united effort, frowns it down. Nobody denies the importance of the subject, but those .who will speak at all argue that it is one of those things which the common mind is not prepared to meet Not prepared to meet! And the whole Christian world has been preaching regeneration these eighteen hun­ dred years ! which they tell us is the one thing necessary. All the im­ portance claimed for regeneration we willingly admit; all badly pro­ duced persons require regeneration; but as to it being the main thing, we beg to demur. If regeneration is an important matter, generation is still more so. It is to the consideration of this scientific fact, as demon­ strated and practiced by the human, in all departments of nature below, that the human must come, and acknowledge itself a proper subject of. Just so far as science can demonstrate and humanity will put its dem­ onstrations to practice, just so far will the necessity for regeneration be done away. It is too true that the courage to face this question has always been wanting, and that when it is attempted, all society pretends to be out­ raged by it r Are Human Beings,# then, to always be considered of so much less importance than the very things they make subservient to them, that they’should forever be left to come into this world’s exist­ 132 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. ence as individuals at random ? We know the obloquy that has fallen upon all who have ever attempted to hold the mirror so that society would be obliged to contemplate itself; but, notwithstanding all this, we feel there is not a more noble object to which we can turn. We have deliberately considered all the bearings of this matter, and have as de­ liberately determined to stand by the flag we have reared so long as we shall have life and strength to do so. We have thrown to the world— “ Children: their Rights, Privileges and True Relations to Society,” and we shall maintain it argumentatively, if possible; defiantly, if need be, against all opposition, let it come from whence it may, or let its charac­ ter be what it may. Argument we know we shall not have to encoun­ ter. Scientific hindrances we know we shall not find in pur path. Com­ mon Sense we know will offer no word of reproof. We shall, however, encounter hoary-headed bigotry, blind intolerance and fossilized author­ ity—and we are prepared. It is laid down as an undeniable proposition, that the Human Race can never even approximate to perfection until all the means which men make use of to produce perfect things are also made use of in their own production. Let those who decry this proposition turn to their so-much-revered Bible and read—“ Ye cannot gather figs of thorns nor grapes from thistles ”—and learn wisdom therefrom. It must be remem­ bered how great an “ infidel ” was he who first demonstrated Arterial and Veinous circulation, which has come to be of the greatest import­ ance in diagnosing diseases. It has generally been proven true, that those things which have resulted in the greatest benefit to humanity, met with the most blind and insane opposition in their first struggles for recognition. If this subject of children is to be judged by this rule, it is to develop into greater importance than any which has yet occupied the human mind. Were the inquisition, the rack, the stake possible in this age of the world, its advocates would be at their mercy, for they would be used unmercifully. But, it is asked by those who have somewhat recovered from the first shock of the proposition that the propagation of the human species should be reduced to rules, How can this be done ? It cannot be done immediately to the fullest extent, but the recognition of its importance can be forced upon humanity, and the practice of its evident deductions can be attained by degrees. Once let it become divested of this absurd idea of “ impropriety,” and humanity will begin to practice its teach­ ings. It is only required that reason be exalted to its proper place and influence, and analogies, with which nature abounds, *will become the CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 133 great teachers. Almost everything which is required to be known and practiced to produce healthy, happy and good children in every sense of that word, is already known and practiced in every other kind of reproduction. The great difficulty with which we shall be met at every step is, that it is nearly impossible to make people realize that their lives here are for any other or higher purpose than for each of them to acquire for him or herself the greatest amount ofpersonal, and consequently selfish, gratification. They cannot yet sufficiently realize that each individual* is made one of the means by which the whole of humanity is advanced. They cannot yet be brought to reduce to practice what all will admit, that he or she is the greatest man or woman who does the most for humanity; nor have they yet anything more than an undefined belief that in doing the most for humanity, they do most for themselves. Yet this has been the logic of the doctrine of Christianity nearly two thou­ sand years. The teachings of Christianity are all well; they have been taught persistently. But we have now arrived at that practical age of the world which demands adequate results as proofs of the validity of as­ sumed positions. The Apostles taught that “ certain signs” should fol­ low those who believed. Do these signs exist within the heart of the professedly sole representatives of true Christianity ? By their fruits shall ye know them. We do know them by their fruits, which are not so perfect as to warrant the conclusion that humanity has yet passed from being “professors” into being “possessors.” That this process is not farther advanced is, because the laborers in “the vineyard ”vare en­ deavoring to compel scraggy, scranny, ill-formed, ill-tempered sources to produce perfected fruit z Human life may be compared to a military campaign, in which no amount of valiancy and good generalship can overcome the defects of an imperfect organization of the “body”—army—with which it is to be made. We may as consistently expect a badly organized army to make a good military champaign as to expect a badly organized child to make a good social campaign. To this the very beginning of organi­ zation, should all reformers turn who expect to produce any beneficial results, which shall be ultimate and lasting, and which shall mark the perfecting process of humanity. 134 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. NO. IV. If there is one thing in the whole round of individualized life which should be considered more important than any other, or even all the rest, it is the individualized existence of the human. If life be ana­ lyzed with the view to discover the ultimate purposes of the creation as represented by the part this planet fills in the solar system, it will be found that no higher evolution is posssible than that of mind, as in­ dividualized in the human. Human mind consists of all grades of comprehensiveness and re­ finement, from the mere brutal to the angelic. The best aim a human being can entertain is to attain the highest perfection in intellect, morals and in spirituality. The best endowment a human being can have is such an organization as will admit of and render easy the acquisition and devolvement of these beauties of the inner life. Mere physical beauty and perfection, although a thing more to be desired than all other material things, cannot compare with that richer endowment of interior beauty. A beautiful fiend is the most sorrowful sight the world can contemplate; next to which is an angelic, soul resident in a material deformity. Material evolution has ultimated in the production of the human form, and it is made male and female, not by mere chance, but that further, greater and nobler ends may be gained. These ends are ar­ rived at through the union of the sexes and by their reproducing their kind. The grandest purpose of human life, then, must be the repro­ duction of the most perfect specimens of its kind, and this is the logi­ cal deduction to which all sensible, reasoning persons must arrive. If this be so, then nothing should be held so important as a perfect un­ derstanding of the laws which control all things which are involved in the processes of nature relating to reproduction. •Instead of this being a subject to be tabooed, ignored or ridiculed, it should be raised to the'one standing first in importance over all other subjects for general discussion, both verbal and written. The entire practice of the world is in direct opposition to this proposition. Repro­ duction, instead of being made the chief aim of life, is about the only part of it which is left to “ luck and chance.” Teach, read, study every­ thing else, but this is too delicate a subject to admit attention; every­ body should show their wisdom, sense and breeding by a studied avoid­ ance of it, has been and still is the practice. Thanks to the spirit of progress which is abroad in the world, this stupidity, this ignorance, CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 135 this vulgarity, aye, this brutality, is declining, and the age of reason and common sense is advancing to occupy their place. Nevertheless, it is ground which must yet be approached carefully and surveyed but par­ tially, in order to insure countenance from those who should give it at­ tention. And this is why we have endeavored to show the importance and the necessity of it at such length The New York Tribune asserts that the cause of half the vice among us is the ignorance of parents of the fact that certain nervous and cerebral diseases transmitted from themselves tend to make of their children from their birth criminals or drunkards, and that only inces­ sant and skilful care can avert the danger. The editor then goes on to philosophize in this way: “ A man may drink moderately but steadily all his life, with no apparent harm to himself, but his daughters become nervous wrecks, his sons epileptics, libertines, or incurable drunkards, the hereditary tendency to crime having its pathology and unvaried laws, precisely as scrofula, consumption, or any other purely physical disease. These are stale truths to medical men, but the majority of parents, even those of average intelligence, are either ignorant or wickedly regardless of them. There will be chance of ridding our jails and almshouses of half their tenants when our people are taught to treat drunkenness as a disease of the stomach and blood as well as of the soul, to meet it with common sense and a physician, as well as with threats of eternal damnation, and to remove gin-shops and gin-sellers for the same reason that they would stagnant ponds or uncleaned sewers. Another fatal mistake is pointed out in the training of children—the system of cramming, hot-house forcing of their brains, induced partly by the unhealthy, feverish am­ bition and struggle that mark every phase of our society, and partly for the short time allowed for education. The simplest physical laws that regulate the use and abuse of the brain are utterly disregarded by edu­ cated parents. To gratify a mother’s silly vanity during a boy’s school days, many a man is made incompetent and useless. If the boy show any sign of unnatural ambition or power, instead of regarding it as a symptom of an unhealthy condition of the blood vessels or other cere­ bral disease, and treating it accordingly, it is accepted as an evidence of genius, and the inflamed brain is taxed to the uttermost, until it gives way exhausted.” When a paper, which so religiously ostracizes so much which is in­ volved in the principles of general reform, as the Tribune does, comes so near to the “root of the matter,” it may be seriously considered 136 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. whether the time has not arrived in which to speak directly to the point If these effects follow from the causes cited, what is the remedy ? All who will stop a moment and calmly consider the situation will agree with the Tribune^ and go still further to say that many other vices not mentioned by it are attributable to the same sources. The question for the reformer, then, is not how much of the so-called evil of the world has its origin behind the individual enacting it, but the vital question is: How shall this damnation be made to cease ? One thing is certain, that if parents continue to produce children under these circumstances the effects will continue. The remedy, then, is twofold: first, and mainly, to prevent, as much as possible, the union of persons addicted to these false practices ; second, to endeavor to re­ form those who are united. A positive assertion is here made. No two persons have the right to produce a human life and irremediably entail upon it such a load of physical and mental hell as the Tribune cites; and if they do they should be held accountable to society for the evils resulting therefrom. It is the merest sham of justice to punish the drunkard for the sins of his or her parents. It is the most superficial nonsense and the purest malice to curse the bad fruit which grows in your orchard because you do not take care of the trees; but it is not more so than it is to curse and punish children for the crime of their parents. From whatever attitude this question is viewed it cannot fail to become obvious that society is working at the wrong end of the dilemma to regenerate the world. Regeneration must continue indefinitely. But give proper at­ tention to generation and the end is half accomplished from that time. We come back, then, to the original proposition, that society is itself directly accountable for the ills with which it is affected, and that it should be held accountable to the children it produces and turns loose into itself rather than that they should be made accountable to society for their shortcomings. And this is the inevitable logic of com­ mon sense, and is supported by the analysis of all facts. No. V. We are aware that the proposition with which the last article closed is a novel one, but from the premises no other conclusion can be reached. And if such be the true responsibilities of the situation, it necessarily CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 137 follows that society should make it one of its first and most important duties to itself as a whole, to compel its constituent parts to a due re­ gard for the laws of reproduction. Marriage or the union of the sexes is a natural condition of the human race to which its sex representatives legitimately tend. The re­ sult to society of marriage is addition to its numbers. The result to the contracting parties is just the happiness or the misery which they ex­ tract from their union. Whatever relations they may sustain to the children they produce, those which society as a whole sustains to them are broader and more comprehensive. The parents are but parts of society, and their children are nothing less, so that while they, by present social systems, are for a long time left to the special control and guardianship of their parents, it can be considered only as in trust for society. The relations which should be considered as the foundation of so­ ciety are those which exist between society and marriage in its special function of reproduction, which thus far has been utterly ignored. When two are about to form a marriage union, does society in its legiti­ mate functions of promoting and protecting the public welfare ever stop to ask what the character of the results of the union are likely to be ? Instead of this most proper question entering into the consideration, the only one that has been thought of is is: How shall these two be com­ pelled to live out the remainder of their natural lives together, utterly regardless of the higher thought of the children resulting from it? Such has been and is the superficiality of society, and consequently in its heart and nerve to-day it is degenerated and corrupt, though to .ex­ ternal appearances it is proud and gay. But, says the objector, would you cripple individual freedom by imposing any restraints regarding the union of the sexes? We answer that individual freedom which interferes with the good of the public is not freedom but tyranny. Every living individual is possessed of the inalienable right to freedom within the limits of his or her sphere, but that freedom cannot encroach upon the freedom of any other in­ dividual possessing the same right, nor upon that of the sum of indi­ viduals as represented by society. Just at this point is where the great mistake is always made: the failure is ever made to distinguish between individual and collective rights and wrongs, between society as the total of individuals and the individuals themselves. The rights of the former are so much the more superior to those of the latter, as it is greater in the number of individuals composing it Under this poposition, which 138 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. lies at the root of all government, society not only has the right to pre­ scribe all necessary laws by which to govern its members, but it is its duty both to itself as a body and to every individual member to do so. Anything in the individual which produces deleterious effects upon so­ ciety it has the right to constrain, but beyond this limit no government has any right to proceed. It may be laid down as as an undeniable and legitimate duty of society through its established government to debar, if possible, the pro­ duction of such children as proA) the pests and curse of it, which ac­ tion, in its results, the blindest and dumbest can see must be beneficial to all parties involved, to society as a whole, and to those debarred from inflicting upon it the coming damnation. Were these matters understood, were they made a part and parcel of every child’s education, there would be but little, if any, disposition on the part of individuals to proceed contrary to the limits of these de­ ductions. It may be considered as certain that no woman would con­ sent to bear children by an habitual drunkard, did she know that it would legitimately follow that such children must be idiotic, insane or the subjects of epilepsy; and if she would she should be prevented. It may not be true that such dire results often follow, but many others, only less terrible, surely do in every such case. It is a well-established fact among the medical profession that nearly, if not quite, all the consumption which hurries so many victims through life has its source in hereditary syphilitic taint, which, for delicacy, has been christened scrofula. Now what business or right has a man or woman, who knows that his or her system is loaded with this infer­ nal poison, to become the propagator of the species ? It requires but a moment of just consideration to determine between the individual’s rights and those of society in this instance. The same is equally true of all other diseases and damnations which can be transmitted, and not more of those which pertain to the purely physical than of those which relate to the mental and the moral It thus must come to be a conceded fact that the rights of society are superior in every sense to those of the individuals composing it. When the world shall begin to act upon this deduction it will have commenced a course of advancement which will never be intermixed with retreats. Education for all in matters which refer to these vital points should be one of the first steps to be taken by society. They have been fool­ ishly and criminally ignored upon the false premises that to instruct children in them would be to lead them into unfortunate conditions, CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 139 whereas the very reverse is the truth. The same principle should and does hold true in this regard that does in all which have been demon­ strated. If there are dangers to- be avoided, the very best way to pre­ pare children to avoid them is to give them a perfect understanding of what they are. In knowledge there is always safety. In ignorance there is always danger. Let these truths be adopted in the education of children, regarding their duties as the future parents of society, and one-half the ills with which society is inflicted would soon disappear. No person would think of setting their children to carry on a business of which they had no knowledge, but in this, the most vital of all things—the production of their kind—all possible knowledge is withheld. As well might it be expected that an ignorant foot-pad should be able to construct a perfect locomotive as that ignorant parents should be able to produce perfect children; and society must come to this conclusion before much prog­ ress can be possible in purifying the races. Notwithstanding all the very bad material which exists out of which future generations will be constructed, those generations will be very much improved by a judicious culture of the bad we have—just as superior stocks of animals, better fruits and vegetables, and more perfectly perfumed flowers are produced from inferior sources. It is the knowledge which shall bring to men and women the comprehension of these things which is' needed; with it very few bad results would follow, even from the bad we have. It requires but to be mentioned to show the ridiculousness, the ab­ surdity, to say nothing all about the lying part of the matter, of en­ deavoring to mislead children by such falsehoods as that “ the doctor brought mamma a baby last night” To such an extent has this ignor­ ance prevailed that young women have actually been married without knowing anything about the process of reproduction If such things are not criminal it is hard to name anything which is. Thanks to a great deal which is obtained nowadays in spite of parents and teachers, not many women enter the marriage state without some knowledge of what they are to be the subjects of. If our houses of prostitution were searched and their inmates ques­ tioned, none would be found there whose mothers had the good sense to teach them the objects and functions of their sexual systems. It is the ignorance of these things which prepares the subjects who fill the blotches upon the fair face of humanity, which scatter their blighting poisons among its sons and daughters. In the name of a common hu- CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 140 inanity, then, and as a duty we owe it, we demand that these curses be banished by a sensible and judicious system of common education. There is a law common to all nature by which those things that are best adapted to each other are brought and held together. If it be analogically applied, there will be found a chemistry of the social, intellectual and moral sentiments as well as of the material ele­ ments, which only requires to have free action to produce equally good comparative results. Education should include a perfect knowledge of this part of general chemistry, so Jhat compatibles may be at once apparent to all people of both sexes. Open the fountains of knowledge so that all may drink of the waters of a true life. -• No. VL ' If “knowledge is power,” ignorance must be weakness; hence it is that we insist that knowledge is a matter of primary importance re­ garding the relations of the sexes. All the legislation and provision of the past has been short-sighted, having been entirely directed to main­ taining relations once entered upon during life, just as though these re­ lations begun and ended within themselves, and never giving the re­ sults of these relations even the first thought except to keep them as ignorant as possible during their growth of the processes of nature by which they are. With knowledge upon these matters entering into circumstances which control marriages, something more than mere personal and tem­ porary considerations would assume the determining position. People would, in the first place, never think of contracting sexual alliances with those through whom they should have any cause to suspect that their offsprings would be curses to them and society; and, in the sec­ ond place, having given such alliances consideration, reason would pre­ vail, and, in the majority of instances, prevent their consummation. There are various cases, however, in which, with all the precaution which knowledge would engender, persons would find themselves allied before discovering causes which should absolutely deter them from continuing the union. This we are aware touches the question of mar­ riage law, which has been so fully treated upon elsewhere, but it is a point to which legislators have never given any weight or thought whatever, and it therefore demands attention. If marriage is for any CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 141 other purpose than simply the binding together of two individuals for the mere sake of having them bound, then these purposes should have a modifying power over the union itself. If people—sensible people— set about to accomplish any purpose, they exert their best talent to adapting the means to the end in view ; they do not blindly set about it without considering what the results of certain steps would be ; in other words, they sit down and “ count the cost” and see if their means will compass the ends. As we have said before, no two have any right to contract an alliance by which children shall result to curse the world. Children are the results—the natural results—of these alliances, and as they are the end to be attained by the alliance, they should be the chief consid­ eration to determine it. People drink to quench their thirst; but they do not necessarily seize upon the first liquid they come upon and make use of it, regardless of the effect it will produce. It is one of the sim­ plest rules of life which we are insisting upon, and yet people have never discovered that it conld apply to marriage. The reason why this has not been discovered is because pure selfishness has controlled with ab­ solute sway. The time has come, however, wherein something more than present personal considerations must assume their true determining positions regarding marriage ; in which either sex must ask the question and an­ swer-it before action, What shall Icontribute to humanity if I do this ? To this condition education will lead in these matters as surely as it does in all others. Then let us have a judicious system of education relating to the la™rs which govern reproduction, nor let it be longer absurdly held that there is danger in it to the young who have arrived at matu­ rity in function. The same rule which applies in all other things also does in this. Familiarity with everything relating to it removes all danger of injury or of pernicious results flowing from it To make use of an illustration in the direct line in which this matter has been considered by society, and which invests all secrets with a peculiar fascination for everybody, we remark the entire revolution which has taken place upon the corners of Broadway since the “ leg drama” made its appearance among us in the profusion it has within the past three years. Previously, nearly every corner of Broadway during the portions of the day when women most frequent it, would contain a group of “exquisites,” whose lasci­ vious eyes were eagerly searching about for the most exposed bosoms of the most beautiful ladies (?), or for the greatest exposure resulting 142 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. from entering and leaving omnibuses. So common was this practice, that it became known to every woman,that, wherever she might be upon the street, eager eyes were gazing upon her, ready to make the most of any situation she might be placed in. These institutions have nearly, if not quite, disappeared under the influence of the aforesaid drama, which by its very extravagance of exposure, has so far outstretched the street method that satiety has resulted. This is but another illustration of the fact that where little excites, profusion satisfies ; and people—men and women—now go and witness all the displays which it is possible to make of female beauty of form at our “Black Crooks” and “Les Brigands” and never think of becoming, vulgarly speaking, demor­ alized. The application of this illustration is apparent Children, by the little things they so readily gather about the difference of sex, are made curious to just the extent the means of satisfying that curiosity is diffi­ cult, and they pursue their means by stealth whenever and wherever possible. This results in producing a morbid condition of the mind about it, and encourages all kinds of secret vices, which are sapping the very life and beauty of the coming generation. No one can doubt this, who will give it the attention it merits, to be one of the crying ills of present systems of education. If instruction were begun in these mat­ ters at or about the age when curiosity is developed, and it is made a common matter of course, is it not plain that it would at once produce as effectual results as the case cited above ? We are aware that “ conservatives1' will decry this plain way of treat­ ing this subject, and make use of the usual method of manifesting their condemnation ; nevertheless, the proposition to us is a simple one, over which we have spent many weary hours in the ineffectual endeavor to in­ vest it with the drapery which society has veiled it by. A secret at­ tracts eyerybody’s attention. When it is a secret no longer it ceases to attract attention, and becomes reduced to its legitimate and natural uses. Without any hesitation, we assert our belief that the same results would follow the education of our children in sexual matters ; knowl­ edge would succeed curiosity, and healthy action of the mind to a mor­ bid desire. Think well before entering up a verdict of condemnation, for it is a point of vital import to humanity as a whole, as well as to in­ dividuals. CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 14'3 No. VII. We now approach a part of the subject which is of supreme moment and that is the care which embryotic life demands in order that the re- * quired character shall be given the new organization, which having been the result of a union of two, brought about under the strictest applica­ tion of adaptation, and of complete knowledge, begins its individualized existence. During this period of life, every influence to which the mother is subjected, be it ill or good, produces its legitimate effect upon the embryo. Whoever is an adept in these matters can go through so­ ciety and from each individual tell what circumstances his or her mother was surrounded by during her pregnancy. To call to mind the truth of this we have but to refer to the “ marking of childrenevery other char­ acteristic is equally the subject of the mother’s surroundings. So it must become clear to every mother how terribly important this period of life is, and what a momentous responsibility she assumes when she un­ dertakes the duties of an artist for humanity. And should such duties be entered upon thoughtlessly, carelessly, and with no regard what­ ever for them in a special sense ? Should marriages be consummated and these considerations be left out of the question, and never thought of until the actual responsibility is assumed ? Mothers of humanity ! yours is a fearful duty, and one which should in its importance lift you entirely above the modem customs of society, its frivolities, superficiali­ ties and deformities, and make you realize that to you is committed the divine work of perfecting humanity. In this sense, and under this consideration, marriage becomes a thou­ sand times more sacred than you or any other has ever regarded it. So fearfully sacred should it be that it should never be consummated until the researches of science and the teaching of wisdom are exhausted in the effort to prove that it will be a benefit to humanity. It is because of this sacredness with which we regard the union of the sexes that we denounce the present marriage systems. Under these the interests of children are utterly ignored, and only the continua­ tion of the union thought of, people all the while being deceived with the idea that it is for the children’s sake that unfortunate unions should continue. No matter how illy-mated people may be, children will re­ sult It will be difficult to find a case where an actual hate exists and not find children. What can be expected from children generated, bom and raised under such influences? There are numerous instances constantly being made public where mothers are even brutally treated 144 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. during pregnancy, and oftentimes because they are pregnant. That such things are, is a standing impeachment against the rules of society, and a damning shame upon those, who would perpetuate them, under any cir­ cumstances. Just the life the mother leads will she prepare her child to lead. Just what the mother desires to make her child she can mould and fashion it to be. What a comdemnation these considerations are upon the practices of fashionable society. How utterly worthless are the lives of so many mothers, and how devoid of purpose. Just so are their children. In the insane desire for dress and display, which charac­ terizes so many women, lies the bane of life for their children. The cold heartlessness of the woman of fashion contains the germ of destruction for her daughter and the seeds of vice for her son. No warm-hearted, generous-souled children can spring from such soil. It can alone sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind. Nor should the listless and unoccupied condition so many women fall into during pregnancy be much less discountenanced. Energy, pur­ pose and application should be the very first considerations, and in just those directions it is desired the child should excel. In this respect, a thousand times more, are women the artists of humanity than they have ever thought I remember once to have heard Mrs. Mary F. Davis de­ liver a lecture on “Woman as an Artist.” Although quite young at that time it made a lasting impression upon me. It should be repeated in the hearing of every woman living until she should appreciate the full weight of .the responsibility which the Creator has imposed upon her. The practice of abortion is one which spreads damnation world-wide. Not so much in those cases where it is accomplished, but in those much more numerous cases where it is desired, attempted, but not reached. As soon as a woman becomes conscious that she is pregnant and a de­ sire comes up in her heart to shirk the duties it involves, that moment the foetal life is the unloved, the unwished child. Is it to be wondered that there are so many undutiful children; so many who instinctively feel that they are “ incumbrances ” rather than the beautiful necessities of the home ? Their curses blast the lives of thousands who should have been a blessing to themselves and the world. Another practice prevails which can but be most disastrous to the child. When a woman finds herself pregnant she begins to hide herself from the world, for fear that it shall also know it If the child live to birth the world must know it Why should it be deemed so terribly immodest previously as to warrant the virtual confinement of the CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. 145 mother ? What true mother’s heart but bounds with pride and joy when she sees the beauteous results of her constructive work ? Why should she not also feel a like happiness when she realizes she is performing that constructive process ? Is it to be wondered that there are so many children lacking all confidence in themselves and so foolishly diffident that it follows them through life ? It should be the pride of every wo­ man to be the willing, the anxious, the contented mother, and if she be so under the guidance of the knowledge we deem essential she will never have cause to regret that she fulfilled the duties of maternity. All of these practices which do so much to degenerate the character of chil­ dren should be discountenanced by every humanitarian, and every wo­ man encouraged and assisted to wisely and perfectly mould and fashion the life which they shall give to the world. We should feel satisfied with having performed sufficient for one life if we could bring humanity, to regard these matters sufficiently to make them feel the necessity of reform in the entire circumstances which attend the bearing of children as deeply as we feel it We are con­ vinced that this is the point to which effort must be directed, that hu­ manity may be relieved of the continued production of the veriest abor­ tions of manhood and womanhood in human shapes, by which it is now so extensively cursed. Child-bearing must be made an aim in marriage, and-no longer left to be its merest chance. Children have a right to be born according to the very best methods which science can lay down, and men and women have no right to disregard this right, least of all to trample upon it VIIL It will not be seriously questioned that children at birth are already possessed of the germs which shall develop as they increase in age, but which cannot, except by the most persistent efforts, understandingly di­ rected, be radically changed. • The trite saying that “ he was a born thief, murderer or fool,” is accepted, and generally believed, but it does not seem to be realized of what moment it is or of what comprehensive­ ness. If it apply to the thief, the murderer and the idiot, it equally ap­ plies to all modifications of these traits up to being entirely good; so that every living person was born what he is, in fundamental traits of character, which in expression, are of course modified according to the surrounding influences which promote his growth 10 146 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. But we must pass from ante-natal life to that which has so generally been considered the beginning of it, and here a searching examination develops little more to be aprovedthan found previously. Certain it is, however, that there is a limited time in which the mother’s care natu­ rally belongs to the child. Some have attempted to make it appear that the child should not continue dependent upon the mother for nourishment; it is a sufficient answer to this that nature has provided that it should be so dependent, and except objectionable upon special grounds it should so be. How little scientific or acquired knowledge there is regarding the early care of children their immense death-rate clearly shows. It seems one of the most sorrowful things of life to see the merest babes drop off by the thousands, as they do, for the very true reason that the mothers do not know how to rear them. This is the only reason for their great mortality, and there are very many reasons why some definite action should be taken to stop this disgraceful fact If wives will become mothers without the knowledge requisite to fit them to perform their duties to their children, then they should themselves be put under the care of some competent authority, so that the life they have been instrumental in organizing may not be uselssly thrown away. Every child properly conceived and born should live to be reared. Their should be a less proportionate mortality among them than among adults, because they are not necessarily subject to so many contingencies and exigencies which precipitate fatal consequences as they are. Everything which is required to insure the life of a healthy born child is proper care, natural diet, and judicious exercise, and no woman is fit to become a mother unless she know what all these are. If these are not reasonable conclusions then none can be deduced from the premises; but, on the contrary, it must be concluded that it is just and right that children should be left to come into natural existence by chance ; that no primary considerations should be entertained regarding their production. But the time does come in which their demands are taken up, in which it is acknowledged that they have rights which must be respected, and powers and inherent ca­ pacities which must be cared for and directed. When do these de­ mands arise ? At what particular age do these come to be of signifi­ cance ? There can be but one answer to this, and that is in direct op­ position to, and refutation of, all present practice—at the very moment of the beginning of existence. We are arguing, are pleading, are urging the rights of children ; those rights which shall make every child, male and female, honorable CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES.' 147 and useful members of society ; when they shall be considered as indi­ vidual determining parts of it Whether in acquiring this right all old forms, all present customs, all supposed interests are found to be standing in the way, matters not, the question is and must be recognized to be, What is for the best interests of children, not merely as children, but principally as the basis of future society ? Scarcely any of the practices of education, of family duties or of society’s rights in regard to children are worthy of anything but the severest condemnation. They do not have their inherent rights at all in view. They consult the affections to the exclusion of all reason and common sense. They forget that the human is more than an affectional being ; that he has other than family duties to fulfill, and that he belongs to humanity, which is utterly ig­ nored by all present practices. Let the father and mother of every family ask themselves : Are we fully capable of so rearing our children that no other means could make them better citizens, and better men and women ? And how many could conscientiously give you an affirmative answer ? The fact that children are bom and grown to be citizens, and not to remain children of the parents simply, is over-looked. It is a matter worthy of the most serious and immediate considera­ tion, whether the future good of children and society shall be sacrificed to the mere affectional relations of parents and children. No sensible person can look around among his or her circle of acquaintances and not become convinced that in certain cases children would be better off were they entirely withdrawn from the care of their parents. We are aware that this, if intended for any considerable and com­ prehensive application, would be regarded as a startling assertion. Many true things when first announced startle the world, which thought differently so long. For ourselves we make the distinct asseveration that we are thoroughly convinced that fully one-half the whole number of children now living between the ages often and fifteen would have been* in a superior condition, physically, mentally and morally to what theyl are, had they been early intrusted to the care of the proper kind of in­ dustrial institutions. It is useless to attempt to ignore the fact that home influences are not always the most beneficial to children. It is a well-known fact that these influences are absolutely detrimental in many instances. If this is so, to even the extent, that every one who will give it a moment’s consideration must acknowledge it to be, does it not de­ mand attention ? 148 CHILDREN—THEIR RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. We hold, it to be an absolute and a fundamental right that every child, female and male, has, that when they are received into society, as determining powers, they shall be possessed of the required capacity and. experience to take care of themselves, and to perform whatever may be required of them. We also lay it down as an absolute truth, —and no one will question it—that those who are best prepared to ful­ fill all the duties which can by any possibility devolve upon them as members of society, are the best citizens, and give unanswerable evi­ dence of having been the recipients of the best means of growth and edu­ cation. To make the best citizens of children, then, is the object of education, and in whatever way this can be best attained, that is the one which should be pursued, even if it b’e to the complete abrogation of the present supposed rights of parents to control them. It is better that parents should be able to look with pride upon their children grown into matu­ rity, as useful citizens by the assistance of the State, having been unable to make them thus themselves, than to consult the present sentiments of the heart, by having them constantly under their care and by so do­ ing allow them to grow into maturity in form and grace, yet lacking the necessary elements developed in practice to make them acceptable to, or to be desired by, society. One of these would be the result of the existence of wisdom of affection, guided by reason ; the other that of selfishness, in which the good of the child would be sunk in the mere promptings of affection, regardless of consequences. No reasonable person can ques­ tion which of the two is the better for all concerned, for children, for patents and for society. % The weight of our proposition, that society is itself responsible to children for the condition in which they are admitted to it as constitu­ ent members of itself, must begin to be apparent, for so far as they are concerned up to that time they are. not responsible. This being selfevident, is it not also self-evident that they cannot with any considera­ tion of justice be held to account for that which is the legitimate consequences of, and which is positively determined by, that condition? We trust the time is near when the rights and privileges of children will be duly accorded and guaranteed to them by society, and when their true relations to society will be scientifically analyzed and under­ stood and properly enforced. I Freedom ! Equality! I Justice!!! These three; but the greatest of these is Justice^ HN 64 .M392 Copy 1 ON THE DELIVERED IN Music Hall, Boston, Thursday, Feb. 1,1872, AND THE Academy of Music, New York, Feb. 20,1872, BY / WOODHULL, CLAFLIN & CO., PUBLISHERS, No. 44 Eroad Street. * 1872. IMPENDING REVOLUTION. Standing upon the apex of the nineteenth century, we look back­ ward through the historic era, and in the distant, dim past catch sight ■of the feeble outreachings of the roots of humanity, which during thousands of years have evolved into the magnificent civilization by which we are surrounded. Mighty nations have risen and fallen; em­ pires have gathered and wasted; races and peoples have evolved and decayed; but the mystic ebb and flow of the Gigantic Spirit concealed within the universe has continued upon its course, ever increasing in strength and in variety of sequence. It is true that the results which have flown from this progressive course have very materially changed. Early in its history every -achievement was considered great or small, as its conquests by military prowess were great or small. But who in this era would think of plac­ ing a Sesostris, or a Semiramis, or even an Alexander, or Caesar, in comparison as conquerors, with the steamship, the locomotive engine, the electric telegraph, and last and greatest, collecting the efforts of all men, and spreading them world-wide—the printing-press. Where kings and emperors once used the sword to hew their way into the centers of barbarism, the people now make use of their subtle powers of intellect to pierce the heart of ignorance. The conquerors of the present, armed with these keen weapons, are so intertwining the mate­ rial interests of humanity that, where exclusion was once the rule among nations, intercommunication has made it the exception. Every year some new tie has been added to those which already bound the nations together, until even the continents clasp hands across the oceans, and 4 salute each other in fraternal unity, and the islands stand anxiously waiting for their deliverance. The grand results of all these magnificent changes have accrued to the benefit of nations as such. All the revolutions of the past have resulted in the building of empires and the dethroning of kings. The grandeur of the Roman Empire consisted in its power, centered -in and expressed by its rulers. The glory of France under the great Napoleon was the result of his capacity to use the people. We have no histories making nations famous by the greatness of their peoples. Centraliza­ tion of power at the head of the government has been the source of all national honor. Under this system grades and castes of people have built themselves, the stronger upon the weaker, and the people as indi­ viduals have never appeared upon the surface. Government has gone through various and important evolutions and changes. First we learn of it as residing in the head of the family, there being no other organization. Next, families aggregated into tribes, with an acknowledged head. Again, tribes united into nations, occupying specified limits, and having an absolute ruler. Then began a double process, which is even now unfinished—the consolidation of nations into races, and the redistribution of power to the people. That which was once absolute in the head of the family, the tribe and the nation, is now shared by the head with the most powerful among the people. These two processes will continue until both are complete— until all nations are merged into races, and all races into one govern­ ment ; and until the power is completely and equally returned to all the people, who will no longer be denominated as belonging to this or that country or government, but as citizens of the world—as members of a common humanitv. «/ * “ God loves from whole to part. But human soul must from indi­ vidual to the whole.” It is at once one of the most interesting as well as instructive of studies, to trace the march which civilization has described. Begin­ ning in Asia, it traversed westward by and through the rise and decay of the Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Grecian and Roman Empires, each one of which built successively upon the ruins of the preceding, and all 5 culminating in the downfall of the last, whose civilization was dissemi­ nated to impregnate that portion of the world then unknown. Modern Europe rose, and when at its height'of power, civilization still undeviatingly marching westward, crossed the stormy Atlantic, and implanted itself in the virgin soil of America. Here, however, an entirely new process was begun. Representatives from all nations, races and tongues here do congregate. Not only do the nations of Europe and Africa pour their restless sons and daughters westward, but the nations of Asia, setting at defiance the previous law of empire, send their children against its tide to meet it and to coalesce. To those who can view humanity as one, this is a fact of great significance, since it proves America to be the center to which the nations naturally tend. But this is only a part of its significance. The more prophetic portion is, that here a new race is being developed, into which will be gathered all the distinctive characteristics of all the various races. Each race is the distinct representative of some special and predominant characteristic, beinsr weak in all others. The new race will combine all these different qualities in one grand character, and shall ultimately gather in all people of all races. Observe the merging of the black and white races. The white does not descend to the black, but the black gradually approaches the white. And this is the prophecy of what shall be: ‘ ‘ For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right and wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres, feels the gush of joy or shame : In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim. ” As in this country the future race of the world is being developed, so also will the foundation of the future government be developed, which shall become universal. It was no mere child’s play or idle fancy of the old prophets, whose prophecies of a Christ who should rule the world, come trooping down the corridors of time, and from all eras converge upon this. Neither were the Jews entirely at fault when they looked for a Messiah who should reign over the world in temporal as well as in spiritual things, since it is beginning to be comprehended that a reign of justice in temporal things can only follow from the bap- 6 tism of them by spirituality. And it is the approach of these hereto­ fore widely-separated principles which is to produce the impending­ revolution. And that revolution will be the final and the ultimate con­ test between justice and authority, in which the latter will be crushed, never again to raise its despotic head among and to divide the mem­ bers of a common humanity. St. Paul said: “ Faith, Hope and Charity. These three, but the greatest of these is charity.” Beautiful as this triplet may appear to be to the casualist, it cannot bear the test of analysis. It will be replaced in the= vocabulary of the future by the more perfect one—Knowledge, Wisdom and Justice. These three, but the greatest of these is Justice. Charity, with its long cloak of justice escaped, has long enough covered a mul­ titude of sins. Justice will in the future demand perfect compensation, in all things, whether material, mental or spiritual. Heretofore justice has only been considered as having relation tomatters covered by enacted law, and its demands have been considered, as satisfied when the law has had its full course. With Freedom and. Equality it has been a mere abstract term with but little significance. There has never been such a thing as freedom for the people. It has always been concession by the government. There has never been am equality for the people. It has always been the stronger, in some sense, preying upon the weaker; and the people have never had justice. When there is authority, whether it be of law, of custom, or of indi­ viduals, neither of these can exist except in name. Neither do theso principles apply to the people in their collective capacity, but when the people’s time shall come they will belong to every individual sepa­ rately. Equality will exist in freedom and be regulated by j ustice. But what does freedom mean ? “As free as the winds ” is a common expression. But if we stop to inquire what that freedom is, we find that air in motion is under the most complete subjection to different temperatures in different localities, and that these differences arise from conditions entirely independent of the air simply as such. That is to say, the air of itself never changes its temperature. Therefore the freedom of the wind is the freedom to obey commands imposed by conditions to which it is by nature related. So also is water always 7 free to seek its own level. But neither the air or the water of one locality obeys the commands which come from the conditions surround­ ing another locality. That is to say, that while air and water as a whole are subject to general laws, when individualized, each separate body must be subject to its peculiar relations, and to the law of its con­ ditions. Water in one locality may be pure—hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen ; while in others it may contain various additional elements, as sodium, calcium or ammonium, and yet each is free. Air in one locality may be twenty degrees above, and in another twenty degrees below, zero; and yet each is free in its own sphere. Now, individual freedom in its true sense means just the. same thing for the people that freedom for the air and water means to them. It means freedom to obey the natural condition of the individual, modi­ fied only by the various external forces which are brought to bear upon, and which induce action in, the individual. What that action will be, must be determined solely by the individual and the operating causes, and in no two cases can they be precisely alike ; since no two human beings are precisely alike. Now, is it not plain that freedom means that individuals having the right to it, are subject only to the laws of their own being, and to the relations they sustain to the laws of other things by which they are surrounded ? . If, then, freedom mean anything, it means that no individual is sub­ ject to any rule or law to be arbitrarily imposed by other individuals. But several individuals may agree among themselves to be governed by certain rules, since that is their freedom to do so. And here is the primal foundation and the only authoritative source of government. No individual can be said to be free and be held accountable to a law to which he or she did not consent. In the light of that analysis, have the people of this country got freedom ? But should it be objected that such freedom would be liable to abuse, we reply that that is impossible. Since the moment one individual abuses his or her freedom, that moment he or she is encroaching upon the freedom of some one else who is equally entitled to the same right. And the law of the association must protect against such encroachment. And, so far as restraint is concerned, this is 8 the province—the sole province—of law, to protect the rights of indi­ vidual freedom. But what is equality, which must be maintained in freedom ? A good illustration of what equality among the people means, may be drawn from the equality among the children of a family in the case of an equal division of the property of the deceased father. If the pro­ perty is divided among them according to their respective merits, that would not be equality. Now, equality for the people means the equality of the family, ex­ tended to all families. It means that no personal merit or demerit can interfere between individuals, so that one may, by arbitration or laws, be placed unequally with another. It means that every individual is entitled to all the natural wealth that he or she requires to minister to the various wants of the body, and to »an equal share of all accumu­ lated, artificial wealth—which will appear self-evident when we shall have analyzed wealth. It also means that every person is entitled to equal opportunity for intellectual acquirements, recreation and rest, since the first is necessary to make the performance of the individual’s share of duty possible; while the second and third are the natural requirements of the body, independent of the individuality of the per­ son, and which was not self-created but inherited. Under this analysis have we any such thing as equality in this country ? And yet it should be the duty of government, since it is a fundamental portion of its theory, to maintain equality among the people; otherwise the word is but a mere catch, without the slightest signification in fact. What, then, should be the sphere of justice in maintaining equality in freedom? Clearly to maintain equal conditions among free indi­ viduals. But this will appear the more evident as we proceed. The impending revolution, then, will be the strife for the mastery between the authority, despotism, inequalities and injustices of the present, and freedom, equality and justice in their broad and perfect sense, based on the proposition that humanity is one, having a common origin, common interests and purposes, and inheriting a common destiny, which is the 9 complete statement of the religion of Jesus Christ, unadulterated by his professed followers. But does the impending revolution imply a peaceful change or a bloody struggle ? No person who will take the trouble to carefully observe the con­ ditions of the various departments of society can fail to discern the terrible earthquakes just ready to burst out upon every side, and which are only now restrained by the thick incrustations with which, customs, prejudices and authorities have incased humanity. Indeed, the whole surface of humanity is surging like the billows of the stormy ocean, and it only escapes general and destructive rupture because its composition, like the consciences of its constituent members, is so elastic. But, anon, the restrained furies will overcome the temper of their fastenings, and, rending them asunder, will sweep over the people, submerging them or cleansing them of their gathered debris, as they shall have located themselves, with regard to its coming. All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and gone have been for freedom—for freedom to think and for freedom to act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should come of that thought and action. But we are now entering upon a struggle for something quite different from this. Having obtained free­ dom from the despotism of rulers and governments, the rule and des­ potism of individuals began to usurp the places made vacant by them. Where once the king or the emperor reigned, capital, reinforced by the power of public opinion and religious authorities, now sits and forges chains with which to fetter and bind the people. Where, by divine right, men once demanded the results of the labors of their people, the privileged few, by the means of an ingenious system, facetiously called popular laws, now make the same demand, and with equally de­ cisive results. The demand is answered, by the return of the entire proceeds of each year’s surplus productions into their coffers. And this is no more true of the pauper laborers of Europe and the slave laborers of Asia than it is of the free labor of America. Six hundred millions people constantly toil all their lives long, while about ten millions sit quietly by gathering and luxuriating in their results. 10 Simple freedom, then, is not enough. It has not accomplished the redemption of the people. It has only relieved them from one form of slavery to leave them at the mercy of another still more insidious in its character, because more plausible; since, if penury and want exist, accompanied by suffering and privation, under the rule of a monarch, he may justly be held responsible. But when it exists under the reign of freedom, there is no responsibility anywhere, unless it may be said to be in the people themselves,which is equivalent to saying responsibility without application. . To illustrate this distinction without a difference, take the island of Cuba, with its half million inhabitants, and suppose it to be ruled by an absolute monarch, who administers his commands through the usual attaches of the court and the noblemen of the island. Virtually owning the people, he commands them to labor, taking from them all their pro­ ducts, and merely feeding, clothing and sheltering them. In this case it would be the non-laborers who, without any circumlocution, directly obtain all the produced wealth, they simply expending their time and talent in its securing, while the lives of the people who produce it would be simply maintained. Now advance one step toward popular government—to a constitu­ tional monarchy. In this the same results to the producing people will be maintained, while the noblemen will share the wealth among themselves, allotting a certain share to the monarch. Coming down to a representative government, of which personal liberty is the basis, the despotism of laws enacted in the interest of privileged classes are substituted for the personal despotism of mon­ archs and nobles. What the absolute monarch possesses himself of by the right of might, the privileged class in the popular government possess themselves of by the right of law, everything legal being held to be just. Now is not that precisely the case in this country? Do not all the results of labor accrue to the privileged few ? and are not the producing classes just as much enslaved to them as the subjects of an absolute monarch are to him ? With this mortification, however. In the last instance, they suffer 11 from conditions over which, they have no control; whilst in the former case the conditions by which they are enslaved are of their own forma­ tion. And I say, I would rather be the unwilling subject of an abso­ lute monarch than the willing slave of my own ignorance, of which ad­ vantage is taken by those who spend their time in endeavoring to prove to me that I am free and in singing the glories of my condition, to hoodwink my reason and to blind my perception. And I further say, that that system of government by which it is pos­ sible for a class of people to practice upon my credulity, and, under false pretenses, first entice me to acquiesce in laws by which immense corporations and monopolies are established, and then to induce me to submit to their extortions because they exist according to law, pursuing none but lawful means, is an infernal despotism, compared to which the Russian Czar is a thousand times to be preferred. This may at first seem a sweeping indictment ol our form of govern­ ment, but I say it is just. Suppose we take our railroad system, now amounting to fifty-five thousand miles. At an average cost of eighty thousand dollars per mile for construction and equipment, its total cost would be four billions four hundred millions dollars. To pay the share­ holders an eight per cent, dividend for doing nothing, the industries of the country would have to be taxed three hundred and fifty millions dollars over and above the cost of maintenance and operation. Did this enor­ mous drain from the products of the people stop here, the fertility of the country, made use of by the ingenuity of the people, might possibly keep pace with the demand. But it does not stop there. The net earning of the railroads enables their directors to make larger dividends than eight per cent. Do their managers relinquish this increase in favor of the people ? Never a bit of it. But they increase their stock either by selling new shares, or by making stock or scrip dividends, and to neither process has there been found any legal bar or cure. Now, what may the result of such a system be? Why, this. If the stock of all these railroads be increased in the same proportion that some of them have already been increased, it may be raised to a thou­ sand billions of dollars, and the people, instead of being compelled to pay three hundred and fifty millions dollars to provide an eight per cent, dividend on their cost, will have to submit to the extortion of eight hundred million dollars annually to satisfy the demands of these legal despots for an eight per cent, dividend upon stock, a large part of which represent absolutely nothing but the people’s stolen money. A person who would double the size of another’s note simply be­ cause the profits of his business would permit the payment of twelve per cent, interest, so that instead of paying twelve per cent, upon one hundred dollars, which would be an illegal charge, it would be six per cent, upon two hundred dollars, would be deemed and adjudged guilty of forgery. But these railroad magnates sit in their palatial offices and raise their notes at pleasure, and they are considered public bene­ factors. It is a crime for a single person to steal a dollar, but a corpo­ ration may steal a million dollars, and be canonized as saints. Oh, the stupid blindness of this people ! Swindled every day . before their very eyes, and yet they don’t seem to know that there is anything wrong, simply because no law has been violated. In their eyes every­ thing that is lawful is right, and this has become the curse of the nation. But the opposite—that everything which is right is lawful— don’t follow as a part of their philosophy. No matter what a person does if it is not actionable under the law; he is an honest man and a good church member. But Heaven defend us from being truthful, natural beings, unless the law says we may— since that is to be an infamous scoundrel. A Vanderbilt may sit in his office and manipulate stocks, or make dividends, by which, in a few years, he amasses fifty millions dollars from the industries of the country, and he is one of the remarkable men of the age. But if a poor, half-starved child were to take a loaf of bread from his cupboard, to prevent starvation, she would be sent first to the Tombs, and thence to Blackwell’s Island. An Astor may sit in his sumptuous apartments, and watch the prop­ erty bequeathed him by his father, rise in value from one to fifty mil­ lions, and everybody bows before his immense power, and worships his business capacity. But if a tenant of his, whose employer had dis­ charged him because he did not vote the Republican ticket, and thereby fails to pay his month’s rent to Mr. Astor, the law sets him and his 13 family into the street in midwinter; and, whether he dies of cold or starvation, neither Mr. Astor or anybody else stops to ask, since that is nobody’s business but the man’s. This is a free country, you know, and why should I trouble myself about that person, because he hap­ pens to be so unfortunate as not to be able to pay Mr. Astor his rent? Mr. Stewart, by business tact, and the various practices known to trade, succeeds, in twenty years, in obtaining from customers whom he has entrapped into purchasing from him fifty millions dollars, and with his gains he builds costly public beneficiaries, and straightway the world makes him a philanthropist. But a poor devil who should come along with a bolt of cloth, which he had succeeded in smuggling into the country, and which, consequently, he could sell at a lower price than Mr. Stewart, who paid the tariff, and is thereby authorized by law to add that sum to the piece, would be cast into prison. How these individuals represent three of the principal methods that the privileged classes have invented by which to monopolize the accu­ mulated wealth of the country. But let us analyze the processes, and see if it is wholly by their personal efforts that they gain this end. Nobody pretends that Mr. Stewart ever produced a single dollar of his vast fortune. He accumulated it by dealing in the productions of others, which he first obtained at low rates, and then sold at a sufficient advance over the cost of handling to make in the aggregate a sum amounting to millions. Now, I want to ask if all this is not arriving at the same result, by another method, at which the slaveholders of the South arrived, by owning negroes ? In the case of the latter, the slaveholder reaped all the benefits of the labors of the negroes. In the former case the merchant princes, together with the various other privileged classes, reap the benefit of the labors of all the working-classes of the country. Every year the excess of the produced wealth of the country finds final lodg­ ment in the pockets of these classes, and they grow richer at each suc­ ceeding harvest, while the laborers toil their lives away; and when all their strength and vigor have been transformed into wealth, which has been legally transferred to the capitalists, they are heavy with age, and r 14 as destitute as when they began their life of servitude. Did ever Southern slave have meaner end than this ? In all seriousness, is there any common justice in such a state of things ? Is it right that the millions should toil all their lives long, scarcely having comfortable food and clothes, while the few manage to control all the benefits ? People may pretend that it is justice, and good Christians may excuse it upon that ground, but Christ would never have called it by that name. He would even give him that labored but an hour as much as he that had labored all the day, but to him who labored not at all he would take away even that which he hath. And yet we hear loud professions of Christianity ascending from the pulpit throughout the length and breadth of the land. And when I listen, I cannot help exclaiming, “ O, ye hypocrites, how can ye hope to escape the damnation of hell ? ” Am I asked, How are these things to be amended? I will tell you in the first place, that they must be remedied ; and this particular case of dealing in the labor of the people is to be remedied by abolishing huckstering, or the system of middle-men, and substituting therefor a general system of public markets, conducted by the people through their paid agents, as all other public business is performed. In these markets the products of the country should be received, in first hands, direct from the producers, who should realize their entire proceeds. In this manner the immense fortunes realized by • middle-men, and the profits made by the half-dozen different hands through which merchan­ dise travels on its way to consumers, would be saved to the producer. A bushel of apples, purchased in the orchard jit twenty-five cents, is finally sold to the consumer at a dollar. Now, either the consumer has paid at least a half dollar too much, or the producer has received a half dollar too little, for the apples; since, under a perfect system, the apples would go direct from the orchard to the market, and thence direct to the consumer. We are forever talking of political economy, but it appears to me that the most vital points—one of which is our system of huckstery— is entirely overlooked. Suppose Mr. Stewart, instead of having labored all these years for 15 his own selfish interests, had labored in tne interests of the people ? Is it not clear that the half-a-hundred million dollars he has accumulated would have remained with the people who have consumed his goods ? Place all other kinds of traffic upon the same proposed basis, and do you not see that the system which makes merchant-princes would be abolished? Neither would it require one-half the people to conduct a general system of markets who are now employed speculating in the results of labor. In short, every person should either be a producer or a paid agent or officer of consumers and producers, and our entire system of shop­ keeping reduced to a magnificent system of immense public markets. In this way there could also be a perfect control exercised over the quality of perishable goods, the want of which is now felt so severely in summer in all large cities, and a thousand unthought of remedies would necessarily suggest themselves as the system should develop. But let us pass to one of the other branches of this same system. We have in our midst thousands of people of immense wealth who have never even done so much to justify its possession as the merchant­ princes have done to justify themselves. I refer to our land monopo­ lists, and to Mr. Astor as their representative. Mr. Astor inherited a large landed estate, which has risen in value to be worth millions of dollars, to which advance Mr. Astor never contributed even a day’s labor. He has done nothing except to watch the rise and gather in the rents, while the whole laboring country has been constantly engaged in promoting that advance. What would Mr. Astor have been without the City of New York ?. And what would the City of New York have been without the United States ? You see, my friends, it will not do to view this matter superficially. We live in too analytic an age to per­ mit these things to go on in the way they have been going. There is too much poverty, too much suffering, too mueh hard work, too many hours of labor for individuals, too many sleepless nights, too many starving poor, too many hungry children, too many in helpless old age, to permit these villanous abuses to continue sheltered under the name of respectability and public order. But again, and upon a still worse swindle of the people. A person 16 having money goes out into the public domain and acquires an im­ mense tract of land. Shortly a railroad is projected and built, which runs through that tract. It offers a fine location for a station. A city springs up, and that which cost in some instances as little as a shilling per acre, is divided into town lots, and these are reluctantly parted with at five hundred dollars each. ’ Again, I wish to inquire, in the name of Justice, to whom does that advance belong ? To the person who nominally holds the land ? What has he done to entitle him to receive dollars for what he only paid cents ? Is there any equality—is there any justice—in such a condition ? He profits by the action of others; in fact at the public expense, since in its last analysis it is the common public who are the basis of all advance in the value of property. Now, I say, that that common public is entitled to all the benefits accruing from common efforts; and it is an infamous wrong that makes it accrue to the benefit of a special few. And a system of society which permits such arbitrary distributions of wealth is a disgrace to Christian civilization, whose Author and his Disciples had all things in common. Let professing Christians who, for a pretense, make long prayers, think of that, and then denounce Communism, if they can ; and denounce me as a Revolutionist for advocating it, if they dare. But, is it asked, how is this to be remedied ? I answer, very easily ! Since those who possess the accumulated wealth of the country have filched it by legal means from those to whom it justly belongs—the people—it must be returned to them, by legal means if possible, but it must be returned to them in any event. When a person worth millions, dies, instead of leaving it to his children, who have no more title to it than anybody else’s children have, it must revert to the people, who really produced it. Do you say that is injustice to the children ? I say, No ! And if you ask me how the rich man’s children are going to live after his death, I answer, by the same means as the poor man’s children live. Let it be remembered that we have had simple free­ dom quite long enough. By setting all our hopes on freedom we have been robbed of our rights. What we want now is more than freedom—we want equality ! And by the Heaven above us, earth’s 17 growing children are going to have it! What right have the children ot the rich to be born to luxurious idleness, while the children of the poor are born to, all their lives long, further contribute to their ease ? Do they not in common belong to God’s human family ? If I mistake not, Christ told us so. You will not dispute his authority, I am sure. If, instead of preaching Christ and him crucified quite so much, -we should practice his teaching a little more, my word for it, we should all be better Christians. And when by this process all the land shall have been returned to the people, there will be just as much of it, and it will be equally as productive, and just as much room on it as there is now. But instead of a few people owning the whole of it, and farming it out to all the rest at the best possible prices, the people will possess it them­ selves in their own right, through just laws, paying for its possession to the government such moderate rates of taxes as shall be necessary to maintain the government But I may as well conclude what I have to say regarding railroads, which must also revert back to the people, and be conducted by them for the public benefit, as our common highways are now conducted. Vanderbilt, Scott & Co. are demonstrating it better and better every day that all the railroads of the country can be much more economi­ cally and advantageously conducted under one management than under a thousand different managements. They imagine that very soon they will have accomplished a complete consolidation of the entire system, and that by the power of that consolidation they will be able to control the government of this country. But they will not be the first people who have made slight miscal­ culations as to ultimate results. Thomas Scott might make a splendid Secretary of the Department of Internal Improvements, for which the new Constitution, which this country is going to adopt, makes pro­ vision ; but he will never realize his ambition to preside over the rail­ road system of the country in any other manner. And I will tell you another benefit that will follow the nationaliza­ tion of our railroads. You have all heard of the dealing in stocks, of the “bulls” and the “bears,” and the “longs” and the “shorts,” and 18 the “lame ducks” of Wall street Well, they will all be abolished. There will be no stocks in which to deal. That sort of speculation, by which gigantic swindlers corner a stock and take it in at their own figures, will, to use a vulgar phrase, be “played out.” And if you were to see their customers, as I have seen them, rushing about Broad street to catch sight of the last per cent, of their margins as they dis­ appear in the hungry maw of the complacent brokers, you would agree with me that it ought to be “played out.” Under the system which I propose, not only will stock gambling be abolished, but also all other gambling, and the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied people who are now engaged in it, living from the pro­ ducts of others, will be compelled to go to producing themselves. But, says the objector, take riches away from people and there will be no incentive to accumulate. But, my dear sir, we don’t propose to do anything of the kind, nor to destroy any wealth. There will never be any less wealth than now, but a constant increase upon it. We only propose that the people shall hold it in their own right, instead of its being held in trust for them by a self-appointed few. Instead of having a few millionaires, and millions on the verge of starvation, we propose that all shall possess a comfortable competence—that is, shall possess the results of their own labors. I can’t see where there is a chance for a lack of motive to come in. It seems to me that everybody will have a better and a more certain chance, as well as a better incentive to accumulate. Will the certainty of accumulation destroy the desire to accumulate ? Nobody but the most stupid would attempt to maintain that. It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people. That country must be the most prosperous and happy where the people are most generally comfortably and happily circumstanced. And in this country, instead of a hundredth part of the people living in palaces and riding in coaches, while the balance live in huts and travel on foot, every per­ son may live in a palace and ride in a coach, I leave it to you to decide which is the preferable condition and which the more Christian. And why should the rich object to this ? If everybody has enough 19 nnd to spare, should that be a subject of complaint? What more do people want, except itw be for the purpose of tyrannizing over others dependent upon them ? But no objections that may be raised will be potent enough to crush out the demand for equality now rising from an oppressed people. This demand the possessors of wealth cannot afford to ignore. It comes from a patiently-enduring people, who have waited already too long for the realization of the beautiful pictures of freedom which have been painted for them to admire ; for the realization of the songs which poets have sung to its praise. Let me warn, nay, let me implore them not to be deaf to this demand, since they do not know so well as I know what temper there is behind it. I have tested it, and I know it is one that will not much longer brook the denial of justice. But there is another monopoly of which I must speak—I mean the monopoly of money itself We have seen how great a tyranny that is which arises from monopolizing the land. But that occurring from the monopoly of money, is a still more insidious and dangerous form of despotism, since its ramifications are more extensive and minute. It may be exercised by the person possessing a hundred, or by the person possessing a million dollars. But what is the process ? A person inherits a half million dollars for which he never expended a single day’s labor. He sits in his office loaning that sum of money say, in sums of one thousand dollars to one thousand different persons, each of whom conducts a little business which yields just enough to support a family and to pay the interest. These people live for forty years in this manner, and die no better off than when they began life. But during that time they have paid all their extra production to the amount of four thousand dollars, each, to the capitalist; and, finally, the business itself is sold out to pay the principal. And thus it turns out that the capitalist obtains everything those thousand per­ sons earned during their whole lives, they leaving nothing to their families. Now, what better is that result than it would have been had these people been slaves ? Could their owners have obtained any more from them ? I say they would have obtained less; since, had they been slaves in name, as in fact they were, there would have been times 20 during the forty years that they would not have earned interest over cost of their support. Now, look at the capitalist. For one million dollars, and without the straining of a muscle, he receives live million dollars direct, which, reinvested from time to time as it in­ creases, amounts at the end of the forty years to not less than fifteen millions dollars. But try another example of a somewhat different kind. A person having four grown children, whom he has reared in luxury, and given all the facilities of education, dies, leaving each of them a farm worth twenty-five thousand dollars. These children having never learned the art of farming are incapable of conducting these farms; but they lease them to four different people for a thousand dollars a year each,, and live at ease all their lives, therefrom, never so much as lifting their hands to do an hour’s labor. Now, who is it that supports those fourpeople ? Is it not clear that it is the people who work the farms? And how d:d it happen that they had the farms to lease ? Simply by an incident for which there was no legitimate general cause, else why do not all children have farms and live without work ? Nor can you, my friends, discover anything approaching equality, or ought that looks like justice in that operation. I tell you nay ! It is the most insidious despotism, with a single exception, that is possible among a people. It is a despotism which was condemned in all former times, even by barbarians, and which the Jews were only permitted to enforce upon people of other nations. It is the hideous vampire fastened upon the vitals of our people, sucking—sucking—sucking their very life’s; blood, leaving just enough to keep up their vitality, that they may manufacture more. It is the heartless monster that will have the exact pound of flesh, even if there be loss of blood to obtain it, and there is no just judge near to prevent the taking, or to hold him to account if he take it. It paralyzes our industries; shuts the gates in the way that leads to our inexhaustible treasures within the bosom of mother earth I strips the stars and stripes from the masts of merchantmen; compels our immense cotton lands to luxuriate in weeds; robs our spindles of the power to turn them; and lays an embargo upon every productive enter­ prise. Whoever makes a movement to compel the earth to yield her 21 wealth, or to transform that wealth into useful form, must first obtain the consent of this despot, and pay his demands for a license. Thirteen millions of laborers in this country produce annually four thousand millions dollars of wealth, every dollar of which over and .above the cost of living is paid over to appease the demands of this insatiate monster—this horrid demon, whose name is Interest. We are told that we cannot manufacture railroad iron in this coun­ try as cheap as it can be manufactured in England. Yes 1 And why ? Is it because we have no ore or no coal; or that, which is not as good ;as England has? No! We have on the surface what in England is hundreds of feet in the bowels of the earth, and coal the same; and both of better quality. But money can be put at interest in this country so as to double itself every four years, and be amply secured. What reason have capitalists to construct iron' works, or to have their care, when twenty-five per cent, per year is returned them, without care or risk ? And what is true of iron is also true of every other natural production. Is it any wonder that our manufacturers are obliged to demand that the people pay an additional per cent, upon everything they eat, drink or wear, that they may be protected in their various productive enterprises, when such exactions are laid upon them by this more than absolute monarch? No! It would indeed be a wonder if it were not so. Now, do you suppose our markets would be flooded with British 'goods if our producing and manufacturing interests had all the money they require without interest? If there are any borrowers at ten per cent, who hear my voice, let them answer. No; it is the tribute that industry is compelled to pay to capital that forces our government to exact ten, twenty, fifty, aye, even a hundred per cent, for the privilege of bringing merchandise into this country. But they tell us if we go to free trade that our country would be flooded with foreign products, so there would be absolutely no production of manufactured goods in the country. Now that would be true, if we should attempt free trade and leave the monster Interest with his grip upon our vitals. And here is the short-sightedness of Free­ Traders. If we want free trade, we must, in the first place, attack, 22 throttle and kill this demon, after which we may manufacture atprices that will not only absolutely forbid the importation of almost everything that is now imported, but which will also enable us to play the same game with Europe that Europe has played so long upon us. Free money in this country would abolish every European throne within ten years. And yet people cannot be made to see that this country is their support. With free money what need would we have for a pro­ tective tariff? Can any Protectionist answer that? You see, my friends, that it is the people who catch sight of an idea and pursue it to the death, regardless of relative ideas, who make reform so ridiculous. One reform cannot advance alone. All kinds of reform must go on together. Interest and free trade must go hand in hand; interest, if either, a little ahead. And in this regard I- am free to confess that the National Labor Union’s demand for a decrease of interest is the most reasonable single reform now being advocated. We want free trade; but we want free money first, so that not a spindle or forge in this country shall stop at the command of those across the ocean. But how are we going to get free money? Why, in the very easiest way possible. It is the simplest problem of them all I am not going into this discussion to prove to you that gold isnot money, since everybody ought to know that it has no more the properties of money than cotton, corn and pork have the properties of money. Now, money is that thing which, if every dollai in circulation should be destroyed, there would be no loss of wealth. Gold, cotton, corn and wheat are wealth. Destroy these and there is a loss. But when money is destroyed, there is no more loss than when a promis­ sory note is destroyed. A note is an evidence of debt It is not wealth, but its representative. So also is money not wealth, but its representative. And if we had a thousand million dollars in circula­ tion to day, there would be no more wealth in the country than thero now is, and we would have quite as much wealth if there were- twothousand millions dollars, since money and wealth are two entirely distinct things. But they tell us that unless money is made redeemable in gold, it 23 is not of any account, and that, too, in the face of our miserable green­ back system, which was so much better even than gold that it saved the nation when, had we stuck to gold, we should have been destroyed. Oh, but it was a depreciated currency, says some one. Yes, it was a depreciated currency, and we should have ample reason to be thankful if when we come to pay our bonds, we have a depreciated currency with which to liquidate them, instead of being obliged, as we shall, to pay a thousand dollars in cotton for what we realized less than five hundred in gold. It is not the gold only of a country that constitutes its wealth. What should we care if we had not a single ounce of gold, if we had a thousand million bales of cotton, ten thousand millions bushels of corn and wheat, and a billion dollars’ worth of manufactured goods to send to other countries ? So you see it is not the gold after all that makes a circulation good, but the sum total of all kinds of wealth. Now, that is what we propose to substitute for gold as the basis for a money issue. And instead of permitting corporations to issue it and remain at liberty to dispose of their property and let the people who hold their circulation whistle for its redemption, we propose that government, which can neither sell our property nor abscond with it, shall issue it for the people and lend it to them at cost; or if you will insist on paying interest for money, why, then, pay it to the government and lessen your taxes that much, instead of paying interest to bankers and supporting government besides. Now, don’t you think that would be rather a good sort of a money system ? I know that every manufacturer in the country would like it. But I can tell you who will not like it; and whom we may be compelled to fight before they will permit us to have it; and these are the money-lenders and money-changers, such as it is related the Head of the Christian Church—one Jesus Christ, of whom we hear a great deal said, but whose teachings and doctrines are wofully perverted—r scourged out of the Temple at a place known as Jerusalem. I have not been guilty of frequenting the temples of the country much of late, but if lam not misinformed upon the subject, and unless they have changed since I did frequent them, if Christ should pass 24 through, this land of a Sunday, scourge in hand,. he would find plenty of work to do in the same line in which he labored so faithfully among the Jews. But the National Labor Union say they won’t be so hard upon these money-lenders as we would be. They are willing that they shall be eased down from the vast height to which they have attained. They say they shall have three per cent interest instead of six, seven, eight and ten, or as much more as they can steal out of the necessities of the case, by the circumstances and discounts. But they shall be limited to three per cent, and in a way that they cannot evade, as they now evade, lawful interest. It is proposed that government shall issue this money, but that it shall be convertible into a three per cent, interest­ bearing bond; so that when money shall be so plenty that it will be worth less than three per cent in business, it can be invested in bonds drawing three per cent; and the bonds to also be reconvertible into money, so that the moment business shall demand more money than there should be in circulation—which would increase the value of money to more than three per cent.—the bonds would be converted into money again; and when there should be no more bonds to convert, and money still worth more than three per cent., then the Government shall issue more money to restore the equilibrium. In this way money would al­ ways be worth just three per cent. No more nor less, and there would always be just enough; or, in other words, money would be measured, as it never has been, and which has been the cause of all our financial troubles. What would you say to a person who should talk to you about measuring your corn in a bushel that had itself never been meas­ ured? But you complacently talk of money being a measure of values, and money has never had a measure regulating its own value. But this consideration is only a stepping-stone to what shall be. Money mu^t be made free from interest. In fact, I do not know but people who have money should pay something to have it securely loaned, the same as you must pay your Safe Deposit Companies for safely keeping bonds, jewels and other valuables. I think people ought to be made to pay for the safe keeping of money upon the same principle. Money under our present system is the only thing which 25 we possess that does not depreciate in value by use. The more money is used, the more it increases ; a proof complete of the fallacy and its despotism. The Government now pay the banks thirty millions dollars per year for the privilege of loaning them about three hundred millions national currency, which the banks reloan to the people at an average of ten per cent. It seems to me that is almost too good a thing to last long. If the Government can afford to do this thing, why can’t they better afford to loan directly to the people for nothing, and save thirty millions dollars annually? Do you think the people would object? Oh, no; but the bankers would. But for all that the cry of “Down with the tyrant” is raised, and it will never cease until interest shall be among the things that were. I also desire to call attention to the reduction of the Public Debt, ’ and to the means by which this reduction has been accomplished. « The Administration hangs almost all of its hopes upon this fact, while if it were thoroughly understood it would prove its condemnation. It has paid three hundred millions of the debt, they say. Who has paid it ? we inquire. It fails to answer. We say that that entire payment has be made by the producing classes of the country, while the capitalists have not reduced their cash balances in the least. In other words, the producers have got no more money now than they had before the debt was paid, while the capitalists have had their bonds changed into money. Now, who have paid that three hundred millions dollars? I repeat the laboring people have done it, just as they pay all public debts and all public expenses, besides constantly adding to the wealth of the capitalists themselves. Can such a state of things continue ? Again I tell you nay. This wrong must be remedied by a system of progressive taxation. 3 If persons having a hundred thousand dollars pay one-half per cent tax, let those having a million pay ten per cent, or two millions twentyfive per. cent. Let there be a penalty placed upon monopolizing the common property, and it will soon cease and equality come in its place. Now, the poorest woman who buys the cheapest calico pays a tax to 26 the Government, while the rich appropriate her labor to pay their' dues. Truly said Jesus, 11 The poor ye have with you always.” Another mode of remedying the existing ills in industry and the distribution of wealth, must be in giving employees an actual interest in the products of their labors, so that ultimately co-operation will be the source of all production, its results being justly distributed among all those who assist in the production. First, pay the employer the same rate of interest for his capital that Government shall charge for loans made to the people; next, the general expenses, including salaries to himself and all employees, the remainder to be equitably divided among all who have an interest in it. Do you not see what a revolu­ tion in industrial production such a constitutional provision would effect ? And do you not suppose if the workingmen and women of this country understood the justice of it, that they would have it? I intend that they shall have the required information. Already there have been half a million tracts upon these subjects sent broadcast over this land, and the present year shall see double as many more, until every laborer, male and female, shall hold in his or her own hands the method of deliverance from this great oppression. But there is another consideration, which, more forcibly than any other, shows the suicidal policy which we pursue. If the present rates of interest are continued to be paid upon only the present banking capital and bonds of the country, for twenty-five years to come, the interest, with the principal added, will have absorbed the total present wealth, as well as its perspective increase. And such a consumma­ tion as this are the European capitalists now preparing for this country. Europe holds not less than three thousand millions of bonded indebtedness of this country, which is being augmented every month by additional railroad bonds, or some syndicate operation. So do you not see that European capital is gradually, but nevertheless inevitably, absorbing not only all of our annually pro­ duced wealth, but also acquiring an increased mortgage every year upon our accumulated wealth? There is no escaping these facts. Figures don’t lie. Mathematics is an absolute science from whose edicts there is no escape. And mathematics inform us that we are 27 year by year mortgaging ourselves to European capitalists, who will ultimately step in and foreclose their mortgages, and possess them­ selves of our all, just as we foreclose our smaller mortgages, when there is no hope of a further increase from interest. Besides the monopoly of land, money and public conveniences, there is another kind of monopoly still, which may appear rather strange and new to be thus classed, but it is neverthless a terrible tyrant. I refer Vto the monopoly of education. I hold that a just government is in duty bound to see to it that all its children of both sexes have the same and equal opportunities for acquiring education, and that every person of adult age shall have graduated in the highest departments of learning, as well as in the arts, sciences and practical mechanics. Every person should be compelled to acquire a practical knowledge of some productive branch of labor, because the time will come when all people will be obliged to produce at least as much as they consume, or earn what they consume, as the paid agents of producers. What a revolution would that accomplish ? If every person in the world was to work at production two hours a day there would be a larger aggregate produced than there is now. Therefore every person must learn the art of production, and thus be equal in resources to any other person, and Government must undertake the compulsory indus­ trial education of all its children. Thus I could continue analysis upon analysis, until not a stone in the foundations of our social structure would be left unturned, and all would be found unworthy of our civilization—our boasted Christian civilization. I think Christianity has been preached at, long enough. I go for making a practical application of it at the very foundations of society. I believe in recognizing the broad principle of all religion— that we are all children of one great common parent, God, which, since it disproves the propositions of the Church, that at least a large portion of us are the children of the devil, and renders the services of the clergy to save us from that inheritance unnecessary, will abolish our present system of a licensed and paid ministry. Thirty-five thousand ministers are paid twenty-five millions dollars annually for preaching the gospel in cathedrals costing two hundred and fifty mil­ lions dollars; and how many of them ever teach any fact other than 28 that Jesus was crucified, just as though that would save us from the sloughs of ignorance in which we are sunk ? Which one of them dare tell his congregation the truth, as he, if he be not a blockhead, knows it? I here and now impeach the clergy of the United States as dishonest and hypocritical, since the best of them acknowledge that they do not dare to preach the whole truth, for, if they should, they would have to preach to empty seats—an admission sufficiently dam­ nable to consign them to the contempt of the world and to the hell of which they prate so knowingly, but whose location they have not been able to determine, and to light the torch which shall fire the last one of these palatial mockeries of true religion Why, should Christ appear among these godly Christians as he did among the Jews, he would be arrested as a vagrant, or sent to jail for stealing corn ; and in Connecticut, perhaps, for Sabbath-breaking, or for telling the maid at the well 11 all she had ever done” which is now called fortune-telling, or for healing the sick by laying on of hands, which they denominate charlatanry. Christ and his Disciples and the multitude which he gathered together had all things in common. But every pulpit and every paper in this Christian country launch the thunders of their denunciations when that damnable doctrine is now advanced. Now, Christ was a Communist of the strictest sort, and so am I, and of the most extreme kind. I believe that God is the Father of all humanity and that we are brothers and sisters; and that it is not merely a theoretical or hypothetical nothing but a stern reality, to be re­ duced to a practical recognition. And they who cannot accept and practice this doctrine of Christ, and who still profess to be his fol­ lowers, are simply stealing the livery of Christ in which to serve the devil in their own souls. I do not care to what length Christians may stretch their faces of a Sunday, nor how much they pay to support their ministers; nor do I care how long prayers they may make, nor what sermons preach, when they denounce the fundamental principles of the teachings of Christ, I will turn upon and, in his language, utter their own condemna­ tion: “Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto the least of these, ye have not done it unto ” Christ. And .they may make all the fuss, 29 call me all the hard names, they please; but they can’t escape the judgment. And I don’t intend they shall have a chance to escape it. I am going to strip the masks of hypocrisy from their faces, and let the world see them as they are. They have had preaching without practice long enough. The people want practice now, and when they get it, they can even afford to do without the preaching. These privileged classes of the people have an enduring hatred for me, and I am glad they have. I am the friend not only of freedom in all things, and in every form, but also for equality and justice as well. These cannot be inaugurated except through revolution. I am denounced as desiring to precipitate revolution. I acknowledge it. I' am for revolution, if to get equality and justice it is required. I only want the people to have what it is their right to have— what the religion of humanity, what Christ, were he the arbiter, would give them. If, in getting that, the people find bayonets opposing them, it will not be their fault if they make their way through them by the aid of bayonets. And these persons who possess the monopolies and who guard them by bayonets, need not comfort themselves with the idea that the people won’t fight for their rights. Did they not spring to arms from every quarter to fight for the negro ? And will you say they will not do the same against this other slavery, compared to which the former is as an gentle shower to a raging tempest ? Don’t flatter yourselves, gentlemen despots, that you are going to escape under that assumption. You will have to yield, and it will be best for you to do it gracefully. You are but as one to seven against them. Numbers will win. It will be your own obduracy if they are goaded on to madness. Do not rely upon their ignorance of the true condition. Upon that you have anchored your hopes as long as it is safe. There are too many reform newspapers in circulation. And though the columns of all our great dailies are shut to their truths, still there are channels through which they flow to the people—aye, even to those who delve in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, seldom seeing the joyous sunshine. And this education shall continue until every person who contributes to the maintenance of another in luxu­ rious idleness shall know how such a result is rendered possible. 80 Hence, I say, it lies in the hands of those who have maintained this despotism over the common people to yield it up to them and recog­ nize their just relations. And rembember what I say to you to-night: If this that is claimed is not granted—if, beside freedom, equality is not made possible by your giving up this power, by which the laborer is robbed of the re­ sults of his labor, before our next centennial birthday, July 4th, 1876, you will have precipitated the most terrible war that the earth has yet known. For three years before the breaking out of the slavery rebellion I saw and heard with my spiritual senses the marching of armies, the rattle of musketry, and the roar of cannon; and I already hear and see the approach of this more terrible contest. I know it is coming. There is but one way in which it can be averted. There was one way by which the slave war could have been avoided—the abolition of slavery. But the slave oligarchy would not listen to our Garrisons, Sumners, Tiltons and Douglases. They tried the arbitration of war, but they lost their slaves at last. Now, will not these later oligarchies —the land, the railroad, the money aristocracies—learn a lesson from their terrible fate? Will they not listen to the abolitionists—to the Garrisons, the Sumners, the Tiltons and the Douglases—of to-day? Will they try the arbitration of war, which will result as did the last, in the loss of that for which they fight? I would that they should learn yyisdom by experience. The slaveholders could have obtained compensation for their negroes. They refused it and lost all. Pon­ der that lesson well, and do not neglect to give it its true application. You can compromise now, and the same general end be arrived at without the baptism of blood. It shall not be my fault if that bap­ tism comes. Nevertheless, equality and justice are on the march, and they cannot be hindered. They must and will attain their journey’s end. The people shall be delivered. I have several times referred to the methods by which these things may be accomplished. They are impossible under our present Con­ stitution. It is too restricted, too narrow, to admit even an idea of a common humanity. True, its text is complete, but its framework 81 does not carry out the original design. Even George Washington, himself, was accused of treachery for countenancing so great a depar­ ture as was made ; and the late war justified the grounds upon which that accusation was founded. The text of the Constitution held these truths to be self-evident, “That all men (and women) are bom equal and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution should have been erected in harmony with those declarations. It was not. There is no such thing as equality provided for. Life and liberty have not been held inalienable under it; the pursuit of happiness has been outrage­ ously interfered with, and the government has been made to exist without the consent of the governed; and exists to-day against the protests of a large number of its subjects. Is it to be expected that anything so false as that is to its basic propositions can be made enduring ? It is against the constitution of nature itself that it should be so. Nature is always true to itself, anc[ will always vindicate itself. If hedged in and obstructed, it will burst through or find its way around. The needle is not truer to the pole than is Nature to the truth. And Nature is always just. Those propositions were deduced from human rights, regardless of any authority or despotism. Had they been elucidated—had their princi­ ples guided the construction of the Constitution itself, all would have "been well. What our fathers failed to do is left for this generation to perform; and it must not shirk the duty. It must look the condition squarely in the face, and meet the issue as squarely. What issues must be met and provided for in order that human rights may be respected and protected ? I have already referred to the * monopolies that must be abolished. But there are also many other V things. I will call attention first to minority representation, which lies at the base of a representative government. The State of Massachusetts has eleven representatives in Congress, and they are all Republicans. Justice would infer that there are no Democrats in the State. But such is not the fact. There are a large body of Democrats. They are not represented. That is the fault of the system of arriving at repre­ sentation. While it is true that majorities must rule, that is not equal 32 to saying that minorities shall have no voice. Butf the'practice; ip . Massachusetts does say just that. I suspect if it were possible^ for all the real differences, politically, to be represented, that the'Congress­ men would stand something as follows: The Democrats’ would have, say, four out of the eleven, the Republicans,' say,three,; while ‘ the remainder would be divided between the Labor and Temprence Re­ formers and Woman Suffragists. Indeed, I am not certain if the door were to be opened that there would be any straight Republicans left,1 since all reformers are, under the present system, compelled to con­ gregate together in this party, so as not to entirely throw away their; votes. The Democrats are always Democrats. Likethe hard-shell Baptists, you always know where to find them. They are always on hand to vote early, and often also, if opportunity permit. Admit minority representation, and the Republican party in Massachusetts would be abolished, except that part who carry,; the loaves and eat the fishes. They are as certain to be found A! right there” as the Democrats are. I think the Woman Suffragists'cover about one-half the Republican party. But a large body of them are Spiritualists and Temperance men, while as many more are Labor Re­ formers. But those who are more Labor Reformers than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Woman Suffragists than anything else, are perhaps two-sevenths; who are more Spiritualists than anything else, perhaps two-sevenths; and who are'more Tem­ perance men than anything else, one-seventh ; therefore, if the dele­ gation were elected by the representation of minorities,. it 1 would stand four Democrats, two Spiritualists, two Labor Reformers,’ two Woman Suffragists, and one Temperance man. But all of these, how­ ever, would be again swallowed up whenever a Human Rights party should be evolved, and that will be the party of the near future, in whose all embracing arms the people, long suffering and long waiting, will at last find repose, while the Goddess of Liberty, with her scales of equality, shall find no more of her subjects to whom justice is not measured out. Then will partisan politics have received its death warrant; then will the people become one in heart, one in soul and •one in common purpose—the general good of the general whole. The 33 “greatest good of the greatest number will be supplanted by: “the general welfare, is best maintained when individual interests are best protected.” The new government, then, must be the result of mi­ nority representation, and all legislative bodies, and, where possible, all executive officers, be so elected, while the people shall retain the appointing as well as the veto power. Our lawmakers must be made law proposers, who shall coifstruct law to be submitted to the people for their approval, in the same manner as our public conventions appoint committees to draft resolutions, which are afterward adopted or rejected by the convention itself. This will make every person- a legislator, having a direct interest in every law. The people will then no longer elect representatives to make laws by which they must be bound whether they approve or disapprove. The referendum is 1the • desired end. The referendum is what the people require, and it is what the new Constitution must provide. "So that in all future, time the ’people themselves will be their own lawmakers—will be the government. The people must appoint all their officers, heads of departments and bureaus at regular intervals, and all- under assistants, during faithful performance of duty. We want no Civil Service Commissions. Every £ person who shall be eligible to office under the new government will be competent and when-once familiar with the duties, will not be removed to give room for the friend of some politician belonging to the party in power, since it would be the people in power at all times. Another matter which must have attention is the sweeping away of thatjeu de esprit, our courts of justice, by making all kinds of contracts stand upon the honor and capacity of the contracting parties. All in­ dividual matters must be settled by the individuals themselves without '-appeal to the public. - Our present system of enforced collection of debts costs every year more than -is realized, and besides maintains a vast army of lawyers, constables and court officers in unproductive em­ ploy. All -this is wrong, entailing almost untold exactions upon the producing community, who in the end are made to pay all these things. Further,- our system of oaths and bonds must be abolished. This swearing people to tell the truth, and binding them to perform their 34 duty, presupposes that they will lie and neglect their duty. People are always placed upon the side of force and compulsion—never upon that of personal rectitude and honor. The results are what might be ex­ pected. It plunges us into the very things we would avoid. There is a philosophy, too, in all these things; since in freedom only - can purity exist Anything that is not free is not pure. Anything that is accompanied by compulsion is no proof of individual honesty. The new government must also take immediate steps for the aboli. tion of pauperism and beggary. It is an infamous reproach upon this country that there are hundreds of thousands of people who subsist themselves upon individual charity. I do not care whether this 'is from choice or necessity. I say it is a burning shame, requiring imme­ diate curative steps. The indigent and helpless classes are just as much a part of our social body as the protected and the rich are, and they are entitled to its recognition. Society must no longer punish and compel suffering and death for its own wrongs. It must evolve such a social system as shall leave no single member of the common body to suffer. When one member of the body suffers, the whole body sympathizes. So, also, when a member of the social body suffers, does the whole body suffer. And yet we have pretended philanthrophists and Christians who have never grasped that truth. Our civilization and our Christianity have been made too much a matter of faith in, and devotion to, the unknownable, divorced from all human relations. We must first recognize and practice the brother­ hood of man before we can be made to realize the Paternity of God, since “ if we love not our brothers whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen.” Our religious teaching has been too much of punishment, and too little of love; too much of faith, too little of works; too much of sectarianism, too little of humanitarianism; too much of hell-fire arbitration, too little of inevitable law; and too much of self-rightousness, and too little of innate goodness. And here I cannot forbear to depart from the strict line of my sub­ ject to say a word regarding a doctrine, from the effects of which even this country is but slowly recovering—that of eternal damnation ! I say, that a people who really believe in a God who could bum his own 35 children in a lake of literal fire and brimstone, “ where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” and from which there is no present escape nor future hope, for a single unrepented misdeed, and still pro­ fess to honor, love and worship a fiend so infernal as that would make Him, cannot be honest and conscientious, since they must mistake fear for love, and confound sycophancy with worship. It was such a be­ lief that kindled the fires by which the early martyrs perished, by which theQuakers of Massachusetts were burned and the witches hanged, and which invented the terrible Inquisition, with its horrid racks and tortures. These are the legitimate results of such a belief; and if the people of to-day really believed what they profess in their creeds, they would do precisely the same things. And they would be justified, since it would be merciful in them to subject a person to a few mo­ ments’ torture, to induce him or her to escape the eternal tortures of Hell, the horrors of which all the ingenuity men can command could not in­ vent a torture one-hundredth part as inhuman ; and yet they say our Heavenly Father has prepared this for nineteen-twentieths of humanity. Thank Heaven, however, the day has come when such libels upon the name of God are rapidly merging into the gray twi­ light, to soon sink in blank, unfathomable oblivion. Thank Heaven, for its own approach earthward, to strike off the chains of superstition from humanity, and for the first faint glimmering of light shed upon us by its angels’ faces, proving to us that humanity, whether of earth or heaven, is : “ One life for those who live and those who die— For those whom sight knows and whom memory.” The Jews would not accept Christ since he came not with temporal power. But Christ will come in the power of the spirit, and shall bap­ tise all humanity. Already His messengers begin to herald the “glad tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.” Already the music of the approaching harmonies are heard from the hill-tops of spirituality singing the approaching millennium. Already its divine notes have pierced some of the dark places of earth, making glad the hearts of their oppressed children, shedding light and truth and joy into their souls. The prophecies of all ages converge upon this, and 86 for their fulfillment, Christ, with all his holy angels, will come to judge the world, and to erect upon it that government already inaugurated-, in Heaven and long promised Earth, for “ Decrees are sealed in Heaven’s own chancery, Proclaiming universal liberty. Rulers and kings who "will not hear the call, In one dread home shall thunder-stricken fall. “ So moves the growing world with march sublime, Setting new music to the beats of time. Old things decay, and new things ceaseless spring, And God’s own face is seen in everything.” Therefore it is that there shall soon come a time in which the people will ask for universal liberty, universal equality, and universal justice. Heretofore all branches of reform have been separated each from the other—have been diffusive, working in single and straight lines from a principle outward, utterly regardless of all other movements. Reform has never yet been constructive, but destructive to existing things. Nevertheless, all reform originates primarily, from a common cause— the effort of humanity to attain to the full exercise of human right, only attainable through the possession of freedom, equality and justice. . Any reform which does not embrace these three principles must neces­ sarily be diffusive, instructive or educational. Each different branch is the squaring of a separate stone, all of which must be brought together and adjusted before even the corner-stone of the perfect and ■ permanent structure can belaid. Republicanism even was not integral­ in its propositions. It looked simply to personal freedom. Neither equality in its high, or justice in its broad, sense was a portion of its creed. Hence republicanism as represented by the party in power has done its work, and those who prefer to stick to it rather than to come out and rally around a platform perfect in humanitarian princi­ ples, will thus show themselves to be more republican than humanita­ rian. As a nation we are nearing our first centennial birth-day. A hundred years have come and gone since political freedom was evolved from the womb of civilization. Great as its mission was, great as itsresults have been, shall the car of progress stop there? Is there noth* 37 ing .more for humanity to accomplish? I tell you there are still mightier and more glorious things to come than human tongue hath spoken or heart conceived. Little did our noble sires imagine what a century would do with what they set in motion. From three to forty millions is a grand, I may almost say a terrible, stride. But with thi step we cannot stop. We must open new channels for the expansion of the human soul. Up to this time we have expanded almost wholly in a material and Intellectual sense. There is a grander expansion than either oi these. Wealth and knowledge have brought us power, but we lack wisdom- To material prosperity and intellectual acquirements there must be added moral purity, and then we shall get wisdom. Every­ body appears to live as though this life were all there is of life, andthat to get from it the most physical enjoyment were the grand thing to be attained. Wealth has been made almost the sole aim of living, whereas it should only be regarded as the-means to a better-end; asthe means by which to accumulate an immense capital with which to begin life in the next and higher stage of existence ; and he or she lives best on earth who does the most for humanity. In this view, what are professing Christians—the churches—doing for the general good to-day? What good can come from preaching with­ out practice, since, though people may be able to say, “All of thesehave I kept from my youth up,” Christ, when he shall come, will reply to them: “ Go sell all thou hath and give to the poor, and come and follow me.” What clergyman in this city dare stand in his pulpit Sunday after Sunday and insist upon such practice ? or what one dare to insist that his church should have all things in common ? or what one dare to eat with publicans and sinners, or say to the woman, “ Neither do I condemn thee.” Or which one of the people dare go to her poor, enslaved and suffering sisters and take them to her heart and home ? or be the good Samaritan ? I tell you, my friends, be­ ware lest those whom you scorn to know be before you with Christ, who knows the heart It is not what you pretend that shall make you Christian, but what you do, and if you do right, though the world curse you, yet shall you lay up treasures in Heaven thereby. There­ 88 fore, I say that the Christianity of to-day is a failure. It is not the following of Christ, nor the practice of his precepts. True religion will not shut itself up in any church away from humanity; it will not stand idly by and see the people suffer from any misery whatever. It is its sphere to cure all ills, whether moral, social or political. There are no distinctions in humanity. Everything to be truly good and grand, whether it be in politics, society or religion, must be truly moral, and to be truly moral is to live the Golden Rule. Therefore, it is foolish for the Christian to say, “ I have nothing to do with politics, as a Christian. It is the bounden duty of every Christian to support that political party which bases itself upon Human Rights; and if there is no such party existing, then to go about to con­ struct one. It is too late in the century for a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to be a political thief and trickster as a politician, while he issues a call asking that the people inject God into the Constitution. Such consummate hypocrisy is an outrage upon the intelligence of the nineteenth century; and it will meet its just reward. If they would take the precepts of Christ and build a new Constitu­ tion upon them, nobody would object; but to be asked to recognize a God whom these people have themselves fashioned and set up, who hath noteven human sense of justice, is quite a different thing, and one to which this people will not submit. I could point out to you why this attempt is made just at this time, but I rather prefer to point out how this and all other attempts to put fetters upon the people must be avoided, and how to break the fetters by which they are already galled. Permit me to ask what practical good arises from the people’s com­ ing together and merely passing a set of resolutions. You may pa-s resolutions with whereases and therefores a mile long, and what will be the result unless they are made practical use of. What would you say to a person who should come before you with a resolution setting forth that whereas, thus and thus, are so and so, therefore some new invention ought to be made to meet the conditions. Why you would at once say to him, “ Give us the invention; then we shall be able to judge whether your therefore bears any relation to your wdiereas.” 39 Now precisely in. that way should you judge of resolutions for political reform. We have had resolutions long enough. We now need a working model which will secure freedom, equality and justice to the smallest of our brothers and sisters. Anything less than this is no longer worthy to be considered political reform ; and that is not only political reform, but it is also the best application possible of the pre­ cepts of Jesus Christ, and therefore the best Christianity, the best religion, since to its creed every human being who is not supremely selfish can subscribe. In conclusion, therefore, let me urge every soul who desires to be truly Christian to no longer separate Christianity from politics, but to make it the base upon which to build the future political structure. Instead of an amendment to the Constitution, which these hypocrites desire, recog­ nizing a God who is simply the Father of themselves, and a Christ of Whom they are the self-appointed representatives, give us a new Con­ stitution, recognizing the human rights of the people to govern them­ selves, of which they cannot be robbed under any pretext whatever, knd my word for it, humanity will not be slow to render due homage to their God. Let that Constitution give a place to every branch of reform, while it shall not so much as militate against the rights of a single indi­ vidual in the whole world—and we are large enough to begin to say the whole world—and to think of and prepare the way for the time when all nations, kindred and tongues shall be united in a universal govern­ ment, and the Constitution of the United States of the World be the SUPREME LAW. Around this as a New Departure let all reformers rally, and, with a grand impulse and a generous enthusiasm, join in a common effort for the great political revolution, after the accomplishment of which the nations shall have cause to learn war no more. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS iiHHiiniiiiiii. 0 027 293 716 3 RETURN TQ™^- CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 2 3 5 6 HOME USE 4 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1-month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW JUL 19 78 JUN 5 1979 ««• ClR, DEC 11 197 3 APR 24 1982 GIB. MAY 0 6 19 32 NOV 14 1993 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, 40m, 3/78 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ~ L 97.5 Woman's I Google ■ ■I- c.oogle Digitized by Google Digitized by Google WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS. By WENDELL PHILLIPS, THEODORE PARKER, Mrs. MILL, (of England,) AND T. W. HIGGINSON, Mrs. C. I. J. NICHOLS. STEREOTYPE EDITION. UNIVE^S BOSTON: ROBERT F. WAILCUT, 21 CORNHILL. 1854. GoOgk tO This volume can be obtained of J. M. W. Yerrinton, 21 Cornhill, Boston; T. W. Higginson, Wor­ cester; Lucy Stone Blackwell, Cincinnati. It will be sent by mail, bound, for six postage stamps; unbound, for four. A bound copy will be sent to any Public Library on receipt of one postage stamp. google WOMAN’S HIGHTS TRACTS................. NO. 1. SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ., AT THE CONVENTION HELD AT WORCESTER, OCTOBER 15 AND 16, 1851. The following resolutions were under consideration : 1. Resolved, That while we would not undervalue other methods, the Right of Suffrage for Women is, in our opinion, the corner-stone of this enterprise, since wo do not seek to protect woman, but rather to place her in a position to protect herself. 2. Resolved, That it will be woman’s fault if, the ballot once in her hand, all the barbarous, demoralizing and unequal Idws, relating to marriage and property, do not speedily vanish from the statute-book ; and while wo acknowledge that the hope of a share in the higher professions and profitable employments of society is one of the strongest motives to intellectual culture, we know, also, that an interest in political questions is an equally powerful stimulus ; and we see, beside, that we do our best to insure education to an individual, when we put the ballot into his hands ; it being so clearly the interest of the community that one upon whose decisions depend its wel­ fare and safety should both have free access to the best means of education, and be urged to make use of them. 3. Resolved, That we do not feel called upon to assort or establish the equal­ ity of the sexes, in an intellectual or any other point of view. It is enough for our argument that natural and political justice, and the axioms of English and American liberty, alike determine that rights and burdens — taxation and representation — should bo coextensive ; henoe women, as individual citizens, liable to punishment for acts which the laws call criminal, or to be taxed in their labor and property for the support of government, have a selfevident and indisputable right, identically the same right that men have, to 1 google 2 SPEECH OP WENDELL PHILLIPS a direct voice in the enactment of those laws and the formation of that gov­ ernment. 4. Resolved, That the democrat, or reformer, who denies suffrage towomen is a democrat only because he was not born a noble, and one of those leveller J who are willing to level only down to themselves. 5. Resolved, That while political and natural justice accord civil equality to woman ; while great thinkers of every age, from Plato to Condorcet and Mill, have supported their claim ; while voluntary associations, religious and secular, have been organized on this basis ; still, it is a favorite argu­ ment against it, that no political community or nation ever existed in which women have not been in a state of political inferiority. But, in reply, we remind our opponents that the same fact has been alleged, with equal truth, in favor of slavery ; has been urged against freedom of industry, free­ dom of conscience, and the freedom of the press ; none of these liberties hav­ ing been thought compatible with a well-ordered state, until they had proved their possibility by springing into existence as facts. Besides, there is no difficulty in understanding why the subjection of woman has been a uniform custom, when we recollect that we are just emerging from the ages in which might has been always right. 6. Resolved, That, so far from denying the overwhelming social and civil influence of women, we are fully aware of its vast extent; aware, with De­ mosthenes, that “ measures which the statesman has meditated a whole year may be overturned in a day by a woman; ” and f6r this very reason we pro­ claim it the very highest expediency to endow her with full civil rights, since only then will she exercise this mighty influence under a just sense of her duty and responsibility ; the history qf all ages bearing witness, that the only safe course for nations is to add open responsibility wherever there already exists unobserved power. • 7. Resolved, That we deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or of any individual to decide for another individual, what is and what is not their “ proper sphere; ” that the proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest to which they are able to attain ; what this is, cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice ; woman, therefore, ought to choose for herself what sphere she will fill, what educa­ tion she will seek, and what employment she will follow ; and not be held bound to accept, in submission, the rights, the education, and the sphere which man thinks proper to allow her. 8. Resolved, That we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal ; that they ore endowed by their Creator with certain inalien­ able rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi­ ness ; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; and we charge that man with gross dishonesty or ignorance, who shall contend that “ men,” in the memorable document from which we quote, does not stand for the human race ; that " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are the *• ina- <joogle SPEECH or WENDELL PHILLIPS. 8 lienablo rights ” of half only of th© human species ; and that, by •* the gov­ erned,” whose consent is affirmed to be the only source of just power, is meant that half of mankind only who, in relation to the other, have hitherto assumed the character of governors, 9. Resolved, That we see no weight in the argument that it is necessary to exclude women from civil life because domestic cares and political *engage meats are incompatible ; since we do not see the fact to be so in the ease of man; and because, if the incompatibility be real, it will take care of itself, neither men nor women needing any law to exclude them from an occupa­ tion when they have undertaken another, incompatible with it. Second, w< see nothing in the assertion that women, themselves, do not desire a change, since we assert that superstitious fears, and dread of losing men’s regard, smother all frank expression on this point; and further, if it be their real wish to avoid civil life, laws to keep them out of it are absurd; no legislator having ever yet thought it necessary to compel people by law to follow their own inclination. 10. Resolved, That it is as absurd to deny all women their civil rights because the cares of household and family take up all the time of some, as it would be to exclude the whole male sex from Congress, because some men are sailors, or soldiers, in active service, or merchants, whose business requires all their attention and energies. Wendell Phillips, Esq., of Boston, after offering these reso­ lutions, spoke as follows : In drawing up some of these resolutions, I have used, very freely, the language of a thoughtful and profound article in the Westminster Review. It is a review of the proceedings of our recent convention in this city, and states with singular clearness and force the leading arguments for our reform, and the grounds of our claim in behalf of woman. I rejoice to see so large an audience gathered to consider this momentous subject. It was well described by Mrs. Rose as the most magnificent reform that has yet been launched upon the world. It is the first organized protest against the injustice which has brooded over the character and the destiny of one half of the human race. Nowhere else, under any circumstances, has a demand ever yet been made for the liberties of one whole half of our race. It is fitting that we should pause and consider so remarkable and significant a circumstance; that we should discuss the question involved with the seriousness and deliberation suit­ kjOOgle 4 SPEECH 0/ WENDELL PHILLIPS. able to such an enterprise. It strikes, indeed, a great and vital blow at the whole social fabric of every nation; but this, to my mind, is. no argument against it. The time has been when it was the duty of the reformer to show cause why he appeared to dis­ turb the quiet of the world. But during the discussion of the many reforms that have been advocated, and which hawe more or less succeeded, one after another, — freedom of the lower classes, freedom of food, freedom of the press, freedom of thought, reform in penal legislation, and a thousand other matters, — it seems to me to Save been proved conclusively, that government commenced in usurpation and oppression; that liberty and civilization, at pres­ ent, are nothing else than the fragments of rights which the scaf­ fold and the stake have wrung from the strong hands of the usurp­ ers. Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake. It would hardly be exaggeration to say, that all the great truths relating to society and government have been first heard in the solemn protests of martyred patriotism, or the loud cries of crushed and starving labor. The law has been always wrong. Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and big­ otry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunder-storm, against the organized selfishness of human nature. And this is the last great protest against the wrong of ages. It is no argument to my mind, there­ fore, that the old social fabric of the past is against us. Neither do I feel called upon to show what woman’s proper sphere is. In every great reform, the majority have always said to the claimant, no matter what he claimed, “ You are not fit for such a privilege.” Luther asked of the Pope liberty for the masses to read the Bible. The reply was, that it would not be safe to trust the common people with the word of God. “ Let them try!” said the great reformer; and the history of three centuries of development and purity proclaims the result. They have tried; and look around you for the consequences. The lower classes in France claimed their civil rights, — the right to vote, and to a direct representation in the government; hut the rich VjOOgic SPEECH 01 WENDELL PHILLIPS. 5 and lettered classes, the men of cultivated intellects, cried out, “You cannot be made fit.” The answer was, “ Let us try.” That France is not, as Spain, utterly crushed beneath the weight of a thousand years of misgovernment, is the answer to those who doubt the ultimate success of this experiment. Woman stands now at the same door. She says, “ You tell me I have no intellect; give me a chance. You tell me I shall only embarrass politics; let me try.” The only reply is the same stale argument that said to the Jews of Europe, “ You are fit only to make money; you are not fit for the ranks of the army or the halls of parliament.” How cogent the eloquent appeal of Macau­ lay, —“ What right have we to take this question for granted ? Throw open the doors of this house of commons, throw open the ranks of the imperial army, before you deny eloquence to the countrymen of Isaiah, or valor to the descendants of the Macca­ bees.” It is the same now with us. Throw open the doors of Con * gress, throw open those court-houses, throw wide open the doors of your colleges, and give to the sisters of the De Staels and the Martineaus the same opportunities for culture that men have, and let the result prove what their capacity and intellect really are. When, I say, woman has enjoyed, for as many centuries as we have, the aid of books, the discipline of life, and the stimulus of fame, it will be time to begin the discussion of these questions, “What is the intellect of woman?” — “Is it equal to that of man ? ” Till then, all such discussion is mere beating of the air. While it is doubtless true that great minds, in many cases, make a way for themselves, spite of all obstacles, yet who knows how many Mil tons have died “ mute and inglorious ” ? How­ ever splendid the natural endowment, the discipline of life, after all, completes the miracle. The ability of Napoleon — what was it? It grew out of the hope to be Caesar or Marlborough, out of Austerlitz and Jcna, — out of his battle-fields, his throne, and all the great scenes of that eventful life. Open to woman the same scenes, immerse her in the same great interests and pursuits, and, if twenty centuries shall not produce a woman Charlemagne or * 1 VjOOgle 6 SPEECH OP WENDELL PHILLIPS. Napoleon, fair reasoning will then allow us to conclude that there is some distinctive peculiarity in the intellects of the sexes. Cen­ turies alone can lay any fair basis for argument. I believe that, on this point, there is a shrinking consciousness of not being ready for the battle, on the part of same of the stronger sex, as they call themselves; a tacit confession of risk to this imagined superiority, *f they consent to meet their sisters in the lecture-hall or the labo­ ratory of science. My proof of it is this: that the mightiest in­ tellects of the race, from Plato down to the present time, some of the rarest minds of Germany, France and England, have suc­ cessively yielded their assent to the fact that woman is, not per­ haps identically, but equally, endowed with man in all intellectual capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt, — doubt, perhaps, because they fear a fair field: * ** He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small. Who fears to put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all.” But I wish especially to direct your attention to the precise principle which this movement undertakes to urge upon the com­ munity. We do not attempt to settle what shall be the profession, education or employment, of woman. We have not that presump­ tion. What we ask is simply this — what all other classes have asked before : Leave it to woman to choose for herself her profes­ sion, her education, and her sphere. We deny to any portion of the species the right to prescribe to any other portion its sphere, its education, or its rights. We deny the right of any individual to prescribe to any other individual his amount of education, or his rights. The sphere of each man, of each woman, of each indi­ vidual, is that sphere which he can, with the highest exercise of his powers, perfectly fill. The highest act which the human being can do, that is the act which God designed nim to do. All that woman asks through this movement is, to be allowed to prove what she can do ; to prove it by liberty of choice, by liberty of action, the only means by which it ever can be settled how much Google SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 7 and what she can do. She can reasonably say to us, “I have never fathomed the depths of science; you have taught that it was unwomanly, and have withdrawn from me the means of scion-, tific culture. I have never equalled the eloquence of Demos­ thenes ; but you have never quickened my energies by holding up before me the crown and robe of glory, and the gratitude which I was to win. The tools, now, to him or her who can use them. Welcome me, henceforth, brother, to your arena: and let facts — not theories — settle my capacity, and therefore my sphere.” We are not here to-night to assert that woman will enter the lists and conquer; that she will certainly achieve all that man has achieved; but this we say, “ Clear the lists, and let her try.” Some reply, “ It will be a great injury to feminine delicacy and refinement for woman to mingle in business and politics.” I am not careful to answer this objection. Of all such objections, on this and kindred subjects, Mrs. President, I love to dispose in some such way as this : The broadest and most far-sighted intel­ lect is utterly unable to foresee the ultimate consequences of any great social change. Ask yourself, on all such occasions, if there be any element of right and wrong in the question, any principle of clear natural justice that turns the scale. If so, take your part with the perfect and abstract right, and trust God to see that it shall prove the expedient. The questions, then, for me, on this subject, are these: Has God made woman capable — morally, intellectually and physically — of taking this part in human affairs ? Then, what God made her able to do, it is a strong argument that he intended she should do. Does our sense of natural justice dictate that the being who is to suffer under laws shall first personally assent to them; that the being whose industry government is to burden should have a voice in fixing the character and amount of that burden ? Then, while woman is admitted to the gallows, the jail and the tax-list, we have no right to debar her from the ballot-box. “ But to go there will hurt that delicacy of character which we have always thought peculiarly her grace.” I cannot help that. Let Him who created her capable of politics, and made it just that she <jOOglc 8 SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. should have a share in them, see to it that these rights which He has conferred do not injure the being He created. Is it for any human being to trample on the laws of justice and liberty, from an alleged necessity of helping God govern what he has made ? I cannot help God govern his world by telling lies, or doing what my conscience deems unjust. How absurd to deem it necessary that any one should do so! When Infinite Wisdom established the rules of right and honesty, he saw to it that justice should be always the highest expediency. The evil, therefore, that some timid souls fear to the character of woman, from the exercise of her political rights, does not at all trouble me. “ Let education form the rational and moral being, and nature will take care of the woman.” Neither do I feel at all disturbed by those arguments addressed to us as to the capac­ ity of woman. I know that the humblest man and the feeblest has the same civil rights, according to the theory of our institu­ tions, as the most gifted. It is never claimed that the humblest shall be denied his civil right, provided he be a man. No. In­ tellect, even though it reach the Alpine height of a Parker, — ay, setting aside the infamy of his conduct, and looking at him only as an instance of intellectual greatness, to the height of a Webster, — gets no tittle of additional civil right, no one single claim to any greater civil privilege than the humblest individual, who knows no more than the first elements of his alphabet, pro­ vided that being is a man (I ought to say, a white man). Grant, then, that woman is intellectually inferior to man — it settles nothing. She is still a responsible, tax-paying wnember of civil society. We rest our claim on the great, eternal principle, that taxation and representation must be coextensive; that rights and burdens must correspond to each other; and he who undertakes to answer the argument of this convention must first answer the whole course of English and American history for the last hundred and fifty years. No single principle of liberty has been enunciated, from the year 1688 until now, that does not cover the claim of woman. The state has never laid the basis of right upon the distinction of sox; and no reason has ever been given, VjOOgic SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 9 except a religious one — that there are in the records of our reli­ gion commands obliging us to make woman an exception to our civil theories, and deprive her of that which those theories give her. Suppose that woman is essentially inferior to man—she still has rights. Grant that Mrs. Norton never could be Byron; that Elizabeth Barrett never could have written Paradise Lost; that Mrs. Somerville never could be La Place, nor Sirani have painted the Transfiguration. What then ? Does that prove they should bo deprived of all civil rights ? John Smith never will be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he, therefore, bo put under guard­ ianship, and forbidden to vote ? Suppose woman, though equal, to differ essentially in her intel­ lect from man — is that any ground for disfranchising her ? Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, “Because you cannot make e steam-engines, therefore you shall not vote ” ? Shall the Napo­ leons or the Washingtons say to the Wordsworths or the Herschells, “Because you cannot lead armies and govern states, therefore you shall have no civil rights ” ? Grant that woman’s intellect be essentially different, even infe­ rior, if you choose; still, while our civilization allows her to hold property, and to be the guardian of her children, she is entitled to Such education and to such civil rights — voting, among the rest — as will enable her to protect both her children and her estate. It is easy to indulge in dilettanti speculation as to woman’s sphere and the female intellect; but leave dainty speculation, and come down to practical life. Here is a young widow; she has children, and ability, if you will let her exercise it, to give them the best advantages of education, to secure them every chance of success in life; or, she has property to keep for them, and no friend to rely on. Shall she leave them to sink in the unequal struggles of life ? Shall she trust their all to any adviser money can buy, in orler to gratify your taste, and give countenance to your nice theories? or, shall she use all the powers God has given her for those he has thrown upon her protection ? If we consult common sense, and leave theories vlone, there is but one answer. Such a kjOOgic 10 SPEECH OP WENDELL PHILLIPS. one can rightfully claim of society all the civil privileges, and of fashion all such liberty as will best enable her to discharge fully her duties as a mother. But woman, it is said, may safely trust all to the watchful and generous care of man. She has been obliged to do so hitherto. With what result, let the unequal and unjust legislation of all nations answer. In Massachusetts, lately, a man married an heiress, worth fifty thousand dollars. Dying, about a year after his marriage, he made this remarkably generous and manly will. He left these fifty thousand dollars to her so long as she should remain his widow! (Loud laughter.) These dollars, which he owed entirely to her, which were fairly hers, he left to her, after twelve months’ use, on this generous condition, that she should never marry again! Ought a husband to have such unlimited control over the property of his wife, or over the property which they have together acquired ? Ought not woman to have a voice in determining what the law shall be in regard to the property of married persons ? Often by her efforts, always by her economy, she contributes much to the stock of family wealth, and is therefore justly entitled to a voice in the control and disposal of it. Neither common sense nor past experience encourage her to trust the protection of that right to the votes of men. That “Mankind is ever weak, And little to be trusted; If self the wavering balance strike, It *s rarely right adjusted ” — is true between the sexes, as much as between individuals. Make the case our own. Is there any man here willing to resign his own right to vote, and trust his welfare and his earnings entirely to the votes of others ? Suppose any class of men should condescendingly offer to settle for us our capacity or our calling; to vote for us, to choose our sphere for us; how ridiculously im­ pertinent we should consider it! Yet few have the good sense to laugh at the consummate impertinence with which every bar-room braw.er, every third-rate scribb’er, undertakes to settle the sphere Google SPEECH 01 WENDELL PHILLIPS. 11 of the Martineaus and the De Staels! With what gracious con­ descension little men continue to lecture and preach on “the female sphere ” and “ female duties ”! This convention docs not undertake the task of protecting woman. It contends that, in government, every individual should be endowed, as far as possible, with the means of protecting .him­ self. This is far more the truth when we deal with classes. Every class should be endowed with the power to protect itself. Man has hitherto undertaken to settle what is best for woman, in the * way of education, and in the matter of property. He has settled it for her, that her duties and cares are too great to allow her any time to take care of her own earnings, or to take her otherwise legitimate share in the civil government of the country. He has not undertaken to say ttat the sailor or the soldier, in active service, when he returns from his voyage or his camp, is not free *to deposit his vote in the ballot-box. He has not undertaken to say that the manufacturer, whose factories cover whole townships, who is up early and lies down late, who has to borrow the ser­ vices of scores to help him in the management of his vast estate, — he does not say that such a man cannot get time to study poli­ tics, and ought therefore to be deprived of his right to vote with his fellow-citizens. He has not undertaken to say that the lawyer may not vote, though his whole time is spent in the courts, until he knows nothing of what is going on in the streets. 0, no! But as for woman, her time must be all so entirely filled in taking care of her household, her cares must be so extensive, that neither those of soldiers, nor sailors, nor merchants, can be equal to them; she has not a moment to qualify herself for politics! Woman cannot be spared long enough from the kitchen to put in a vote, though Abbott Lawrence can be spared from the counting-house, though General Gaines or Scott can be spared from the camp, though the Lorings and the Choates can be spared from the courts. This is the argument: Stephen Girard cannot go to Congress; he is too busy; therefore, no man ever shall. Because General Scott has gone to Mexico, and cannot be President, therefore no man shall be. Because A B is a sailor, gone on a Google 12 SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. whaling voyage, to be absent for three .years, and cannot vote, therefore no male inhabitant ever shall. Logic how profound! how conclusive ! Yet this is the exact reasoning in the case of woman. Take up the newspapers. See the sneers at this move­ ment. “ Take care of the children,” “ Make the clothes,” “ See that they are mended,” “ See that the parlors are properly ar­ ranged.” Suppose we grant it all. Are there no women but housekeepers ? no women but mothers ? O, yes; many! Sup­ pose we grant that the cares of a household are so heavy that they are greater than the cares of the president of a college, — that he who has the charge of some hundreds of youths is less oppressed with care than the woman with three rooms and two children; that, though President Sparks has time for politics, Mrs. Brown has not. Grant that, and still we claim that you Should be true to your theory, and grant to single women those rights which she who is the mistress of a household and mother of a family has no time to exercise. “ Let women vote ! ” cries one. “ Why, wives and daughters might be democrats, while their fathers and husbands were whigs. It would never do. It would produce endless quarrels.” And the self-satisfied objector thinks he has settled the question. But, if the principle be a sound one, why not apply it in a still more important instance? Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference in politics. Yet we allow women to choose their own religious creeds, although we thereby run the risk of wives being Episcopalians while their husbands are Meth­ odists, or daughters being Catholics while their fathers are Calvin­ ists. Yet who, this side of Turkey, dare claim that the law should compel women to have no religious creed, or adopt that of their male relatives? Practically, this freedom in religion has made no difficulty; and probably equal freedom in politics would make as little. It is, after all, of little use to argue these social questions. These prejudices never were reasoned up, and, my word for it, they will never be reasoned down. The freedom of the press, the freedom of labor, the freedom of the race in its lowest classes VjOOgle SPEECH QS WENDELL PHILLIPS. 13 was never argued to success. The moment you can get woman to go out into the highway of life, and show by active valor what God has created her for, that moment this question is settled for­ ever. One solid fact of a woman’s making her fortune in trade will teach the male sex what woman’s capacity is. I say, there­ fore, to women, there are two paths before you in this reform : one is, take all the laws have left you, with a confident and determined hand; the other is, cheer and encourage, by your sympathy and aid, those noble women who are willing to be the pioneers in this enterprise. See that you stand up the firm supporters of those bold and fearless ones who undertake to lead their sisters in this movement. If Elizabeth Blackwell, who, trampling under foot the sneers of the other sex, took her maiden reputation in her hand, and walked the hospitals of Europe, comes back the accomplished graduate of them, to offer her services to the women of America, and to prove that woman, equally with man, is qual-’ ified to do the duties and receive the honors and rewards of the healing art, see to it, women, that you greet her efforts with your smiles. Hasten to her side, and open your households to her practice. Demand to have the experiment fairly tried, before you admit that, in your sickness and in your dangers, woman may not stand as safely by your bedside as man. If you will but bo true to each other, on some of these points, it is in the power of woman to settle, in a great measure, this question. Why ask aid from the other sex at all ? Theories are but thin and unsubstan­ tial air against the solid fact of woman mingling with honor and profit in the various professions and industrial pursuits of life. Would women bo true to each other, by smoothing the pathway of each other’s endeavors, it is in their power to settle one great aspect of this question, without any statute in such case made and provided. I say, take* your rights! There is no law to pre­ vent it, in one half of the instances. If the prejudices of the other sex and the supineness of your own prevent it, there is no help for you in the statute-books. It is for you but to speak, and the doors of all medical hospitals are open for the women by whom you make it known that you intend to be served. Let us 2 <joogie 14 SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. have no separate, and therefore necessarily inferior, schools for women. Let us have no poor schools, feebly endowed, where woman must go to gather what help she may from second-rate professors, in one branch of a profession. No ! Mothers, daugh­ ters, sisters! say to husband, father, brother, “ If this life is dear to you, I intend to trust it, in my hour of danger, to a sister’s hand. See to it, therefore, you who are the guides of society and heads of those institutions, if you love your mother, sister, wife, daughter, see to it that you provide these chosen assistants of mine the means to become disciplined and competent advisers in that momentous hour, for I will have no other.” When you shall say that, Harvard University, and every other university, and every medical institution, will hasten to open their doors. You who long for the admission of woman to professional life and the higher ranks of intellectual exertion, up, and throw into her * scale this omnipotent weight of your determination to be served by her, and by no other! In this matter, what you decide is law. There is one other light in which this subject is to be consid­ ered, — the freedom of ballot; and with a few words upon that, I will close these desultory remarks. As there is no use in edu­ cating a human being for nothing, so the thing is an impossibility. Horace Mann says, in the letter that has been read here, that he intends to write a lecture on Woman; and I doubt not that he will take the stand which he has always done, that she should be book-taught for some dozen years, and then retire to domestic life, or the school-room. Would he give sixpence for a boy who could only say that he had been shut up for those years in a school ? The unfledged youth that comes from college — what is he ? He is a man, and has been subjected to seven years’ tutoring; but, man though he is, until he has walked up and down the paths of life, until he receives his education in the discipline of the world, in the stimulus of motive, in the hope of gain, in the desire of honor, in the love of reputation, in nine cases out of ten, he has got no education at all. Profess to educate woman for her own amusement! Profess to educate her in science, that she may go kjoogle SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 15 home and take care of her cradle! Teach her the depths of statesmanship and political economy, that she may smile sweetly when her husband comes home ! “ It is not the education man gets from books,” it was well said by your favorite statesman, * “ but the lessons he learns from life and society, that profit him most highly.” “ Le monde est le livre des femmesOf this book you deprive her. You give her nothing but man’s little printed primers; you make for her a world of dolls, and then complain that she is frivolous. You deprive her of all the lessons of practical out-door lifb; you deprive her of all the stimulus which the good and great of all nations, all societies, have en­ joyed, the world’s honors, its gold and its fame, and then you coolly ask of her, “ Why are you not as well disciplined as we are ? ” I know there are great souls who need no stimulus but love of truth and growth, whom mere love of labor allures to the profoundest investigations; but these are the exceptions, not the rule. We legislate, we arrange society for the masses, not the exceptions. Responsibility is one instrument — a great instrument — of education, both moral and intellectual. It sharpens the faculties. It unfolds the moral nature. It makes the careless prudent, and turns recklessness into sobriety. Look at the young wife suddenly left a widow, with the care of her children’s education and entrance into life thrown upon her. How prudent and sagacious she becomes ! How fruitful in resources, and comprehensive in her views! How much intellect and character she surprises her old friends with! Look at the statesman bold and reckless in op­ position ; how prudent, how thoughtful, how timid he becomes, the moment he is in office, and feels that a nation’s welfare hangs on his decisions ! Woman can never study those great questions that interest and stir most deeply the human mind, until she studies them under the mingled stimulus and check of this responsibility. And, until her intellect has been tested by such questions, studied under such influences, we shall never be able to decide what it is. One great reason, then, besides its justice, why we would claim the ballot for woman, is this: because the great school of this Googk 16 SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. people is the jury-box and the ballot-box. De Tocqueville, after travelling in this country, went away with the conviction that, valuable as the jury trial was for the investigation of facts and defence of the citizens, its value in these respects even was no greater than as it was the school of civil education open to all the people. The education of the American citizen is found in his interest in the debates of Congress, — the earnest personal interest with which he seeks to fathom political questions. It is when the mind, profoundly stirred by the momentous stake at issue, rises to its most gigantic efforts, when the great crisis of some national convulsion is at hand, — it is then that strong political excitement lifts the people up in advance of the age, heaves a whole nation on to a higher platform of intellect and morality. Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one half the nation; but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half. Yet, mean­ while, theorists wonder that the first have their whole nature un­ folded, and the others will persevere in being- dwarfed. Now, this great, world-wide, practical, ever-present education, we claim for woman. Never, until it is granted her, can you decide what wiR be her ability. Deny statesmanship to woman? What ! to the sisters of Elizabeth of England, Isabella of Spain, Maria Theresa of Austria; ay, let me add, of Elizabeth Heyrick, who, when the intellect of all England was at fault, and wandering in the desert of a false philosophy, — when Brougham and Romilly, Clarkson and Wilberforce, and all the other great and philan­ thropic minds of England, were at fault and at a dead-lock with the West India question and negro slavery, — with the statesman­ like intellect of a Quaker woman, wrote out the simple yet potent charm—Immediate, Unconditional Emancipation—which solved the problem, and gave freedom to a race! How noble the conduct of those men ! "With an alacrity which does honor to their states­ manship, and proves that they recognized the inspired voice when they heard it, they sat down at the feet of that woman-states­ man, and seven years under her instruction did more for the settlement of the greatest social question that had ever convulsed England, than had been done in a century, of more or less effort, kjoogle SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 17 before. 0, no; you cannot read history, unless you read it upside down, without admitting that woman, cramped, fettered, ex­ cluded, degraded as she has been, has yet sometimes, with one ray of her instinctive genius, done more to settle great questions than all the cumbrous intellect of the other sex has achieved. It is, therefore, on the ground of natural justice, and on the ground again of the highest expediency, and yet again it is because woman, as an immortal and intellectual being, has a right to all the means of education, — it is on these grounds that we claim for her the civil rights and privileges which man enjoys. I will not enlarge now on another most important aspect of this question, the value of the contemplated change in a physio­ logical point of view. Our dainty notions have made woman such a hot-house plant, that one half the sex are invalids. The mothers of the next generation are invalids. Better that our women, like the German and Italian girls, should labor on the highway, and share in the toil of harvest, than pine and sicken in the in-door and sedentary routine to which our superstition con­ demns them. But I leave this sad topic for other hands. One word more. We heard to-day a very profound and elo­ quent address as to the course which it is most expedient for woman to pursue in regard to the inadequate remuneration ex­ tended to her sex. The woman of domestic life receives but about one third the amount paid to a man for similar or far lighter services. The woman of out-door labor has about the same. The best female employments are subject to a discount of some forty or fifty per cent, on the wages paid to males. It is futile, if it were just, to blame individuals for this. We have all been burdened long by a common prejudice and a common igno­ rance. The remedy is not to demand that the manufacturer shall pay his workmen more, that the employer of domestics shall pay them more. It is not the capitalist’s fault. We inveigh against the wealthy capitalist, but it is not exclusively his fault. It is as much the fault of society itself. It is the fault of that timid con­ servatism, which sets its face like flint against everything new; of a servile press, that knows so well, by personal experience, how * 2 Google 18 SPEECH OP WENDELL PHILLIPS. much fools and cowards are governed by a sneer. It is the fault of silly women, ever holding up their idea of what is “ lady-like” as a Gorgon head to frighten their sisters from earning bread, — themselves, in their folly, the best answer to the weak prejudice they mistake for argument. It is the fault of that pulpit which declares it indecorous in woman to labor, except in certain occu­ pations, and thus crowds the whole mass of working women into two or three employments, making them rivet each other’s chains. Do you ask me the reason of the low wages paid for female labor ? It is this: There are about as many women as men obliged to rely for bread on their own toil. Man seeks employ­ ment anywhere, and of any kind. No one forbids him. If he cannot make a living by one trade, he takes another; and the moment any trade becomes so crowded as to make wages fall, men leave it, and wages will rise again. Not so with woman. The whole mass of women must find employment in two or three occu­ pations. The consequence is, there are more women in each of these than can be employed; they kill each other by competition. Suppose there is as much sewing required in a city as one thou­ sand hands can do. If the tailors could find only five hundred women to sew, they would be obliged to pay them whatever they asked. But let the case be, as it usually is, that there are five thousand women waiting for that work, unable to turn to any other occupation, and doomed to starve if they fail to get a share of that; we see at once that their labor, being a drug in the market, must be poorly paid for. She cannot say, as man would, “ Give me so much, or I will seek another trade.” She must accept whatever is offered, and often underbid her sister, that she may secure a share. Any article sells cheap, when there is too much of it in the market. Woman’s labor is cheap because there is too much of it in the market. All women’s trades are over­ crowded, because they have only two or three to choose from. But open to her, now, other occupations. Open to her the studio of the artist, — let her enter there ; open to her the office practice, at least, of the lawyers, — let her go there; open to her all in-door trades of society, to begin with, and let woman monopolize them. CjOOgle SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 19 Take from the crowded and starved ranks of the needle-women of New York some for the arts of design, some for the counter, some to minister in our public libraries, some for our public regis­ tries, some to keep merchants’ accounts, and some to feel the pulse; and the consequence will be, that, like every other independent laborer, like their male brethren, they may make their own terms, and will be fairly paid for their labor. It is competition in too narrow lists that starves women in our cities; and thoso lists are drawn narrow by superstition and prejudice. Woman is ground down, by the competition of her sisters, to the very point of starvation. Heavily taxed, ill paid, in degrada­ tion and misery, is it to be wondered at that she yields to the temptation of wealth ? It is the same with men; and thus we recruit the ranks of vice by the prejudices of custom and society. We corrupt the whole social fabric, that woman may be confined to two or three employments. How much do we suffer through the tyranny of prejudice! When we penitently and gladly give to the energy and the intellect and the enterprise of woman their proper reward, their appropriate employment, this question of wages will settle itself; and it will never be settled at all until then.. This question is intimately connected with the great social problem, — the vices of cities. You who hang your heads in ter­ ror and shame, in view of the advancing demoralization of modern civilized life, and turn away with horror-struck faces, look back now to these social prejudices, which have made you close the avenues of profitable employment in the face of woman, and recon­ sider the conclusions you have made ! Look back, I say, and see whether you are surely right here. Come up with us and argue the question, and say whether this most artificial delicacy, this childish prejudice, on whose Moloch altar you sacrifice the virtue of so many, is worthy the exalted worship you pay it. Con­ sider a moment. From what sources are the ranks of female profligacy recruited? A few mere giddiness hurries to ruin. Their protection would be in that character and sound common sense which a wider interest in practical life would generally Google 20 SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. create. In a few, the love of sensual gratification, grown over­ strong, because all the other powers are dormant for want of exer­ cise, wrecks its unhappy victim. The medicine for these would be occupation, awaking intellect, and stirring their highest ener­ gies. Give any one an earnest interest in life, something to do, something that kindles emulation, and soon the gratification of the senses sinks into proper subordination. It is idle heads that are tempted to mischief: and she is emphatically idle half of whose nature is unemployed. Why does man, so much oftener than woman, surmount a few years or months of sensual gratification, and emerge into a worthier life ? It is not solely because the world’s judgment is so much harder upon her. Man can immerse himself in business that stirs keenly all his faculties, and thus he smothers passion in honorable cares. An ordinary woman, once fallen, has no busy and stirring life in which to take refuge, where intellect will contend for mastery with passion, apd where virtue is braced by high and active thoughts. Passion comes back to the “ empty” through “ swept and garnished ” chambers, bringing with him more devils than before. But, undoubtedly, the great temptation to this vice is the love of dress, wealth and the lux­ uries it secures. Facts will jostle theories aside. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, there are many women, earning two or three dollars a week, who feel that they are as capable as their brothers of earning hundreds, if they could be permitted to exert themselves as freely. Fretting to see the coveted rewards of life forever forbidden them, they are tempted to shut their eyes on the character of the means by which a taste, however short, may be gained of the wealth and luxury they sigh for. Open to man a fair field for his industry, and secure to him its gains, and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand will disdain to steal. Open to woman a fair field for her industry, let her do anything her hands find to do, and enjoy her gains, and nine hun­ dred and ninety-nine women out of every thousand will disdain to debase themselves for dress or ease. Of this great social problem — to cure or lessen the vice of cities — there is no other solution, except what this movement kjOOgic SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 21 offers you. It is, to leave woman to choose her own employments for herself; responsible, as we are, to the common Creator, and not to her fellow-man. I exhort you, therefore, to look at this question in the spirit in which I have endeavored to present it to you. It is no fanciful, no superficial movement, based on a few individual tastes, in morbid sympathy with tales of individual suf­ fering. It is a great social protest against the very fabric of society. It is a question which goes down — we admit it, and are willing to meet the issue — goes down beneath the altar at which you worship, goes down beneath this social system in which you live. And it is true — no denying it — that, if we are right, the doctrines preached from New England pulpits are wrong; it is true that all this affected horror at woman’s deviation from her sphere is a mistake, — a mistake fraught with momentous conse­ quences. Understand us. We blink no fair issue. We throw down the gauntlet. We have counted the cost; we know the yoke and burden we assume. We know the sneers, the lying frauds of misstatement and misrepresentation, that await us. We have counted all; and it is but the dust in the balance and the small dust in the measure, compared with the inestimable blessing of doing justice to one half of the human species, of curing this otherwise immedicable wound, stopping this overflowing fountain of corruption, at the very source of civilized life. Truly, it is the great question of the age. It looks all others out of countenance. It needs little aid from legislation. Specious objections, after all, are not arguments. We know we are right. We only ask an opportunity to argue the question, to set it full before the people, and then leave it to the intellects and the hearts of our country, con­ fident that the institutions under which we live, and the education which other reforms have already given to both sexes, have cre­ ated men and women capable of solving a problem even more dif­ ficult and meeting a change even more radical, tlian this. Google APPENDIX. • CALL FOR THE FIRST WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION. A Convention will be held at Worcester, Mass., on the twentythird and twenty-fourth of October next (agreeably to appoint­ ment by a preliminary meeting held at Boston, on the thirtieth of May last), to consider the great question of Woman’s Rights, Duties and Relations; and the men and women of our country who feel sufficient interest in the subject to give an earnest thought and effective effort to its rightful adjustment, are invited to meet each other in free conference, at the time and place appointed. . The upward tending spirit of the age, busy in a hundred forms of effort for the world’s redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One half of the race are its immediate objects, and the other half arc as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which nature has established between them. The neighbor is near enough to involve every human being in a general equality of rights and community of interests; but, men and women, in their reciprocities of love and duty, are one flesh and one blood — mother, wife, sister and daughter, come so near the heart and mind of every man that they must be either his blessing or his bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position and action. The sexes should not, for any reason or by any chance, take hostile attitudes towards each other,- either in the apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and Google APPENDIX. 23 cooperate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the ulti­ mate achievement of the desired reformation. Of the many points now under discussion and demanding a just settlement, the general question of Woman’s Rights and Relations comprehends these: Her Education, Literary, Scientific andi Artistic; — Her Avocations, Industrial, Commercial and Pro­ fessional ; — Her Interests, Pecuniary, Civil and Political; in a word — Her Rights as an Individual, and her Functions as a Citizen. No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing, as they do, all that is not merely animal in a human life, are rightly understood or justly provided for in the existing social order. Nor is it any more true that the constitutional differences of the sexes, which should determine, define, and limit the resulting differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and practically observed. Woman has been condemned, for her greater delicacy of physical organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, and to the forfeiture of great social, civil and religious privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally annihilated, and actually enslaved in all that concerns her personal and pecuniary rights; and even in widowhood and single life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of labor and avocation as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of a disabled caste. But, by the inspiration of the Almighty, the beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these wrongs. The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers sits no longer lightly on the world’s conscience; the heart’s home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar. Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from which it draws its highest life; and womanhood is everywhere awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights, and to fulfil its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public heart and aroused its redressing justice; and, through it, the providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of his creation. kjOOgle 24 APPENDIX The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the principles, devising the method, and achieving the success of this high and holy movement. MASSACHUSETTS. Lucy Stone, Wm. H. Channing, Harriet K. Hunt, A. Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Barney, Eliza Barney, Wendell Phillips, Ann Greene Phillips, Adin Ballou, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Mary H. L. Cabot B. S. Treanor, Mary M. Brooks, T. W. Higginson, Mary E. Higginson, Emily Winslow, R. Waldo Emerson, William L. Garrison, Helen E. Garrison, Charles F. Hovey, Sarah Earle, Abby K. Foster, Sarah H. Whitman, Thomas Davis, Paulina W. Davis, Joseph A. Barker, Sarah Brown, Elizabeth Chase, Mary Clarke, John L. Clarke, Gerrit Smith, Nancy Smith, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Catharine Wilkinson, Samuel J. May, Charlotte C. May, Charlotte G. Coffin, Mary G. Taber, Elizabeth S. Miller, Elizabeth Russell, Stephen Smith, Rosa Smith, William Elder, Sarah Elder, Sarah Tyndale, Warner Justice, Huldah Justice, William Swisshelm, Jane G. Swisshelm, Charlotte Darlington, Simon Barnard, Lucretia Mott, James Mott, W. S. Pierce, Dr.------ Rogers, Eliza F. Taft, Dr. A. C. Taft, Charles K. Whipple Mary Bullard, Emma C. Guodwin, Abby Price, Thankful Southwick, Eliza J. Kenney, Louisa M. Sewall, Sarah Southwick. RHODE ISLAND George Clarke, Mary Adams, George Adams. NEW YORK. Joseph Savage, L. N. Fowler, Lydia Fowler, Sarah Smith, Charles D. MiUcr. PENNSYLVANIA. Myra Townsend, Mary Grew, Sarah Lewis, Sarah Pugh, Hannah Darlington, Sarah D. Barnard. MARYLAND. Mrs. Eliza Stewart OHIO. Elizabeth Wilson, Mary A. Johnson, Oliver Johnson, Mary Cowles, Maria L. Giddings, Jane Elizabeth Jones, Benjamin S. Jones, Lucius A. Hine, Sylvia Cornell. Google WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS................. NO. 2. A SERMON OF THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN, PREACHED AT THE MUSIC-HALL, BOSTON MARCH 27, 1853. BY THEODORE PARKER. Psalm 144 : 12. — “ That our daughters may bo as corner-stones.” Last Sunday I spoke of the Domestic Function of Woman, what she may do for the higher development of the human race at home. To-day, I ask your attention to a sermon of the Ideal Public Function of Woman, and the Economy thereof, in the higher development of the Human Race. The domestic function of woman, as a housekeeper, wife and mother, does not exhaust her powers. Woman’s function, like charity, begins at home; then, like charity, goes everywhere. To make one half of the human race consume all their energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife and mother, is a monstrous waste of the most precious material that God ever made. I. In the present constitution of society, there are some un­ married women, to whom the domestic function is little, or is nothing; women who arc not mothers, not wives, not house­ keepers. I mean, those who are permanently unmarried. It is a great defect in the Christian civilization, that so many women and men are never married. There may be three women in a thousand to whom marriage would be disagreeable, under any 1 kjOOgle 2 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OP WOMAN. possible circumstances; perhaps thirty more to whom it would be disagreeable, under the actual circumstances, in the present con­ dition of the family and the community. But there is a large number of women who continue unmarried for no reason in their nature, from no conscious dislike of the present domestic and social condition of mankind, and from no disinclination to marriage under existing circumstances. This is a deplorable evil — alike a misfortune to man and to woman. The Catholic church has elevated celibacy to the rank of a theological virtue, consecrating an unnatural evil; on a small scale, the results thereof are writ in the obscene faces of many a priest, false to his human nature, while faithful to his priestly vow; and on a large scale, in the vice, the infamy and degradation of woman, in almost all Catholic lands. The classic civilization of Greece and Rome had the same vice with the Christian civilization. Other forms of religion have sought to get rid of this evil by polygamy ; and thereby they de­ graded woman still further. The Mormons are repeating the same experiment, based not on philanthropy, but on tyranny, and are still further debasing woman under their feet. In classic and in Christian civilization alone, has there been a large class of women permanently unmarried — not united or even subordinated to man in the normal marriage of one to one, or in the abnormal con­ junction of one to many. This class of unmarried women is in­ creasing in all Christian countries, especially in those that are old and rich. Practically speaking, to this class of women the domestic func­ tion is very little ; to some of them, it is nothing at all. I do not think that this condition is to last, — marriage is writ in the soul of man, as in his body, — but it indicates a transition, it is a step forward. Womankind is advancing from that period when every woman was a slave, and marriage of some sort was guaranteed to every woman, because she was dependent on man; I say, woman is advancing from that, to a state, of independence, where woman shall not be subordinated to man, but the two coordinated together. VjOOgic THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 3 The evil that I deplore is transient in its nature, and God grant it may soon pass away! II. That is not all. For the housekeeper, the wife and the mother, the domestic is not the only function ; it is not function enough for the woman, — for the human being,—more than it would be function enough for the father, for the man. After women have done all which pertains to housekeeping as a trade, to housekeeping as one of the fine arts, in their relation as wife and mother, — after they have done all for the order of the house, for the order of the husband, and the order of the children,— they have still energies to spare — a reserved power for yet other work. There are three classes of women. First, domestic Drudges, who are wholly taken up in the mate­ rial details of their housekeeping, husband-keeping, child-keeping. Their housekeeping is a trade, and no more; and, after they have done that, there is no more which they can do. In New England it is a small class, getting less every year. Next, there are domestic Dolls, wholly taken up with the vain show which delights the eye and the ear. They are ornaments of the estate. Similar toys, I suppose, will one day be more cheaply manufactured at Paris and Niirnberg, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and other toy-shops of Europe, out of wax and papier-machd, and sold in Boston at the haberdasher’s, by the dozen. These ask nothing beyond their function as dolls, and hate all attempts to elevate womankind. But there are domestic women, who order a house, and are not mere drudges, — adorn it, and are not mere dolls, but women. Some of these — a great many of them — conjoin the useful of the drudge and the beautiful of the doll into one womanhood, and have a great deal left besides. They are not wholly taken up with their function as housekeeper, wife and mother. In the progress of mankind, and the application of masculine science to what was once only feminine work, — whereby so much time is saved from the wheel and the loom, the oven and the spit with the consequent increase of riches, the saving of time, and the C.oogle 4 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. intellectual education which comes in consequence thereof, — thia class of women is continually enlarging. With us in New England, — in all the north, — it is a very large class. Well, what shall these domestic women do with their spare energies and superfluous power ? Once, a malicious proverb said, « The shoemaker must not go beyond his last.” Every shoemaker looks on that proverb with appropriate contempt. He is a shoe­ maker ; but he was a man first, a shoemaker next. Shoemaking is an accident of his manhood, not manhood an accident of his shoemaking. You know what haughty scorn the writer of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus pours out on every farmer, u who glorieth in the goad,” every carpenter and blacksmith, every jeweller and potter. They shall not be sought for, says this aris­ tocrat, in the public councils; they shall not sit high in the con­ gregation ; they shall not sit in the judges * seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment; they cannot declare justice. Aristotle and Cicero thought no better of the merchants; they were only busy in trading. Miserable people! quoth these great men; what have they to do with affairs of state— merchants, mechanics, farmers ? It is only for kings, nobles, and famous rich men, who do no business, but keep slaves 1 Still, a great many men at this day have just the same esteem for women that those haughty persons of whom I have spoken had for mechanics and for mer­ chants. A great many sour proverbs there are, which look the same way. But, just now, such is the intellectual education of women of the richer class in all our large towns, that these sour proverbs will not go down so well as of old. Even in Boston, spite of the attempts of the city government to prevent the higher public education of women, — diligently persisted in for many years, — the young women of wealthy families get a better educa­ tion than the young men of wealthy families do; and that fact is going to report itself presently. The best-educated young men are commonly poor men’s sons; but the best educated young women are quite uniformly rich men’s daughters. A well-educated young woman, fond of Goethe, and Dante, and Shakspeare, and Cervantes, marrying an ill-educated young man, kjOOgic THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 5 who cares for nothing but his horse, his cigar and his hottie; who only knows how to sleep after dinner, a “ great heap of husband,” curled up on the sofa, and in the evening can only laugh at a play, and not understand the 'Italian words of an opera, which his wife knows by heart; she, I say, marrying him, will not accept the idea that he is’her natural lord and master ; she cannot look up to him, but rather down. The domestic function does not con­ sume all her time or talent. She knows how to perform much of her household work, as a manufacturer weaves cotton, or spins hemp, or forges iron, with other machinery, by other hands. She is the housekeeping head; and after she has kept house as wife and as mother, and has done all, she has still energies to spare. That is a large class of women ; it is a great deal larger than men commonly think it is. It is continually enlarging, and you see why. When all manufactures were domestic, — when every garment was made at home, every web wove at home, every thread spun at home, every fleece .dyed at home, — when the hus­ band provided the wool or the sheepskin, and the wife made it a coat,— when the husband brought home a sack of corn on a mule’s back, and the wife pounded it in a mortar, or ground it between two stones, as in the Old Testament, — then the domestic func­ tion might well consume all the time of a very able-headed woman. But now-a-days, when so much work is done abroad, — when the flour-mills of Rochester and Boston take the place of the pestle and mortar, and the hand-mill of the Old Testament, — when Lowell and Lawrence are two enormous Old Testament women, spinning and weaving year out and year in, day and night both, — when so much of woman’s work is done by the butcher and the baker, by the tailor and the cook and the gas-maker, and she is no longer obliged to dip or mould with her own hands every * •^ndle that “ gocth not out by night,” as in the Old Testament woman’s housekeeping, —you see how very much of woman’s time is left for other functions. This will become yet more the case. Ere long, a great deal of lofty science will be applied to housekeeping, and work be done by other than human hands in the house, as out cf it. And accordingly, you see, that the class of women not 1# Google 6 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. wholly taken up by the domestic function will get larger and larger. III. Then, there is a third class of women, who have no taste and no talent for the domestic function. Perhaps these are ex­ ceptional women; some of them exceptional * redundance; by they have talents not needed in this function; others are exceptional by defect; with only a common talent, they have none for house­ keeping. It is as cruel a lot to set these persons to such work as it would be to take a born sailor and make him a farmer; or to take a man who is born to drive oxen, delights to give the kine fodder, and has a genius for it, and shut him up in the forecastle of a ship. Who would think of making Jenny Lind nothing but a housekeeper ? or of devoting Madame de Stael or Miss Dix wholly to that function ? or a dozen other women that any man can name ? IV. Then there is another class of women, — those who are not married yet, but are to be married. They, likewise, have spare time on their hands, which they know not what to do with. Women of this latter class have sometimes asked me what there was for them to do. I could not tell. All these four put together make up a large class of women, who need some other function beside the domestic. What shall it be ? In the middle ages, when the Catholic church held its iron hand over the world, these women went into the church. The permanently unmarried, getting dissatisfied, became nuns; often calling that a virtue which was only a necessity,— making a reli­ gious principle out of an involuntary measure. Others volunta­ rily went thither. The attempt is making anew in England, by some of the most pious people, to revive the scheme. It failed a thousand years ago, and the experiment brought a curse on man. It will always fail; and it ought to fail. Human nature cries out against it. kjoogle THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 7 Let us look, and see what women may do here. First, there are intellectual pursuits, devotion to science, art, literature, and the like. Well, in the first place, that is not popular. Learned women are met with ridicule; they are bid to mend their husband’s gar­ ments, or their own; they are treated with scorn. Foolish young man number one, in a liquor-shop, of a morning, knocks oft’ the ashes from the end of his cigar, and says to foolish young man number two, who is taking soda to wash off the effect of last night’s debauch, or preparing for a similar necessity to-morrow morning, in the presence of foolish young man number three, four, five, six, and so on, indefinitely, “ I do not like learned young women; they puzzle me.” So they do; puzzle him very much. I once heard a foolish young man, full of self-conceit and his father’s claret, say, “ I had rather have a young woman ask me to waltz, than to explain an allusion in Dante.” Very likely; he had studied waltzing, and not Dante. And his mother, full of conceit and her own hyson, said, “I perfectly agree with you. My father said that women had nothing to do with learning.” Accordingly, he gave her none, and that explained the counsel. Then, too, foolish men, no longer young, say the same thing, and seek to bring down their wives and daughters to their own poor-mediocrity of wit and inferiority of culture. I say, this intellectual calling is not popular. I am sorry it is not; but, even if it were, it is not wholly satisfactory; it suits but a few. In the present stage of human development, there are not many men who are satisfied with a merely intellectual calling; they want something practical, as well as speculative. There are a thousand practical shoemakers to every speculative botanist. It will be so for many years to come. There are ten thousand car­ penters to a single poet or philosopher who dignifies his nature with song or with science. See how dissatisfied our most eminent intellectual men become with science and literature. A professor of Greek is sorry he was not a surveyor or engineer; the presi­ dent of a college longs to be a member of congress; the most accomplished scholars, historians, romancers, — they wish to be C.oogle 8 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. collectors at Boston, consuls at Liverpool, and the like; longing for some practical calling, where they can make their thought a thing. Of the intellectual men whom I know, I can count on the fingers of a single hand all that are satisfied with pure science, pure art, pure literature. Woman, like man, wants to make her thought a thing; at least, wants things to work her pattern of thought upon. Still, as the world grows older, and wiser, and better, more persons will find an abiding satisfaction in these lofty pursuits. I am rejoiced to see women thus attracted thitherward. Some women there are who find an abiding satisfaction in literature; it fills up their leisure. I rejoice that it is so. Then there are, next, the various philanthropies of the age. In these, the spare energies of woman have always found a congenial sphere. It is amazing to see how woman’s charity, which “ never faileth,” palliates the injustice of man, which never has failed yet. Men fight battles; women heal the wounds of the sick: “ Forgot are hatred, wrongs, and fears; The plaintive voice alone she hears, — Sees but the dying man,” and does not ask if foe or friend. Messrs. Pinchem & Peelem organize an establishment, wherein the sweat and tears and blood ef the poor turn the wheels; every pivot and every shaft rolls on quivering human flesh. The wealthy capitalists, “ Half ignorant, they turn an easy wheel, Which sets sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.” The wives and daughters of the wealthy house go out to “ undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free; ” to heal the sick and teach the ignorant, whom their fathers, their husbands, their lovers, have made sick, oppressed, and ignorant. Ask Man­ chester, in Old England and in New, if this is not so; ask Lon­ don, ask Boston. The moral, affectional, and religious feelings of woman fit her VjOOgle THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 9 for this work. Her patience, her gentleness, her power to concil­ iate, her sympathy with man, her trust in God, beautifully pre­ pare her for this; and, accordingly, she comes in the face of what man calls justice as an angel of mercy; before his hate as an angel of love; between his victim and his selfishness with the self­ denial of Paul and the self-sacrifice of Jesus. Look at any vil­ lage in New England, and in Old England, at the Sacs and Foxes, at the Hottentots and the Esquimaux; it is the same thing; it is so in all ages, in all climes, in all stages of civilization, in all ranks of society, — the highest and the lowest, — in all forms of religion, all sects of Christianity. It has been so from Dorcas, in the Acts of the Apostles, who made coats and garments for the poor, down to Miss Dix, in our day, who visits jails and houses of correction, and leads Mr. Fillmore to let Capt. Drayton out of jail, where he was placed for the noblest act of his life. But these philanthropies are not enough for the employment of women; and if all the spare energies of womankind were set to this work, — to palliate the consequences of man’s injustice, — it would not be exactly the work which woman wants. There are some women who take no special interest in this. For woman is not all philanthropy, though very much; she has other faculties which want to be developed besides the heart to feel. Still more, that is not the only thing which mankind wants. We need the justice which removes causes, as well as the charity that palliates effects; and woman, standing continually between the victim and the sabre which would cleave him through, is not performing her only function, not her highest; high as that is, it is not her high * est. If the feminine swallow drives away the flies from a poor fox struggling for life, another set of flies light upon him, and suck every remaining drop of blood out of his veins, as in the old fable. Besides, if the fox finds that a womanly swallow comes to drive off the flies, he depends on her wing and not on his own brush, and becomes less of a fox. If a miser, or any base man, sees that a woman constantly picks up the man whom he knocks down with the left hand of Usury or the right hand of Bum, he will go on with his extortion or his grog, because, he says, “ I should have kjoogle 10 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. done the man harm, but a woman picked him up, and money comes into my pocket, and no harm to the man! ” The evils of society would become worse and worse, just as they are increased by indiscriminate alms-giving. That is not enough. Then there are various practical works left by common consent to woman. First, there is domestic service, woman working -as an append age to some household; a hired hand, or a hired head, to help the housekeeper. Then there is mechanical labor, in a factory, or a shop ; spin­ ning, weaving, setting type, binding books, making shoes, coloring maps, and a hundred other things. Next, there is trade, in a small way, from the basket-woman with her apples at every street-corner, up to the confectioner and haberdasher, with their well-filled shops. In a few retail shops which venture to brave popular opinion, woman is employed at the counter. As a fourth thing, there is the business of public and private teaching, in various departments. All these are well; they are unavoidable, they are absolutely necessary; they furnish employ­ ment to many women, and are a blessed resource. I rejoice that the field-work of the farmer is not done by woman’s hand in the free portions of America. It imbrutes women in Ireland, in France, and in Spain. I am glad that the complicated machinery of life furnishes so much more work for the light and delicate hand of woman. But I confess I mourn that where her work is as profitable as man’s, her pay is not half so much. A woman who should teach a public school well would be paid four or six dollars a week; while a man, who should teach no better, would be paid two, three, four, or six times that sum. It is so in all departments of woman’s work that I am acquainted with. These employments are very well, but still they are not enough. Rich wcmen do not engage in these callings. For rich women boogie THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 11 there is no profession left except marriage. After school-time, woman has nothing to do till she is married; I mean, almost nothing, — nothing tRat is adequate. Accordingly, she must choose betwixt a husband and nothing; and, sometimes, that is choosing between two nothings. There are spare energies which seek employment before marriage, and after marriage. These callings are not all that the race of woman needs; not all that her human nature requires. She has the same human nature which man has, and, of course, the same natural human rights. Woman’s natural right for its rightfulness does not depend on the bodily or mental power to assert and to maintain it, — on the great arm or on the great head; it depends only on human nature itself, which God made the same in the frailest woman as in the biggest giant. If woman is a human being, first, she has the Nature of a human being; next, she has the Right of a human being; third, she has the Duty of a human being. The Nature is the capacity to possess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every human faculty; the Right is the right to enjoy, develop, and use every human faculty; and the Duty is to make use of the Right, and make her human nature human history. She is here to develop her human nature, enjoy her human rights, perform her human duty. Womankind is to do this for herself, as touch as mankind for him­ self. A woman has the same human nature that a man has; the same human rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the same human duties; and they are as unalienable in a woman as in a man. Each man has the natural right to the normal development of his nature, so far as it is general-human, neither man nor woman, but human. Each woman has the natural right to the normal development of her nature, so far as it is general-human, neither woman nor man. But each man has also a natural and unalien­ able right to the normal development of his peculiar nature as man, where he differs from woman. Each woman has just the same natural and unalienable right to the normal development of boogie 12 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. her peculiar nature as woman, and not man. All that is unde niable. Now see what follows. Woman has the same individual right to determine her aim in life, and to follow it; has the same indi­ vidual rights of body and of spirit, — of mind and conscience, and heart and soul; the same physical rights, the same intellect­ ual, moral, affectional and religious rights, that man has. That is true of womankind as a whole; it is true of Jane, Ellen and Sally, and each special woman that can be named. Every person, man or woman, is an integer, an individual, a whole person; and also a portion of the race, and so a fraction of humankind. Well, the rights of individualism are not to be pos sessed, developed, used and enjoyed, by a life in solitude, but by joint action. Accordingly, to complete and perfect the individua man or woman, and give each an opportunity to possess, use, de­ velop and enjoy these rights, there must be concerted and joint action ; else individuality is only a possibility, not a reality. Sa the individual rights of woman carry with them the same domes tic, social, ecclesiastical and political rights, as those of man. The Family, Community, Church and State, are four modes of action which have grown out of human nature in its historical de­ velopment ; they are all necessary for the development of mankind; machines which the human race has devised, in order to possess, use, develop and enjoy their rights as human beings, their rights also as men. These are just as necessary for the development of woman as ■ of man; and, as she has the same nature, right and duty, as man, it follows that she has the same right to use, shape and control, these four institutions, for her general human purpose and for her special feminine purpose, that man has to control them for his general human purpose and his special masculine purpose. All that is as undeniable as anything in metaphysics or mathematics. So, then, woman has the same natural rights as man. In do­ mestic affairs, she is to determine her own sphere as much as man; and say where her function is to begin, when it shall begin, with Google THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 13 whom it shall begin; where it shall end, when it shall end, and what it shall comprise. Then she has the same right to freedom of industry that man has. I do not believe that the hard callings of life will ever suit woman. It is not little boys who go out as lumberers, but great men, with sinewy, brawny arms. I doubt that laborious callings, like navigation, engineering, lumbering and the like, will ever be agreeable to woman. Iler feminine body and feminine spirit naturally turn away from such occupations. I have seen women gathering the filth of the streets in Liverpool, sawing stone in a mason’s yard in Paris, carrying earth in baskets on their heads for a railway embankment at Naples; but they were obviously out of place, and only consented to this drudgery when driven by Poverty’s iron whip. But there are many employments in the departments of mechanical work, of trade, little and extended, where woman could go, and properly go. Some women have a good deal of talent for trade, — this in a small way, that on the largest scale. Why should not they exercise their commercial talents in competition with man ? Is it right for woman to be a domestic manufacturer in the family of Solomon or Priam, and of every thrifty husband, and wrong for her to be a public manufac­ turer, on her own account ? She might spin when the motive-power was a wheel-pin of wood in her hand, —-may she not use the Mer­ rimack and the Connecticut for her wheel-pin ? or must she be only the manufacturing servant of man, — never her own master ? Much of the business of education already falls to the hands of woman. In the last twenty years, there has been a great prog­ ress in the education of women, in Massachusetts, in all New England. The high schools for girls — and, still better, those for girls and boys * - have been of great service. Almost all the large towns of this commonwealth have honored themselves with these blessed institutions; in Boston, only the daughters of the rich can possess such an education as hundreds of noble girls long to acquire. With this enhancement of culture, women have been continually rising higher and higher as teachers. The State Nor2 kjoogle 14 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. mal Schools have helped in this movement. It used to be thought that only an able-bodied man could manage the large boys of a country or a city school. Even he was sometimes thrust out at the door or the window of “ his noisy mansion,” by his rough pupils. • An able-headed woman has commonly succeeded better than men merely able-bodied. She has tried conciliation rather than violence, and appealed to something a little deeper than aught which force could ever touch. The women-teachers are now doing an important work for the elevation of their race and all human kind. But it is commonly thought woman must not engage in the higher departments thereof. I once knew a woman, wife and mother and housekeeper, who taught the severest disciplines of our highest college, and instructed young men while she rocked the cradle with her foot, and mended garments with her hands, — one of the most accomplished scholars of New England. Not long ago, the daughter of a poor widowed seamstress was seen reading the Koran in Arabic. There was but one man in the town who could do the same, and he was a “ Learned Blacksmith.” Women not able to teach in these things! He must be rather a confident professor who thinks a woman cannot do what he can. I rejoice at the introduction of women into common schools, academies and high schools; and I thank God that the man who has done so much for public education in Massachusetts is presently to be the head of a college in Ohio, where women and men arc to study together, and where a woman is to be professor of Latin and Nat­ ural History. These are good signs. The business of public lecturing, also, is quite important in New England, and I am glad to see that woman presses into that, — not without success. The work of conducting a journal, daily, weekly, or quarterly, woman proves that she can attend to quite as decently, and as strongly, too, as most men. Then there are what are called the Professions — Medicine, Law and Theology. The profession of medicine seems to belong peculiarly to woman by nature; part of it, exclusively. She is a nurse, and half a boogie THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 15 doctor, by nature. It is quite encouraging that medical schools are beginning to instruct women, and special schools get founded for the use of women; that sagacious men are beginning to employ women as their physicians. Great good is to be expected from that. As yet, I believe no woman acts as a lawyer. But I see no reason why the profession of law might not be followed by women as well as by men. He must be rather an uncommon lawyer who thinks no feminine head could compete with him; Most lawyers that I have known are rather mechanics at law than attorneys or scholars at law; and, in the mechanical part, woman could do as well as man, — could be as good% conveyancer, could follow pre­ cedents as carefully, and copy forms as nicely. And, in the high­ er departments of legal work, they who have read the plea which Lady Alice Lille made in England, when she could not speak by attorney, must remember there is some eloquence in woman’s tongue, which courts find it rather hard to resist. I think her presence would mend the manners of the court, — of the bench, not less than of the bar. In the business of theology, I could never see why a woman, if she wished, should not preach, as well as men. It would be hard, in the present condition of the pulpit, to say she had not intellect enough for that! I am glad to find, now and then, women preach­ ers, and rejoice at their success. A year ago, I introduced to you the Reverend Miss Brown, educated at an Orthodox theological seminary; you smiled at the name of Reverend Miss. She has since been invited to settle by several congregations, of unblem­ ished orthodoxy; and has passed on, looking further. It seems to me that woman, by her peculiar constitution, is better qualified to teach religion than any merely intellectual dis­ cipline. The Quakers have always recognized the natural right of woman to perform the same ecclesiastical function as man. At this day, the most distinguished preacher of that denomination is a woman, who adorns her domestic calling as housekeeper, wife and mother, with the same womanly dignity and sweetness which mark her public deportment. VjOOgle 16 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. If woman had been consulted, it seems to me theology would have been in a vastly better state than it is now. I do not think that any woman would ever have preached the damnation of babies new-born; and “ hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span long,” would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A celibate monk — with God’s curse writ on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a mother — might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the pre­ liminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are commonly put upon God in the popular theology; the idea of infinite wrath, of infinite damnation, and total depravity, and all that. Why, you could not get ^woman, that had intellect enough to open her mouth, to preach these things anywhere. Women think they think that they believe them ; but they do not. Celi­ bate priests, who never knew marriage, or what paternity was, who thought woman was a “ pollution,” — they invented these ghastly doctrines; and when I have heard the Athanasian Creed and the Dies Irm chanted by monks, with the necks of bulls and the lips of donkeys, — why, I have understood where the doctrine came from, and have felt the appropriateness of their braying out the damnation hymns; —woman could not do it. We shut her out of the choir, out of the priest’s house, out of the pulpit; and then the priest, with unnatural vows, came in, and taught these * doctrines of devils.” Could you find a woman who would read to a congre­ gation, as words of truth, Jonathan Edwards’ Sermon on a Future State, —“ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” “ The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” “ Wrath upon the Wicked to the uttermost,” “ The Future Punishment of the Wicked,” and other things of that sort? Nay, can you find a worthy woman, of any considerable culture, who will read the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, and declare that a true picture of the God she worships ? Only a she-dragon could do it, in our day. The popular theology leaves us nothing feminine in the charac­ ter of God. How could it be • otherwise, when so much of the popular theology is the work of men, who thought woman was a “ pollution,” and barred her out of all the high places of the church ? <jOOgle THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 17 If women had had their place in ecclesiastical teaching, I doubt that the “ Athanasian Creed ” would ever have been thought a “ symbol ” of Christianity. The pictures and hymns which de­ scribe the last judgment are a protest against the exclusion of woman from teaching in the church. “ I suffer not a woman to teach, but to be in silence,” said a writer in the New Testament. The sentence has brought manifold evil in its train. So much for the employments of women. By nature, woman has the same political rights that man has, -— to vote, to hold office, to make and administer laws. These she has as a matter of right. The strong hand and the great head of man keep her down; nothing more. In America, in Christen­ dom, woman has no political rights, is not a citizen in full; she has no voice in making or administering the laws, none in electing the rulers or administrators thereof. She can hold no office, — cannot be committee of a primary school, overseer of the poor, or guardian to a public lamp-post. But any man, with conscience enough to keep out of jail, mind enough to escape the poor-house, and body enough to drop his ballot into the box, he is a voter. He may have no character — even no money; — that is no matter — he is male. The noblest woman has no voice in the state. Men make laws, disposing of her property, her person, her chil­ dren ; still she must bear it, “ with a patient shrug.” Looking at it as a matter of pure right and pure science, I know no reason why woman should not be a voter, or hold office, or make and administer laws. I do not see how I can shut my­ self into political privileges-and shut woman out, and do both in the name of unalienable right. Certainly, every woman has a natural right to have her property represented in the general representation of property, and her person represented in the general representation of persons. Looking at it as a matter of expediency, see some facts. Sup­ pose woman had a share in the municipal regulation of Boston, and there were as many alderwomen as aidermen, as many com­ mon-council women as common-council men, do you believe that, * 2 kjOOgle 18 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. in defiance of the law of Massachusetts, the city government, last spring, would have licensed every two hundred and forty-fourth person of the population of the city to sell intoxicating drink ? would have made every thirty-fifth voter a rum-seller ? I do not. Do you believe the women of Boston would spend ten thousand dollars in one year in a city frolic, or spend two or three thousand every year, on the Fourth of July, for sky-rockets and fire-crack­ ers ; would spend four or five thousand dollars to get their Cana­ dian guests drunk in Boston harbor, and then pretend that Boston had not money enough to establish a high school for girls, to teach the daughters of mechanics and grocers to read French and Latig, and to understand the higher things which rich men’s sons are driven to at college ? I do not. Do you believe that the women of Boston, in 1851, would have spent three or four thousand dollars to kidnap a poor man, and have taken all the chains which belonged to the city and put them round the court-house, and have drilled three hundred men, armed with bludgeons and cutlasses, to steal a man and carry him back to slavery ? I do not. Do you think, if the women had had the control, “fifteen hundred men of property and standing” would have volunteered to take a poor man, kidnapped in Boston, and conduct him out of the state, with fire and sword ? I believe no such thing. Do you think the women of Boston would take the poorest and most .unfortunate children in the town, put them all together into one school, making that the most miserable in the city, where they • had not and could not have half the advantages of the other children in different schools, and all that because the unfortunates were dark-colored ? Do you think the women of Boston would shut a bright boy out of the High School or Latin School, because he was black in the face ? Women are said to be cowardly. When Thomas Sims, out of his dungeon, sent to the churches his petition for their prayers, had women been “ the Christian clergy,” do you believe they would not have dared to pray ? If women had a voice in the affairs of Massachusetts, do you Google THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OP WOMAN. 19 think they would ever have made laws so that a lazy husband could devour all the substance of his active wife—spite of her wish ; so that a drunken husband could command her bodily pres­ ence in his loathly house; and when an infamous man was divorced from his wife, that he could keep all the children ? I confess I do not. If the affairs of the nation had been under woman’s joint control, I doubt that we should have butchered the Indians with such exterminating savagery, that, in fifty years, we should have spent seven hundreds of millions of dollars for war, and now, in time of peace, send twenty annual millions more to the same waste. I doubt that we should have spread slavery into nine new states, and made it national. I think the Fugitive Slave Bill would never have been an act. Woman has some respect for the natural law of God. I know men say woman cannot manage the great affairs of a nation. Very well. Government is political economy — na­ tional housekeeping. Does any respectable woman keep house so badly as the United States ? with so much bribery, so much corruption, so much quarrelling in the domestic councils ? But government is also political morality, it is national ethics. Is there any worthy woman who rules her household as wickedly as the nations are ruled ? who hires bullies to fight for her ? Is there any woman who treats one sixth part of her household as if they were cattle and not creatures of God, as if they were things and not persons ? I know of none such. In government as house­ keeping, or government as morality, I think man makes a very poor appearance, when he says woman could not do as well as he has done and is doing. I doubt that women will ever, as a general thing, take the same interest as men in political affairs, or find therein an abiding satis­ faction. But that is for women themselves to determine, not for men. .In order to attain the end, — the development of man in body and spirit, —human institutions must represent all parts of human GOOglt’ 20 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. nature, both the masculine and the feminine element. For tho well-being of the human race, we need the joint action of man and woman, in the family, the community, the church and tho state. A family without the presence of woman — with no mother, no wife, no sister, no womankind — is a sad thing. I think a community without woman’s equal social action, a church without her equal ecclesiastical action, and a state without her equal political action, is almost as bad — is very much what a house would be without a mother, wife, sister or friend. You see what prevails in the Christian civilization of the nine­ teenth century; it is Force — force of body, force of brain. There is little justice, little philanthropy, little piety. Selfishness preponderates everywhere in Christendom — individual, domestic, bjcial, ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is preached as gos­ pel and enacted as law. It is thought good political economy for a strong people to devour the weak nations; for “Christian” England and America to plunder the “ heathen ” and annex their land; for a strong class to oppress and ruin the feeble class; for the capitalists of England to pauperize the poor white laborer, for the capitalists of America to enslave the poorer black laborer; for a strong man to oppress the weak men; for the sharper to buy labor too cheap, and sell its product too dear, and so grow rich by making many poor. Hence, nation is arrayed against nation, class against class, man against man. Nay, it is commonly taught that mankind is arrayed against God, and God against man; that the world is a universal discord; that there is no solidarity of man with man, of man with God. I fear we shall never get far beyond this theory and this practice, until woman has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes her natural place in regulating the affairs of the family, the community, the church and the state. It seems to me God has treasured up a reserved power in the nature of woman to correct many of those evils which are Chris­ tendom’s disgrace to-day. Circumstances help or hinder our development, and are one of the two forces which determine the actual character of a nation or of mankind, at any special period. Hitherto, amongst men, Google THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 21 circumstances have favored the development of only intellectual power, in all its forms — chiefly in its lower forms. At present, mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over womankind, as a whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the higher and the lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas, has administrative skill; enacts the rules of conduct for the individual, the family, the community, the church, the state, and the world. He applies these rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great affairs of the human race. You see what a world he has made of it. There is male vigor in this civilization, miscalled “ Christian;” and in its leading nations there are industry and enterprise, which never fail. There is science, literature, legislation, agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world never saw. With the vigor of war, the Anglo-Saxon now works the works of peace. England abounds in wealth, — richest of lands; but look at her poor, her vast army of paupers, two million strong, the Irish whom she drives with the hand of famine across the sea. Martin Luther was right when he said, The richer the nation, the poorer the poor. America is “democratic”—“the freest and most enlightened people in the world.” Look at her slaves; every sixth woman in the countiy sold as a beast; with no more legal respect paid to her mar­ riage than the farmer pays to the conjunctions of his swine. America is well educated; there are four millions of children in the school-houses of the land; it is a states-prison offence to teach a slave to read the three letters which spell God. The more “ dem­ ocratic ” the country, the tighter is bondage ironed on the slave. Look at the cities of England and America. What riches, what refinement, what culture of man and woman too ! Ay; but what poverty, what ignorance, what beastliness of man and woman too! Tho Christian civilization of the nineteenth century is well summed up in London and New York — the two foci of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, which control the shape of the world’s commercial ellipse. Look at the riches, and the misery; at the “religious enterprise,” and the heathen darkness; at the virtue, the decorum and the beauty of woman well-born and well-bred — and at the wild sea Google 22 THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. of prostitution, which swells and breaks and dashes against the bulwarks of society — every ripple was a woman once! 0, brother-men, who make these things, is this a pleasant sight? Does your literature complain of it — of the waste of human life, the slaughter of human souls, the butchery of woman ? British literature begins to wail, in “Nicholas Nickleby,” and “Jane Eyre,” and “Mary Barton,” and “Alton Locke,” in many a Song of the Shirtbut the respectable literature of America is deaf as a cent to the outcry of humanity expiring in agonies. It is busy with California, or the Presidency, or extolling iniquity in high places, or flattering the vulgar vanity which buys its dross for gold. It cannot even imitate the philanthropy of English let­ ters; it is “up” for California and a market. Does not the church speak ? — the English church, with its millions of money, the American, with its millions of men, — both wont to bay the moon of foreign heathenism? The church is a dumb dog, that cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. It is a church without woman, believing in a male and jealous God, and rejoicing in a boundless, endless hell! Hitherto, with woman, circumstances have hindered the devel­ opment of intellectual power, in all its forms. She has not knowl­ edge/has not ideas or practical skill to equal the force of man. But circumstances have favored the development of pure and lofty emotion in advance of man. She has moral feeling, affectional feeling, religious feeling,far in advance of man; her moral, affectional and religious intuitions are deeper and more trustworthy than his. Here she is eminent, as he is in knowledge, in ideas, in administrative skill. I think man will always lead in affairs of intellect, — of reason, imagination, understanding, — he has the bigger brain; but that woman will always lead in affairs of emotion,— moral, affectional, religious, — she has the better heart, the truer intuition of the right, the lovely, the holy. The literature of women in this cen­ tury is juster, more philanthropic, more religious, than that of men. Do you not hear the cry which, in New England, a woman is raising in the world’s ears against the foul wrong which America Google THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN. 23 is working in the world ? Do you not hear the echo of that woman’s voice come over the Atlantic,—returned from European shores in many a tongue, — French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Dutch ? How a woman touches the world’s heart! — because she speaks justice, speaks piety, speaks love. What voice is strongest raised in continental Europe, pleading for the oppressed and down-trodden ? That also is a woman’s voice! Well, we want the excellence of man and woman both united; intellectual power, knowledge, great ideas — in literature, philos­ ophy, theology, ethics — and practical skill; but we want some­ thing better — the moral, affectional, religious intuition, to put justice into ethics, love into theology, piety into science and let­ ters. Everywhere in the family, the community, tho church and the state, we want the masculine and feminine element cooper­ ating and conjoined. Woman is to correct man’s taste, mend his morals, excite his affections, inspire his religious faculties. Man is to quicken her intellect, to help her will, translate her senti­ ments to ideas, and enact them into righteous laws. Man’s moral action, at best, is only a sort of general human providence, aim­ ing at the welfare of a part, and satisfied with achieving tho “greatest good of the greatest number.” Woman’s moral action is more like a special human providence, acting without general rules, but caring for each particular case. We need both of these, the general and the special, to make a total human prov­ idence. If man and woman are counted equivalent, — equal in rights, though with diverse powers, — shall we not mend the literature of the world, its theology, its science, its laws, and its actions too ? I cannot believe that wealth and want are to stand ever side by side as desperate foes; that culture must ride only on the back of ignorance; and feminine virtue be guarded by the degradation of whole classes of ill-starred men, as in the East, or the degradation of whole classes of ill-starred women, as in the West; but while we neglect the means of help God puts in our power, why, the present must be like the past—“property” must be theft, “law” kjoogie 24 THE PUBLIC FUNCTIONS OF WOMAN. the strength of selfish will, and “ Christianity”—what we seo it is, the apology for every powerful wrong. To every woman let me say,—Respect your nature as a human being, your nature as a woman; then respect your rights, then remember your duty to possess, to use, to develop and to enjoy every faculty which God has given you, each in its normal way. And to men let me say,— Respect, with the profoundest rev­ erence respect the mother that bore you, the sisters who bless you, the woman that you love, the woman that you marry. As you seek to possess your own manly rights, seek also, by that great arm, by that powerful brain, seek to vindicate her fights as woman, as your own as man. Then we may see better things in the church, better things in the state, in the community, in the home. Then the green shall show what buds it hid, the buds shall blossom, the flowers bear fruit, and the blessing of God be on us all. boogie WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS................. NO. 3. ° y > 1U 6C ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. * REPRINTED FROM THE ‘WESTMINSTER AND FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW,” FOR JULY, 1851. THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE, FOR EUROPE. OCTOBER 29th, 1850. Most of our readers will probably learn from these pages, for the first time, that there has arisen in the United Spates, and in the most civilized and enlightened portion of them, an organized agitation on a new question, — new, not to thinkers, nor to any one by whom the principles of free and popular government are felt, as well as acknowledged, but new, and even unheard of, as a subject for public meetings and practical political action. This question is, the enfranchisement of women; their admission, in law, and in fact, to equality in all rights, political, civil and social, with the male citizens of the community. It will add to the surprise with which many will receive this intelligence, that the agitation which has commenced is not a pleading by male writers and orators far women, those who are professedly to be benefited remaining either indifferent or osten­ sibly hostile; it is a political movement, practical in its objects, carried on in a form which denotes an intention to persevere. And it is a movement not merely far women, but by them. Its first public manifestation appears to have been a convention of women, held in tho State of Ohio, in the spring of 1850. Of 1 " Google 2 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. this meeting we have seen no report. On the 23d and 24th of October last, a succession of public meetings was held at Worces. ter, in Massachusetts, under the name of a “Women’s Rights Convention,” of which the president was a woman, and nearly all the chief speakers women; numerously reinforced, however, by men, among whom were some of the most distinguished leaders in the kindred cause of negro emancipation. A general and four special committees were nominated, for the purpose of carrying on the undertaking until the next annual meeting. According to the report in the New York Tribune, above a thousand persons were present throughout, and, “ if a larger place could have been had, many thousands more would have attended.” The place was described as u crowded, from the beginning, with attentive and interested listeners.” In regard to the quality of the speaking, the proceedings bear an advantageous comparison with those of any popular movement with which we are ac­ quainted, either in this country or in America. Very rarely, in the oratory of public meetings, is the part of verbiage and decla­ mation so small, that of calm good sense and reason so consider­ able. The result of the convention was, in every respect, en­ couraging to those by whom it was summoned; and it is probably destined to inaugurate one of the most important of the movements towards political and social reform, which are the best character­ istic of the present age. That the promoters of this new agitation take their stand on principles, and do not fear to declare these in their widest extent, without time-serving or compromise, will be seen from the reso­ lutions adopted by the convention, part of which we transcribe: Resolved, That ©very human being, of full age, and resident for a proper length of time on the soil of the nation, who is required to obey the law, is entitled to a voice in its enactment; that every such person, whose property or labor is taxed for the support of the government, is entitled to a direct share in such government. Therefore, Resolved, That women are entitled to the right of suffrage, and to be con­ sidered eligible to office ; and that every party, which claims to represent the humanity, the civilization, and the progress of the age, is bound to in­ ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 3 scribe on its banners, equality before tho law, without distinction of sex o! color. Resolved, That civil and political rights acknowledge no sex, and there­ fore the word " male ” should be stricken from every state constitution. Resolved, That, since the prospect of honorable and useful employment in after life is the best stimulus to the use of educational advantages, and since tho best education is that wo give ourselves, in the struggles, employments and discipline of life ; therefore it is impossible that women should mako full use of the instruction already accorded to them, or that their career should do justice to their faculties, until the avenues to the various civil and professional employments are thrown open to them. Resolved, That every effort to educate women, without according to them their rights, and arousing their conscience by the weight of their responsibil­ ities, is futile, and a waste of labor. Resolved, That the laws of property, as affecting married persons, de­ mand a thorough revisal, so that all rights bo equal between them ; that tho wife have, during life, an equal control over tho property gained by their mutual toil and sacrifices, and be heir to her husband precisely to that extent that he is heir to her, and entitled at her death to dispose by will of the same share of the joint property as he is. The following is a brief summary of the principal demands 1. Education in primary and high schools, universities, medical, legal and theological institutions. 2. Partnership in the labors and gains, risks and remunerations, of product­ ive industry. 3. A coequal share in the formation and administration of laws, — muni­ cipal, state and national, — through legislative assemblies, courts, and exe­ cutive offices. It would be difficult to put so much true, just and reasonable meaning into a style so little calculated to recommend it as that of some of the resolutions. But whatever objection may be made to some of the expressions, none, in our opinion, can be made to the demands themselves. As a question of justice, the case seems to us too clear for dispute. As one of expediency, the more thoroughly it is examined, the stronger it will appear. That women have as good a claim as men have, in point of per­ sonal right, to the suffrage, or to a place in the jury-box, it would be difficult for any one to deny. It cannot certainly be denied by the United States of America, as a people or as a community. Google 4 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. Their democratic institutions rest avowedly on the inherent right of every one to a voice in the government. Their Declaration of Independence, framed by the men who are still their great constitu­ tional authorities, — that document which has been from the first, and is now, the acknowledged basis of their polity, — commences with this express statement: <* We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We do not imagine that any American democrat will evade the force of these expressions by the dishonest or ignorant subterfuge, that “ men,” in this memorable document, does not stand for human beings, but for one sex only; that “ life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” are “ inalienable rights ” of only one moiety of the human species; and that “ the governed,” whose consent is affirmed to be the only source of just power, are meant for that half of mankind only, who, in relation to the other, have hitherto assumed the character of governors. The contradiction between principle and practice cannot be explained away. ' A like derelic­ tion of the fundamental maxims of their political creed has been committed by the Americans in the flagrant instance of the negroes; of this they are learning to recognize the turpitude. After a struggle which, by many of its incident, deserves the name of heroic, the abolitionists are now so strong in numbers and influence, that they hold the balance of parties in the United States. It was fitting that the men whose names will remain associated with the extirpation from the democratic soil of America of the aristocracy of color, should be among the origin­ ators, for America and for the rest of the world, of the first col­ lective protest against the aristocracy of sex; a distinction as accidental as that of color, and fully as irrelevant to all questions of government. Not only to the democracy of America the claim of women to Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OP WOMEN. 5 civil and political equality makes an irresistible appeal, but also to those radicals and chartists in the British islands, and demo­ crats on the continent, who claim what is called universal suffrage as an inherent right, unjustly and oppressively withheld from them. For with what truth or rationality could the suffrage be termed universal, while half the human species remain excluded from it ? To declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and demand it only for a part, — the part, namely, to which the claimant himself belongs, — is to renounce even the appear­ ance of principle. The chartist who denies the suffrage to women is a chartist only because he is not a lord; he is one of those levellers who would level only down to themselves. Even those who do not look upon a voice in the government as a matter of personal right, nor profess principles which require that it should be extended to all, have usually traditional maxims of political justice, with which it is impossible to reconcile the ex­ clusion of all women from the common rights of citizenship. It is an axiom of English freedom, that taxation and representation should be coextensive. Even under the laws which give the wife’s property to the husband, there are many unmarried women who pay taxes. It is one of the fundamental doctrines of the British constitution, that all persons should be tried by their peers; yet women, whenever tried, are tried by male judges and a male jury. To foreigners, the law accords the privilege of claiming that half the jury should be composed of themselves; not so to women. Apart from maxims of detail, which represent local and national, rather than universal ideas, it is an acknowledged dic­ tate of justice, to make no degrading distinctions without neces­ sity. In all things, the presumption ought to be on the side of equality. A reason must be given why anything should be per­ mitted to one person, and interdicted to another. But when that which is interdicted includes nearly everything which those to whom it is perraitted most prize, and to be deprived of which they feel to be most insulting; when not only * political liberty, but per­ sonal freedom of action, is the prerogative of a caste; when even, in the exercise of industry, almost all employments which task the * 1 kjOOgle 6 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. higher faculties in an important field, which lead to distinction, riches, or even pecuniary independence, are fenced round as the ex­ clusive domain of the predominant section, scarcely any doors being left open to the dependent class, except such as all who can enter elsewhere disdainfully pass by; the miserable expediencies which are advanced as excuses for so grossly partial a dispensation would not be sufficient, even if they were real, to render it other than a flagrant injustice. While, far from being expedient, we are firmly convinced that the division of mankind into two castes, one born to rule over the other, is, in this case, as in all cases, an unqualified mischief; a source of perversion and demoralization, both to the favored class and to those at whose expense they are favored; producing nonegpf the good which it is the custom to ascribe to it, and forming a bar, almost insuperable, while it lasts, to any really vital improvement, either in the character or in the social condition of the human race. These propositions it is now our purpose to maintain. But, before entering on them, we would endeavor to dispel the prelimi­ nary objections which, in the minds of persons to whom the subject is new, are apt to prevent a real and conscientious examination of it. The chief of these obstacles is that most formidable one — custom. Women never have had equal rights with men. The claim in their behalf, of the common rights of mankind, is looked upon as barred by universal practice. This strongest of prejudices, the prejudice against what is new and unknown, has, indeed, in an age of changes like the present, lost much of its force; if it had not, there would be little hope of prevailing against it. Over three fourths of the habitable world, even at this day, the answer, “ It * has always been so,” closes all discussion. But it is the boast of modem Europeans, and of their American kindred, that they know and dp many things which their forefathers neither knew nor did; and it is, perhaps, the most unquestionable point of superiority in the present, above former ages, that habit is not now the tyrant it formerly was over opinions and modes of action, and that the worship of custom is a declining idolatry. An uncustomary thought, on a subject which touches the greater interests of life, kjoogie ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 7 still startles w icn first presented; but if it can be kept before the mind until the impression of strangeness wears off', it obtains a hearing, and as rational a consideration as the intellect of the hearer is accustomed to bestow on any other subject. In the present case, the prejudice of custom is doubtless on the unjust side. Great thinkers, indeed, at different times, from Plato to Condorcet, besides some of the most eminent names of the present age, have made emphatic protests in favor of the equality of women. And there have been voluntary societies, religious or secular, of which the Society of Friends is the most known, by whom that principle was recognized. But there has been no polit­ ical community or nation in which, by law, and usage, women have not been in a state of political and civil inferiority. In the ancient world, the same fact was alleged, with equal truth, in behalf of slavery. It might have been alleged in favor of the mitigated form of slavery, serfdom, all through the middle ages. It was urged against freedom of industry, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press; none of these liberties were thought com­ patible with a well-ordered state, until they had proved their pos­ sibility by actually existing as facts. That an institution or a practice is customary, is no presumption of its goodness, when any other sufficient cause can be assigned for its existence. There is no difficulty in understanding why the subjection of women has been a custom. No other explanation is needed than physical force. That those who were physically weaker should have been made legally inferior, is quite conformable to the mode in which the world has been governed. Until very lately, the rule of physical strength was the general law of human affairs. Throughout history, the nations, races, classes, which found themselves the strongest, either in muscles, in riches, or in military discipline, have conquered and held in subjection the rest. If, even in the most improved nations, the law of the sword is at last discounte­ nanced as unworthy, it is only since the calumniated eighteenth century. Wars of conquest have only ceased since democratic revolutions began. The world is very young, and has but just boogie 8 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. begun to cast off injustice. It is only now getting rid of negro slavery. It is only now getting rid of monarchical despotism. It is only now getting rid of hereditary feudal nobility. It is only now getting rid of disabilities on the ground of religion. It is only beginning to treat any 'men as citizens, except the rich and a favored portion of the middle class. Can we wonder that it has not yet done as much for women ? As society was constituted until the last few generations, inequality was its very basis; as­ sociation grounded on equal rights scarcely existed; to be equals was to be enemies; two persons could hardly cooperate in any­ thing, or meet in any amicable relation, without the law’s appoint­ ing that one of them should be the superior of the other. Man­ kind have outgrown this state, and all things now tend to substi­ tute, as the general principle of human relations, a just equality instead of the dominion of the strongest. But, of all relations, that between men and women being the nearest and most intimate, and connected with the greatest number of strong emotions, was sure to be the last to throw off the old rule and receive the new; for, in proportion to the strength of a feeling, is the tenacity with which it clings to the forms and circumstances with which it has even accidentally become associated. When a prejudice which has any hold on the feelings finds itself reduced to the unpleasant necessity of assigning reasons, it thinks it has done enough when it has reasserted the very point in dispute, in phrases which appeal to the preexisting feeling. Thus, many persons think they have sufficiently justified the restrictions on women’s field of action when they have said that the pursuits from which women are excluded are unfemininey and that the proper sphere of women is not politics or publicity, but private and domestic life. We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or any individual for another individual, what is and what is not their “ proper sphere.” The proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice. The speakers at the convention in America Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 9 have, therefor^, done wisely and right in refusing to entertain the question of the peculiar aptitudes either of women or of men, or the limits within which this or that occupation may be supposed to be more adapted to the one or to the other. They justly main­ tain that these questions can only be satisfactorily answered by perfect freedom. Let every occupation be open to all, without favor or discouragement to any, and employments will fall into the hands of those men or women who are found by experience to be most capable of worthily exercising them. There need be no fear that women will take out of the hands of men any occupa­ tion which men perform better than they. Each individual will prove his or her capacities, in the only way in which capacities can be proved, by trial; and the world will have the benefit of the best faculties of all its inhabitants. But to interfere before­ hand by an arbitrary limit, and declare that whatever be the genius, talent, energy, or force of mind, of an individual of a cer­ tain sex or class, those faculties shall not be exerted, or shall be exerted only in some few of the many modes in which others are permitted to use theirs, is not only an injustice to the individual, and a detriment to society, which loses what it can ill spare, but is also the most effectual mode of providing that, in the sex or class so fettered, the qualities which are not permitted to be exer­ cised shall not exist. We shall follow the very proper example of the convention, in not entering into the question of the alleged differences in physical or mental qualities between the sexes; not because we have noth­ ing to say, but because we have too much : to discuss this one point tolerably would need all the space we have to bestow on the entire subject. * But if those who assert that the “ proper sphere ” * An excellent passage on this part of the subject, from one of Sydney Smith’s contributions to the Edinburgh Review, we will not refrain from quot­ ing : “ A great deal has been said of the original difference of capacity between men and women, as if women were more quick and men more judi­ cious ; as if women were more remarkable for delicacy of association, and men for stronger powers of attention. All this, we confess, appears to us very fanciful. That there is a difference in the understandings of the men google 10 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEX. for women is the domestic mean by this that they have not shown themselves qualified for any other, the assertion evinces great ignorance of life and of history. Women have shown fitness for the highest social functions exactly in proportion as they have been admitted to them. By a curious anomaly, though ineligible to even the lowest offices of state, they are in some countries admitted to the highest of all, the regal; and if there is any one function for which they have shown a decided vocation, it is that of reigning. Not to go back to ancient history, we look in vain for abler or firmer rulers than Elizabeth; than Isabella of Cas­ tile ; than Maria Theresa ; than Catharine of Russia; than Blanche, mother of Louis IX. of France; than Jeanne d’Albret, mother of Henri Quatre. There are few kings on record who contended with more difficult circumstances, or overcame them more triumphantly, than these. Even in semi-barbarous Asia, princesses who have never been seen by men other than those of their own family, or ever spoken with them unless from behind a curtain, have, as regents, during the minority of their sons, exhib­ ited many of the most brilliant examples of just and vigorous administration. In the middle ages, when the distance between the upper and lower ranks was greater than even between women and men, and the women of the privileged class, however subject to tyranny from men of the same class, were at a less distance below them than any one else was, and often in their absence rep­ resented them in their functions and authority, numbers of heroic and the women wo every day meet with, everybody, we suppose, must per­ ceive ; but there is none, surely, which may not be accounted for by the dif­ ference of circumstances in which they have been placed, without referring to any conjectural difference of original conformation of mind. As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt, and trundle hoops together, they are both precisely alike. If you catch up one half of these creatures, and train them to a particular sot of actions and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite set, of course their understandings will differ, as one or the other sort of occupations has called this or that talent into action. There is surely no occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reason­ ing, in order tc explain so very simple a phenomenon.”—Sydney Smith's Works, vol. i., 1.200. kjoogle ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 11 chatelaines, like Jeanne de Montfort, or the great Countess of Derby, as late even as the time of Charles I., distinguished them­ selves, not only by their political, but their military capacity. In the centuries immediately before and after the Reformation, ladies of royal houses, as diplomatists, as governors of provinces, or as the confidential advisers of kings, equalled the first statesmen of their time; and the treaty of Cambray, which gave peace to Europe, was negotiated, in conferences where no other person was present, by the aunt of tho Emperor Charles the Fifth, and the mother of Francis the First. Concerning the fitness, then, of women for politics, there can be no question : but the dispute is more likely to turn upon the fit­ ness of politics for women. When the reasons alleged for exclud­ ing women from active life in all its higher departments are stripped of tbeir garb of declamatory phrases, and reduced to the simple expression of a meaning, they seem to bo mainly three: the incompatibility of active life with maternity, and with the cares of a household; secondly, its alleged hardening effect on the character; and, thirdly, the inexpediency of making an addition to the already excessive pressure of competition in every kind of professional or lucrative employment. The first, the maternity argument, is usually laid most stress upon; although (it needs hardly be said) this reason, if it be one, can apply only to mothers. It is neither necessary nor just to make imperative on women that they shall be either mothers or nothing; or, that if they had been mothers once, they shall be nothing else during the whole remainder of their lives. Neither women nor men need any law to exclude them from an occupation, if they have undertaken another which is incompatible with it. No one proposes to exclude the male sex from parliament because a man may be a soldier or sailor in active service, or a merchant whose business requires all his time and energies. Nine tenths of the occupations of men exclude them de facto from public life, as effectually as if they were excluded by law; but that is no reason for making laws to exclude even the nine tenths, much less the remaining tenth. The reason of the case is the same for women kjoogle 12 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. as for men. There is no need to make provision by law that a woman shall not carry on the active details of a household, or of the education of children, and at the same time practise a profes­ sion or be elected to parliament Where incompatibility is real, it will take care of itself; but there is gross injustice in making the incompatibility a pretence for the exclusion of those in whose case it does not exist. And these, if they were free to choose, would be a very large proportion. The maternity argument deserts its supporters in the case of single women, a large and increasing class of the population — a fact which, it is not irrel­ evant to remark, by tending to diminish the excessive competition of numbers, is calculated to assist greatly the prosperity of all. There is no inherent reason or necessity that all women should voluntarily choose to devote their lives to one animal function and its consequences. Numbers of women are wives apd mothers only because there is no other career open to them, no other occupation for their feelings or their activities. Every improvement in their education and enlargement of their faculties, everything which renders them more qualified for any other mode of life, increases the number of those to whom it is an injury and an oppression to be denied the choice. To say that women must be excluded from active life because maternity disqualifies them for it, is in fact to say that every other career should be forbidden them, in order that maternity may be their only resource. But, secondly, it is urged, that to give the same freedom of occu­ pation to women as to men, would be an injurious addition to the crowd of competitors, by whom the avenues to almost all kinds of employment are choked up, and its remuneration depressed. This argument, it is to be observed, does not reach the political ques­ tion. It gives no excuse for withholding from women the rights of citizenship. The suffrage, the jury-box, admission to the legis­ lature and to office, it does not touch. It bears only on the industrial branch of the subject. Allowing it, then, in an econom­ ical point of view, its full force, — assuming that to lay open to women the employments now monopolized by men would tend, Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 13 like the breaking down of other monopolies, to lower the rate of remuneration in those employments, — let us consider what is the amount of this evil consequence, and what the compensation for it. The worst ever asserted, much worse than is at all likely to be realized, is, that if women competed with men, a man and a woman could not together earn more than is now earned by the man alone. Let us make this supposition, the most unfavorable sup * position possible: the joint income of the two would be the same as before, while the woman would be raised from the position of a servant to that of a partner. Even if every woman, as matters now stand, had a claim on some man for support, how infinitely preferable is it that part of the income should be of the woman’s earning, even if the aggregate sum were but little increased by it, rather than that she should be compelled to stand aside in order that men may be the sole earners, and the sole dispensers of what is earned I Even under the present laws respecting the property of women, * a woman who contributes materially to the support of the family cannot be treated in the same contemptuously tyran­ nical manner as one who, however she may toil as a domestic drudge, is a dependent on the man for subsistence. As for the depression of wages by increase of competition, remedies will be found for it in time. Palliatives might be applied immediately; for instance, a more rigid exclusion of children from industrial em­ ployment, during the years in which they ought to be working only to strengthen their bodies and minds for after life. Children are necessarily dependent, and under the power of others; and their labor, being not for themselves, but for the gain of their parents, is a proper subject for legislative regulation. With respect to the future, we neither believe that improvident multiplication, and * The truly horrible effects of the present state of the law among the lowest of the working population is exhibited in those cases of hideous maltreat­ ment of their wives by working men, with which every newspaper, every police report, teems. Wretches unfit to have the smallest authority over any living thing have a helpless woman for their household slave. These excesses could not exist if women both earned and had the right to pos­ sess a part of the income of the family. 2 Google 14 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. the consequent excessive difficulty of gaining a subsistence, will always continue, nor that the division of mankind into capitalists and hired laborers, and the regulation of the reward of laborers mainly by demand and supply, will be forever, or even much longer, the rule of the world. But so long as competition is the general law of human life, it is tyranny to shut out one half of the competitors. All who have attained the age of self-government have an equal claim to be permitted to sell whatever kind of useful labor they are capable of, for the price which it will bring. The third objection to the admission of women to political or professional life, its alleged hardening tendency, belongs to an age now past, and is scarcely to be comprehended by people of the present time. There are still, however, persons who say that the world and its avocations render men selfish and unfeeling; that the struggles, rivalries and collisions of business and of politics, make them harsh and unamiable; that if half the species must unavoidably be given up to these things, it is the more necessary that the other half should be kept free from them; that to pre­ serve women from the bad influences of the world is the only chance of preventing men from being wholly given up to them. There would have been plausibility in this argument when the world was still in the age of violence; when life was full of phy­ sical conflict, and every man had to redress his injuries, or those of others, by the sword or by the strength of his arm. Women, like priests, by being exempted from such responsibilities, and from some part of the accompanying dangers, may have been enabled to exercise a beneficial influence. But in the present condition of human life, we do not know where those hardening influences are to be found, to which men are subject, and from which women are at present exempt. Individuals now-a-days are seldom called upon to fight hand to hand, even with peaceful weapons; personal enmities and rivalries count for little in worldly transactions; the general pressure of circumstances, not the adverse will of individuals, is the obstacle men now have to make head against. That pressure, when excessive, breaks the spirit, and cramps and sours the feelings, but not less of women kjOOgle ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 15 than of men, since they suffer certainly not less from its evils. There are still quarrels and dislikes, but the sources of them are changed. The feudal chief once found his bitterest enemy in his powerful neighbor, the minister or courtier in his rival for place ; but opposition of interest in active life, as a cause of personal animosity, is out of date; the enmities of the present day arise not from great things, but small, — from what people say of one another, more than from what they do; and if there are hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, they are to be found among women fully as much as among mr?n. In the present state of civ­ ilization, the notion of guarding women from the hardening influ­ ences of the world could only be realized by secluding them from society altogether. The common duties of common life, as at present constituted, are incompatible with any other softness in women than weakness. Surely weak minds in weak bodies must ere long cease to be even supposed to be either attractive or amiable. But, in truth, none of these arguments and considerations touch the foundations of the subject. The real question is, whether it is right and expedient that one half of the human race should pass through life in a state of forced subordination to the other half. If the best state of human society is that of being divided into two parts, one consisting of persons with a will and a substantive existence, the other of humble companions to these persons, at­ tached each of them to one, for the purpose of bringing up his children, and making his home pleasant to him; if this is the place assigned to women, it is but kindness to educate them for this; to make them believe that the greatest good fortune which can befall them is to be chosen by some man for this purpose ; and that every other career which the world deems happy or hon­ orable is closed to them by the law, not of social institutions, but of nature and destiny. When, however, we ask, why the existence of one half the species should be merely ancillary to that of the other,—why each woman should be a mere appendage to a man, allowed to have no interests of her own, that there may be nothing to compete in her google 16 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. mind with his interests and his pleasure, — the only reason which can be given is, that u.en like it. It is agreeable to them that men should live for their own sake, women for the sake of men; and the qualities and conduct in subjects which are agreeable to rulers they succeed for a long time in making the subjects them­ selves consider as their appropriate virtues. Helvetius has met with much obloquy for asserting that persons usually mean by virtues the qualities which are useful or convenient to themselves. How truly this is said of mankind in general, and how wonder­ fully the ideas of virtue, set afloat by the powerful, are caught and imbibed by those under their dominion, is exemplified by the manner in which the world were once persuaded that the supreme virtue of subjects was loyalty to kings, and are still persuaded that the paramount virtue of womanhood is loyalty to men. Under a nominal recognition of a moral code common to both, in practice self-will and self-assertion form the type of what are designated as manly virtues, while abnegation of self, patience, resignation, and submission to power, unless when resistance is commanded by other interests than their own, have been stamped by general consent as preeminently the duties and graces required of women. The meaning being, merely, that power makes itself the centre of moral obligation, and that a man likes to have his own will, but does not like that his domestic companion should have a will different from his. We are far from pretending that in modern and civilized times no reciprocity of obligation is acknowledged on the part of the stronger. Such an assertion would be very wide of the truth. But even this reciprocity, which has disarmed tyranny, at least in the higher and middle classes, of its most revolting features, yet when combined with the original evil of the dependent condition of women, has introduced in its turn serious evils. In the beginning, and among tribes which are still in a primitive condition, women were and are the slaves of men for the purposes of toil. All the hard bodily labor devolves on them. The Aus­ tralian savage is idle, while women painfully dig up the roots on which he lives. An American Indian, when he has killed a deer, ENFRANCHISEMENT 01’ WOMEN. i. 17 leaves it, and sends a woman to carry it home. In a state some­ what more advanced, as in Asia, women were and are the slaves of men for the purposes of sensuality. In Europe, there early succeeded a third and milder dominion, secured not by blows, nor by locks and bars, but by sedulous inculcation on the mind; feel­ ings also of kindness, and ideas of duty, such as a superior owes to inferiors under his protection, became more and more involved in the relation. But it did not, for many ages, become a relation of companionship, even between unequals; the lives of the two persons were apart. The wife was part of the furniture of home, of the resting-place to which the man returned from. busi­ ness or pleasure. His occupations were, as they still are, among men; his pleasures and excitements also were, for the most part, among men—among his equals. He was a patriarch and a despot within four walls, and irresponsible power had its effect, greater or less according to his disposition, in rendering him domineering, exacting, self-worshipping, when not capriciously or brutally tyrannical. But if the moral part of his nature suffered, it was not necessarily so, in the same degree, with the intellectual or the active portion. He might have as much vigor of mind and en­ ergy of character as his nature enabled him, and as the circum­ stances of his times allowed. He might write the “ Paradise Lost,” or win the battle of Marengo. This was the condition of the Greeks and Romans, and of the moderns until a recent date. Their relations with their domestic subordinates occupied a mere corner, though a cherished one, of their lives. Their education as men, the formation of their character and faculties, depended mainly on a different class of influences. It is otherwise now. The progress of improvement has imposed on all possessors of power, and of domestic power among the rest, an increased and increasing sense of correlative obligation. No man now thinks that his wife has no claim upon his actions, but such as he may accord to her. All men, of any conscience, be­ lieve that their duty to their wives is one of the most binding of their obligations. Nor is it supposed to consist solely in protec­ tion, which, in the present state of civilization, women have almost * 2 GOOglt’ 18 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. ceased to need; it involves care for their happiness and consider­ ation of their wishes, with a not unfrequent sacrifice of their own to them. The power of husbands has reached the stage which the power of kings had arrived at, when opinion did not yet question the rightfulness of arbitrary power, but in theory, and to a certain extent in practice, condemned the selfish use of it. This im­ provement in the moral sentiments of mankind, and increased sense of the consideration due by every man to those who have no one but himself to look to, has tended to make home more and more the centre of interest, and domestic circumstances and society a larger and larger part of life, and of its pursuits and pleasures. The tendency has been strengthened by the changes of tastes and manners which have so remarkably distinguished the last two or three generations. In days not far distant, men found their ex­ citement and filled up their time in violent bodily exercises, noisy merriment, and intemperance. They have now, in all but the very poorest classes, lost their inclination for these things, and for the coarser pleasures generally; they have now scarcely any tastes but those which they have in common with women, and, for the first time in the world, men and women are really companions. A most beneficial change, if the companionship were between equals; but being between unequals, it produces, what good observers have noticed, though without perceiving its cause, a pro­ gressive deterioration among men in what had hitherto been con­ sidered the masculine excellences. Those who are so careful that women should not become men, do not see that men are becoming what they have decided that women should be — are falling into the feebleness which they have so long cultivated in their com­ panions. Those who are associated in their lives tend to become assimilated in character. In the present closeness of association between the sexes, men cannot retain manliness unless women acquire it. There is hardly any situation more unfavorable to the mainte­ nance of elevation of character or force of intellect, than to live in the society, and seek by preference the sympathy, of inferiors in mental endowments. Why is it that we constantly see in life Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 19 so much of intellectual and moral promise followed by such inad­ equate performance, but because the aspirant has compared him­ self only with those below himself, and has not sought improvement or stimulus from measuring himself with his equals or superiors? In the present state of social life, this is becoming the general con­ dition of men. They care less and less for any sympathies, and are less and less under any personal influences, but those of the domestic roof. Not to be misunderstood, it is necessary that we should distinctly disclaim the belief that women are even now inferior in intellect to men. There are women who are the equals in intellect of any men who ever lived; and, comparing ordinary women with ordinary men, the varied though petty details which compose the occupation of women call forth probably as much of mental ability as the uniform routine of the pursuits which are the habitual occupation of a large majority of men. It is from nothing in the faculties themselves, but from the petty subjects and interests on which alone they are exercised, that the com­ panionship of women, such as their present circumstances make them, so often exercises a dissolvent influence on high faculties and aspirations in men. If one of the two has no knowledge and no care about the great ideas and purposes which dignify life, or about any of its practical concerns save personal interests and personal vanities, her conscious, and still more her unconscious influence, will, except in rare cases, reduce to a secondary place in his mind, if not entirely extinguish, those interests which she cannot or does not share. Our argument here brings us into col­ lision with what may be termed the moderate reformers of the education of women; a sort of persons who cross the path of im­ provement on all great questions; those who would maintain the old bad principles, mitigating their consequences. These say, that women should be, not slaves nor servants, but companions, and educated for that office (they do not say that men should be educated to be the companions of women). But since unculti­ vated women are not suitable companions for cultivated men, and a man w’ho feels interest in things above and beyond the family circle wishes that his companion should sympathize with him in Google 20 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. that interest, they therefore say, let women improve their under­ standing and taste, acquire general knowledge, cultivate poetry, art, even coquet with science, and some stretch their liberality so far as to say, inform themselves on politics ; not as pursuits, but sufficiently to feel an interest in the subjects, and to be capable of holding a conversation on them with the husband, or at least of understanding and imbibing his wisdom. Very agreeable to him, no doubt, but unfortunately the reverse of improving. It is from having intellectual communion only with those to whom they can lay down the law, that so few men continue to advance in wisdom beyond the first stages. The most eminent men cease to improve if they associate only with disciples. When they have overtopped those who immediately surround them, if they wish for further growth, they must seek for others of their own stature to consort with. The mental companionship which is improving is communion between active minds, not mere contact between an active mind and a passive. This inestimable advantage is even now enjoyed when a strong-minded man and a strong-minded woman are, by a rare chance, united; and would be had far oftener, if education took the same pains to form strong-minded women which it takes to prevent them from being formed. The modern, and what are regarded as the improved and enlightened modes of education of women, abjure, as far as words go, an edu­ cation of mere show, and profess to aim at solid instruction, but mean by that expression superficial information on solid subjects. Except accomplishments, which are now generally regarded as to be taught well, if taught at all, nothing is taught to women thor­ oughly. Small portions only of what it is attempted to teach thor­ oughly to boys are the whole of what it is intended or desired to teach to women. What makes intelligent beings is the power of thought; the stimuli which call forth that power are the interest and dignity of thought itself, and a field for its practical applica­ tion. Both motives are cut off from those who are told from infancy that thought, and all its greater applications, are other people’s business, while theirs is to make themselves agreeable to ether people. High mental powers in women will be but an ex Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 21 ceptional accident, until every career is open to them, and until they, as well as men, are educated for themselves and for tho world, — not one sex for the other. In what we have said on the effect of the inferior position of women, combined with the present constitution of married life, we have thus far had in view only the most favorable cases, those in which there is some real approach to that union and blending of characters and of lives which the theory of the relation contem­ plates as its ideal standard. But if we look to the great major­ ity of cases, the effect of women’s legal inferiority on the charac­ ter both of women and of men must be painted in far darker col­ ors. We do not speak here of the grosser brutalities, nor of the man’s power to seize on the woman’s earnings, or compel her to live with him against her will. We do not address ourselves to any one who requires to have it proved that these things should be remedied. We suppose average cases, in which there is neither complete union nor complete disunion of feelings and of charac­ ter ; and we affirm that in such cases the influence of the depend­ ence on the woman’s side is demoralizing to the character of both. The common opinion is, that, whatever may be the case with the intellectual, the moral influence of women over men is almost always salutary. It is, we are often told, the great counteractive of selfishness. However the case may be as to personal influ­ ence, the influence of the position tends eminently to promote selfishness. The most insignificant of men, the man who can ob­ tain influence or consideration nowhere else, finds one place where he is chief and head. There is one person, often greatly his supe­ rior in understanding, who is obliged to consult him, and whom he is not obliged to consult. He is judge, magistrate, ruler, over their joint concerns; arbiter of all differences between them. The justice or conscience to which her appeal must be made is his jus­ tice and conscience ; it is his to hold the balance and adjust the scales between his own claims or wishes and those of another. He is now the only tribunal, in civilized life, in which the same person is judge and party. A generous mind, in such a situation, Google 22 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN, makes the balance incline against its own side, and gives the other not less, but more than a fair equality ; and thus the weaker side may be enabled to turn the very fact of dependence into an instrument of power, and, in default of justice, take an un­ generous advantage of generosity ; rendering the unjust power, to those who make an unselfish use of it, a torment and a burthen. But how is it when average men are invested with this power, without reciprocity and without responsibility ? Give such a man the idea that he is first in law and in opinion, — that to will is his part, and hers to submit; it is absurd to suppose that this idea merely glides over his mind, without sinking into it, or hav­ ing any effect on his feelings and practice. The propensity to make himself the first object of consideration, and others at most the second, is not so rare as to be wanting where everything seems purposely arranged for permitting its indulgence. If there is any self-will in the man, he becomes either the conscious or unconscious despot of his household. The wife, indeed, often suc­ ceeds in gaining her objects, but it is by some of the many various forms of indirectness and management. Thus the position is corrupting equally to both; in the one it produces the vices of power, in the other those of artifice. Women, in their present physical and moral state, having stronger impulses, would naturally be franker and more direct than men ; yet all the old saws and traditions represent them as artful and dissembling. Why ? Because their only way to their objects is by indirect paths. In all countries where women have strong wishes and active minds, this consequence is inevitable; and if it is less conspicuous in England than in some other places, it is because English women, saving occasional exceptions, have ceased to have either strong wishes or active minds. We are not now speaking of cases in which there is anything deserving the name of strong affection on both sides. That, where it exists, is too powerful a principle not to modify greatly the bad influences of the situation ; it seldom, however, destroys them entirely. Much oftener the bad influences are too strong for the affection, and destroy it. The highest order of durable and boogie ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 23 happy attachments would be a hundred times more frequent than they are/ if the affection which the two sexes sought from one another were that genuine friendship which only exists between equals in privileges as in faculties. But with regard to what is commonly called affection in married life, — the habitual and almost mechanical feeling of kindliness and pleasure in each oth­ er’s society, which generally grows up between persons who con­ stantly live together, unless there is actual dislike, — there is noth­ ing in this to contradict or qualify the mischievous influence of the unequal relation. Such feelings often exist between a sul­ tan and his favorites, between a master and his servants; they are merely examples of the pliability of human nature, which accommodates itself, in some degree, even to the worst circum­ stances, and the commonest nature always the most easily. With respect to the influence personally exercised by women over men, it, no doubt, renders them less harsh and brutal; in ruder times, it was often the only softening influence to which they were accessible. But the assertion that the wife’s influence renders the man less selfish contains, as things now are, fully as much error as truth. Selfishness towards the wife herself, and towards those in whom she is interested, the children, though favored by their dependence, the wife’s influence no doubt tends to counter­ act. But the general effect on him of her character, so long as her interests are concentrated in the family, tends but to substi­ tute for individual selfishness a family selfishness, wearing an amiable guise, and putting on the mask of duty. How rarely is the wife’s influence on the side of public virtue ! how rarely docs it do otherwise than discourage any effort of principle by which the private interests or worldly vanities of the family can be ex­ pected to suffer ! Public spirit, sense of duty towards the public good, is, of all virtues, as women are now educated and situated, the most rarely to be found among them ; they have seldom even, what in men is often a partial substitute for public spirit, a sense of personal honor connected with any public duty. Many a man, whom no money or personal flattery would have bought, has bar­ tered his political opinions against a title or invitations for his kjoogie •24 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. wife ; and a still greater number are made mere hunters after the puerile vanities of society, because their wives value them. As for opinions, in Catholic countries, the wife’s influence is another name for that of the priest; he gives her, in the hopes and emo­ tions connected with a future life, a consolation for the sufferings and disappointments which are her ordinary lot in this. Else­ where, her weight is thrown into the scale either of the most commonplace, or of the most outwardly prosperous opinions: either those by which censure will be escaped, or by which worldly advancement is likeliest to be procured. In England the wife’s influence is usually on the illiberal and anti-popular side; this is generally the gaining side for personal interest and vanity ; and what to her is the democracy or liberalism in which she has no part— which leaves her the Pariah it found her ? The man himself, when he marries, usually declines into conservatism; begins to sympathize with the holders of power more than with the victims, and thinks it his part to be on the side of authority. As to mental progress, except those vulgarer attainments by which vanity or ambition are promoted, there is generally an end to it in a man who marries a woman mentally his inferior; unless, in­ deed, he is unhappy in marriage, or becomes indifferent. From a man of twenty-five or thirty, after he is married, an experienced observer seldom expects any further progress in mind or feelings. It is rare that the progress already made is maintained. Any spark of the wms divinior, which might otherwise have spread and become a flame, seldom survives for any length of time unex­ tinguished. For a mind which learns to be satisfied with what it already is, which does not incessantly look forward to a degree of improvement not yet reached, becomes relaxed, self-indulgent, and loses the spring and tension which maintain it even at the point already attained. And there is no fact in human nature to which experience bears more invariable testimony than to this; that all social or sympathetic influences which do not raise up pull down ; if they do not tend to stimulate and exalt the mind, they tend to vulgarize it. For the interest, therefore, not only of women, but of men, and of human improvement, in the widest sense, the emancipation of Google ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 25 women, which the modern world often boasts of having effected, and for which credit is sometimes given to civilization, and some­ times to Christianity, cannot stop where it is. If it were either necessary or just that one portion of mankind should remain men­ tally and spiritually only half developed, the development of the other portion ought to have been made, as far as possible, inde­ pendent of their influence. Instead of this, they have become the most intimate, and, it may now be said, the only intimate associates of those to whom yet they are sedulously kept inferior; and have been raised just high enough, to drag the others down to themselves. We have left behind a host of vulgar objections, either as not worthy of an answer, or as answered by the general course of our remarks. A few words, however, must be said on one plea, which, in England, is made much use of, for giving an unselfish air to the upholding of selfish privileges, and which, with unob­ serving, unreflecting people, passes for much more than it is worth. Women, it is said, do not desire, do not seek, what is called their emancipation. On the contrary, they generally disown such claims when made in their behajf, and fall with (icharnement upon any one of themselves who identifies herself with their common cause. Supposing the fact to be true in the fullest extent ever asserted, if it proves that European women ought to remain as they are, it — proves exactly the same with respect to Asiatic women; for they, too, instead of murmuring at their seclusion, and at the restraint imposed upon them, pride themselves on it, and are astonished at the effrontery of women who receive visits from male acquaint­ ances, and are seen in the streets unveiled. Habits of submission make men, as well as women, servile-minded. The vast popula­ tion of Asia do not desire or value — probably would not accept — political liberty, nor the savages of the forest civilization; which does not prove that either of those things is undesirable for them, or that they will not, at some future time, enjoy it. Cus­ tom hardens human beings to any kind of degradation, by deaden­ ing the part of their nature which would resist it. And the case 3 Coogle 26 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. of women is, in this respect, even, a peculiar one, for no other in­ ferior caste that we have heard of have been taught to regard their degradation as their honor. The argument, however, implies a secret consciousness that the alleged preference of women for their dependent state is merely apparent, and arises from their being allowed no choice; for, if the preference be natural, there can be no necessity for enforcing it by law. To make laws com­ pelling people to follow their inclination, has not hitherto been thought necessary by any legislator. The plea that women do not desire any change is the same that has been urged, times out of mind, against the proposal of abolishing any social evil, — “ there is no complaint; ” which is generally not true, and, when true, only so because there is not that hope of success, without which com­ plaint seldom makes itself audible to unwilling ears. How does the objector know that women do not desire equality and freedom ? He never knew a woman who did not, or would not, desire it for herself individually. It would be very simple to suppose that, if they do desire it, they will say so. Their position is like that of the tenants or laborers who vote against their own political interests to please their landlords or employers; with the unique addition that submission is inculcated on them from childhood, as the peculiar attraction and grace of their character. They are taught to think that, to repel actively even an admitted injustice, done to themselves, is somewhat unfeminine, and had better be left to some male friend or protector. To be accused of rebelling against anything which admits of being called an ordinance of society, they are taught to regard as an imputation of a serious offence, to say the least, against the proprieties of their sex. It requires unusual moral courage, as well as disinterestedness, in a woman, to express opinions favorable to women’s enfranchisement, until, at least, there is some prospect of obtaining it. The com­ fort of her individual life, and her social consideration, usually depend on the good will of those who hold the undue power ; and to possessors of power any complaint, however bitter, of the mis­ use of it, is a less flagrant act of insubordination than to protest against the power itself. The professions of women in this matter remind us of the stat< offenders of old, who, on the point of exc- Coogle ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. 27 cution, used tc protest their love and devotion to the sovereign by whose unjust mandate they suffered. Griselda herself might be matched from the speeches put by Shakspeare ipto the mouths of male victims of kingly caprice and tyranny; the Duke of Buck­ ingham, for example, in “ Henry the Eighth,” and even Wolsey. The literary class of women, especially in England, are ostenta­ tious in disclaiming the desire for equality of citizenship, and pro­ claiming their complete satisfaction with the place which society assigns to them ; exercising in this, as in many other respects, a most noxious influence over the feelings and opinions of men, who unsuspectingly accept the servilities of toadyism as concessions to the force of truth, not considering that it is the personal interest of these women to profess whatever opinions they expect will bo agreeable to men. It is not among men of talent, sprung from the people, and patronized and flattered by the aristocracy, that we look for the leaders of a democratic movement. Successful lite­ rary women are just as unlikely to prefer the cause of women to their own social consideration. They depend on men’s opinion for their literary as well as for their feminine successes; and such is their bad opinion of men, that they believe that there is not more than one in ten thousand who does not dislike and fear strength, sincerity, or high spirit, in a woman. They are, there­ fore, anxious to earn pardon and toleration, for whatever of these qualities their writings may exhibit on other subjects, by a studied display of submission on this: that thoy may give no occasion for vulgar men to say — what nothing will prevent vulgar men from saying — that learning makes women unfeminine, and that literary ladies are likely to be bad wives. But enough of this; especially as the fact which affords the occasion for this notice makes it impossible any longer to assert the universal acquiescence of women (saving individual excep­ tions) in their dependent condition. In the United States, at least, there are women, seemingly numerous, and now organized for action on the public mind, who demand equality in the fullest acceptation of the word, and demand it by a straight-forward appeal to men’s sense of justice, not plead for it with a timid deprecation of their displeasure. Google 28 ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN. Like other popular movements, however, this may be seriously retarded by the blunders of its adherents. Tried by the ordinary standard of public meetings, the speeches at the convention are remarkable for thi preponderance of the rational over the de­ clamatory element; but there are some exceptions; and things to which it is impossible to attach any rational meaning have found their way into tho resolutions. Thus, the resolution which sets forth the claims made in behalf of women, after claiming equality in education, in industrial pursuits, and in political rights, enumerates as a fourth head of demand something under the name of “ social and spiritual union,” and “ a medium of express­ ing the highest moral and spiritual views of justice,” with other similar verbiage, serving only to mar the simplicity and ration­ ality of the other demands; resembling those who would weakly attempt to combine nominal equality between men and women with enforced distinctions in their privileges and functions. What is wanted for women is equal rights, equal admission to all social privileges; not a position apart, — a sort of sentimental priesthood. To this, the only just and rational principle, both the resolutions and the speeches, for the most part, adhere. They contain so little which is akin to the nonsensical paragraph in question, that we suspect it not to be the work of the same hands as most of the other resolutions. The strength of the cause lies in the support of those who are influenced by reason and principle; and to attempt to recommend it by sentimental­ ities, absurd in reason, and inconsistent with the principle on which the movement is founded, is to place a good cause on a Jevel with a bad one. There are indications that the example of America will be followed on this side of the Atlantic; and the first step has been taken in that part of England where every serious movement, in the direction of political progress, has its commencement — the manufacturing districts of the north. On the 13th of February, 1851, a petition of women, agreed to by a public meeting at Shef­ field, and claiming the elective franchise, was presented to the House of Lords by the Earl of Carlisle. c.oogle WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS................. NO. 4 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. JU tajt: BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, MINISTER OF THE WORCESTER FREE CHURCH. “ Millions of throats will bawl for Civil Rights ; — No woman named.” Tenntson. “ Every book of knowledge which is known to Oosana or to Vreehaspatee is by nature implanted in the understandings of women.” This is the creed gallantly announced in that wise book of Oriental lore, the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma. Probably it is from an extreme reliance on this inward illumination that we have from the same quarter of the globe the valuable suggestion, “ Daughters should be made emulous of acquiring the virtues of their sex, but should be altogether forbidden to read and write. Yet we have changed all that, beneath our western star of empire. Those who once could not with propriety learn their letters, now have those letters conferred upon them as honorary appendages; and the maidens who once must not know A from B, may now acquire not only their A. B., but their A. M., their M. D., their F. R. S., and their A. A. S.; and are still grasping for more. It must be confessed, however, that most of us look with dis­ trust upon these feminine suffixes, as grammatical innovations, and are not yet prepared to go beyond the simpler combinations of the alphabet. But we all go thus far. It is a point conceded that 1 Google 2 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. girls shall be “ educated,” which is our convenient synonyme for going to school. The most conservative grant this. And the sole question now open between these, and the most radical, is not Shall a woman have schooling? but, What shall she do with her schooling when she has it ? I do not mean to say that the facilities of tuition allowed to girls as yet equal those extended to boys; but they are evidently being equalized. As regards our Massachusetts school system, there appears to be no difference, out of Boston, in the opportunities given to the sexes, while the use made of those opportunities by female pupils is in most towns greater, because they have more leisure than the non-collegiate portion of the boys. Everywhere but in Boston there is the same high school course open, for the daughters as for the sons of the people. At public examinations, I have seen contests of male and female intellect, on the bloodless field of the black-board, which it tried men’s souls to watch. I have seen delicate girls, whose slight fingers could scarcely grasp the huge chalk bullet with which the field was won, meet and surmount the most staggering propositions in Conic Sections, which would (crede experto) scatter a Senior Class at some colleges, as if the chalk bullet were a bombshell. Let no one henceforward deny that our plans of school tuition, such as they are, have been fairly extended to girls also. Beyond this, however, the equality has hardly reached. The colleges of Massachusetts are all masculine. The treasures and associations of Cambridge, to which so many young men have owed the impulse and enlightenment of their whole lives, are in­ accessible to woman, save as the casual courtesy of librarian or professor may give her a passing glance into Gore Hall. And it is a remarkable fact, that simultaneously with the establishment of Antioch College in Ohio, which opens an equal academical provi­ sion for women, — under the presidency of the father of our Mas­ sachusetts school system,—we see in our own state the first instance of unequal educational legislation, in the bill establishing male scholarships in colleges. The merits of the measure in other re­ <joogie WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 3 spects I do not disparage, but it is certainly liable to this objec­ tion. It is estimated that, even now, every graduate of Harvard has received a gratuity of about one thousand dollars, chiefly from private endowments, over and above his bills for tuition; and it is now proposed that the public shall vote, to a portion of these, ono hundred dollars per annum in addition; thus still further increas­ ing the disproportion. We are apt to felicitate ourselves, however, on the great prog­ ress achieved in female education. Perhaps we are too indis­ criminate in the rejoicing. There never was a time when there were not highly-educated women, according to the standard of their age. Isis and Minerva show the value set upon feminine intellect by the ancients. We forget the noble tribute of Plato to the genius of woman, in his Banquet. We forget the long line of learned and accomplished English women, from Lady Jane Grey to Elizabeth Barrett. We forget that wonderful people, the Spanish Arabs, among whom women were public lecturers and secretaries of kings while Christian Europe was sunk in darkness. Let me aid in rescuing from oblivion the name of Ayesha, daughter of Ahmed ben Mohammed ben Kadim, of Cordova, who was reckoned the most learned woman of her age (the tenth cen­ tury) in poetry, mathematics, medicine, and the other sciences which then and there flourished. In the words of the Moorish historian, “ She was beautiful like a rising sun, fine and slender like a young aloe bending its head to the southern breezes ; if she ran, she looked like an antelope disappointing the sportsman by her rapid flight; and if occupied in study or meditation, her eyes resembled the soft and melting eyes of the gazelle, looking from the top of the rock upon the burning sands of the desert. She was a well of science, a mountain of discretion, an ocean of learn­ ing.” This was the Arab definition of what enlightened and chivalrous Anglo-Saxons would call facetiously a “ blue-stocking,” or, more seriously, “ an unsexed woman.” Following the Arab practice, there were female professors of the classics and of rhetoric at Salamanca and Alcala, under Fer­ dinand and Isabella. At the revival of letters in Italy, the intel­ Googie 4 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. lectual influence of Lucrezia Borgia is classed by Roscoe with that of his hero, Leo X. Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara ranked as the equals and friends of Bembo and Michael Angelo; and Tiraboschi declared the Rimatrice, or female poets, of the fifteenth century, to be little inferior, either in number or merit, to the Rimatori. Visitors to the renowned university of Padua still observe, with admiration, at the top of its great stairway, the statue of its beautiful and learned professor, Elena Cornaro, the astronomer, musician, poetess and linguist, known at Rome as the Humble, and at Padua as the Unalterable. Pope Benedict XIV. bestowed on Maria Agnezi, a celebrated mathematician, the place of Apostolical Professor in the University of Bologna, in 1758. And Pope Clement XIV. (Ganganelli) wrote, in 1763, to a lady who had sent him her translation of Locke, expressing his satis­ faction that the, succession of learned women was still maintained in Italy. These I cite merely as specimens of the abundant facts to be had for the asking. If I had at hand the once-renowned work of Peter Paul de Ribera, entitled, “ The Immortal Triumphs and Heroic Enterprises of 845 Women,” or, if I had the privilege of consulting the library of Count Leopold Ferri, sold at Padua in 1847, consisting solely of the works of female authors, and amounting to thirty thousand volumes, I would go more thoroughly into this branch of the subject. • I think it must, however, be conceded, on the most cursory ex­ amination, that the superiority of modern female tuition consists less in its high standard than in its general diffusion. But when we reach this point, another serious question arises. For it is obvious that tuition in schools is a mere preliminary to the avocations of life; and every system must be judged by its connection as a whole. Now, the great defect of our plan of schooling for girls appears to be this : that it recognizes for them no object in existence except matrimony. This will be compara­ tively harmless, if we assume that every woman is to be married at twenty; but as this is the experience of only a small minority, there would seem to be a deficiency in the arrangement. And, in google WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 5 view of the probable fact, that, at this moment, full one third of the women in Massachusetts are either unmarried or childless, there certainly appears to be a flaw from the outset in our educa­ tional plans. The schooling of boys is prospective ; what a source of mental and moral stimulus is indicated by that one word ! All acquired faculties are to be brought to bear upon some definite end. The high school prepares for the academy; the academy, for college; college, for the professional school, perhaps; and all for some vo­ cation where knowledge is power. Nay, who has not seen some indolent young man, who, after wasting all the opportunities of his earlier career, was yet galvanized into industry by the professional school, because the final pressure of an immediate aim was then applied? But what adequate aim has the tuition of girls ? To fit them to be wives and mothers ? But so has the boy the probable des­ tiny of becoming a husband and father: the father has commonly more supervision of at least the intellectual training of the children than the mother; and yet the young man has the pros­ pect of this sacred responsibility to rouse him, and all the incen­ tives, likewise, of professional and public duty. And if this accumulation of motives so often fails to act upon the boy, how can we expect that one alone will be sufficient for his sister ? To illustrate the manner in which this becomes apparent to an intelligent practical instructor, I quote the testimony of Mr. Smythe, of Oswego, N. Y., in a Teacher’s Convention, a year or more ago: “Mr. Smytho spoke from practical experience, having taught a largo school of both girls and boys, and he had observed that, up to a certain point, their capacities or thoir progress were about equal. Perhaps the girls even showed more aptitude ; bat at that point they flagged, and there was a perceptible difference thenceforward. Ho had asked one young lady the reason of this, and she explained it thus : * The boys are going into college ; they have all before them ; but wo have nothing more to do — we are going *• nowhere.” ’ There was, he thought, an equality of talent in girls and boys ; and if the former failed to evince it on any point, the failure arose from a want of stimulus. They had no aim in society worthy to inspire thcmV * 1 boogie 6 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. I cannot deny the truth of this. I have too often been asked, almost with tears, by young and well-taught girls, to suggest to them some employment that should fill the demands of heart and intellect, — something to absorb their time and thoughts. A pupil in a School of Design once told me that, in her opinion, the majority of the scholars sought the occupation, not as a means of support, nor to gratify an artistic taste, but solely for the sake of an interesting employment. And seeing the imperfect attempts to invent such employments, and the results, good in their way, but so wholly inadequate, I have almost sighed, with these dis­ contented ones, over the one-sided benevolence of society; and felt that, to give “ education ” without giving an object, was but to strengthen the wings of a caged bird. Nothing can hide from me the conviction that an immortal soul needs for its sustenance something more than visiting, and garden­ ing, and novel-reading, and a crochet-needle, and the occasional manufacture of sponge-cake. Yet what else constitutes the recog­ nized material for the life of most “ well-educated ” young ladies, from eighteen to twenty-five — that life so blameless and aimless. Some, I admit, are married; some teach school, — the one miser­ ably underpaid occupation left open for the graduates of our high schools — the Procrustes-bed of all young female intellect. A few remarkable characters will, of course, strike out an independ­ ent path for themselves, in spite of discouragement A few find ready for them, in the charge of younger brothers and sisters, a noble duty. A few have so strong a natural propensity for study that they pursue it by themselves, though without any ulterior aim. Some enter mechanical occupations, which are at least useful, as employing their hands and energies, if not their intel­ lects. But for most of those of average powers, “ to this complexion must they come at last.” “ It is a sad thing for me,” said an accomplished female teacher, in my hearing, “ to watch my fine girls after they leave school, and see the expression of intellect gradually fade out of their faces, for want of an object to employ It” google 7 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. I do not claim that all young women share these dissatisfac­ tions. They a ?e confined to the thoughtful and tho noble. The empty and th 3 indolent find such a life satisfactory enough. “Why do you dislike to leave school?” said one young lady once, within my knowledge, to another. “ Because I shall then have nothing to do,” she answered. “ Nothing to do! ” was tho astonished reply; “ why, there is plenty to do; cannot you stay at home and make pretty little things to wear, as other girls do?” “ But I don’t care for that,” pleaded the spirited and thoughtful maiden; “ I don’t think I was created and educated merely to make pretty little things to wear.” But tho protest was of no avail. With the exclusion of women from intellectual employments, comes an accompanying exclusion from other of the more lucra­ tive occupations, upon which I will not now dwell, “ not because there is so little to be said upon it, but because there is so much.” This prohibition extends even to the employments peculiarly fitted for woman, as tho retail dry goods trade in our cities, which em­ ploys tens of thousands. Except in the medical profession, and a few other avocations very recently opened to women, their average wages are less than half those received by men for the same work. In Lowell, the average wages of women are estimated at two dol­ lars per week (deducting board); those of men at four dollars and eighty cents, for toils not longer, and often no more difficult. In some of our towns, female grammar-school teachers are paid one hundred and seventy-five dollars per annum, — and male teachers five hundred dollars, for schools of the same grade, and of smaller size. The haunts of sin and shame in our great cities can tell some of the results of these sad inequalities. But the question of employments, important though it be, is still a secondary one. Indeed, it will ultimately settle itself. It is not apparent that men have anything to do with it, except to secure fair play; which is much more, to be sure, than they have yet attempted. Energetic women will make their way into the avocations suited to them; and, the barrier once broken down, others will follow. La carriers auverte aur talens, is the only ■ 1 Google 8 WOMAN AND HEE WISHES. m< .to. No one can anticipate the results, and it is useless to dogmatize. “ Let them be sea-captains, if they will,” said Mar­ garet Fuller, speaking only perhaps in some vague memory of readings in Herodotus, and of the deeds of Artemisia at Salamis ; but, soon after, the newspapers were celebrating the name and fame of Miss Betsey Miller, captain for these dozen years of the Scotch brig Cleotus. Yet woman, it would appear, is “ constitu­ tionally disqualified for action.” It would be pleasant to see the grave author of this phrase on board Captain Betsey’s brig, beat­ ing into the port of Belfast in a gale of wind. It is to be feared, however, that he would be constitutionally disqualified for remain­ ing above the hatches. The test of sphere is success. If Miss Miller can walk the quarter-deck; if Madame Grange can argue cases in court; if Mrs. W------ can conduct the complex business transactions of a great Paris house; if Maria Mitchell can discover comets, and Harriet Hosmer carve statues; if Appolonia Jagiello can fight in one European revolution, and Mrs. Putnam vindicate another (besides having the gift of tongues); if Harriet Hunt can really cure diseases, and Lucretia Mott and Antoinette Brown can preach good sermons, and Mrs. Swisshelm and Mrs. Nichols edit able newspapers,—then all these are points gained forever, and the case is settled so far. Nor can any one of these be set aside as an exceptional case, until it is shown that it is not, on the other hand, a test case ; each person being a possible specimen of a large class who would, with a little less discouragement, have done the same things. That there are great discouragements, it is useless and ungen­ erous to deny. For every obstacle that a man of genius is admired for surmounting, a woman surmounts an hundred. If any one of the aforesaid women has attained to her position with­ out actual resistance or ridicule, then that is the exception, for these things are the rule. Margaret Fuller’s biographers did not stoop to tell the whole story of the petty insults and annoyances which she incurred, in the simple effort to take the place which belonged to her. Some critics have doubted the propriety of Googie WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 9 Elizabeth Barrett’s venturing to write such vigorous verses; woman should be “ the lovely subject of poetry,” these gallant gentlemen think, not its author; they do not, however contract for the production of the article from their own brains of a qual­ ity equivalent to the “ Drama of Exile.” Even Punch considers female physicians to be fair game; as if the wonder were not, that any delicate woman should employ any different attendance. The first lesson usually impressed upon a girl is, that the object of her instruction is to make her pleasing and ornamental; but of her brother’s, to make him wise and useful. Parents, pulpit and pedagogue, commonly teach her the same gospel. If she opens book or newspaper, she finds the same theory. I forget from what feeble journal I cut the following: “ A sensible lady writes us as follows: * Woman’s true mission, about which so much has been written, is to make herself as charming and bewitching as possible to the gentlemen.’ ” Yet wherein is this worse than Milton’s “ He for God only, she for God in him ” ? We have but to turn to the books nearest at hand for abundant illustrations of the same thing. “ Women ought not to interfere in history,” says an eminent writer, “ for histdry demands action, and for action they are con­ stitutionally disqualified! ” Shades of Queen Bess and Margaret of Anjou, of the Countess of Derby, Flora McDonald, and Grace Darling “This difficult statement requires some explanation,” says another, “ if the reader be young, inexperienced, or a female.” Goethe said that “ Dilettanti, and especially women, have but weak ideas of poetry.” It seems hardly credible that even Dr. Channing, in an essay “ on Exclusion and Denunciation in Religion,” should have re­ flected quite severely on “ women forgetting the tenderness of their sex, and arguing on theology.” For if, as a recent conven­ tion preacher declared, “ among the redeemed, up to this time, an immense majority are women,” one would suppose that their experimental knowledge of religious matters might partially count erbalance a trifling deficiency in the Hebrew tongue—which boogie 10 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. is not, indeed, a quite universal accomplishment among the male sex. It is strang 5 to see that when men try to aim highest in their advice to women, they so seldoip rise beyond this thought, that the position of woman is but secondary and relative. An eminent Boston teacher, who has done much for female education, aston­ ished me when I read, in the “School and Schoolmaster,” his unequal appeals for the school-boy and school-girl: “ That boy on yonder bench may be a Washington or a Mar­ shall. * * * * That fair-haired girl may be” [what?—not a Guion or a Roland, an Edgeworth or a Somerville ? — no, but] “ the future mother of a Washington or a Marshall! By inspir­ ing her heart with the highest principles, you may do much to advance humanity, by forming a sublime specimen of a just man” And so on. I have heard the indignation expressed by young women on occasions like this; once, especially, after a Normal School exam­ ination, when this had been the burden of the addresses of the excellent gentlemen there present. “ They all spoke,” said the indignant girls, “ as if the whole aim of a woman’s existence was to he married; and we all wished that we might never be married, so as to prove that there were other noble duties in life for us, as well as for young men. They would not have spoken so to them.” Now, with this immense difference, that precisely where the stimulus is applied to young men, there the pressure of discour­ agement is laid on girls, it cannot be expected that the faculties of the- latter for various employments should be developed with equal ease. The different functions suitable to women will be filled more slowly for the same reason that it takes twice as long to ascend the Ohio against the current, as to descend by its aid. But it has well been asked, “ If woman’s mind be really so feeble, why is she left to struggle alone with all those difficulties which are so sedulously removed from the path of man ? ” There is, moreover, this inconvenience, that although greater strength may in certain cases be developed by this encounter with c.oogle WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 11 prejudice, it is apt likewise to mar the symmetry and grace of the character; and hence the occasional charge of unfeminine unat­ tractiveness against distinguished women. Mill, with his usual penetration, enumerates among common fallacies, the impression, that because one extraordinary member of a class is rendered conceited or offensive by the isolation, the whole class, if elevated, would show the same qualities. Make education and station accessible to all women, and the source of annoyance will dis­ appear. I repeat, however, that even the question of employments is a secondary one. The avocations of many men are as little stimu­ lating to the intellectual nature as those of women. Compara­ tively few men are educated by their employments. The great educator of American men is the ballot-box, with its accompa­ niments. By its accompaniments, I mean the whole world of public life, public measures, public interest and public office. From direct participation in this school of instruction the American woman is not only more rigidly excluded than the woman of any other Christian nation, but this takes place under circumstances of peculiar aggravation, precisely because more importance is attrib­ uted to this sphere among the Americans than elsewhere. It is a startling fact that, in the land where the right of political action is most universal, most prized, and most jealously guarded among men, it should be most scrupulously denied to women. In most European countries, the sexes stand nearly on a level in this respect ,* the distinction is not of sex, but of station. A few men can be kings, peers and prime ministers; a few women can be queens, regents and peeresses. The masses of both sexes are equally far removed from direct participation in public affairs, and hence woman, as woman, is neither degraded nor defrauded. Indeed, some of the most eminent European statesmen and thinkers of the last century have argued against the principle of universal suffrage, on the ground that it must, if consistently established, include women also. This was the case, for instance, with Pitt and Coleridge. Talleyrand said, “ To see one half of boogie 12 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. the human race excluded by the other half from all participation in government, is a political phenomenon, which, on abstract prin­ ciples, it is impossible to explain.” “ The principle of an aristoc­ racy is admitted (says De Tocqueville) the moment we reject an absolutely universal suffrage.” On the other hand, among European democrats, — as Con­ dorcet, Sieyes, Godwin, Bentham, and the authors of the People’s Charter, — there has been the same ready recognition of the abstract right of woman to this prerogative. And yet, in the United States, in which alone the experiment of democracy is claimed to have been tried; here, where all our institutions must stand or fall by their conformity to the idea of equal rights; here, where, moreover (says De Tocqueville again), “politics are existence, and exclusion from politics seems like exclusion from existence; ” here, one half the race is still ex­ cluded. Tennyson sums it all up in his “ Princess ” — «* Millons of throats will bawl for Civil Rights ; — No woman named ” / Not to name her is, in a democratic government, to ignore her existence; and hence, one cannot be surprised to read, in one of the ablest commentaries on American institutions, the cool general remark, “ In the Free States, except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise.” Women are not even a “ class of persons; ” they are fairly dropped from the human race; and very naturajly, since we have grown accustomed to recognize an “universal suffrage” which does not include them. It is no wonder that, under these circumstances, we Americans are remarkably polite to women. It will take a good many bows and delicate homages to atone for this unexpected result of free institutions, — leaving one half the population with less access to political power than they have under monarchies. With an awk­ ward impulse of compensation, we attempt to atone for our fraud by courtesies. Withholding rights, we substitute favors. We rob woman of her claim to the soil she stands upon, and then beg google WOMAN AND HER. WISHES. 13 leave to offer her a chair. “ Chivalry,” said the brilliant German woman Rahel, “ was a poetical Zie, necessary to restore the equal­ ity of the sexes.” Is our American chivalry of the same stamp ? That most fascinating of modern Catholic writers, Digby, brings it as a charge against republican institutions, that they are “ in the highest degree inimical to the influence and importance of women.” And it can easily be shown that the opportunity of females for public service is far less in the United States than in most of the nations of Europe; and that our civil institutions thus take from women just what they give to men. In England, “ in a reported case, it is stated by counsel, and substantially assented to by the court, that a woman is capable of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom ; such as those of queen, marshal, grand chamberlain, and constable of England, the champion of England, commissioner of sewers, governor of a workhouse, sexton, keeper of the prison, of the gate-house of the dean and chapter of Westminster, returning officer for mem­ bers of parliament, and constable, the latter of which is in some respects judicial. The office of jailer is frequently exercised by a woman.” In an action at law, it has been determined that an unmarried woman, having a freehold, might vote for members of parliament; and it is recorded that Lady Packington returned two. The office of grand chamberlain, in 1822, was filled by two women; and that of clerk of the crown, in the court of queen’s bench, has been granted to a female. In a certain parish of Norfolk, Eng­ land, a woman was recently appointed parish clerk, because among a population of six hundred there was no man found who could read and write! At the coronation of King Richard II., Dame Margaret Dim­ ock, wife of Sir John Dimock, came into court and “ claimed the place to be the king’s champion, by the virtue of the tenure of her manor of Scrinelby, in Lincolnshire, to challenge and defy all such as opposed the king’s right to the crown.” The Countess of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery, had the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in person. At the 2 boogie 14 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. assizes at zlppleby, she sat with the judges on the bench; as did also Lady Rous, in Suffolkshire, in the reign of Queen Anne, she being cincta gladio, girt with a sword, like the other magistrates. In the reign of Henry VIII., when, during some family quar­ rels, Maurice Berkely and others entered the park of Lady Anne Berkely, at Yate, and committed depredations, the lady complained to the king, who immediately granted her a special commission under the great seal, to inquire into the matter. She then returned to Gloucester, opened the commission, sat on the bench in the public Sessions Hall, empanelled a jury, received evidence, and, finally, sentenced the rioters. A statement has passed current, originating with Gilbert Stuart, to the effect that the Anglo-Saxon queens were accustomed to assist at the parliaments convoked by their husbands. But I have not been able to find confirmation of this in the authorities to which he refers — William of Malmesbury and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is not improbable, however, in view of the known fact, that during that period a prioress might preside over a meet­ ing of ecclesiastics, and legislate for the government of the church; and might take precedence in rank in the assembly, as was the case in the council of Becanceld, convoked in the year 694. It is a remarkable fact, that one of the most important treaties of modern Europe — the peace of Cambray, in 1529 — was nego­ tiated exclusively by two women — Margaret, the aunt of Charles V., and Louisa, mother of Francis I. It is known in history as Le Traits des Dames, and is certainly a noble monument of the influence of woman, in a world where blessed are the peace­ makers. It is strange to turn from such a wide variety of public stations to the scanty provisions of our own nation. 4‘ In the United States,” says Judge Hurlbut, “a woman may administer upon the estate of her deceased husband ; and she has, occasionally, held a subordinate place in the Post-Office Department. She has, there­ fore, a sort of post-mortem and post-mistress notoriety ; but, with tho exception of handling letters administrative and letters mailed, she is the submissive creature of the old common law.’’ This would Google WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 15 seem rather an inadequate result, for woman, of American Revo­ lution, Declaration of Independence and Constitution; and even suggests doubtful comparisons with the days when “ the Great Squaw Sachem ” ruled the inhabitants of Eastern Massachusetts, from Mystic to Agawam. It would seem that, under the circumstances, the rising protest of American women, though it may annoy men, can hardly sur­ prise them. I have chosen to begin with the consideration of education, because that is a point commonly conceded, and, there­ fore, a good fulcrum for the lever. But much more remains behind. It is not the sole grievance of woman that she has not even her full share of school education. Nor is the complaint only, that any system of “ education ” is utterly imperfect which provides for women only schools, and not functions. Nor is it the whole of the grievance, that the employments easily accessible to women are few, unintellectual, and underpaid. Nor is it all, that the denial of equal political rights, being an absolute wrong, must necessarily be in many ways a practical wrong. Is not each individual, malo or female, an unit before God ? Has not woman, equally with man, an individual body to be protected, and an individual soul to be saved ? Must she not see, feel, know, speak, think, act for herself, and not through another? We hear much said of the value of the “ franchise of a freeman,” say women. But why should Franchise belong to Francis more than to Frances, when the three words are etymolog­ ically the same, and should be practically so,— all signifying, sim­ ply, Freedom? Nay, as things now stand, Frank may grow up a vulgar, ignorant ruffian, and Fanny may have the mental calibre and culture of Margaret Fuller, or the self-devoted energy of Dor­ othea Dix; yet it will make no difference. The man must count as one in the state, the woman counts zero ; a ratio, as mathemati­ cians agree, of infinite inferiority. But this is not all. Nor is it all that this exclusion is a thing done without “ the consent of the governed.” “ The body politic Google 16 WOMAN AND ILER WISHES. (says the Massachusetts Constitution) is formed by a voluntary association of individuals.” Accordingly, we think it a daring responsibility to hold a constitutional convention, or even to pass a liquor law, without a popular vote thereon. When was the popular vote taken in which women relinquished even the rights conceded to them by their English ancestors? By the last census, there is a clear majority of women over men in this commonwealth. Have this majority consented to their present subjection? No, they have had no opportunity to consent; they have never been asked; they have only acquiesced, as they black majority in South Carolina acquiesce, because that very subjection has made them both ignorant and timid. Nor is it all, that we lose the services of the purest half of tn© human race from our public offices. Not one of these admirable women whom I have just named may have a direct voice in legislating for a hospital or a prison; not one of these accom­ plished ones can have a place in even a school-committee; though in despotic France the official superintendence of primary schools, at least, is placed in female hands. Nor is it all, that female labor thus loses that guarantee of pro­ tection, which political economy has always recognized as an important feature of free institutions. “ To give energy to indus­ trial enterprise,” says one American writer, unconscious of the covert satire, “ the dignity of labor should be sustained; the franchise of a freeman should be granted to the humblest laborer who has not forfeited his right by crime. In the responsibilities of a freeman he will find the strongest motives to exertion. Be­ sides, so far as government can by its action affect his confidence of a just remuneration for his toil, he feels that a remedy is put in his hands by the ballot-box.” Indeed, John Neal asserts that the right of suffrage is worth fifty cents a day, in its effect upon the wages of male laborers, in this country. But where are all these encouragements for women ? Nor is it all, that, with the right to labor, all the other rights of woman, as to person and property, are equally endangered by this exclusion from direct power. boogie 17 WOMAN AND HER WISHES, For the great grievance, alleged by all women who make com­ plaint of grievances, is this: that all these details are but part of a system, which lies at the basis of all our organizations, assumes at the outset the inferiority of woman, merges every married woman in her husband, and imposes upon every single woman the injustice of taxation without representation, and of subjection to laws which she has no share in framing. It is impossible to frame statements on this subject stronger than those contained in the commonest law-books. “ Husband and wife (says Blackstone) are held to be one person in law, so that the very being and existence of the woman is sus­ pended during the coverture, or entirely merged and incorporated in that of the husband.” Nor is this to be an empty claim. “ The husband has the right (says another legal authority) of imposing such corporeal restraints as he may deem necessary for securing to himself the fulfilment of the obligations imposed on the wife. He may, in the plenitude of his power, adopt every act of physical coercion which does not endanger the life or health of the wife.” “ In short (says Judge Hurlbut), a woman is courted and wedded as an angel, and yet denied the dignity of a rational and moral being ever after.” The protest of women, therefore, is not against a special abuse, but against a whole system of injustice; and the peculiar import­ ance of political suffrage to woman is only because it seems to be the symbol of all her rights. Once recognize the political equality of the sexes, and all the questions of legal, social, educational and professional equality, will soon settle themselves. It is not to be denied that the subject is coming rapidly into •discussion, and bids fair to be ably handled. On the one side have been a series of conventions, speeches, and pamphlets, proceed­ ing from a remarkable band of women, who have astonished all intelligent observers by the mental and moral ability they have displayed. On the other side are the fixed observances of church and state; nearly every stripling editor in the land has winged 2* i ■ Google 18 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. his goose-quill in defence of established institutions; reverend divines have quoted Scripture, and grave professors quoted Aris­ tophanes ; and nothing has been left undone, except to reprint old John Knox’s tract of a. d. 1553, entitled “ Blast of a Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” It is an unfortunate thing for this last party that each of their t arguments has grown odious by its long previous use in defence of every oligarchy and every slavery. The rebellious females are assured, first, that they do not really wish for any further political rights; second, that they do not need them; third, that they are not fit for them. To which the fair malcontents reply — like malcontents in all ages, fair or foul — first, that they know what they wish; second, that they know what they need; third, that they know what they are fit for, and intend to secure it. I. Upon the first point, I can only here say, that men have, as men, nothing to do with it. This essay is entitled, “ Woman and her Wishes,” because I conceive that to be, for men, the main point at issue. The final choice must be made by women them­ selves. The final question must be, What does woman, after all, desire ? It may be still as difficult to ascertain this, as in the days of the wandering knight, in the old English legend; but it is essential. I do not understand, however, that any man is called upon to settle this question. We are not to interfere, except to secure fair play. I have not heard that the most ardent apostles have proposed to compel any woman to make stump-speeches against her will; or march a fainting sisterhood to the polls, under a police in Bloomer costume. Let there be only fair play. The highest demand of each; that is her destiny. “ Let them be sea­ captains, if they wUlf and that is al). IL Upon the second point, that women do not need additional civil rights, there is more to be said. I do not understand it to be asserted, by any one, that women have no influence, because they have no direct political power. Margaret Fuller is right on this point; “it needs only that she be a good cook, or a good scold, to secure her influence, if that were all.” There never was a time when she had not this, Google WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 19 however totally the theory of society may have excluded her. Demosthenes confessed that “ measures which the statesman has meditated a whole year, may be overturned in a day by a woman.” The shrewd Ganganelli (Pope Clement XIV.) said well that “ many women who appeared only as the wives of princes or ambassadors, and who are not even mentioned in history, have frequently been the cause of the grandest exploits. Their counsels have prevailed, and the husbands have had all the honor due to the sagacity of their wives.” And Montesquieu complains of those who “judge of a government by the men at the head of affairs, and not also by the women who sway those men.” “ Soigiiez les femmes” Napoleon used to sayt to his emissaries; “ Look to the women! ” It is upon a different ground that the complaint proceeds. “ Woman should not merely have a share in the power of man, — for of that omnipotent Nature will not suffer her to be defrauded, — but it should be a chartered, power, too fully recognized to be abused.” “ It is always best (remarks another advocate) to add open responsibility, where there must at any rate be concealed power.” The half-forgotten satirist, Churchill, has stated the distinction very well, in describing a period of political degeneracy. “ Women ruled all, and counsellors of state Were at the doors of women forced to wait; Women, who ’vc oft as sovereigns graced the land, BuZ nw governed well al second hand.” If historical demonstrations were needed, it would be enough to point to the wide difference between the long line of titled harlots who secretly ruled France, under the Salique lawy and the noble female sovereigns of England, Spain and Germany. Montespan and Pompadour against Elizabeth, Isabella and Maria Theresa! It was only the last struggles of the French monarchy which brought forth that type of all womanly nobleness, Madame Poland. The question lies here. Woman must have influence somehow; shall she have it simply, directly, openly, responsibly? — or, on Google 20 WOMAN AND ILER WISHES. the other hand, by coaxings, caresses, dimples, dinners, fawnings, frownings, frettings, and lectures after the manner of Mrs. Caudle? It is possibly true, as Miss Bremer’s heroine says, that a woman may obtain anything she wishes of her husband, by always keep­ ing something nice to pop into his mouth; but it is quite question­ able whether such a relation can rank any higher in the scale of creation than the loves of Nutcracker and Sugar Dolly in the German tale. Besides, there is this fatal difficulty, tha’t woman, with all her powers of domestic coaxing and coercion, has never yet coaxed or coerced her partner into doing her simple justice. Shall we never get beyond the absurd theory that every woman is legally and politically represented by her husband, and hence has an adequate guarantee? The answer is, that she has been so represented ever since representation began; and the result appears to be, that, among the Anglo-Saxon race generally, the entire system of laws in regard to woman is at this moment so utterly wrong, that Lord Brougham is reported to have declared it useless to attempt to amend it; 11 there must be a total reconstruction, before a woman can have any justice.” The wrong lies not so much in any special statute, as in the fundamental theory of the law. Yet no candid man can read the statutes on this subject, of the most enlightened nation, without admitting that they were obviously made by man, — not with a view to woman’s interest, but to his own. Our Massachusetts laws may not be so bad as the law repealed in Vermont in 1850, which confiscated to the state one half the property of every child­ less widow, unless the husband had other heirs. But they must compel from every generous person the admission, that neither justice nor gallantry has yet availed to procure anything like impartiality in the legal provisions for the two sexes. With what decent show of justice, then, can man, thus dishonored, claim a continuance of this suicidal confidence ? There is something respectable in the frank barbarism of the old Russian nuptial consecration, “ Here, wolf, take thy lamb.” But we cannot easily extend the same charity to the civilized wolf Google WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 21 'f England and America, clad in the sheep’s clothing of a volume of Revised Statutes; — caressing the person of the bride, and t devouring her property. For, I believe that our laws do give some protection to the per­ son, and that our courts would hardly sustain the opinion of the English Justice Buller, that the husband might lawfully “ correct” his wife with a stick not larger than his thumb — “ so great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of England,” as Blackstone says. Yet, if he should do so, I see but an imperfect remedy. For, no woman’s cause had ever a trial by a jury of her peers; she may not even have half the jury composed of such as herself, though this privilege is given to foreigners under the English laws. And the wrongs of the outraged wife, or the bereaved mother, can only be redressed by a masculine tribunal. It was thought very ludicrous when the female petitioners in New York craved permission to address the Assembly in person, instead of leaving their cause to men. But I apprehend that if that change were made here, the spectacle would not again be seen of a bill to protect the property of married women being refused a third reading, by a large majority, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, “ after a considerable discussion, mostly of a humorous description.” • “ The perfection of woman’s character,” said Coleridge, “ is to be characterless. Every man would Hke to have an Ophelia or a Desdemona for a wife.” This last proposition is perhaps too uni­ versal a-statement; yet grant it, and the sad question still recurs, “ But what was the fate of Ophelia and Desdemona ? ” III. To the third suggestion, that woman is not fitted for any additional political rights, there is much to be said; and yet little that has not been better said by females themselves. 1. For instance, it can hardly be seriously urged that women are not qualified to vote intelligently, since the direct and irresist­ ible protest lately made by the petitioners to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention: « It would bo a disgrace to our schools and civil institutions to argue that a Massachusetts woman, who has enjoyed the full benefit of all their culture, Google 22 W02IAN AND HER WISHES. is not as competent to form an opinion on civil matters, as the illiterate for­ eigner, landed but a few years before upon our shores, unable to read or write, not free from early prejudices, and little acquainted with our institu­ tions. Yet such men are allowed to vote.” 2. Another argument is met as explicitly by a resolution of the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester: “Resolved, That it is as absurd to deny all women their civil rights because the cares of household and family take up all the time of some, as it would be to exclude the whole male sex from Congress, because some men are sailors, or soldiers, in active service, or merchants, whose business requires all their attention and energies.” 3. It is said that women are not now familiar with political affairs. Certainly they are not, for they have no stimulus to be. Give them the same motive for informing themselves, and the natural American appetite for newspapers will be developed as readily in women as in men. 4. There is * of fear undue publicity. “Place woman, unbon­ neted and unshawled, before the public gaze (wrote the fastidious critic of the New York Christian Inquirer}, and what becomes of her modesty, her virtue ? ” But surely the question of publicity is already -settled, to the utmost extent. At least, every man must be silent who acquiesces in the concert, the drama, or the opera. I will not dwell on the exposures of the stage, or the in­ delicacies of the ballet. But if Jenny Lind was “ an angel of purity and benevolence,” for consenting to stand, chanting and enchanting, before three thousand excited admirers; if Madame Sontag could give a full-dress rehearsal (which does not commonly imply a superfluity of apparel) for the special edification of the clergy of Boston, and be rewarded with duplicate Bibles; it is really hard to see why a humble woman in a Quaker dress — yes, or any other — may not bear her testimony against sin, before as large an audience as can be assembled to hear her. “ 0, but,” men say, “ it seems different, somehow, to hear a Quaker woman speak in public! ” Yes, but is it different ? Are right and reason to depend on the color of a dress? It has been Google WOMAN AND HER WISHES. 28 said that “ a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.” But why is a drab-colored Amazon more tolerable than any other ? We repress a woman’s tongue in public, and then complain that she uses it disproportionately in private. But if she has anything worth saying in the one case, why not in the other? Surely there is no want of physical power. Jenny Lind can fill as large a concert-room as Lablache. Nay, there is another aspect to the argument. Often, at conventions of men, amid the roughness and the gruffness, the stammering and the hesitating, when I have recalled to memory the clear, delicious voice of Lucy Stone, * gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman,” yet penetrating with its quiet fascination to the utmost corners of the largest hall, — never loud to the nearest, never faint to the furthest, and bear­ ing on its quiet current all pure womanly thoughts and noble aspirations, — I have almost wondered at the tolerance of .Paul in suffering a man to speak in public. And let those who, even after this, cling to the idle thought that such a public career is incompatible with the more modest graces (which are becoming, not to feminine character only, but to human character), — let such persons read the stainless record of Elizabeth Fry’s inner life, in the most intoxicating periods of her career: “ It was indeed an act of faith,” says her journal, in describing a public address; “I have a feeling of unfitness and unworthiness for these services, more than I can express. On entering the assembly, I hardly dared look up; when I did, I thought there must be fifteen hundred persons present; but I may, I think, say is was, before I ended, a glorious time; the power of the Good Spirit appeared to reign over us.” 5. But the great anxiety, after all, seems to be for the dinner. Men insist, like the German Jean Paul, on having a wife who shall cook them something good. I confess to some sympathy with these. I, too, wish to save the dinner. Yet it seems more important, after all, to save the soul. It is a significant fact, that several female authors, as Mrs. Child and Miss Leslie, have had to work their passage into literature by compiling cookery-books boogie 24 WOMAN AND HER WISHES. first; just as Miss Martineau thinks it well to vindicate Mrs. Somerville’s right to use the telescope, by proving that she has an eye to the tea-table also. Let us consent to this, and only suppli­ cate that after the cookery book is written, and the table set, the soul of the woman may be considered as free. Let us value the dinner, for it is well that labor should have its material basis, as life has; but let us remember that a woman who provides for that, and that only, is, after all, but a half-woman, of whom Mrs. Jel­ lyby is the other half. It is to be admitted, however, that among the “ domestic vir­ tues ” there are functions nobler than the culinary department. Yet how strange the blindness that hopes to educate these by crushing all other faculties! And how strange a narrowness of estimate is often left, even after this blindness is partially re­ moved ! For instance, some critic said, after speaking very cor­ dially of Mrs. Mill’s able article on the “ Enfranchisement of Woman,” in the Westminster Review, that “ it was to be hoped, however, that the mother of John Stuart Mill would always regard it as her chief honor to have reared her distinguished son.” But, in the name of common sense, why so ? Is it not as much to be an useful woman as to rear an useful man ? Why postpone the honor from generation to generation ? or when will it be over­ taken ? Or, rather, what incompatibility between parental and social duties? The father may be as important in the rearing of the child as the mother (indeed, Jean Paul says, with exquisite truthfulness, that the mother marks the commas and semicolons in the son’s life, but the father the colons and periods); yet it is not considered the whole duty of man to be a good father. John Adams contrived to train John Quincy Adams, and to be a parent and guardian of American liberty likewise; why should woman content herself with one half the mission ? And there are facts enough to vindicate my position. Victoria is at the head of a kingdom and of a household, — and neither of them a small one; and she fulfils both vocations well. The most eminent of American Quakers stated it to me, as the general experience of this body, that the female members most publicly boogie 25 woman and her wishes. useful are also the best wives and mothers. Certainly, the twenty-five grandchildren of Elizabeth Fry rose up to call her blessed none the less because she was the valued adviser of all the leading British statesmen, and the guest or correspondent of half the sovereigns of Europe. Nay, it is touching to read that, in the very height of her public labors, “ Mrs. Fry’s maternal ex­ perience led her to give some advice about the babies’ dress (at the Paris Enfans Trouves), that it might afford them more liberty of movement.” 6. In the disorder now sometimes exhibited at our caucuses and town-meetings, there is plainly an argument, not for the exclu­ sion, but for the admission of women. They have been excluded quite too long. Observe the altered character of public din­ ners since their admission there, which yet would have seemed as objectionable to our grandfathers. Such is my faith in the moral power of woman, that I fear we cannot spare her from these scenes of temptation. There was wisdom in that hearty recogni­ tion given by a party of rough California miners to some brave New England women who were crossing the isthmus, in the rainy season, to join their husbands. “ Three cheers,” said they, “ for the ladies who have come to make us better! ” We need the feminine element in our public affairs to make us better. I cannot agree with those who deny that there are cer­ tain differences of temperament between the sexes. God has a great purpose in these; let us not deny them, nor let us waste them. It is precisely these feminine attributes which we need in all the spheres of life. Wherever the experiment has been tried (as among the Quakers) it has proved successful; it will yet be tried further. The noble influence of Manuelita Rosas, in Para­ guay, over the policy of the stem dictator, her father, is but a hint of what is yet to come, when such influences shall be openly legiti­ mated. Woman, as a class, may be deceived, but not wholly de­ praved ; society may impair her sense, but not her self-devotion. Her foot has been cramped in China, and her head everywhere; but her heart is uncramped. We need in our politics and our society a little more heart. The temperance movement would lie 3 ■ ■ kjoogie 26 woman and HER wishes. dormant in many of our towns, but for the sympathies and ener­ gies of women. The anti-slavery movement had hardly made its way to the masses till a woman undertook to explain it. And the western editor’s objection to the “ Woman’s Rights movement” seems to me to be one of its strong points; that, “ if it should pre­ vail, we may yet see some Mrs. Stowe in the presidential chair.” It sounds strangely to American ears to hear of a woman as head of a nation. But our English ancestors, three centuries ago, living under the government of a woman, would have been equally astonished to hear of a commoner as being at the head of a nation. Any innovation seems daring until it is made, and when once made it is called an “ institution,” and then any further change is daring. The fatal inconsistency of those who protest against any inno­ vation in the position of woman lies in the fact that they have tol­ erated so many innovations already. Once admit that she has been wronged, and the question then recurs, whether she has yet been fully righted. We have conceded too much to refuse further concessions. She must be a slave or an equal; there is no middle ground. If it is plainly reasonable that the two sexes shall study together in the same high school, then it cannot be hopelessly ridiculous that they should study together in college also. If it is common sense to make a woman deputy postmaster, then it can­ not be the climax of absurdity to make her postmaster-general, or even the higher officer who is the postmaster’s master. Methinks I hear again the old shout of the nobles at Prague, “ Moriemur pro rege nostro — Harriet Beecher ! ” Is it feared lest there be a confusion in the nature of the two sexes, from these wild propositions ? But nature commonly pro­ vides adequate means in seeking an end. If distinctions are not strong enough to protect themselves, it is useless to try to guard them. Lucy Stone said, “ woman’s nature is stamped and sealed by the Creator, and there is no danger of her unsexing herself, while his eye watches her.” Nature has everything to dread from constraint, nothing from liberty. The only demand of our female reformers is to be set free. Beyond that, let all decisions be made by those whose business it is. “ Woman and google WOMAN ANO HER WISHES, 27 her Wishes” is the title of this essay, not woman controlled by the wishes of man. As the powers of the body are divided be­ tween the sexes (physicians say), giving man the greater power of exertion, and woman the greater power of endurance, so it can hardly be doubted that a shading of difference, without inferiority, runs through all the spiritual natures of women and of men. Of these let there be an union such as God joins and man cannot put asunder; an equal union of hearts, of homes, of lives, of rights, of powers; not tyranny on the one side, disguised as courtesy,— nor criminal self-extinction on the other side, where God demands only a noble and mutual self-consecration. «* Then reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm, Then springs the crowning race of human kind.” Googie APPENDIX. REMARKS OF REV. T. W. HIGGINSON BEFORE THB COMMITTEE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION ON THE QUAIr LFICATION OF VOTERS, JUNE 3, 1853. [The question being on the petition of Abby B. Alcott, and other women o{ Massachusetts, that they may be permitted to vote on the amendments that may be made to the Constitution.] I need hardly suggest to the Committee the disadvantage under which I appear before them, in coming to glean after three of the most eloquent voices in this community, or any other [Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker],—in doing this, more­ over, without having heard all their arguments, and in a fragment of time at the end of a two hours’ sitting. I have also the minor disadvantage of gleaning after myself, having just ventured to submit a more elaborate essay on this subject, in a different form, to the notice of the Convention. I shall therefore abstain from all debate upon the general ques­ tion, and confine myself to the specific point now before this Com­ mittee. I shall waive all inquiry as to the right of women to equality in education, in occupations, or in the ordinary use of the elective franchise. The question before this Committee is not whether women shall become legal voters — but whether they shall have power to say, once for all, whether they wish to become legal voters. Whether, in one word, they desire to accept this Constitution which the Convention is framing. It is well that the question should come up in this form, since the one efficient argument against the right of women to vote, in ordinary cases, is the plea that they do not wish to do it. “ Their whole nature revolts at it” Very well; these petitioners simply Coogle APPENDIX. 29 desire an opportunity for Massachusetts women to say whether their nature does revolt at it or no. The whole object of this Convention, as I heard stated by one of its firmest advocates, is simply this — to “make the Constitu­ tion of Massachusetts consistent with its own first principles.” This is all these petitioners demand. Give them the premises which are conceded in our existing Bill of Rights, or even its Preamble, and they ask no more. I shall draw my few weapons from this source. I know that this document is not binding upon your Convention; nothing is binding upon you but eternal and absolute justice, and my predecessor has taken care of the claims of that. But the Bill of Rights is still the organic law of this state, and I can quote no better authority for those principles which lie at the foundation of all that we call republicanism. I. My first citation will be from the Preamble, and will estab­ lish as Massachusetts doctrine the principle of the Declaration of Independence, that all government owes its just powers to the consent of the governed. “ The end of the institution, maintenance and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic. ♦ * * The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individ­ uals ; it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good. ♦ ♦ ♦ * It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them,” &c. &c. Now, women are “individuals;” women are a part of “the people; ” women are “ citizens,” for the Constitution elsewhere distinguishes male citizens. This clause, then, concedes precisely that which your petitioners claim. Observe how explicit it is. The people are not merely to have good laws, well administered; but they must have an equitable mode of making those laws. The reason of this-is, that good laws are no permanent security, unless enacted by equitable methods. Your laws may be the best ever * 3 boogie 30 APPENDIX, devised; yet still they are only given as a temporary favor, not held as a right, unless the whole people are concerned in their enactment. It is the old claim of despots—that their laws are good. When they told Alexander of Russia that his personal character was as good as a constitution for his people, “ then,” said he, “ I am but a lucky accident.” Your constitution may be never so benignant to woman, but that is only a lucky accident, unless you concede the claim of these women to have a share in creating it. Nothing else “ is an equitable mode of making laws.” But it is too late to choose female delegates to your Convention, and the only thing you can do is to allow women to vote on the acceptance of its results. The claim of these petitioners may be unexpected, but it is logically irresistible. If you do not wish it to be renewed, you must remember either to alter or abrogate your Bill of Rights; for the petition is based on that The last speaker called this movement a novelty. Not entirely so. The novelty is partly the other way. In Europe, women have direct political power; witness Victoria. It is a false democ­ racy which has taken it away. In my more detailed argument, I have cited many instances of these foreign privileges. In monar­ chical countries the dividing lines are not of sex, but of rank. A plebeian woman has no political power—nor has her husband. Rank gives it to man, and also, in a degree, to woman. But among us the only rank is of sex. Politically speaking, in Massachu­ setts, all men are patrician, all women plebeian. All men are equal, in having direct political power; and all women are equal — in having none. And women lose by democracy precisely that which men gain. Therefore I say this disfranchisement of woman, as woman, is a novelty. It is a new aristocracy; for, as De Tocqueville says, wherever one class has peculiar powers, as such, there is aristocracy and oligarchy. We see the result of this in our general mode of speaking of woman. We forget to speak of her as an individual being—only as a thing. A political writer coolly says, that in Massachusetts, “ except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise.” Women are not even a “class boogie APPENDIX. 31 of persons ”! And yet, most readers would not notice this extraor­ dinary omission. I talked the other day with a young radical preacher about his new religious organization. Who votes under it? said I. “0,” (he said, triumphantly) “we go for progress and liberty; anybody and everybody votes.” “ What! ” said I, “ women ? ” “ No,” said he, rather startled; “ I did not think of them when I spoke.” Thus quietly do we all talk of “ anybody and everybody,” and omit half the human race. Indeed, I read in the newspaper, this morning, of some great festivity, that “ all the world and his wife ” would be there! Women are not a part of the world — but only its “ wife.” They are not even “ the rest of mankind; ” they are womankind! All these things show the results of that inconsistency with the first principles of our Consti­ tution of which the friends of this Convention justly complain. II. So much for the general statement of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, in its Preamble. But one clause is even more explicit. In section 9, I find the following: “ AU the inhabitants of this Commonwealth, having such qual­ ifications as they shall establish by their form of government, have an equal right to elect officers,” &c. As “they” shall establish. Who are they? Manifestly, the inhabitants as a whole. No part can have power, except by the consent of the whole — so far as that consent is practicable. Ac­ cordingly, you submit your Constitution for ratification—to whom? Not to the inhabitants of the state,—not even to a majority of the native adult inhabitants; for it is estimated that at any given moment, — in view of the great number of men emigrating to the West, to California, or absent on long voyages, — the majority of the population of Massachusetts is female. You disfranchise the majority, then; the greater part of “ the inhabitants ” have no share in establishing the form of government, or assigning the qualifications of voters. What worse can you say of any oli­ garchy ? True, your aristocracy is a large one—almost a majority, you may say. But so, in several European nations, is nobility almost in a majority, and you almost hire a nobleman to black your shoes; they are as cheap as Generals and Colonels in New boogie 32 APPENDIX. England. But the principle is the same, whether the privileged minority consists of one or one million. Is it said that a tacit consent has been hitherto given, by the absence of open protest ? The same argument may be used con­ cerning the black majority in South Carolina. Besides, your new Constitution is not yet made, and there has been no opportunity to assent to it It will not bo identical with the old one; but, even if it were, you propose to ask a renewed consent from men, and why not from women ? Is it because a lady’s “ Yes ” is always so fixed a certainty, that it never can be transformed to a “ No,” at a later period ? But I am compelled, by the fixed period of adjournment (ten a. m.), to cut short my argument, as I have been already com­ pelled to condense it I pray your consideration for the points I have urged. Believe me, it is easier to ridicule the petition of these women than to answer the arguments which sustain it. And, as the great republic of ancient times did not blush to claim that laws and governments were first introduced by Ceres, a woman, so I trust that the representatives of this noblest of modern com­ monwealths may not be ashamed to receive legislative suggestions from even female petitioners. google WOMAN’S RIGHTS TRACTS................. NO. 5. O THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. MRS. 0. I. H. NICHOLS, AT THE WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION WORCESTER, OCTOBER 15, 1851. My friends, I have made no preparation to address you. I left home, feeling that, if I had anything to do here, I should have the grace given me to do it; or if there should be any branch of the subject not sufficiently presented, I would present it. And now, friends, in following so many speakers, who have so well occupied the ground, I will come as a gleaner, and be as a Ruth among my fellow-laborers. I commenced life with the most refined notions of woman’s sphere. My pride of womanhood lay within this nice sphere. I know not how it was, — perhaps because I am of mountain growth, — but I could, even then, see over the barriers of that sphere, and see that, however easy it might be for me to keep within it, as a daughter, a great majority of women were outside its boundaries; driven thither by their own, or invited by the necessities and interests of those they loved. I saw our farmers * wives,—women esteemed for every womanly virtue * — impelled by emergencies, helping their husbands in labors excluded from the modern woman’s sphere, I was witness, on one occasion, to a wife’s help-, 1 boogie o RESPONSIBILITIES OF WCMAN. ing her husband — who was ill and of feeble strength, and too poor to hire — to pile the logs, preparatory to clearing the ground that was to grow their daily bread; and my sympathies, which recognized in her act the self-sacrificing love of woman, forbade that I should judge her out of her sphere. For I felt in my heart that, if I were a wife and loved my husband, I, too, would help him when he needed help, even if it were to roll logs ; and what true-hearted woman would not do the same ? But, friends, it is only since I have met the varied responsibil­ ities of life, that I have comprehended woman’s sphere; and I have come to regard it as lying within the whole circumference of humanity. If, as is claimed by the mbst ultra opponents of the wife’s legal individuality, claimed as a conclusive argument in favor of her legal nonentity, the interests of the parties are iden­ tical^ then I claim, as a legitimate conclusion, that their spheres are also identical. For interests determine duties, and duties are the landmarks of spheres. Wherever a man may rightfully go, it is proper that woman should go, and share his responsibilities. Wherever my husband goes, thither would I follow him, if to the battle-field. No, I would not follow him there ; I would hold him back by his coat-skirts, and say, “ Husband, this is wrong. What will you gain by war ? It will cost as much money to fight for a bag of gold, or a lot of land, as it will to pay the difference; and if you fight, our harvests are wasted, our hearths made desolate, our homes filled with sorrow, and vice and immorality roll back upon us from the fields of human slaughter.” This is the way I would follow my husband where he cannot rightfully go. But 1 may not dwell longer on woman’s sphere. I shall say very little of woman’s rights ; but I would lay the axe at the root of the tree. I would impress upon you woman’s response bilities, and the means fitly to discharge them before Heaven. I stand before you, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter; fill­ ing every relation that it is given to woman to fill. And by the token that I have a husband, a father and brothers, whom I revere for their manliness, and love for their tenderness, I may speak to you with confidence, and say, I respect manhood. I love it when boogie 3 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. it aspires to the high destiny which God has opened to it. And it is because I have confidence in manhood, that I am here to press upon it the claims of womanhood. My first claim for woman is the means of education, that she may understand and be able to meet her responsibilities. We are told very much of “ Woman’s Mission” Well, every mission supposes a missionary. Every missionary whom God sends out, every being who is called of God to labor in the vine­ yard of humanity, recognizes his call before the world does. Not the world — not even God’s chosen people — recognized the mis­ sion of his Son, till he had proclaimed that mission, and sealed it with his dying testimony. And the world has not yet fully recog­ nized the saving power of the mission of Jesus Christ. Now, if woman has a mission, she must first feel the struggle of the mis­ sionary in her own soul, and reveal it to her brother man, before the world will comprehend her claims, and accept her mission. Let her, then, say to man, “ Here, God has committed to me the little tender infant to be developed in body and mind to the maturity of manhood, womanhood, and I am ignorant of the means for accomplishing either. Give me knowledge, instruction, that I may develop^ts powers, prevent disease, and teach it the laws of its mental and physical organism.” It is you, fathers, husbands, who are responsible for this instruction; your happiness is equally involved with ours. Yourselves must reap the harvest of our ignorance or knowledge. If we suffer, you suffer also; both must suffer or rejoice in our mutual offspring. I have introduced this subject of .woman’s responsibilities, that I might, if possible, impress upon you a conviction of the ex­ pediency and duty of yielding our right to the means that will enable us to be the helpers of men, in the true sense of helpers. A gentleman said to me, not long since, “ I like your woman’s rights, since I find it is the right of women to be good for some­ thing and help their husbands.” Now, I do not understand the term helpmeet, as applied to woman, to imply all that has come to be regarded as within its signification. I do not understand that we are at liberty to help men to the devil. (Loud cheering.) I 1 ■ ’ Uoogie 4 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. believe it is our mission to help them heavenward, to the full development and right enjoyment of their being. I would say, in reference to the rights of woman, it has coma to be forgotten that, as the mother of the race, her rights are the rights of men also, the rights of her sons. As a mother, I may speak to you, freemen, fathers, of the rights of my sons—of every mother’s sons — to the most perfect and vigorous development of their energies which the mother can secure to them by the appli­ cation and through the use of all her God-given powers of body oi of mind. It is in behalf of our sons, the future men of the re­ public, as well as for our daughters, its future mothers, that we claim the full development of our energies by education, and legal protection in the control of all the issues and profits of ourselves, called property. As a parent, I have educated myself with reference to the wants of my children, that if, by the bereavements of life, I am left their sole parent, I can train them to be good and useful citi­ zens. Such bereavement has left me the sole parent of sons by a first marriage. And how do the laws of the state protect the right of these sons to their mother’s fostering care? The laws say that, having married again, I am a legal nonentity^nb cannot “ give bonds ” for the faithful discharge of my maternal duties; therefore I shall not be their guardian. Having, in the first in­ stance, robbed me of the property qualification for giving bonds, alienating my right to the control of my own earnings, the state makes its own injustice the ground for defrauding myself and children of the mutual benefits of our God-ordained relations; and others, destitute of every qualification and motive which my mother’s love insures to them, may “give bonds” and become the legal guardians of my children ! I address myself to you, fathers, I appeal to every man who has lived a half-century, if the mother is not the most faithful guardian of her children’s interests? If you were going on a long journey, to be absent for years, in the prosecution of business, or in the army or navy would you exclude your wives from the care and guardianship of your children? Would you place them and boogie RESPONSIBILITIES OP WOMAN. 5 the means for their support in any other hands than the mother’s ? If you would, you have married beneath yourselves. (Cheers.) Then I ask you how it happens that, when you die, your estates are cut up, and your children, and the means for their support, consigned to others * guardianship, by laws which yourselves have made or sworn to defend ? Do you reply that women are not qualified by education for the business transactions involved in such guardianship? It is for this I ask that they may be educated. Yourselves must educate your wives in the conduct of your busi­ ness. My friends, love is the best teacher in the world. Fathers, husbands, you do not know how fast you can teach, nor what apt scholars you will find in your wives and daughters, if, with loving confidences, you call them to your aid, and teach them those things in which they can aid you, and acquire the knowledge, which is “power,” to benefit those they love. Would it not soothe your sick bed, would it not pluck thorns from your dying pillow, to confide in your wife that she could conduct the business on which your family relies for support, and, in case of your death, keep your children together, and educate them to go out into the world with habits of self-reliance and self-dependence ? And do you know that, in withholding from your companions the knowledge and in­ ducements which would fit them thus to share your cares, and relieve you in the emergencies of business, you deny them the richest rewards of affection ? for “ it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Do you know that they would only cling the closer to you in the stern conflicts of life, if they were thus taught that you do not under­ value their devotion and despise their ability ? Call woman to your side in the loving confidence of equal interests and equal responsibilities, and she will never fail you. But I would return to’ woman’s responsibilities, and the laws that alienate her means to discharge them. And here let me call your attention to my position, that the law which alienates the wife's right to the control of her awn property, her. own earnings, lies at the foundation of all her social and legal wrongs. I have already shown you how thq alienation of this right defrauds her of the legal guardianship of her children, in case of the father’s ' * 1 6 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. death. I need not tell you, who see it every day in the wretched family of the drunkard, that it defrauds her of the means of dis­ charging her responsibilities to her children and to society during the husband’s life, when he proves recreant to his obligations, and consumes her earnings in the indulgence of idle and sinful habits. I know it is claimed by many, as a reason why this law should not be disturbed, that it is only the wives of reckless and improvi­ dent husbands who suffer under its operation. But, friends, I stand here prepared to show that, as an unjust law of general ap­ plication, it is even more fruitful of suffering to the wives of what are called good husbands, — husbands who love and honor their wives while living, but, dying, leave them and their maternal sym­ pathies to the dissecting-knife of the law. I refer you to the legal provision for the widow. The law gives her the use only of one third of the estate which they have accumulated by their joint in­ dustry. I speak of the real estate; for, in the majority of estates, the personal property is expended in paying the debts and meet­ ing the expenses of settlement. Now, I appeal to any man here, whose estate is sufficient to support either or both in comfort, and give them Christian burial, and yet is so limited that the use of one third of it will support neither, whether his wife’s interests are equally protected with his own, by the laws which “ settle” his estate in the event of his dying first. Let me tell you a story to illustrate the “ support” which, it is claimed, compensates the wife for the alienation of her earnings to the control of the husband. In my native town lived a single sister, of middle age. She had accumulated something, for she was capable in all the handicrafts pursued by women of her class. She married a worthy man, poor in this world’s goods, and whose children were all settled in homes of their own. She applied her means, and, by the persevering use of her faculties, they secured a snug home, valued at some five hundred dollars, he doing what his feeble health permitted towards the common interest. In the course of years he died, and two thirds of that estate was divided among his grown-up children; one third remaining to her. No, she could only have the use of one third, and must keep it in good repair, — the law said so! kjoogie RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN, 7 The zzsi of less than two hundred dollars in a homestead, on con­ dition of “ keeping it in good repair” was the legal pittance of this poor woman, to whom, with the infirmities of age, had come the desolation of utter bereavement! The old lady patched and toiled, beautiful in her scrupulous cleanliness. The neighbors remembered her, and many a choice bit found its way to her table. At length she was found in her bed paralyzed ; and never, to tho day of her death, — three years, — could she lift her hand or make known the simplest want of her nature; and yet her countenance was agonized with the appeals of a clear and sound intellect. And now, friends, how did the laws support and protect this poor widow? I will tell you. They set her up al auction, and struck her off to the man who had a heart to keep her al the cheapest rale! Three years she enjoyed the pauper’s support, thenvdied; and when the decent forms of a pauper’s burial were over, that third was divided— as had been the other two thirds — among her husband’s “ well-to-do ” children. (Great sensation.) Andis it for such protection that the love of fathers, brothers, husbands, “ represents ” woman in the legislative halls of the freest people on earth ? 0, release to us our own, that we may protect our­ selves, and we will bless you ! If this old lady had died first, the laws would have protected her husband in appropriating the entire estate to his comfort or his pleasure ! I asked a man, learned and experienced in jurisprudence by a half-century’s discharge of the duties of legislator, administrator, guardian and probate judge, why the widow is denied absolute control of her third, there being no danger of creating “ separate interests ” when the husband is in his grave. He replied that it was to prevent a second husband from obtaining possession of the property of a first, to the defrauding of his children, which would be the result if the widow married again. Here, the law giving the control of the wife’s earnings to the husband is made legal reason for cutting her off at his death with a pittance, so paltry, that, if too infirm to eke out a support by labor, she becomes a pauper! For if the law did not give the wife’s earnings to the control and possession of a first husband, it would have no such excuse for boogie 8 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. excluding the second husband, or for defrauding herself, and her children by a subsequent marriage, of her earnings in the estate of the first husband. But having legalized the husband’s claim to the wife’s earnings, by a law of universal application, our leg­ islators have come to legislate for widows on the ground that they have no property rights in the estates which have swallowed zip their entire earnings ! They have come to give the preference of rights to the children of the husband; and sons, as well as daughters, are defrauded, legislated out of their interest in their mother’s property. For, thd estate not being divided when the wife dies, the earnings of a first wife are divided among the children of a second wife, to the prejudice of the children of the first wife. We ask for equal property rights, by the repeal of the laws which divert the earnings of the wife from herself and her heirs. 0 men ! in the enjoyment of well-secured property rights, you beautify your snug homesteads, and say within your hearts, “ Here I may sit under my own vine and fig-tree ; here have I made the home of my old age.” And it never occurs to you that no such blissful feeling of security finds rest in the bosom of your wives. The wife of a small householder reflects that if her husband should be taken from her by death, that home must be divided, and a corner in the kitchen, a corner in the garret, and a “priv­ ilege” in the cellar, be set off to her use, and she called, in legal phrase, an “ incumbrance! ” (Great sensation.) Or if she chooses the alternative of renting her fractional accommodations, and removing to other quarters, her sweet home-associations — all that is left of her wedded love — are riven. The fireside that had been hallowed by family endearments, the chair vacant to other eyes, but to hers occupied by the loved husband still, all are dese­ crated by the law that drives her from the home which she had toiled and sacrificed to win for herself and loved ones, and she goes out to die under a vine and fig-tree strange to her affections ; and, it may be, as in the case before mentioned, to find them wither away like Jonah’s gourd, in absolute pauperism ! But I will tell you a story illustrating how women view these Google RESPONSIBILITIES OP WOMAN. f 9 things. It is not long since a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had often been heard to give his wife credit for having contributed equally to his success in laying up a property, was admonished by disease of the propriety of making a “ will.” He called his wife to him, and addressed her thus : “ My dear, I have been thinking that the care of a third of my estate will be a burden to you, and that it will be better for you to have an annuity equal to your personal wants, and divide the rest among the children. The boys will supply you, if you should, from any unforeseen circumstance, need more. You can trust our boys to do what is right.” “O yes, my dear,” replied the wife, “ we have excellent boys. You intrust to them’ the care of your business; and I could let them act as my agents in the care of my thirds. And I think, hus­ band, that will be better. For there is this to be considered: We have other children, and differences obtain in their circum­ stances. You have seen these things, and, when one and another needed, you have opened your purse and given them help. When you are gone, there may still occur these opportunities for aiding them, and I should be glad to have it in my power to do as you have done. Besides, I have sometimes thought you had not done so well by the girls ; and it would be very grateful to my feelings to make up the difference from my share of what our mutual efforts have accumulated.” Now, brothers, I appeal to you, whether you do not as much enjoy conferring benefits as receiving them ? You have a wife whom you love. You present her with a dress, perhaps. And how rich you feel, that your love can give gifts! Women like to receive presents of dresses; I enjoy to have my husband give me dresses. (Laughter.) And women like to give presents to their husbands — a pair of slippers, or something of that sort. But they have no money of their own, and their thought is, u If I give my husband this, he will say to himself, It’s of no account; it all comes out of my pocket in the end! ” That is the feeling which rankles in the hearts of wives, whose provident husbands do not dream that they are not better content with gifts than their rights. We like, all of us, to giVe good gifts to those we love; but we do boogie 10 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. not want our husbands to give us something to give back to them. We wish to feel, and have them feel, that our own good right hands have won for them the gift prompted by our affection; and that we are conferring, from our own resources, the same pleasure and happiness which they confer on us by benefits given. (Great cheering.) But I had not exhausted the wrongs growing out of this alien­ ation of the wife’s right to her earnings. There is a law in Ver­ mont — and I think it obtains in its leading features in most, if not all, the states of the Union — giving to the widow, whose hus­ band dies childless (she may or may not be the mother of children by a former marriage), a certain portion of the estate, and the remaining portion to his heirs. Till the autumn of 1850, a Ver­ mont widow, in such cases, had only one half the estate, however small; the other half was set off to her husband’s heirs, if he had any; but, if he had none, the state put it in its own treasury, leav­ ing the widow to a pauper’s fate, unless her own energies could eko out a living by economy and hard toil! A worthy woman in the circle of my acquaintance, whose property at marriage paid for a homestead worth five hundred dollars, saw this law divide a half of it to the brothers and sisters of her husband at his death, and herself is left, in her old age, to subsist on the remaining half ’ In 1850, this law was so amended that the widow can have the whole property, if it be not more than one thousand dollars, and the half of any sum over that amount; the other hal£ going to the husband’s family; or, if he happen not to leave any fiftieth cousin Tom, Dick or Harry, in the Old World or the New, she may have it all! Our legislators tell us it is right to give the legal control of our earnings to the husband, because “ in law ” he is held responsible for our support, and is obliged to pay our debts (?), and must have our earnings to do it with! Ah, I answer, but why don’t the state give us some security, then, for support during our life; or if it looses the husband from all obli­ gation to see that we are supported after he is in his grave, why, like a just and shrewd business agent, does it not release to us the Google RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. 11 “consideration” of thajj, support- our earnings in tho property which he leaves at his death ? The law taking from the wife the control of her earnings is a fruitful source of divorces. To regain control of her earnings for the support of her children, many a woman feds compelled to sue for a dworce. I am here in the hope that I can say something for the benefit of those who must suffer, because they cannot speak and show that they have wrongs to be redressed. It would ill become us, who are protected by love, or shielded by circumstances, to hold our peace while our sisters and their dependent children are muti­ lated in their hopes and their entire powers of existence, by wrongs against which we can protest till the legislators of the land shall hear and heed. s I was speaking of woman’s self-created resources as necessary means for the discharge of her duties. Created free agents that we might render to God an acceptable and voluntary service, our Maker holds each human being accountable for the discharge of individual, personal responsibilities. Man, under his present dis­ abilities, cannot come up to the full measure of his own responsi­ bilities ; much less can he discharge his own and woman’s too. Hence, in taking from woman any of the means which God has given her ability to acquire, he takes from her the means which God has given her for the discharge of her own duties, and thereby adds to the burthen of his own undischarged responsibilities. In taking from us our means of self-development, men expect us to discharge our duties, even as the Jews were expected to make brick without straw. If we are not fitted to be capable wives and mothers,— as contended by a gentleman on the stand yesterday,—» if we make poor brick, it is because our brother man has stolen our straw. Give us back our straw, brothers, — there is plenty of it, — and we will make you good brick. Brick we must make — men say so; then give us our straw,—we cannot take it. We are suffering; the race is suffering from the ill-performance of our duties. We claim that man has proved himself incompetent to be the judge of our needs. His laws concerning our interests show that his intel­ Google 12 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. ligence fails to prescribe means and conditions for the discharge of our duties. We are the best judges of the duties, as well as the qualifications, appropriate to our own department of labor; and should hold in our own hands, in our own right, means for acquiring the one and comprehending the other. I have spoken of woman’s legal disabilities as wife and mother; and adverted to the law which diverts from the wife the control of her own earnings, as a fruitful source of divorces. Increasing facilities for divorce are regarded by a majority of Christian men as significant of increasing immorality, and tending to weaken the sanctity of the marriage relation. But an examination of legis­ lative proceedings will show that sympathy for suffering woman is the real source of these increasing facilities; and I am frank to say, that I consider man’s growing consciousness of the wrongs to which wives and their helpless children are subject, by the laws which put it in the power of the husband and father to wrest from them the very necessaries of life, consuming their sole means of support,—the earnings of the mother,—as heralding a good time coming, when every woman, as well as every man, “ may sit under her own vine.” Let me illustrate by relating one, among many incidents of the kind, which have fallen under my observation. In travelling, some eighteen years ago, across the Green Moun­ tains from Albany, a gentleman requested my interest in behalf of a young woman, whose history he gave me before placing her under my care, as a fellow-passenger. Said he, She was born here; is an orphan and the mother of two young children, with no means of support but her earnings. She was a capable girl, and has been an irreproachable wife. From a love of the social glass, her husband in a few years became a drunkard and a brute; neglected his business, and expended their entire living. She struggled bravely, but in vain. At length’, just before the birth of her youngest child, he pawned the clothing which she had provided for herself and babes, sold her only bed, and drove her into the streets to seek from charity aid in her hour of trial. After her recovery, she went to service, keeping her children with her. But he pursued her from place to place annoying her Google RESPONSIBILITIES QJ WOMAN. 13 employers, collecting her wages by process of law, and taking possession of every garment not on her own or children’s persons. Under these circumstances, and by the help of friends who pitied . her sorrows, she, with her hatless and shoeless children, was flying from their “legal protector” half clothed, to New Hampshire, where friends were waiting to give her employment in a factory, till a year’s residence should enable her to procure a divorce! Now, friends, if under New York laws this poor woman had enjoyed legal control of her own earnings, she might have re­ tained her first home, supported her children, and, happy as a mother, endured hopefully the burden of unrequited affection, instead of flying to New Hampshire to regain possession of her alienated property rights, by the aid of “ divorce facilities.” But, alas! not yet have I exhausted that fountain of wrongs growing out of the alienation of the wife’s property rights. It gives to children criminals for guardians, at the same time that it severs what God hath joined together — the mother and her child! By the laws of all these United States, the father is in all cases the legal guardian of the child, in preference to the mother; hence, in cases of divorce for the criminal conduct of the father, the children are confided, by the natural operation of the laws, to the guardianship of the criminal party. I have a friend who, not long since, procured a divorce from her husband, — a libertine and a drunkard, — and by the power of law he wrested from her their only child, a son of tender age. Think of this, fathers, mothers! It is a sad thing to sever the marriage relation when it has become a curse — a demoralizing (?) thing; but what is it to sever the relation between mother and child, when that relation is a blessing to both, and to society? What is it to commit the tender boy to the training of a drunken and licentious father? The state appoints guardians for children physically orphaned; and much more should it appoint guardians for children morally orphaned. When it uses its power to im­ prison and hang the it is surely responsible for the moral training of the boy ! But to return. I have asked learned judges why the state decrees that the father should retain the children, 2 C.oogle 14 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. thus throwing upon the innocent mother the penalty which should fall upon the guilty party only ? Say they, “ It is because the father has the property ; it would not be just (?) to burden the mother with the support of his children.” 0 justice, how art thou perverted I Here, again, is the unrighteous alienation of the wife’s earnings made the reason for robbing the suffering mother of all that is left to her of a miserable marriage — her children ! I appeal to Christian men and women, who would preserve the marriage relation inviolate, by discouraging increased divorce facilities, if prevention of the necessity be not the better and more hopeful course, — prevention by releasing to the wife means for the independent discharge of her duties as a mother. And I appeal to all present, whether, sacred as they hold the marriage relation, Christian men have not proved to the world that there is a something regarded by them as even more sacred — the loaf! The most scrupulous piety cites Bible authority for severing the marriage tie; but when has piety or benevolence put forth its hand to divide to helpless and dependent woman an equal share of the estate which she has toiled for, suffered for, in behalf of her babes, as she would never have done for herself—only to be robbed of both ? If the ground of the divorce be the husbands infidelity, the law allows him to retain the children and whole estate; it being left with the court to divide to the wife (in answer to her prayer to that effect) a pittance called alimony, to keep starvation at bay. If the babe at her breast is decreed to her from its helplessness, it is, at her request, formally laid before the court; and the court has no power even to decree a corre­ sponding pittance for its support. The law leaves her one hope of bread for her old age which should not be forgotten — if he dies first, she is entitled to dower! But let the wife’s infidelity be the ground of divorce, and the laws send her out into the world, childless, without alimony, and cut off from her right of dower; and property which came by her remains his forever ! What a contrast! He, the brutal husband, sits in the criminal’s bench to draw a premium, be rid of an incumbrance; for what cares he for the severing of a tie that had ceased to bind him to his wife, that boogie RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. 15 perhaps divided between him and a more coveted companion! If we are the weaker sex, 0, give us, we pray you, equal protec­ tion with the stronger sex! ' Now, my friends, you will bear me witness that I have said nothing about woman’s right to vpte or make laws. I have great respect for manhood. I wish to be able to continue to respect it. And when I listen to Fourth-of-July orations and the loud cannon, and reflect that these are tributes of admiration paid to our fath­ ers because they compelled, freedom for themselves and sons from the hand of oppression and power, I look forward with greater admiration on their sons who, in the good time coming, will have won for themselves the unappropriated glory of having given jus­ tice to the physically weak; to those who could not, if they would, and would not, if they could, compel it from the hands of fathers, brothers, husbands and sons! 1 labor in hope ? for 1 have faith that when men come to value their own rights, as means of human happiness, rather than of paltry gain, they will feel themselves more honored in releasing than in retaining the “ inalienable rights ” of woman. Brothers, you ask us to accept the protection of your love, and the law says that is sufficient for us, whether it feeds or robs us of our bread. You admit that woman exceeds man in self-sacri­ ficing love; her devotion to you has passed into a proverb. Yet, for all this, you refuse to intrust your interests to her lore. You do not feel safe in your interests without the protection of equal laws. You refuse to trust even the mother’s love with the inter­ ests of her children! How, then, do you ask of us—you, who will not trust your interests to the love of a mother, wife, daugh­ ter, or sister — why do you ask of us to dispense with the protec­ tion of equal laws, and accept instead the protection of man’s affection ? I would offer, in conclusion a few thoughts on education. I would say to my sisters, lest they be discouraged under existing disabilities from attempting it, — we can educate ourselves. It may be that you hesitate, from a supposed inferiority of intellect. Now, I have never troubled myself to establish woman’s intellect­ Google 16 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. ual equility. The inequality of educational facilities forbids us to sustain such a position by facts. But I have long since dis­ posed of this question to my own satisfaction, and perhaps my conclusion will inspire you with confidence to attempt equal — I would hope superior— attainments, for man falls short of the intelligence within reach of his powers. We all believe that the Creator is both omniscient and omnipotent, wise and able to adapt means to the ends he had in view. We hold ourselves created to sustain certain relations as intelligent beings, and that God has endowed us with capabilities equal to the discharge of the duties involved in these relations. Now, let us survey woman’s respons­ ibilities within the narrowest sphere to which any common-sense man would limit her offices. As a mother, her powers mould and develop humanity, intellectual, moral and physical. Next to God, woman is the creator of the race as it is and as it shall be. I ask, then, Has God created woman man’s inferior? If so, he has been false to his wisdom, false to his power, in creating an inferior being for a superior work ’ But if it be true, as all admit, that woman’s responsibilities are equal to man’s, I claim that God has endowed her with equal powers for their discharge. And how shall we develop these powers? My sisters, for your encouragement, I will refer to my own experience in this matter. I claim to be self-educated. Beyond a single year’s instruction in a high school for young men and women, I have enjoyed no public educational facilities but the common school which our Green Mountain state opens to all her sons and daughters. Prevented by circumstances from availing myself of the discipline of a clas­ sical school of the highest order, and nerved by faith in my abil­ ity to achieve equal attainments with my brother man, I resorted to books and the study of human nature, with direct reference to the practical application of my influence and my acquirements to my woman’s work, — the development of the immortal spirit for the accomplishment of human destiny. And my own experience is, that the world in which we live and act, and by which we are impressed, is the best school for woman as well as man. Practi­ cal life furnishes the best discipline for our powers. It qualifies Google RESPONSIBILITIES OE WOMAN. 17 us to take life as we find it, and leave it better than we found it I have been accustomed to look within my own heart to learn the springs of human action. By it I have read woman, read man; and the result has been a fixed resolution, an indomitab e courage to do with my might what my hands find to do for God and humanity. And in doing, I have best learned my abil­ ity to accomplish, my capacity to enjoy. In the light of expe­ rience, I would say to you, my sisters, the first thing is to apply ourselves to the intelligent discharge of present duties, diligently searching out and applying all knowledge that will qualify us for higher and extended usefulness. Be always learners, and don’t forget to teach. As individuals, as mothers, we must first achieve a knowledge of the laws of our physical and mental organisms; for these are the material which we work upon and the instru­ ments by which we work; and, to do our work well, wo must understand and be able to apply both. Then we need to under­ stand the tenure of our domestic and social relations, — the laws by which we are linked to our kind. But I cannot leave this subject without briefly calling your attention to another phase of education. Early in life, my attention was called to examine the value of beauty and accomplishments as permanent grounds of affection. I could not believe that God had created so many homely women, and suffered all to lose their beauty in the very maturity of their powers, and yet made it our duty to spend our best efforts in try­ ing to look pretty. We all desire to be loved ;ymd can it be that we have no more lasting claims to admiration than that beauty and those accomplishments which serve us only in the spring-time of life ? Surely our days of dancing and musical performance are soon over, when musical instruments of sweeter tone cry “ Mother.” (Loud cheers.) What, then, shall we do for admiration when stricken in years ? Has not God endowed us with some lasting hold upon the affections? My sisters, I can only find lasting charms in that thorough culture of the mind and heart which will enable us to win upon man’s higher and better nature. If you have beauty and accomplishments, these address themselves to * 2 Google 18 RESPONSIBILITIES OF WOMAN. man’s lower nature—his passions; and when age has robbed you of the one, and him of the other, you are left unloved and unlovely ! Cultivate, then, your powers of mind and heart, that you may become necessary to his better and undying sympathies. Aid him in all the earnest work of life; and secure his aid in your self-devqjppment for noble purposes, by impressing upon him that you are in earnest. Sell your jewelry, if need be, abate your expenditures for show; and appropriate your means, and time spent in idle visiting, to the culture of your souls. Then will his sold respond to your worth, and the ties that bind you endure through time, and make you companions in eternity ’ Let the daughters bo trained for their responsibilities; and though you may say, “ We do not know whom they will marry, whether a lawyer, a doctor, or farmer,” if you educate them for ■ practical life, by giving them general useful knowledge, their husbands can teach them the details of their mutual business in­ terests, as easily as the new responsibilities of maternity will teach them the ways and means of being qualified to discharge its duties. Educate your daughters for practical life, and you have endowed them better than if you had given them fortunes. When a young girl of fourteen, I said to my father, Give me education, instead of a “ setting out in the world,” if you can give me but one. If I marry, and am poor in this world’s goods, I can educate my children myself. If my husband should be unfortunate, the sheriff can take his goods; but no creditor can attach the capital invested here. [Touching her forehead.] (Loud cheers.) And, friends, my education has not been only breads but an inexhaustible fund of enjoyment, in all the past of my life. google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google Digitized by Google ' Google K i* .-"Jtj. GOOgle ( 1 2 ■HMM 3 2044 038 508 750 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Call Number WOMAN’S rights tracts AUTHOR TITLE L 97-5 Woman ’ s