American Contexts
“I WILL BE HEARD”: THE RHETORIC
ANTEBELLUM REFORM
OF
In a letter in 1840, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his friend the
English author Thomas Carlyle that “We are a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform.” As Emerson indicated, reform movements swept the nation in the decades before the Civil War. Responding to
the swiftly changing social, political, and economic conditions, reformers
sought and called for change by exploiting every rhetorical form available
to them, from speeches to newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books.
One of the major concerns was the exploitation of laborers, both in the
institution of slavery in the South and the factory system in the North. The
emergence of radical abolitionism was fueled by evangelical intensity, as
both black and white Americans took up the cause. David Walker’s An
Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) was one of the most militant attacks on the “inhuman system of slavery” by an African American
man in the United States. “I WILL BE HEARD,” thundered William Lloyd Garrison in his fiery editorial of the first issue of his weekly antislavery newspaper, the Liberator, founded in 1831. Abolitionism ultimately became the
dominant cause of the antebellum period, but some reformers believed
that concern for the plight of slaves in the South blinded people to the condition of laborers in the North. One of the first voices raised on their
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links on the authors in this
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behalf was that of the transcendentalist and reformer Orestes A. Brownson. Like the writings of Walker and Garrison, though for different reasons, Brownson’s controversial article The Laboring Classes (1840) was
viewed by many as a serious threat to the social order. The abolitionists
were accused of fomenting slave insurrections and sectional divisions
that threatened the Union. Brownson was charged with fomenting class
divisions that would lead to war between the rich and the poor. Certainly,
he offered one of the most radical and sweeping critiques of the “Christian
community” in New England, which tolerated a system of labor in the mills
and factories that Brownson viewed as even more oppressive than chattel
slavery in the South.
Women, who played an important role in the antislavery crusade, also
began to press for what was called “woman’s rights.” But women were by
no means united in their approaches to social reform. In a popular and
influential book of the period, A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841),
Catherine Beecher argued that the division of the sexes into separate
spheres of influence was crucial to both the elevation of women and the
perfection of the American social experiment, which she viewed as nothing less than the ultimate stage in “the regeneration of the Earth.” Others
insisted that separate spheres were inherently unequal, since such a division of labor effectively denied women the right to earn a living, as well as
their rights as citizens. That position was developed fully in the “Declaration of Sentiments,” drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the first
“Woman’s Rights Convention,” as it was called, at Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848. Partly in response to what she described as the “grand jubilee of
ridicule” generated by the Seneca Falls Convention and other women’s
rights conventions that followed, Elizabeth Oakes Smith wrote Woman
and Her Needs (1851). Smith, too, strongly challenged the ideology of
domesticity, affirming that women had “a right to be heard and felt in
human affairs.” Among the women who claimed that right, one of the most
remarkable was an illiterate former slave and itinerant preacher named
Sojourner Truth, who delivered a memorable speech at a woman’s rights
convention in Ohio in the early summer of 1851. In her vigorous defense of
the feminists from theological attacks by a group of ministers, Truth
demonstrated the power of her own preaching, even as the report of her
speech in an antislavery newspaper illustrated the crucial role of the press
in disseminating the words of such eloquent reformers.
David Walker
[1785–1830]
David Walker was born in North Carolina, the son of an enslaved father
and a free mother. Sometime in the 1820s, he settled in Boston, where
Walker opened a shop near the wharves and became increasingly involved
in the early abolitionist movement. In addition to delivering antislavery
lectures, Walker began writing articles for Freedom’s Journal, the first
African American newspaper published in the United States. Seeking to
reach a larger audience, he also wrote An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of
the World, which Walker printed at his own expense in 1829. With the help
of black sailors frequenting his shop who smuggled the book into Southern ports, the Appeal was widely distributed, and it forever changed the
antislavery movement by introducing a new urgency and militancy. The
text of the following selection, the opening paragraphs of the preamble,
is taken from David Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the World, but in Particular and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America (rev. ed., 1830).
From AN APPEAL TO THE COLORED
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD
My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.
Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the
course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist — the
result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we,
(coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set
of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may
live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots
in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves,1 which last were made up from almost every nation
under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a
cypher — or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more
among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers, ourselves
and our children, by Christian Americans!
These positions I shall endeavour, by the help of the Lord, to demonstrate in the
course of this Appeal, to the satisfaction of the most incredulous mind — and may God
1. Israelites . . . Slaves: Walker refers to ancient examples of slavery, including the serfs in Sparta who were
technically free but had no legal or civil rights.
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Almighty, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, open your hearts to understand
and believe the truth.
The causes, my brethren, which produce our wretchedness and miseries, are so very
numerous and aggravating, that I believe the pen only of a Josephus or a Plutarch,2 can
well enumerate and explain them. Upon subjects, then, of such incomprehensible magnitude, so impenetrable, and so notorious, I shall be obliged to omit a large class of, and
content myself with giving you an exposition of a few of those, which do indeed rage to
such an alarming pitch, that they cannot but be a perpetual source of terror and dismay
to every reflecting mind.
I am fully aware, in making this appeal to my much afflicted and suffering brethren,
that I shall not only be assailed by those whose greatest earthly desires are, to keep us in
abject ignorance and wretchedness, and who are of the firm conviction that Heaven has
designed us and our children to be slaves and beasts of burden to them and their children. I say, I do not only expect to be held up to the public as an ignorant, impudent and
restless disturber of the public peace, by such avaricious creatures, as well as a mover of
insubordination — and perhaps put in prison or to death, for giving a superficial exposition of our miseries, and exposing tyrants. But I am persuaded, that many of my
brethren, particularly those who are ignorantly in league with slaveholders or tyrants,
who acquire their daily bread by the blood and sweat of their more ignorant brethren —
and not a few of those too, who are too ignorant to see an inch beyond their noses, will
rise up and call me cursed — Yea, the jealous ones among us will perhaps use more
abject subtlety, by affirming that this work is not worth perusing, that we are well situated, and there is no use in trying to better our condition, for we cannot. I will ask one
question here. — Can our condition be any worse? — Can it be more mean and abject? If
there are any changes, will they not be for the better though they may appear for the
worst at first? Can they get us any lower? Where can they get us? They are afraid to treat
us worse, for they know well, the day they do it they are gone. But against all accusations
which may or can be preferred against me, I appeal to Heaven for my motive in writing —
who knows what my object is, if possible, to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted,
degraded and slumbering brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation respecting our
miseries and wretchedness in this Republican Land of Liberty!!!!!!
The sources from which our miseries are derived, and on which I shall comment, I
shall not combine in one, but shall put them under distinct heads and expose them in
their turn; in doing which, keeping truth on my side, and not departing from the
strictest rules of morality, I shall endeavour to penetrate, search out, and lay them open
for your inspection. If you cannot or will not profit by them, I shall have done my duty to
you, my country and my God.
And as the inhuman system of slavery, is the source from which most of our miseries
proceed, I shall begin with that curse to nations, which has spread terror and devastation through so many nations of antiquity, and which is raging to such a pitch at the
2. Josephus . . . Plutarch: Flavius Josephus (c. 37?–100?), a Jewish priest, soldier, and historian who lived
during the Roman occupation of ancient Judea (present-day Israel); Plutarch (46?–120?), Greek biographer
famed for his Parallel Lives of Illustrious Greeks and Romans.
W ILLIAM L LOYD G ARRISON
present day in Spain and in Portugal. It had one tug in England, in France, and in the
United States of America; yet the inhabitants thereof, do not learn wisdom, and erase it
entirely from their dwellings and from all with whom they have to do. The fact is, the
labour of slaves comes so cheap to the avaricious usurpers, and is (as they think) of such
great utility to the country where it exists, that those who are actuated by sordid avarice
only, overlook the evils, which will as sure as the Lord lives, follow after the good. In fact,
they are so happy to keep in ignorance and degradation, and to receive the homage and
the labour of the slaves, they forget that God rules in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, having his ears continually open to the cries, tears and
groans of his oppressed people; and being a just and holy Being will at one day appear
fully in behalf of the oppressed, and arrest the progress of the avaricious oppressors; for
although the destruction of the oppressors God may not effect by the oppressed, yet the
Lord our God will bring other destructions upon them — for not unfrequently will he
cause them to rise up one against another, to be split and divided, and to oppress each
other, and sometimes to open hostilities with sword in hand. Some may ask, what is the
matter with this united and happy people? — Some say it is the cause of political
usurpers, tyrants, oppressors, But has not the Lord an oppressed and suffering people
among them? Does the Lord condescend to hear their cries and see their tears in consequence of oppression? Will he let the oppressors rest comfortably and happy always?
Will he not cause the very children of the oppressors to rise up against them, and
oftimes put them to death? “God works in many ways his wonders to perform.”
[1829, 1830]
William Lloyd Garrison
[1805–1879]
William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, into a
poor, working-class family. At the age of thirteen, he was apprenticed to
the editor of a local newspaper and became increasingly absorbed in politics. His career as an abolitionist began in 1828, when he met Benjamin
Lundy (1789–1839), the editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation.
Lundy, a Quaker and an early pioneer in the abolition movement, established his antislavery newspaper in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, but later moved it
to Baltimore, Maryland, and then to Washington, D.C. In 1829, Garrison
became Lundy’s associate editor and delivered his first antislavery speech,
in a Boston church. Thereafter, he lectured constantly and wrote increasingly militant antislavery articles for newspapers. With the financial
support of reform-minded individuals as well as many free blacks in the
North, Garrison established his own antislavery newspaper, the Liberator,
which he edited from 1831 to 1865. “To the Public,” in which Garrison outlines his antislavery position and the purpose of his newspaper, appeared
in the first issue of the Liberator, on January 1, 1831.
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The Masthead of the Liberator
Many abolitionists recalled that, as children, they were first introduced to antislavery ideas by such pictorial headings. This one, from 1838, underscores the
sharp division between Southern slavery and Northern freedom: on the left, an
auction with the announcement SLAVES HORSES AND OTHER CATTLE TO BE SOLD; on the
right, the banner EMANCIPATION and a scene of free labor under the rising sun of
liberty.
TO THE PUBLIC
In the month of August, I issued proposals for publishing “THE LIBERATOR” in Washington city; but the enterprise, though hailed in different sections of the country, was
palsied by public indifference. Since that time, the removal of the Genius of Universal
Emancipation to the Seat of Government has rendered less imperious the establishment of a similar periodical in that quarter.
During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a series
of discourses on the subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of
the fact, that a greater revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free
states — and particularly in New-England — than at the south. I found contempt more
bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and
apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to the contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten me. I
determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the
nation, within sight of Bunker Hill and in the birth place of liberty. That standard is now
unfurled; and long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles of a
desperate foe — yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let southern oppressors tremble — let their secret abettors tremble — let their northern apologists tremble — let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.
I deem the publication of my original Prospectus unnecessary, as it has obtained a
wide circulation. The principles therein inculcated will be steadily pursued in this
paper, excepting that I shall not array myself as the political partisan of any man. In
defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance of all religions and of all parties.
Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of
G ARRISON : T O THE P UBLIC 623
Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I
shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population.
In Parkstreet Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this
opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon
of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was
published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September, 1829.
My conscience is now satisfied.
I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for
severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I
do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house
is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand
of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it
has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in
earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch —
AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its
pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.
It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of
my invective, and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question my influence, — humble as it is, — is felt at this moment to a considerable extent,
and shall be felt in coming years — not perniciously, but beneficially — not as a curse,
but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank
God, that he enables me to disregard “the fear of man which bringeth a snare,” and to
speak his truth in its simplicity and power. And here I close with this fresh dedication:
Oppression! I have seen thee, face to face,
And met thy cruel eye and cloudy brow;
But thy soul-withering glance I fear not now —
For dread to prouder feelings doth give place
Of deep abhorrence! Scorning the disgrace
Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow,
I also kneel — but with far other vow
Do hail thee and thy hord of hirelings base: —
I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,
Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand,
Thy brutalising sway — till Afric’s chains
Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land, —
Trampling Oppression and his iron rod:
Such is the vow I take — SO HELP ME GOD!1
[1831]
1. Oppression! . . . SO HELP ME GOD!: A sonnet by the Scottish poet William Pringle (1789–1834), who had been
secretary of Britain’s Society for the Abolition of Slavery.
Orestes A. Brownson
[1803–1876]
Born in Stockbridge, Vermont, Orestes Augustus Brownson was raised as
a Congregationalist and remained deeply religious. Turning first to Presbyterianism, he later became a Unitarian minister and an important figure in the early period of the transcendentalist movement. Increasingly
uncomfortable with many Protestant beliefs, Brownson converted to
Roman Catholicism in 1844, after which he rejected many of his earlier
associations and beliefs. During the previous decade, however, he was one
of the most radical religious and social critics among the transcendentalists. From 1838 to 1842, Brownson edited the Boston Quarterly Review. Of
all of the extended essays and reviews he wrote for the journal, none was
as controversial as “The Laboring Classes,” which created a furor when it
was published in 1840. Indeed, Brownson offered an early analysis of capitalism and the class system that anticipated the work of the German
socialist, Karl Marx (1818–1883). The text of the following selection is
taken from The Laboring Classes, An Article from the Boston Quarterly
Review, which was published as a pamphlet in 1840.
New England Textile Mill
The first factory workforce in the United States was primarily made up of New
England farm daughters, who were recruited to work in textile mills like those in
Lowell, Massachusetts. The young women in this factory, with their male supervisor sitting on the right, paused from their work — roughly twelve hours a day, six
days a week — to pose for this daguerreotype, made around 1850.
(Courtesy George Eastman House.)
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B ROWNSON : T HE L ABORING C LASSES 625
From THE LABORING CLASSES
In regard to labor two systems obtain; one that of slave labor, the other that of free labor.
Of the two, the first is, in our judgement, except so far as the feelings are concerned, decidedly the least oppressive. If the slave has never been a free man, we think, as a general rule, his sufferings are less than those of the free laborer at wages. As to actual
freedom one has just about as much as the other. The laborer at wages has all the disadvantages of freedom and none of its blessings, while the slave, if denied the blessings, is
freed from the disadvantages. We are no advocates of slavery, we are as heartily opposed
to it as any modern abolitionist can be; but we say frankly that, if there must always be a
laboring population distinct from proprietors and employers, we regard the slave system as decidedly preferable to the system at wages. It is no pleasant thing to go days
without food, to lie idle for weeks, seeking work and finding none, to rise in the morning
with a wife and children you love, and know not where to procure them a breakfast, and
to see constantly before you no brighter prospect than the almshouse. Yet these are no
unfrequent incidents in the lives of our laboring population. Even in seasons of general
prosperity, when there was only the ordinary cry of “hard times,” we have seen hundreds
of people in a not very populous village, in a wealthy portion of our common country,
suffering for the want of the necessaries of life, willing to work, and yet finding no work
to do. Many and many is the application of a poor man for work, merely for his food, we
have seen rejected. These things are little thought of, for the applicants are poor; they
fill no conspicuous place in society, and they have no biographers. But their wrongs are
chronicled in heaven. It is said there is no want in this country. There may be less than
in some other countries. But death by actual starvation in this country is we apprehend
no uncommon occurrence. The sufferings of a quiet, unassuming but useful class of
females in our cities, in general sempstresses, too proud to beg or to apply to the almshouse, are not easily told. They are industrious; they do all that they can find to do; but
yet the little there is for them to do, and the miserable pittance they receive for it, is
hardly sufficient to keep soul and body together. And yet there is a man who employs
them to make shirts, trousers, &c., and grows rich on their labors. He is one of our respectable citizens, perhaps is praised in the newspapers for his liberal donations to
some charitable institution. He passes among us as a pattern of morality, and is honored as a worthy Christian. And why should he not be, since our Christian community
is made up of such as he, and since our clergy would not dare question his piety, lest
they should incur the reproach of infidelity, and lose their standing, and their salaries?
Nay, since our clergy are raised up, educated, fashioned, and sustained by such as
he? Not a few of our churches rest on Mammon for their foundation. The basement is a
trader’s shop.
We pass through our manufacturing villages; most of them appear neat and flourishing. The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said to be
healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture; the side exhibited to distinguished visitors. There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the
common operatives, few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence. A few of what
626 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
Carlyle1 terms not inaptly the body-servants are well paid, and now and then an agent or
an overseer rides in his coach. But the great mass wear out their health, spirits, and
morals, without becoming one whit better off than when they commenced labor. The
bills of mortality in these factory villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls
when they can toil no longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of
the girls that come to Lowell,2 for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont,
we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes of them then? Few of
them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native places with reputations unimpaired. “She has worked in a Factory,” is almost enough to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl. We know no sadder sight on earth than one of our factory villages
presents, when the bell at break of day, or at the hour of breakfast, or dinner, calls out its
hundreds or thousands of operatives. We stand and look at these hard working men and
women hurrying in all directions, and ask ourselves, where go the proceeds of their
labors? The man who employs them, and for whom they are toiling as so many slaves, is
one of our city nabobs, revelling in luxury; or he is a member of our legislature, enacting
laws to put money in his own pocket; or he is a member of Congress, contending for a
high Tariff to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich; or in these times he is shedding
crocodile tears over the deplorable condition of the poor laborer, while he docks his
wages twenty-five per cent.; building miniature log cabins, shouting Harrison and
“hard cider.”3 And this man too would fain pass for a Christian and a republican. He
shouts for liberty, stickles for equality, and is horrified at a Southern planter who keeps
slaves.
One thing is certain; that of the amount actually produced by the operative, he
retains a less proportion than it costs the master to feed, clothe, and lodge his slave.
Wages is a cunning device of the devil, for the benefit of tender consciences, who would
retain all the advantages of the slave system, without the expense, trouble, and odium of
being slave-holders.
[1840]
1. Carlyle: Brownson’s article was a review of Chartism (1839), by the British historian and social critic
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881). Carlyle argued that the working class was worse off in England than elsewhere
in Europe because of the rise of the manufacturing system that exploited and oppressed laborers.
2. Lowell: The Boott Cotton Mills began to operate in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1830s. Factory “girls”
who worked in the mills lived in adjacent housing.
3. Harrison and “hard cider”: In the presidential campaign of 1840, William Henry Harrison’s campaign
staff offered free cider (the most popular alcoholic beverage in nineteenth-century America) to supporters of
the Whig ticket of Harrison and John Tyler.
Catherine E. Beecher
[1800–1878]
Catherine E. Beecher was born in East Hampton, New York. Other prominent members of her family included her father, Lyman Beecher, a noted
Calvinist minister; her brother Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most
famous preachers of the nineteenth century; and her sister Harriet
Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A pioneer in education
for women, Catherine Beecher established the Hartford Female Seminary
in 1823. She was also a prolific writer, publishing dozens of articles and
books. Her most famous and influential work was A Treatise on Domestic
Economy, first published in 1841 and reprinted nearly every year until
1856. Believing that domestic life was central to the moral and spiritual
good of the nation, Beecher argued that the role of the American woman
was to maintain an orderly home, a refuge from the chaotic public sphere.
The text of the following selection is taken from the introductory chapter
of the first edition of A Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the Use of Young
Ladies at Home, and at School (1841).
From A TREATISE ON DOMESTIC ECONOMY
It thus appears, that the sublime and elevating anticipations which have filled the mind
and heart of the religious world, have become so far developed, that philosophers and
statesmen perceive the signs of its approach and are predicting the same grand consummation. There is a day advancing, “by seers predicted, and by poets sung,” when the
curse of selfishness shall be removed; when “scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,”1
shall be realized; when all nations shall rejoice and be made blessed, under those benevolent influences which the Messiah came to establish on earth.
And this is the nation, which the Disposer of events designs shall go forth as the
cynosure of nations, to guide them to the light and blessedness of that day. To us is committed the grand, the responsible privilege, of exhibiting to the world, the beneficent
influences of Christianity, when carried into every social, civil, and political institution,
and though we have, as yet, made such imperfect advances, already the light is streaming into the dark prison-house of despotic lands, while startled kings and sages, philosophers and statesmen, are watching us with that interest which a career so illustrious,
and so involving their own destiny, is calculated to excite. They are studying our institutions, scrutinizing our experience, and watching for our mistakes, that they may
learn whether “a social revolution, so irresistible, be advantageous or prejudicial to
mankind.”
1. “by seers . . . and yet true”: The quotations are from a vision of the restoration of God’s glory to the earth
in book 6 of The Task (1785), a popular poem by the British poet William Cowper (1731–1800).
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There are persons, who regard these interesting truths merely as food for national
vanity; but every reflecting and Christian mind, must consider it as an occasion for
solemn and anxious reflection. Are we, then, a spectacle to the world? Has the Eternal
Lawgiver appointed us to work out a problem involving the destiny of the whole earth?
Are such momentous interests to be advanced or retarded, just in proportion as we are
faithful to our high trust? “What manner of persons, then, ought we to be,” in attempting to sustain so solemn, so glorious a responsibility?
But the part to be enacted by American women, in this great moral enterprise, is the
point to which special attention should here be directed.
The success of democratic institutions, as is conceded by all, depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the mass of the people. If they are intelligent and virtuous, democracy is a blessing; but if they are ignorant and wicked, it is only a curse, and
is much more dreadful than any other form of civil government, as a thousand tyrants
are more to be dreaded than one. It is equally conceded, that the formation of the moral
and intellectual character of the young is committed mainly to the female hand. The
mother writes the character of the future man; the sister bends the fibres that hereafter
are the forest tree; the wife sways the heart, whose energies may turn for good or for evil
the destinies of a nation. Let the women of a country be made virtuous and intelligent,
and the men will certainly be the same. The proper education of a man decides the welfare of an individual; but educate a woman, and the interests of a whole family are
secured.
If this be so, as none will deny, then to American women, more than to any others on
earth, is committed the exalted privilege of extending over the world those blessed
influences, that are to renovate degraded man, and “clothe all climes with beauty.”2
No American woman, then, has any occasion for feeling that hers is an humble or
insignificant lot. The value of what an individual accomplishes, is to be estimated by the
importance of the enterprise achieved, and not by the particular position of the laborer.
The drops of heaven that freshen the earth are each of equal value, whether they fall in
the lowland meadow, or the princely parterre.3 The builders of a temple are of equal
importance, whether they labor on the foundations, or toil upon the dome.
Thus, also, with those labors that are to be made effectual in the regeneration of the
Earth. The woman who is rearing a family of children; the woman who labors in the
schoolroom; the woman who, in her retired chamber, earns, with her needle, the mite to
contribute for the intellectual and moral elevation of her country; even the humble
domestic, whose example and influence may be moulding and forming young minds,
while her faithful services sustain a prosperous domestic state; — each and all may be
cheered by the consciousness, that they are agents in accomplishing the greatest work
that ever was committed to human responsibility. It is the building of a glorious temple,
whose base shall be coextensive with the bounds of the earth, whose summit shall
pierce the skies, whose splendor shall beam on all lands, and those who hew the lowliest
2. “clothe . . . beauty”: See note 1.
3. parterre: An ornamental garden, composed of flower beds and paths arranged in a distinct pattern or
design.
S ENECA FALLS W OMAN ’ S C ONVENTION : D ECLARATION OF S ENTIMENTS 629
stone, as much as those who carve the highest capital, will be equally honored when
its top-stone shall be laid, with new rejoicings of the morning stars, and shoutings of
the sons of God.4
[1841]
4. morning stars . . . God: See Job 38:7: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy.”
Seneca Falls Woman’s Convention
[July 19–20, 1848]
On July 19–20, 1848, the first women’s rights convention was held at
Seneca Falls, New York. Attended by one hundred people on the first day
and three hundred on the second, the convention marked the beginning of
a seventy-year campaign that ended when women were finally accorded
the right to vote by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. The Seneca Falls Woman’s Convention was the idea of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton — an abolitionist and feminist who had moved
with her husband and their children from Boston to Seneca Falls — and
her close friend from Philadelphia, the Quaker reformer Lucretia Mott.
Stanton, who drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments,” modeled it on the
Declaration of Independence. She read the “Declaration of Sentiments” on
the first day of the convention and led a section-by-section debate, finally
winning approval at the end of the day, when it was signed by sixty-eight
women and thirty-two men, including Frederick Douglass. But their radical demand for women’s full equality generated such controversy and derision that some of those who supported the “Declaration of Sentiments”
later withdrew their signatures. The text is taken from History of Woman
Suffrage (1881), edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and
Matilda Joslyn Gage.
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS
When, in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one portion of the family
of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which
they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women 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
630 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
A Satirical Depiction of a Woman’s Rights Convention
Printed in Harper’s Weekly in 1859, this caricature reveals that feminists were often treated
with derision or hostility, especially in the popular press. Their meetings were also frequently
disrupted by hecklers, like the jeering men crowded into the balconies of this hall. Despite such
strong resistance, the movement gained the support of some men and a growing number of
women, who as this illustration also reveals were the primary organizers of and speakers at the
numerous meetings and conventions held in the wake of the 1848 convention at Seneca Falls.
are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who
suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are
more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under
S ENECA FALLS W OMAN ’ S C ONVENTION : D ECLARATION OF S ENTIMENTS
absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new
guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women
under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
demand the equal station to which they are entitled.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part
of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny
over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded
men — both natives and foreigners.
Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby
leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on
all sides.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes
with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of
marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all
intents and purposes, her master — the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and in
case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be
wholly regardless of the happiness of women — the law, in all cases, going upon a false
supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her
property can be made profitable to it.
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is
permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes against her all
the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As
a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges
being closed against her.
He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any
public participation in the affairs of the Church.
He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of
morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from
society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man.
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign
for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own
631
632 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and
abject life.
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country,
their social and religious degradation — in view of the unjust laws above mentioned,
and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived
of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the
rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within
our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the
State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our
behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions embracing
every part of the country.
[1848, 1881]
Elizabeth Oakes Smith
[1806–1893]
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, whose life and work are described in more detail
on page 000 of this volume, was best known for her poetry and her popular
reform novel, The Newsboy (1854), about the plight of homeless boys living
on the streets of New York City. Smith was also deeply concerned with
women’s rights, and she spent much of her career lecturing and writing
about issues like the reform of marriage laws and women’s suffrage. Woman
and Her Needs was first published as a series of ten articles in the NewYork Tribune (November 1850–June 1851) and then as a pamphlet. The text
of the following selection is the opening chapter of that pamphlet (1851).
From WOMAN AND HER NEEDS
They who seek nothing but their own just liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it,
whenever they have power, be the voices never so numerous that oppose it.
–MILTON1
From the moment that an individual or a class of individuals, in any community, have
become conscious of a series of grievances demanding redress, from that moment they
1. Milton: John Milton (1608–1674), poet and propagandist for the republican Commonwealth, established
after the Civil War in England culminated in the defeat and execution of King Charles I. The quotation is
from The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), in which Milton argued that its
supporters had the right to defend their freedom and “liberty” even if a greater number called for the
restoration of the monarchy in England.
S MITH : W OMAN AND H ER N EEDS 633
are morally bound to make that conviction vital in action, and to do what in them lies to
correct such abuse. Our nature is not such a tissue of lies, our intuitions are not so
deceptive, that we need distrust the truth thus forced upon the life. Wherever the pang
is felt, a wrong exists — the groan goes not forth from a glad heart, and he or she who
has felt the iron of social wrong piercing into the soul, is the one to cast about and
demand relief. The saintly patience so often preached is but another mode of protracting the world’s misery; we wrong ourselves, and we roll onward the Juggernautic car
that is to crush those who succeed us, when we supinely endure those evils which a
strong purpose, an energetic will, and an unfaltering trust in the good might help us to
redress.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist amongst us as to the propriety of the recent
Conventions held in our Country, called “Woman’s Rights,” the fact stands by itself, a
handwriting on the wall, proclaiming a sense of wrong, a sense of something demanding redress, and this is fact enough to justify the movement to all candid eyes. Indeed
enough to render it praiseworthy. For one, I am glad to see that our Republic has produced a class of women, who, feeling the Need of a larger sphere and a better recognition, have that clearness of intellect and strength of purpose by which they go to work
resolutely to solve the difficulty. They might stay at home and fret and dawdle; be miserable themselves and make all within their sphere miserable likewise; but instead of
this, they meet and talk the matter over, devise plans, explain difficulties, rehearse
social oppressions and political disabilities, in the hope of evolving something permanently good.
All this is well, and grows naturally from the progress of institutions like our own, in
which opinions are fearlessly discussed, and all thought traced home to its source. It
isn’t in the nature of things that any class in our midst should be long indifferent to topics of general interest; far less that such should feel the pressure of evils without inquiring into the best means of abatement. When our Fathers planted themselves upon the
firm base of human freedom, claimed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they might have foreseen that at some day their daughters would sift
thoroughly their opinions and their consequences, and daringly challenge the same
rights.
For myself, I may not sympathize with a Convention — I may not feel that the best
mode of arriving at truth to my own mind — I may feel that its singleness of import
would be lost to me while standing in the solid phalanx of associated inquiry; but these
objections do not apply to the majority of minds, and I reverence their search in their
own way, the many converging lights of many minds all bent upon the same point, even
although I myself peer about with my solitary lantern.
These Conventions have called forth from the Press one grand jubilee of ridicule
“from Dan even unto Beersheba,”2 as if it were the funniest thing in the world for human
beings to feel the evils oppressing themselves or others, and to look round for redress. It
would seem as if Inquiry must always come under beaver and broadcloth — it must be
mustachioed and bearded — and yet the graceful Greek made the quality feminine.
2. “from Dan even unto Beersheba”: See 1 Kings 4:25; the phrase was a way of designating the length and
breadth of a country, since Dan was the northernmost and Beersheba the southernmost cities in ancient Israel.
634 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
Truth, too, is feminine, but then she must have a masculine exponent to the modern ear,
or she becomes absurd. I do not exactly see how she should be so changed when needed
for our sex, from what she is when performing good offices for the other. But enough of
trifling. The state of things thus appearing in our own day is just the state we might
have prophesied would take place at some time. We must meet it, recognize it, and help
to direct it wisely. It argues great things for Woman, and through her for the world. We
have Needs becoming more and more tangible and urgent, and now is the time to consider what they are.
There is a large class of our sex so well cared for, “whom the winds of heaven are not
allowed to visit too roughly,” who are hemmed in by conventional forms, and by the
appliances of wealth, till they can form no estimate of the sufferings of their less fortunate sisters. Perhaps I do wrong to say less fortunate, for suffering to a woman occupies
the place of labor to a man, giving a breadth, depth, and fullness, not otherwise attained.
Therefore let her who is called to suffer beware how she despises the cross which it
implies; rather let her glory that she is accounted worthy to receive this testimony to the
capabilities of her soul.
But there is, as I have said, a class unconscious of this bearing; delicate, amiable,
lovely even; but limited and superficial. These follow the bent of their masculine friends
and admirers, and lisp pretty ridicule about the folly of “Woman’s Rights” and “Woman’s
Movements.” These see no need of reform or change of any kind; indeed they are denied
that comprehensiveness of thought by which they could hold the several parts of a subject in the mind, and see its bearings. Society is a sort of grown-up mystery which they
pretend not to comprehend, supposing it to have gradually developed to its present size
and shape from Adam and Eve, by natural gradation, like Church Bishops.
Then there is another class doomed to debasement, vice, labor of body and soul, in all
their terrible manifestations. Daughters of suffering without its ennobling influence;
too weak in thought, it may be, to discern the best good; or it may be too strong in passion to resist the allurements of the immediate; or it may be ignorant only, they wake to
the sad realities of life too late to find redress for its evils. These are the kind over whom
infinite Pity would weep as it were drops of blood. These may scoff at reform, but it is the
scoffing of a lost spirit, or that of despair. It is the blind utterance of regions denied the
light of infinite love, and condemned to the Fata Morganas3 of depraved vision.
Then come the class of our sex capable of thought, of impulse, of responsibility — the
worthy to be called Woman. Not free from faults any more than the strong of the other
sex, but of that full humanity which may sometimes err, but yet which loves and seeks
for the true and the good. These include all who are identified with suffering, in whatever shape, and from whatever cause; for these, when suffering proceeds from their own
acts even, have that fund of greatness or goodness left that they perceive and acknowledge the opposite of what they are. These are the ones who are victims to the falseness
of society, and who see and feel that something may and will be done to redeem it. They
3. Fata Morganas: The Italian version of the name of Morgan Le Fay, the adversarial half-sister of King
Arthur, whose plots against Arthur are told in Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.
S MITH : W OMAN AND H ER N EEDS 635
are not content to be the creatures of luxury, the toys of the drawing-room, however well
they may grace it — they are too true, too earnest in life, to trifle with its realities. They
are capable of thinking, it may be far more capable of it than those of their own household who help to sway the destinies of the country through the ballot-box. They are
capable of feeling, and analyzing too, the evils that surround themselves and others —
they have individuality, resource, and that antagonism which weak men ridicule, because
it shames their own imbecility; which makes them obnoxious to those of less earnestness of character, and helps them to an eclectic power, at once their crown of glory.
To say that such beings have no right to a hearing in a world whose destinies they
effect, is to reproach the First Cause for having imparted to his creatures a superfluous
intelligence — to say they have no interest in the nature of legislation, when its terrible
penalties hang like the hair-suspended sword of Damocles4 over their heads, is a contradiction as weak as it is selfish and cruel.
Heretofore, women have acted singly — they have been content with individual influence, however exercised, and it has often been of the very worst kind; but now, in our
country at least, they seem disposed to associate as do our compeers of the other sex,
for the purpose of evolving better views, and of confirming some degree of power. There
is no reason why they should not do this. They are the mothers and wives and sisters of
the Republic, and their interests cannot be separated from those of the fathers and husbands and brothers of the Republic. It is folly to meet them with contempt and ridicule,
for the period for such weapons is passing away.
Their movements as yet may not be altogether the best or the wisest — all is as yet
new; but their movements truly and solemnly point to a step higher in the scale of influence. There is a holy significance in them — a prophetic power that speaks well for
themselves, and, as I before said, well for the world. It cannot be, from the nature of
things, that so much of human intelligence can be brought into vivid action without
some great and good result. It has always been so in all subjects that have enlisted
thought — men have come from the turmoil of mental action, with new and broader perceptions, a higher and freer humanity, a better identification of the individual with his
species, and why should not Woman the same?
I know it is women who sneer most at these movements of each other, and that
women oftenest turn their backs upon the sufferings of each other. I do not mean the
griefs or physical pains of those in their own rank and circle; far from it; their hearts are
rarely at fault there; but to the cry of those ready to perish, to the needs of the erring, the
despised, and neglected of their sex, they are deaf and blind. To the long, torturing discords of ill-assorted marriages, to the oppressions of the family circle, the evasions of
property and the lengthening catalogue of domestic discomforts growing out of the evils
of society, they are cruel, selfishly indifferent, or remorselessly severe upon each other.
4. sword of Damocles: In Greek legend, Damocles was a courtier who took the place of Dionysius, a king, for
a day, in order to have the experience of power and good fortune. During a banquet, Damocles noticed that a
sword was hanging by a horsehair directly over the throne on which he was seated, indicating how quickly
power and good fortune can end. The phrase is used to indicate this moral lesson.
636 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
It is true they have not condemned such to the stake literally; have not roasted them
alive; hung, quartered, tortured with thumb-screws, impaled on hooks, confined in dungeons and beheaded on blocks, as men have done, the good, the great, the heroic, “of
whom the world is not worthy,” of their own sex: for they have been denied the power —
men choosing to hold the prerogative of externally inflicted cruelty in their own hands;
but they have condemned their suffering sisters to the intangible and manifold tortures
which can fall only upon the spirit, and which are ten-fold more cruel than any external
wrong, without once attempting to move tongue or finger in their behalf. Indeed, I have
sometimes thought that women instinctively avoid each other when suffering from
social ills, as if that kind of misery had something allied to a stain attached to it; and so
it has in fact; the human instinct is not at fault; a misplaced individual is humiliated; he
or she feels it in the very soul, and all that is within recoils at the wrong. Appositeness,
freedom, joy, are a part of the beautiful, and where any or all of these are wanting, harmony is wanting, and dignity also, unless the character be allied to the sublime.
Much of this great movement of our sex argues a better and nobler sympathy for
each other, the growth of a loyalty full of promise. We think we see a broader and better
spirit awakening within us, a nearer and more wholesome humanity — ill-directed it
may be as yet, groping after a hidden, unrevealed good, yet the search has opened, and
the good will be grasped.
The world needs the action of Woman thought in its destinies. The indefinite influence springing from the private circle is not enough; this is shaded away into the graceful lights of feminine subserviency and household endearment; blessing the individual
husband, or ennobling the one group at the family altar, but the world goes on with its
manifold wrongs, and woman has nothing but tears to bestow — the outrages that may
wring either her own heart or that of others, are perpetrated before her eyes, and she
can only wring helpless hands, or plead with idle remonstrance, while her lord and master tells her these things are quite beyond her comprehension; she cannot see how
unavoidable it is, but it is not the less unavoidable, and she must shut her eyes and ears,
and “mind her spinning.” Or, if blessed with a large share of manly arrogance, he will tell
her, as did the captain of a militia company of a country town, who, in practising in the
court of his house those martial evolutions that were to electrify the village upon
parade, accidentally stepped down the trap-door of the cellar. His wife rushed out to succor her liege lord, when she was met with, “Go in, woman; what do you know about war?”
Sure enough, what does she? But this directness of sympathy, this promptitude to
relieve, makes her fruitful in resource in small matters, and why should it not in large?
If an evil come under her own inspection, she at once casts about for redress, and good
comes of it. There is no reason why she should not enlarge her sphere in this way, and no
fear of her being the less feminine or endearing by the process.
The majority of women in society are suffering in the absence of wholesome, earnest,
invigorating subjects of thought; expending themselves upon trifles, and fretting themselves and others for lack of employment. The routine of housekeeping, the study of the
arts, or the management of children, is no more enough to fill their whole lives, than
these things to the merchant, the artist, the professional man, who, over and above his
business, whatever it may be, finds time to give the more earnest part of his nature “an
airing.” As occasion comes, he is a man for the ballot-box, the navy, or the public parade.
S OJOURNER T RUTH 637
I have not, and do not say yet, that women should go to these; I have not reached that
part of the subject; I only pray that she may be recognized as an intelligence, and not be
compelled to dwarf herself lest she should be thought unfeminine.
I wish to show that while she has been created as one part of human intelligence, she
has not only a right to be heard and felt in human affairs, not by tolerance merely, but as
a welcome and needed element of human thought; and that, when she is thus recognized, the world will be the better for it, and go onward with new power in the progress
of disenthrallment.
There is a woman view, which women must learn to take; as yet they have made no
demonstration that looks like a defined, appropriate perception. The key-note has been
struck by the other sex, and women have responded; this response has been strong and
significant, but it will evolve nothing, because it indicates no urgent need. It has done
good in one respect — it has raised the cry of contempt, the scoffings of ridicule, and this
antagonism is needed to make us look deeper into the soul of things. We shall learn to
search and see whether we are capable of bringing anything to the stock of human thought
worthy of acceptance. If we can, let us bring it; if not, we will learn to hold our peace.
[1851]
Sojourner Truth
[1797–1883]
Sojourner Truth, born a slave in
New York, was emancipated in 1827.
Illiterate throughout her remarkable life, Truth was an ardent Christian and abolitionist. She was among
the first black women to speak
publicly in the United States. To a
friend, Truth dictated the story of
her life, which was published as
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth in
1850. Truth sold the slim book
to audiences wherever her itinerant lecturing and preaching took
her. The following extemporaneous
address, one of her most characteristic and famous speeches, was
delivered at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio. The text is
taken from the report of her speech
in The Anti-Slavery Bugle, June 21,
1851.
Sojourner Truth
A former slave in New
York State, Sojourner
Truth published a narrative of her life in 1850. In
her bag, she often carried
copies of the book to sell
at her lectures. She apparently also sold visiting
cards like this one, which
bears the inscription: “I
SELL THE SHADOW TO SUPPORT THE SUBSTANCE.”
638 A MERICAN C ONTEXTS : T HE R HETORIC OF A NTEBELLUM R EFORM
SPEECH TO A WOMEN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION
One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the Convention was made by
Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey
any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled earnest gestures, and listened to her
strong and truthful tones. She came forward to the platform and addressing the President said with great simplicity:
May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded; I want to say
a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man,
and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped
and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes
being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am
as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint
and man a quart — why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give
us our rights for fear we will take too much, — for we can’t take more than our pint’ll
hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children,
if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own
rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the
bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do
give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he
never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and
Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And
Jesus wept — and Lazarus came forth.1 And how came Jesus into the world? Through God
who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part? But the women are
coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a
tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between
a hawk and a buzzard.
[1851]
1. Lazarus came forth: Two sisters, Mary and Martha, asked Jesus to raise their brother, Lazarus, from the
dead. The account of the miracle is in John 1:1–44.