Part 4 (1/2)

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY.

The extinction of human bondage, more perhaps than any other one event, has emphasized the progress of the century about to close. Our generation has witnessed the destruction of serfdom in Russia, and of slavery in Brazil and the United States. Freedom was gained; but of the enlightened rulers through whom it was won, two were a.s.sa.s.sinated and one was exiled to die. Sacrifice is still the price of liberty.

Much stress has been laid by Suffragists upon the supposed fact that the Woman-suffrage movement grew up as a logical conclusion from the Anti- slavery movement. It grew out of it in the sense of having been born in its midst; but I believe that the truth will be found to be that it was the most prolific source of the dissensions that marred that n.o.ble cause, and was identified with the small element that adopted wild notions or used the notoriety gained by opposition to slavery in order to propagate mischief. The conduct of those who later entered the Suffrage movement hindered the public work of women from the time of organized effort for the slave until slavery fell pierced to death amid the horrors of a fratricidal war. I will take a brief survey of the Anti-slavery struggle as it blended itself with the doctrines of those abolitionists who were the earliest and staunchest friends of the Suffrage movement, and compare it with the statements and claims of the women themselves.

I first refer to the ”Life of James G. Birney,” by his son, General William Birney. James G. Birney was an early friend of Henry B. Stanton, husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and with him helped to lay the foundations of the Free-Soil Party, and later the Republican Party.

General Birney says of his father: ”In his visit to New York and New England, in May and June, 1837, Mr. Birney's chief object had been to restore harmony among Anti-slavery leaders on doctrines and measures, and especially to check a tendency, already marked in Ma.s.sachusetts, to burden the cause with irrelevant reforms, real or supposed. With this view he had attended the New England Anti-slavery Convention held at Boston, May 30 to June 2 inclusive, accepted the position of one of its vice-presidents, and acted as a member of its committee on business. Rev. Henry C. Wright, the leader of the No-Human-Government, Woman's-Rights, and Moral-Reform factions, was a member of the Convention, but received no appointment on any committee. On June 23, in the 'Liberator' [his newspaper], Mr.

Garrison denounced human governments. July 4, he spoke at Providence, as if approvingly, of the overthrow of the Nation, the dismemberment of the Union, and the das.h.i.+ng in pieces of the Church. July 15, an a.s.sociation, of Congregational ministers issued a 'pastoral letter' against the new doctrines. August 2, five clergymen, claiming to represent nine tenths of the abolitionists of Ma.s.sachusetts, published an 'appeal' which was directed more especially against the course of the 'Liberator.' August 3, the abolitionists of Andover Theological Seminary issued a similar appeal.

Among the complaints were some against 'speculations that lead inevitably to disorganization, anarchy, unsettling the domestic economy, removing the landmarks of society, and unhinging the machinery of government.' A new Anti-slavery society in Bangor pa.s.sed the following resolution: 'That, while we admit the right of full and free discussion of all subjects, yet, in our judgment, individuals rejecting the authority of civil and parental governments ought not to be employed as agents and lecturers in promoting the cause of emanc.i.p.ation.'”

In his Autobiography, speaking of this time, Frederick Dougla.s.s says: ”I believe my first offence against our Anti-slavery Israel was committed during these Syracuse meetings. It was in this wise: Our general agent, John A. Collins, had recently returned from England full of communistic ideas, which ideas would do away with individual property and have all things in common. He had arranged a corps of speakers of his communistic persuasion, consisting of John O. Wattles, Nathaniel Whiting, and John Orvis, to follow our Anti-slavery conventions, and while our meeting was in progress in Syracuse Mr. Collins came in with his new friends and doctrines and proposed to adjourn our Anti-slavery discussions and take up the subject of communism. To this I ventured to object. I held that it was imposing an additional burden of unpopularity on our cause, and an act of bad faith with the people who paid the salary of Mr. Collins and were responsible for these hundred conventions. Strange to say, my course in this matter did not meet the approval of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, an influential member of the board of managers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Anti- slavery society, and called out a sharp reprimand from her, for insubordination to my superiors.” John O. Wattles labored hard to introduce Woman Suffrage into the State Const.i.tution of Kansas. Mr.

Collins worked for it in California in the early days. Mrs. Chapman, who had embraced Mr. Collins's doctrines, was one of the first pillars of the Suffrage movement.

Later, when Mr. Dougla.s.s determined to establish a newspaper and become its editor, he was obliged to leave New England, ”for the sake of peace,”

he says, as his Anti-slavery friends opposed it, saying that it was absurd to think of a wood-sawyer offering himself as an editor. In Rochester, N.

Y., he established ”The North Star.” He says, ”I was then a faithful disciple of William L. Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of the Const.i.tution of the United States, also the non-voting principle, of which he was the known and distinguished advocate. With him, I held it to be the first duty of the non-slaveholding States to dissolve the union with the slaveholding States, and hence my cry, like his, was 'No union with slaveholders.'

After a time, a careful reconsideration of the subject convinced me that there was no necessity for 'dissolving the union between the northern and southern States;' that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolis.h.i.+ng slavery; and that the Const.i.tution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit an Anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land. This radical change in my opinions produced a corresponding change in my action. Those who could not see any honest reasons for changing their views, as I had done, could not easily see any such reasons for my change, and the common punishment of apostates was mine. ... Among friends who had been devoted to my cause were Isaac and Amy Post, William and Mary Hallowell, Asa and Hulda Anthony, and indeed all the committee of the Western New York Anti- Slavery Society. They held festivals and fairs to raise money, and a.s.sisted me in every other possible way to keep my paper in circulation while I was a non-voting abolitionist, but withdrew from me when I became a voting abolitionist.”

The Posts, the Hallowells, and the Anthonys were among the first to attach themselves to the Suffrage movement.

The Grimke sisters, who were intensely interested in the abolition agitation, followed Garrison to the extreme, and adopted the socialistic ideas with which his wing became to a large extent identified. They were also early in the Suffrage cause. In August, 1837, Whittier wrote to them as follows: ”I am anxious to hold a long conversation with you on the subject of war, human government, and church and family government. The more I reflect upon the subject the more difficulty I find, and the more decidedly am I of opinion that we ought to hold all these matters aloof from the cause of abolition. Our good friend, H. C. Wright, with the best intentions in the world, is doing great injury by a different course. He is making the Anti-slavery party responsible in a great degree for his, to say the least, startling opinions.... But let him keep them distinct from the cause of emanc.i.p.ation. To employ an agent who devotes half his time and talents to the propagation of 'no-human or no-family government'

doctrines in connection, _intimate_ connection, with the doctrines of abolition, is a fraud upon the patrons of the cause. Brother Garrison errs, I think, in this respect. He takes the 'no-church and no-government'

ground.”

Mr. Garrison wrote to the American Anti-slavery Society of his desire to crush the ”dissenters,” and Maria W. Chapman wrote: ”Why will they think they can cut away from Garrison without becoming an abomination? ... If this defection should drink the cup and end all, we of Ma.s.sachusetts will turn and abolish them as readily as we would the colonization society.”

Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: ”I am glad to see that you have criticised Brother H. C. Wright. I have just returned from a few months'

tour in eastern Ma.s.sachusetts, and he has done immense hurt there.” A. A.

Phelps, agent of the Ma.s.sachusetts Anti-Slavery society, wrote: ”I write you this in great grief, and yet I feel constrained to do it. The cause of abolition here was never in so dangerous and critical a position before.

Mutual jealousies on the part of the laity and clergy are rampant; indeed, so much so that, let a clerical brother do what he will, it is resolved as a matter of course into a sinister motive! ... Of this stamp, more than ever before, is friend Garrison. And Mrs. Chapman remarked to me the other day that she sometimes doubted which needed abolition most, slavery or the black-hearted ministry. For this cause alone we are on the brink of a general split in our ranks.... And as if to make a bad matter worse, Garrison insists on yoking perfectionism, no-governmentism, and woman- preaching with abolition, as part and parcel of the same lump.”

In 1840, Emerson, in his Amory Hall lecture, said: ”The Church or religious party is falling from the Church nominal, and is appearing in Temperance and non-resistant societies, in movements of abolitionists and socialists, and in very significant a.s.semblies called Sabbath and Bible conventions, composed of ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul and soldiery of dissent, and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, of the priesthood, of the Church. In these movements nothing was more remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers.... They defied each other like a congress of kings, each of whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable.”

These ideas blossomed, in due course of time, into Socialistic communities. There was a distinctly Anti-slavery one at Hopedale, Ma.s.sachusetts. The founder, Adin Ballou, published a tract setting forth the objects of the community, from which I make the following extracts: ”No precise theological dogmas, ordinances, or ceremonies are prescribed or prohibited. In such matters all the members are free, with mutual love and toleration, to follow their own highest convictions of truth and religious duty, answerable only to the great Head of the Church Universal.

It enjoins total abstinence from all G.o.d-contemning words and deeds; all unchast.i.ty; all intoxicating beverages; all oath-taking; all slave-holding and pro-slavery compromises; all war and preparations for war; all capital and other vindictive punishments; all insurrectionary, seditious, mobocratic, and personal violence against any government, society, family, or individual; all voluntary partic.i.p.ation in any anti-Christian government, under promise of unqualified support, whether by doing military service, commencing actions at law, holding office, voting, pet.i.tioning for penal laws, or asking public interference for protection which can only be given by such force. It is the seedling of the true democratic and social Republic, wherein neither caste, color, s.e.x, nor age stands prescribed. It is a moral-suasion temperance society on the teetotal basis. It is a moral-power Anti-slavery society, radical and without compromise. It is a peace society on the only impregnable foundation, that of Christian non-resistance. It is a sound theoretical and practical Woman's Rights a.s.sociation.” Among other Suffragists, Abby Kelly Foster was resident at Hopedale. Another community, at Northampton, was sometimes described as ”Nothingarian.”

Of the state of things at this time in the Anti-slavery societies, General Birney says, ”The no-government men made up in activity what they lacked in numbers. While refusing for themselves to vote at the ballot-box, they voted in conventions and formed coalitions with women who wished to vote at the ballot-box.” Mr. Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: ”An effort was made at the annual meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts society, which adjourned today, to make its annual report and its action subservient to the non-resistant movement, and through the votes of the women of Lynn and Boston it succeeded.” A little later, January, 1839, Mr. Stanton wrote again to Mr. Goodell, as follows: ”I have taken the liberty to show your letter to brothers Phelps, George Allen, George Russell, O. Scott, N.

Colver, and a large number of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time to take a firm stand against the no-government doctrine. They are far from regarding it merely as a humbug.” John A. Collins, the Anti-slavery agent referred to, founded a community at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the following dictums: A disbelief in any special revelation of G.o.d to Man, in any form of wors.h.i.+p, in any special regard for the Sabbath, in any church, disbelief in all governments based on physical force, because they are ”organized bands of banditti,” whose authority is to be disregarded, a disbelief in voting, in pet.i.tioning, in doing military duty, paying personal or property taxes, serving on juries, testifying in ”so-called”

courts of justice. A disbelief in any individual property. A belief that as marriage is designed for the happiness of the parties to it, when such parties have outlived their affections, the sooner the separation takes place the better, and that such separation shall not be a barrier to their again uniting with any one. The community lived two and a half years, and broke up with a debt of ten thousand dollars. John O. Wattles, who was a.s.sociated with Collins in the disturbance referred to by Frederick Dougla.s.s, founded a community in Logan County, Ohio, which was called ”The Prairie Home.” They had no laws, no government, no opinions, no principles, no form of society, no test of admission. They professed to take for their creed the dictum ”Do as you would be done by.” The a.s.sociation broke up in anarchy within a few months. Mr. Collins and Mr.

Wattles were always promoters of the Woman-Suffrage movement.

Mr. Garrison said: ”We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government. We can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury.” Again he said: ”If a nation has no right to defend itself against foreign enemies, no individual possesses that right in his own case.... As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold office.

We therefore exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson says: ”They withdraw themselves from the common labors and compet.i.tions of the market and the caucus.... They are striking work, and calling out for something worthy to do.... They are not good citizens, not good members of society; unwilling to bear their part of the public burdens. They do not even like to vote. They filled the world with long beards and long words. They began in words, and ended in words.”