Part 12 (2/2)

Among the many devices brought to bear on the consciences of Pittsburgers, was a sermon preached, as per announcement, by Rev.

Riddle, pastor of the Third Presbyterian church. It was received with great favor, by his large wealthy congregation, was printed in pamphlet form, distributed by thousands and made a profound impression, for Pittsburg is a Presbyterian city, and a sermon by its leading pastor was convincing. The sermon was an out and out plea for the bill and obedience to its requirements. Did not Paul return Onesimus to his master? Were not servants told to obey their masters? Running away was gross disobedience, etc., etc.

Robt. M. Riddle, in a careful leader in _The Journal_, deprecated the existence of the law, but since it did exist, counseled obedience. He was a polished and forcible writer and his arguments had great weight.

The _Visiter_ published an article on ”The Two Riddles,” in which was drawn a picture of a scantily clad woman, with bruised and bleeding feet, clasping an infant to her bosom, panting before her pursuers up Third street. The master called on all good citizens for help. The cry reached the ears of the tall editor of the _Journal_ seated at his desk.

He dropped his pen, hastily donned his new bra.s.s collar and started in hot pursuit of this wicked woman, who was feloniously appropriating the property of her master.

The other Riddle--the Presbyterian pastor--planted himself by the lamp post on the corner of Third and Market streets, and with spectacles on nose and raised hands, loudly implored divine blessing on the labors of his tall namesake. The _Visiter_ concluded by advising masters who had slaves to catch, to apply to these gentlemen, who would attend to business from purely pious and patriotic motives.

I did not see Mr. Riddle for two weeks after the publication of the sketch, and then we met on the street. He had never before been angry or vexed with me, but now he was both, and said:

”How could you do me such an injustice?”

”Why is it an injustice?”

”Oh you know it is! You know I would cut off my right hand, before I would aid in capturing a fugitive.”

”Then why do you counsel others to do it?”

”Oh you know better! and Rev. Riddle, he and his friends are distressed about it. You do not know what you have done! I have already had three letters from the South, asking me to aid in returning fugitives, and he, too, has had similar applications. Oh it is too humiliating, too bad.

You must set it right!”

I agreed to do so, and the _Visiter_ explained that it had been mistaken in saying that both or either of the two Riddles would aid in returning fugitives. They both scorned the business, and Robt. M., would cut off his right hand, rather than engage in it. He only meant that other people should do what would degrade him. He was not a good citizen, and did not intend to be. As for his Reverence, he would s.h.i.+rk his Christian duties; would not pray by that lamppost, or any other lamp-post, for the success of slave-catchers. He had turned his back upon Paul, and had fallen from grace since preaching his famous sermon. The gentlemen had been accredited with a patriotism and piety of which they were incapable, and a retraction was necessary; but if any other more patriotic politician or divine, further advanced in sanctification would send their names to the _Visiter_, it would notify the South.

In answering Bible arguments, as to the righteousness of the Fugitive Slave Bill, the main dependence of _the Visiter_ was Deuteronomy xxiii: 15 and 16:

”Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee.

”He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place where he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best, thou shalt not oppress him.”

That old Bible, in spite of pro-slavery interpreters, proved to be the great bulwark of human liberty.

In 1852, Slavery and Democracy formed that alliance to which we owe the Great Rebellion. The South became solid, and Whigs had no longer any motive for catching slaves.

CHAPTER XXIX.

BLOOMERS AND WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTIONS.

The appearance of _The Visiter_ was the signal for an outbreak, for which I was wholly unprepared, and one which proved the existence of an eating cancer of discontent in the body politic. Under the smooth surface of society lay a ma.s.s of moral disease, which suddenly broke out into an eruption of complaints, from those who felt themselves oppressed by the old Saxon and ecclesiastical laws under which one-half the people of the republic still lived.

In the laws governing the interests peculiar to men, and those affecting their interests in common with woman, great advance had been made during the past six centuries, but those regarding the exclusive interests of women, had remained in _statu quo_, since King Alfred the Great and the knights of his Round Table fell asleep. The anti-negro slavery object of my paper seemed to be lost sight of, both by friends and foes of human progress, in the surprise at the innovation of a woman entering the political arena, to argue publicly on great questions of national policy, and while men were defending their pantaloons, they created and spread the idea, that masculine supremacy lay in the form of their garments, and that a woman dressed like a man would be as potent as he.

Strange as it may now seem, they succeeded in giving such efficacy to the idea, that no less a person than Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was led astray by it, so that she set her cool, wise head to work and invented a costume, which she believed would emanc.i.p.ate woman from thraldom. Her invention was adopted by her friend Mrs. Bloomer, editor and proprietor of the _Lily_, a small paper then in infancy in Syracuse, N.Y., and from her, the dress took its name--”the bloomer.” Both women believed in their dress, and staunchly advocated it as the sovereignest remedy for all the ills that woman's flesh is heir to.

I made a suit and wore it at home parts of two days, long enough to feel a.s.sured that it must be a failure; and so opposed it earnestly, but nothing I could say or do could make it apparent that pantaloons were not the real objective point, at which all discontented woman aimed. I had once been tried on a charge of purloining pantaloons, and been acquitted for lack of evidence; but now, here was the proof! The women themselves, leaders of the malcontents, promulgated and pressed their claim to bifurcated garments, and the whole tide of popular discussion was turned into that ridiculous channel.

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