Volume I Part 60 (1/2)
Mr. Channing then bore his testimony to the admirable combination of energy and mildness, by which Miss Brown's whole air and manner were distinguished amid these hours of tumult. He said: ”Such serene strength comes only from religious principle and life. I know not how it may have been with nerves and pulses--there was no apparent tremor.
But of this I am a.s.sured, whatever disturbance there was in the outer court of the Temple, in the Holy of Holies was the heart of peace, and the dove of the Spirit brooded in light on the tabernacle of conscience.”
In an editorial of _The Una_, headed ”Rev. John Chambers Recommended to Mercy,” Mrs. Davis says: ”We publish the letter of Rev. Wm. Henry Channing because it is a n.o.ble defence of woman and a part of the history of the movement. We do not give Mr. Chambers' reply, 1st, Because we find in it no evidence of penitence nor any testimony as to who was the guilty party--if he was not; and 2d, Because the tone and language of the letter is of a character we trust will never sully the pages of _The Una_. Mr. Channing's rebuke is severe, but we believe it to have been richly deserved and given in true Christian love.”
ROCHESTER, N. Y., Oct. 18, 1853.
EDITORS SUNDAY MERCURY:--You ask for proof that Rev. John Chambers took part in the brutal insult offered to a Christian gentlewoman at the late ”World's Temperance Convention.” I was _witness_ of the conduct of that man and his abettors during that _cowardly transaction_, and I hereby charge him with being a ringleader in that platform row.
When my honored friend and fellow-delegate, the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, was standing calm, yet firm, amidst those rude scoffers, the words of the Psalmist kept sounding in my ear: ”Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me roundabout, gaping upon me with their mouths.” I marked the _biggest_ of the herd with the purpose, at the first suitable season, of laying on one blow of the lash with such a will that it should cut through any hide, however callous. That season came when, as a delegate, I was called upon to report to the ”Toronto Division of the Sons of Temperance” how my fellow-delegate had been treated.
But having thus _indicted the bully_ and put him on trial in open court, I merely record my testimony and leave him to go to judgment; the public will render a verdict, pa.s.s sentence, and inflict the _penalty_ in the pillory where he has placed himself; may their justice be tempered with mercy. It was necessary, in order to _protect women_ in future from the _insolence of tyrants_, to make this example; yet let him be cordially pardoned as soon as he gives sincere proof of penitence.
WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.
Another letter of Mr. Channing's of same date to the editor of _The Daily Register_:
SIR:--Respect for yourself, your readers, and your paper, prompts me to reply at once to your article headed, ”Answer,” etc., by Rev. John Chambers, which, through the courtesy of some friend, reached me last evening. I must be frank, but will aim to be brief.
And first, Mr. Birney, a word to yourself. You knew me in ”former days as mild,” etc., and were not prepared for such a speech; you charitably suggest that its ”vindictiveness” may be owing to a subst.i.tution of the reporter's language for my own, and ”are not without hope of seeing a disclaimer.” Now, far from wis.h.i.+ng to disclaim the _one real accusation_ made in my remarks, I am ready, anywhere and everywhere, to reiterate that charge. Yet there is no ”vindictiveness” in my heart toward the criminal whom I thus arraign, and no emotion which I should not honor any man for feeling toward myself, if I was consciously guilty of having played so base a part. You were not wrong in thinking me ”mild in former days”; I trust I am milder now than then. But my mildness never was, and never will be, of that mean quality, which can tamely see a sister insulted, whether by a pugilist from the ring, or by a _rowdy from the pulpit_. My principle is peace, but I remember the saying, ”You can not become an angel till you are first a man.”.... Womanhood, as such, claims honorable courtesy of every manly heart; and he is unmanly who does not rejoice to testify this respect. The man who can be rude to even a poor prost.i.tute in the street, will be rude to wife or daughter at his own fireside; while he who is a _gentle_ man to any woman, will be a _gentle_ man to all women. _His spirit is brutal_, who could ever dream of applying the slang phrase ”creature” to any woman under any conceivable conditions. What shall be thought then of the moral grade of him who chose as the mark for his missiles of ”contempt,” a young lady of rare refinement in her whole presence and manner, of spotless delicacy and gentlest dignity, of commanding talent and philanthropic earnestness, and who stood there before him, serene amid the tumult, clad, even then, in the bright robe of heavenly peace?
And now one word in closing. Let Mr. Chambers, and all of like spirit, be a.s.sured, that I am but a representative of a large, rapidly growing, and influential body in every community throughout our land, who are resolved, that women shall no longer be insulted in public a.s.semblies with impunity.
WM. HENRY CHANNING.
Through this fierce conflict Horace Greeley, with his personal presence on the platform, and his brave editorials in the _New York Tribune_, fought a great battle for free speech and human equality.
Speaking of the _Whole_ World's Convention, he said:
_New York Tribune, September 3, 1853._
This has been the most spirited and able Convention on behalf of temperance that was ever held. It has already done good, and can not fail to do more. The scarcity of white neck-ties on the platform so fully atoned for by the presence of such champions of reform and humanity as Antoinette L. Brown, Lucy Stone, and Mrs.
Jackson, of England, Mrs. C I. H. Nichols, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, etc., that like the absence of wine from our festive board when it is graced by women, it was the theme of no general or very pointed regret. It was a great occasion, and we know truth was there uttered which will bear fruit through coming years.
_Tribune, September 7, 1853._
When the call of the World's Temperance Convention was issued, we were appealed to by valued friends, whom we know as devoted to the temperance cause, to discountenance all efforts to get up a rival Convention. ”The call is unexceptionably broad,” we were reminded, ”it invites all and excludes n.o.body, then why not accept it and hold but one Convention?” The question was fair and forcible, and had there been no antecedents we should have acceded to its object. But we could not forget the preliminary meeting at the Brick Church Chapel, and we could not take the hazard of having many whom we knew as among the most efficient and faithful laborers in the Temperance cause shut out of a World's Convention of its advocates; so we cast our lot with them about whose catholicity of sentiment and action there could be no dispute, and yesterday's doings at the Metropolitan Convention maintained the conviction created by the whole World's Convention that our decision was right.
We ask especial attention to the proceedings of the World's Convention yesterday morning, particularly with reference to Antoinette Brown, who had been chosen by two separate temperance organizations of men to represent them at this Convention. How she was received, how treated, and how virtually crowded off the platform, our report most faithfully exhibits. They who are sure that the Age of Chivalry is not gone, are urged to ponder this treatment of a pure and high-souled woman, a teacher of Christian truth, an ornament of her s.e.x, and an example to all, by a Convention of Reformers and Gentlemen, many of them from that section of the Union where the defence of woman from insult has been deemed a manly grace, if not a manly duty. We presume the matter will be further considered to-day.
Of the _Whole_ World's Temperance Convention a correspondent of _The Una_ says: ”Throughout, the meeting has been one of intense interest; not a moment's flagging, not a poor or unworthy speech made by either man or woman. Again and again, as we pa.s.sed into the large hall, filled with eager listeners, we felt it to be one of the most sublime scenes we had ever looked upon. There the audience remained, hour after hour, patient, earnest, full of enthusiasm, and yet hundreds could scarcely hear a single connected sentence. The majority were women, but the larger number of the speakers were men. The right and equality being recognized, there was no longer a necessity for controversy to maintain principle, hence no woman attempted to speak except she had something to say. Mrs. Jackson, of England, Mrs. Nichols, Mrs. Vaughan, Miss Stone, Rev. A. L. Brown, Lucretia Mott, and Mrs. F. D. Gage addressed the Convention during the different sessions.”
The same correspondent says of the _World's_ Temperance Convention: ”There was one feature more anomalous than the rejection and gagging of Miss Brown, darker and far more cruel, for it has not the excuse of custom, nor can the Bible be tortured into any justification of it. This was the exclusion of Dr. James McCune Smith, a gentleman, a graduate of the Edinburgh University, a member of a long-established temperance society, and a regularly appointed delegate. And wherefore? simply for the reason that nature had bestowed on his complexion a darker, richer tint than upon some of the sycophants who gathered there; it appears to have been simply to pander to a bigoted priesthood and a corrupt populace.”
In deciding the action of the Convention to be worse in its treatment toward Mr. Smith than toward Miss Brown, we think _The Una_ correspondent makes a grave mistake.
In point of courtesy the treatment of a lady of culture and refinement, the peer of any man in that a.s.sembly, with the unpardonable rudeness they did, was infinitely worse than to have done the same thing to any man, white or black, because by every code of honor or chivalry all men are bound to defend woman. Again, as a question of morals, custom, and prejudice, they occupied the same position in the State and the Church. The ”white male” in the Const.i.tutions placed women and black men on the same platform as citizens. The popular interpretation of Scripture sanctioned the same injustice in both cases. In the mouths of the false prophets, ”Servants, obey your masters,” was used for the same purpose, and with equal effect, as ”Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.”
”Servant of servants shall he be” has been used with the same prophetic force as the more cruel curse p.r.o.nounced on woman. The white man's Bible has been uniformly used to show that the degradation of the woman and the black man was in harmony with G.o.d's will. On what principle is proscription on account of color more cruel than on account of s.e.x?
Most of the liberal men and women now withdrew from all temperance organizations, leaving the movement in the hands of time-serving priests and politicians, who, being in the majority, effectually blocked the progress of the reform for the time--destroying, as they did, the enthusiasm of the women in trying to press it as a moral principle, and the hope of the men, who intended to carry it as a political measure. Henceforward women took no active part in temperance until the Ohio crusade revived them again all over the nation, and gathered the scattered forces into ”The Woman's National Christian Temperance Union,” of which Miss Frances E. Willard is president. As now, so in 1853, intelligent women saw that the most direct way to effect any reform was to have a voice in the laws and lawmakers. Hence they turned their attention to rolling up pet.i.tions for the civil and political rights of women, to hearings before legislatures and const.i.tutional conventions, giving their most persistent efforts to the reform technically called ”Woman's Rights.”