Volume II Part 129 (2/2)
_The Necessity for Funds--The Delinquency of the Friends of the Negro--Miss Anthony on the Const.i.tution--Fighting, a Barbaric way of Settling Questions._--About fifteen ladies and half a dozen gentlemen were present at the meeting of the Woman's League, yesterday. Although more than one of the speakers bewailed the delinquency of the ”friends of the negro” in failing to supply the League with the necessary funds, yet the piles of post-paid circulars on the tables, ready for the mail, were larger than ever. There was also a bundle of tracts on emanc.i.p.ation as the only means of peace.
The meeting being called to order, a committee reported a series of resolutions, the gist of which was that, whereas the League is continually receiving from its friends to whom it applies for pecuniary a.s.sistance communications stating that the day for pet.i.tion and discussion is past, and that the bullet and bayonet are now working out the stern logic of events; nevertheless the League considers that such day is not past, and it urges the friends of the negro to come forward boldly and pour out of their abundance liberally for its aid.
SPEECH BY MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
Miss Susan B. Anthony made a speech arguing that the decision of the anti-slavery question should not be left to the ”stern logic of events” which is wrought by the bullet and the bayonet. More knowledge is needed. The eyes and the ears of the whole public are now open. It should be the earnest work of every lover of freedom to give those eyes the right thing to see and those ears the right thing to hear. It pains her to receive in answer to a call for a.s.sistance and funds, letters saying that the day for discussion and pet.i.tion is past. It looks as if we had returned to the old condition of barbarism, where no way is known of settling questions except by fighting. Women, who are noted for having control of the moral department of society and for lifting the other half of the race into a higher moral condition, should not relapse into the idea that the status of any human being is to be settled merely by the sword. Miss Anthony then spoke of the const.i.tutional right of Congress to pa.s.s an emanc.i.p.ation law. She read a letter from a lady who, on receiving doc.u.ments from the League, first doubted the power of Congress to pa.s.s such a law; then she thought perhaps it had; then she compared the pet.i.tion and the Const.i.tution; then she thought it had no such power, and finally she concluded to circulate the pet.i.tion anyhow. Miss Anthony proceeded at some length to expound the Const.i.tution, showing that it does not say that slaves shall not be emanc.i.p.ated, and therefore concluding that they may. But if Congress can not emanc.i.p.ate slaves const.i.tutionally, it should do so unconst.i.tutionally. She does not believe in this red-tapism that can not find a law to suppress the wrong, but always finds one to oppress the innocent. If she was a mayor, or a governor, or a legislator, and there was no law to punish mobocrats, she thought she should go to work to make one pretty quick. She requested the opinion of some gentleman.
A gentleman present related a number of touching incidents about the recent mobbing of negroes in this city, most of which have already appeared in print in this and other papers. Miss Anthony held up two photographs to the view of the audience. One represented ”Sojourner Truth,” the heroine of one of Mrs. H. B. Stowe's tales, and the other the bare back of a Louisiana slave. Many of the audience were affected to tears. ”Sojourner Truth” had lost three fingers of one hand, and the Louisiana slave's back bore scars of whipping. She asked every one to suppose that woman was her mother, and that man her father. In that case would they think the time past for discussion and pet.i.tion? The resolutions were at once unanimously pa.s.sed. The meeting adjourned.
MISS ANTHONY IN CHICAGO.
Miss Susan B. Anthony is now on her homeward way from Kansas, where she has been spending several of the past months, and where she has performed much excellent service in the cause of the freedmen of the country generally. She has recently visited Chicago and given a lecture, which is highly commended by the _Tribune_ and _Republican_ of that city, the latter giving an extended report of it in its columns, besides p.r.o.nouncing upon it very flattering encomiums, concluding with these words: ”The audience dwelt with thoughtful and marked interest upon her words, and when occasionally her remarks called forth an irrepressible burst of feeling, the applause was marked and emphatic, without descending to a noisy disturbance.” Of the lecture in general, the Chicago _Tribune_ thus speaks:
Last evening Miss Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester, N. Y., addressed an audience composed chiefly of colored people, in Quinn's Chapel. Her subject was ”Universal Suffrage.” Mrs. Jones, the President of the Ladies' Aid Society, in introducing her, said: ”She was one of their old and firm friends; not one who had believed in sitting down to the communion first, and letting the negro come last. She was not one who needed to have her father or brothers starved in Southern prisons, to make her aware of the humanity of the black man.”
Miss Anthony is a clear, logical speaker, earnest and truthful, and has long considered the questions of the day. Few _men_ in this or any other city could more ably present the subject, or more closely chain the audience that listened to her n.o.ble utterances, and one could not but wish that she had spoken to thousands rather than hundreds. Miss A. is recently from Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has been spending some months past, aiding as she had opportunity, in the elevation of the freed people, and occasionally by lectures, contributing to form a true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing but the admission of the black man to the franchise can save the nation from future disgrace and ultimate ruin.--_National Anti-Slavery Standard_, August, 1865.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1866 AND 1867.
_Report made to the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention._
BY CAROLINE H. DALL.
For the last five years the women of the United States have held few public discussions. They have done wisely. Circ.u.mstances have proved their friend. Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so great a service to woman in so short a time, as this dreadful war out of which we are so slowly emerging. Respect for woman came only with the absolute need of her, and so many women of distinguished ability made themselves of service to the Government, that we had no single woman to honor as England had honored Florence Nightingale. With us her name was _legion_. But with the prospect of peace comes the old duty of agitation, and we find ourselves again summoned to a Convention, and again anxiously awaiting its results--_anxiously_, for a convention of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curious, and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single speaker has a retrograde effect which few women seem able to measure.
Our reform is unlike all others, for it must begin in the family, at the very heart of society. If it be not kindly, temperately, and thoughtfully conducted, men everywhere will be able to justify their remonstrances. Let us rather justify ourselves. My last report to any Convention was made to those called in Boston in 1859 and 1860.
Between that time and 1863 I printed five volumes, which are nothing but reports upon the various interests significant to our cause.
During the last four years I have watched the development of American industry in its relation to women, and have, through the newspapers, aroused public feeling in their behalf. My labor is naturally cla.s.sed under the three heads of Education, Labor, and Law. A proper education must prepare woman for labor, skilled or manual; and the experience of a laborer should introduce her to citizens.h.i.+p, for it provides her with rights to protect, privileges to secure, and property to be taxed. If she is a laborer, she must have an interest in the laws which control labor. In considering our position in these three respects, it is impossible to offer you a digest of all that has occurred during the last six years. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the events of the last two.
EDUCATION.
I wish it were in my power to furnish you with reports of the present condition of all the female colleges in the United States; but, while I receive from various foreign sources such reports, and am promptly informed of any educational movement in Europe, it never seems to occur to the government of such inst.i.tutions in the United States that there is any necessary connection between them and the interests which this Convention represents. We are, consequently, dependent upon newspapers for our information.
The most important educational movement of the last year has been the formation of an American Social Science a.s.sociation, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Social Science a.s.sociation was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors, one woman being a.s.signed to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of this a.s.sociation. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.
During the past winter the Lowell Inst.i.tute, in Boston, in connection with the government of the Ma.s.sachusetts Technological Inst.i.tute, took a step which deserves our public mention. They advertised cla.s.ses for both s.e.xes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the _women_ who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These cla.s.ses have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.
Elmira College showed its enterprise last summer by a visit to Ma.s.sachusetts, and Va.s.sar College was organized and commenced its operations in September, with Miss Mitch.e.l.l in the Chair of Mathematics, and Miss Avery in that of Physiology. I attempted to visit this inst.i.tution last summer for the purpose of investigating the facilities its buildings and proposed courses might offer to foreign students. The reluctance of the Trustees to subject it to observation so early in its career interfered with my plan, but I have since received a letter from Miss Mitch.e.l.l speaking of it in the most encouraging terms. ”I have a cla.s.s,” she says, ”of seventeen pupils, between the ages of 16 and 22. They come to me for fifty minutes every day. I allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am puzzled by them daily. They show more mathematical ability and more originality of thought than I had expected. I doubt whether young men would show as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in Harvard College who take mathematical astronomy, do you think?” So Mr. Va.s.sar's magnificent donation is drawing interest at last.
On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vermont, celebrated its commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated.
Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils. Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of Colleges intended for the separate s.e.xes, I take more pleasure in speaking of the Baker University in Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of that State in 1857 as a University for both s.e.xes. It has now been in active operation for seven years. A little more than a year ago Miss Martha Baldwin, a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Latin. She is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by the government to make the address for the Faculty at the opening of the commencement exercises, and seems to have given entire satisfaction during her professors' year. In France, the Imperial Geographical Society, which is in a certain sense a college, has lately admitted to members.h.i.+p Madame Dora D'Istra as the successor to Madame Pfeiffer. Madame D'Istra had distinguished herself by researches in the Morea.
On the 26th of October, 1864, a a Workingwomen's College was opened in London, with an address from Miss F. R. Malleson. It is governed by a council of teachers. In addition to the ordinary branches, it offers instruction in Botany, Physiology, and Drawing. Its fee is four s.h.i.+llings a year, and the coffee and reading-room, about which its social life centres, is open every evening from 7 to 11. But by far the most interesting educational movement is Miss Nightingale's ”Training-school for Nurses,” which has been in operation for three years in Liverpool. It was founded after a correspondence with her, in strict conformity to her counsel. As a training-school it may be said to be self-supporting, but it is also a beneficent inst.i.tution, and in that regard is sustained by donations. A most admirable system of district nursing is provided under its auspices for the whole city of Liverpool, all of whose suffering sick become, in this way, the recipients of intelligent care and of valuable instruction in cooking and all sanitary matters. It is too tempting an experiment to dwell upon, unless we could follow it into its details. Its Report occupies 101 pages.
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