again, that it is the minister who forms the mind of the woman. It is he who makes the mother what she is; therefore her teaching of the child is only conveying the instructions of the pulpit at second hand. If public sentiment is wrong on this (and I have the testimony of those who have spoken this morning, that it is), the pulpit is responsible for it, and has the power of changing it. The clergy claim the credit of establishing public schools. Granted. Listen to the pulpit in any matter of humanity, and they will claim the originating of it, because they are the teachers of the people. Now, if we give credit to the pulpit for establishing public schools, then I charge them with having a bad influence over those schools; and if the charge can be rolled off, I want it to be rolled off; but until it can be done, I hope it will remain there.
Mr. Mahan: No class of persons had better be drawn into our discussions to be denounced, unless there is serious occasion for it. I name the pulpit with solemn awe, and unless there is necessity for it, charges had better not be made against it. Now, I say that no practice and no usage in the Church can be found, by which a criminal man, in reference to the crimes referred to, may be kept in the Church and a criminal woman cast out. There is no such custom in any of the churches of God. After twenty years' acquaintance with the Church, I affirm that the practice does not exist. Now, in regard to the origin of public sentiment, can a pulpit be found, will the lady who has just sat down, name a pulpit in the wide world, where the principle is advocated, that a criminal woman should be excluded, and the man upheld? Whatever faults may be in it, that fault is not there.
Mrs. Rose: Not in theory, but in practice.
Mr. Mahan: Neither in theory nor in practice. Where a wrong state of society exists, the pulpit may be in fault for not reprobating it.
Abby K. Foster: I do not wish to mention names, or I could do so. I could give many cases where ministers have been charged with such crimes, and where the evidence of guilt was almost insurmountable, and yet they were not disciplined. They were afraid it would injure the Church, I remember one minister who was brought up for trial, and meantime they suspended him from office, and paid him only half his salary, but retained him as a church member; when, if it had been the case of a woman, and had the slightest shade of suspicion been cast upon her, they would not have waited even for trial and judgment. They would have cast her out of the church at once.
William Lloyd Garrison said: I have but a few words to submit to the meeting at the present time. In regard to the position of the Church and clergy, on the subject of purity, I think it is sufficient to remind the people here, that whatever may be the external form observed by the Church toward its members, pertaining to licentiousness, one thing is noticeable, and that is, that the marriage relation is abolished among three and a half millions of people; and the abolition of marriage on that frightful scale, is in the main sanctioned and sustained by the American Church and clergy. And if this does not involve them in all that is impure, and licentious, and demoralizing, I know not what can do so.
As it respects the objection to our adopting the Declaration of Independence as put forth at Seneca Falls, on the ground that it is a parody, and that, being a parody, it will only excite the mirthfulness of those who hear or read it in that form; I would simply remark, that I very much doubt, whether, among candid and serious men, there would be any such mirthfulness excited. At the time that document was published, I read it, but I had forgotten it till this morning, and on listening to it, my mind was deeply impressed with its pertinacity and its power. It seemed to me, the argumentium ad hominum, to this nation. It was measuring the people of this country by their own standard. It was taking their own words and applying their own principles to women, as they have been applied to men. At the same time, I liked the suggestion that we had better present an original paper to the country; and on conferring with the Committee after the adjournment, they agreed that it would be better to have such a paper; and that paper will undoubtedly be prepared, although we are not now ready to lay it before the Convention.
It was this morning objected to the Declaration of sentiments, that it implied that man was the only transgressor, that he had been guilty of injustice and usurpation, and the suggestion was also made, that woman should not be criminated, in this only, but regarded rather as one who had erred through ignorance; and our eloquent friend, Mrs. Rose, who stood on this platform and pleaded with such marked ability, as she always does plead in any cause she undertakes to speak upon, told us her creed. She told us she did not blame anybody, really, and did not hold any man to be criminal, or any individual to be responsible for public sentiment, as regards the difference of criminality of man and woman.
For my own part, I am not prepared to respect that philosophy. I believe in sin, therefore in a sinner; in theft, therefore in a thief; in slavery, therefore in a slaveholder; in wrong, therefore in a wrong-doer; and unless the men of this nation are made by woman to see that they have been guilty of usurpation, and cruel usurpation, I believe very little progress will be made. To say all this has been done without thinking, without calculation, without design, by mere accident, by a want of light; can anybody believe this who is familiar with all the facts in the case? Certainly, for one, I hope ever to lean to the charitable side, and will try to do so. I, too, believe things are done through misconception and misapprehension, which are injurious, yes, which are immoral and unchristian; but only to a limited extent. There is such a thing as intelligent wickedness, a design on the part of those who have the light to quench it, and to do the wrong to gratify their own propensities, and to further their own interests. So, then, I believe, that as man has monopolized for generations all the rights which belong to woman, it has not been accidental, not through ignorance on his part; but I believe that man has done this through calculation, actuated by a spirit of pride, a desire for domination which has made him degrade woman in her own eyes, and thereby tend to make her a mere vassal.
It seems to me, therefore, that we are to deal with the consciences of men. It is idle to say that the guilt is common, that the women are as deeply involved in this matter as the men. Never can it be said that the victims are as much to be blamed as the victimizer; that the slaves are to be as much blamed as the slaveholders and slave-drivers; that the women who have no rights, are to be as much blamed as the men who have played the part of robbers and tyrants. We must deal with conscience. The men of this nation, and the men of all nations, have no just respect for woman. They have tyrannized over her deliberately, they have not sinned through ignorance, but theirs is not the knowledge that saves. Who can say truly, that in all things he acts up to the light he enjoys, that he does not do something which he knows is not the very thing, or the best thing he ought to do? How few there are among mankind who are able to say this with regard to themselves. Is not the light all around us? Does not this nation know how great its guilt is in enslaving one-sixth of its people? Do not the men of this nation know ever since the landing of the pilgrims, that they are wrong in making subject one-half of the people? Rely upon it, it has not been a mistake on their part. It has been sin. It has been guilt; and they manifest their guilt to a demonstration, in the manner in which they receive this movement. Those who do wrong ignorantly, do not willingly continue in it, when they find they are in the wrong. Ignorance is not an evidence of guilt certainly. It is only an evidence of a want of light. They who are only ignorant, will never rage, and rave, and threaten, and foam, when the light comes; but being interested and walking in the light, will always present a manly front, and be willing to be taught, and be willing to be told they are in the wrong.
Take the case of slavery: How has the anti-slavery cause been received? Not argumentatively, not by reason, not by entering the free arena of fair discussion and comparing notes; the arguments have been rotten eggs, and brickbats and calumny, and in the southern portion of the country, a spirit of murder, and threats to cut out the tongues of those who spoke against them. What has this indicated on the part of the nation? What but conscious guilt? Not ignorance, not that they had not the light. They had the light and rejected it.
How has this Woman's Rights movement been treated in this country, on the right hand and on the left? This nation ridicules and derides this movement, and spits upon it, as fit only to be cast out and trampled underfoot. This is not ignorance. They know all about the truth. It is the natural outbreak of tyranny. It is because the tyrants and usurpers are alarmed. They have been and are called to judgment, and they dread the examination and exposure of their position and character.
Women