doctrine of separate estate will stifle all the finer feelings, blast the brightest, fairest, happiest hopes of the human family, and go in direct contravention of that law which bears the everlasting impress of the Almighty Hand. Sir, I consider such a scheme not only as wild, but as wicked, if not in its intentions, at least in its results."
It is incredible that men in their sane minds should argue day after day, that if women were allowed to control their own property, it would "strike at the root of Christianity," "ruin the home," and "open wide the door to license and debauchery." And yet these men did so argue through weeks of stormy debate; the bitterest feeling being shown, not with regard to the proposed change in the law of descent, but with regard to the right of women to "acquire and possess property to their sole use and disposal," during the husband's life-time. It is strange, indeed, that the man who advocated this "most meagre justice," as he truly says, should have been a target, not only for ridicule, but for abuse. I append one extract of the latter description, to illustrate how violent and unreasoning was the prejudice with which my father contended. One gentleman after quoting from the marriage contract of my father and mother, the extract in which he, my father, divests himself of the right to control the "person and property of another," proceeds as follows:
Sir, I would that my principles on this, in contradistinction with those of the gentlemen from Posey, were written in characters of light across the noon-day heavens, that all the world might read them. (Applause). I have in my drawer numerous other extracts from the writings of the gentleman from Posey, but am not allowed to read them; and, indeed, sir, under the circumstances, decency forbids their use. But if I were permitted to read them, and show their worse than damning influence upon society, in conjunction with this system of separate interests, I venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; aye, sir, they would shun them as they would shun man's worst enemy, and flee from them as from a poisonous reptile. (Page 1161, "Debates in Indiana Convention").
The section was finally reconsidered and rejected a few days before adjournment (p. 2013). But my father, with his characteristic perseverance, continued his efforts until they were finally crowned with success in the Legislature, after fifteen years of endeavor.
Most of the arguments used by those delegates, if they can be called by so dignified a name, bear a singular resemblance to the arguments used to-day by the opponents of woman's suffrage. May we not then conclude that the fears which have been proved absolutely groundless in the one case, may be equally so in the other?
An enthusiastic public meeting was held in Indianapolis in honor of my father by the women of the State, Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton taking a prominent part. On this occasion a beautiful silver pitcher was presented to him as a token of gratitude for his persevering efforts in behalf of women. This pitcher still holds a place of honor in our family dinings on gala days.
In reply to several slurs in regard to this memorial, my father during the debates in the Convention thus retorted:
Since I have had occasion to allude to the testimonial which it is proposed to offer me on behalf of the women of my adopted State, I will say here, that regarding it as the greatest compliment—if in so grave a connection a word often so lightly used may be properly employed—the greatest compliment I ever received in my life, or ever can receive till I die: it matters little to me what may be said of myself in that connection; I am accustomed to personal attack, and am proof against ridicule. But if any man, whether he disgrace a chair on this floor, or dishonor by his presence some of the bar-rooms of the city, utter an insinuation, cast a reproach, directly or indirectly, by open assertion, or covert insinuation, against the motives or the character of those courageous women who may have met in Lawrenceburg or elsewhere, to consult regarding rights shamefully denied to them, or those who may have publicly expressed gratitude to the defenders of these rights—if such a man there be, within or without the walls of this capitol, I say here of such a one, let him receive it as he will, that I would give my hand more freely to the inmate of the penitentiary than to him. (Page 1185, "Debates in Indiana Convention").
In 1843 and 1845 my father was elected to Congress, serving until 1847. In 1853 he was appointed Minister to Naples, remaining there until 1858. During the war his exertions were unremitting. He was the friend of Governor Morton, and was consulted by that energetic statesman in all his more important plans. He wrote several letters on the political crises of the time, which had a wide circulation and influence. Mr. Lincoln said to several of his friends, that a letter addressed to him by Mr. Owen, and a conversation consequent thereon, had done more toward deciding him in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation, than any other influence which had been brought to bear. My father also made strenuous efforts during the winter of 1865-'66 to postpone the enfranchisement of the freedmen ten years, until 1876. (See Atlantic Monthly, June, 1875). Subsequent events have shown his judgment to have been correct and far-sighted. He believed the conferring of suffrage upon the negro, dim-visioned in the sudden light of a new liberty, to be a most dangerous experiment; he foresaw that the ballot which the North gave to them as a protection against their arrogant masters, would prove a two-edged sword with a terrible reactionary force in the hands of an untrained race just freed from mental leading-strings; he knew the difficulty to be inherent, a difficulty which the existence of slavery must necessarily have produced. He maintained that although the sword had struck off the outward chains, the white-heat of ire kindled in the hearts of the conquered had not fused the inward shackles of the slave, but had riveted them the firmer, and that the invisible fetters welded by revengeful hate should be broken most carefully.
In the latter years of his life my father gave his entire attention to the study of Modern Spiritualism, or rather to the study of Spiritualism in both its ancient and its modern phases. He published two works on this subject, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next." In a letter written shortly before his death, he expresses himself as follows: "I hope, my child, that you will never, at any period of your life, be less happy than you now are. If you cultivate your spiritual nature rationally, I feel assured you never will. For one effect of rational Spiritualism is to make one more satisfied the longer one lives, and to make the last scenes of life, hours of pleasant anticipation, instead of a season of dread, or, as with many it has been, of horror." It would be well for non-investigators who maintain that my father's belief in Spiritualism necessarily proves him to have been illogical, to see to it that they are not falling into the inconsequence which they are ascribing to him. Reasoning a priori, should we not believe that the man who saw so clearly the dangers which were unperceived by some of our keenest statesmen, could not become, except in a rare instance and for a short time, a misled dupe? Has any one the right to condemn such a man unproved?
While my father was exerting his energies for the welfare of the nation, my mother was giving her life to her children. Sons and daughters were welcomed into the Owen homestead, and the wide halls and great rooms of the rambling country house rang with the voices of children. Three of these little ones slipped back to Heaven before the portals had closed. The stricken parents with blinded eyes met only the rayless emptiness of unbelief. May God help the mother, fainting beneath a bereavement greater than she can bear, who cries for help and finds none; who stretches her empty arms upward in an agony of appeal and is answered by the hollow echo of her own cry; may God help her, for she is beyond the help of man. Other children came to fill the vacant places, other voices filled the air, but the hearts of father and mother were not filled until years later, when a sweet faith thrilled the hopeless blank.
The story of these two is the story of many beside. Husband and wife began the long journey side by side with equal talent, hope, energy; his work led him along the high-road, hers lay in a quiet nook; his name became world-known, hers was scarcely heard beyond the precinct of her own village; and yet who can say that his life was the more successful, who can say that the quiet falling rain, with its slow resultant of flower and fruit in each little garden nook, is less important than the mighty ship-laden river bearing its wealth of commerce in triumph to the sea?
George Eliot, in "Middlemarch," says of Dorothea:
Her finely-touched spirit had its fine issues, though they were not widely visible.... The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world is partly dependent