the ground of absolute justice, as well as the highest expediency, pointing out clearly the evils that flow from class legislation.
Mrs. Birdsall being introduced, read a clear, concise address, occupying about half an hour.
The following resolution, offered by Gen. Steele, was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the addresses just read be spread upon the Journal, and that copies be requested for publication in the city papers.
After the Senate adjourned, the Speaker called the House to order, and on the motion of Mr. Murray, it resolved itself into committee of the whole on the memorial just presented. On motion of Mr. Hamilton, the petition was made the special order for Friday, when it was referred to the Committee on "Rights and Privileges," who reported "that legislation on this subject is inexpedient at this time," which report was concurred in by the House.
The ninth annual meeting was held in Good Templars' Hall, Richmond, in October, 1859. It continued but one day, as the time was fully occupied in business plans for future work. Mary B. Birdsall was chosen President of the Association.
The intense excitement of the political campaign of 1860, and the civil war that followed, absorbed every other interest. The women who had so zealously worked for their own rights, were just as ready to help others. Some hastened to the hospitals; others labored in the sanitary movement. Others did double duty at home, tilling the ground and gathering in the harvests, that their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons might go forth to fight the battles of freedom. No conventions were held for ten years; but public sentiment had taken a long stride during those years of conflict, and when the pioneers of this reform, who had been accustomed to opposition and misrepresentation, again began the work, they were astonished to find themselves in a comparatively popular current.
We find the following letters from Henry C. Wright and Esther Ann Lukens, in The Liberator:
Dublin, Wayne Co., Indiana, Oct. 14, 1851.
Dear Garrison:—I am in a Woman's Rights Convention, the first ever held in this State, called by the women of Indiana to consider the true position of woman. An excellent but short address was made by the President, Hannah Hiatt, on the importance of the movement and the ruinous consequences of dividing the interests of men and women, and making their relations antagonistic in the State, the Church, and the affairs of every-day life. Much was said against woman's taking part in government. It would degrade her to vote and hold office, and destroy her influence as mother, wife, daughter, sister. It was an answer that if voting and holding office would degrade women, they would degrade men also; whatever is injurious to the moral nature, delicacy, and refinement of woman is equally so to man. Moral obligations rest equally on both sexes. Man should be as refined and chaste as woman if we would make our social life pure. Women may as well say to men, "Keep away from the ballot-box and from office, for it degrades you and unfits you to be our companions," as for man to say so to women. Dr. Curtis, a Methodist class-leader, said the Bible had placed the final appeal in all disputes in man; that if woman refused obedience, God gave man the right to use force. This "Christian teacher" was the only person in the Convention who appealed to the spirit of rowdyism, whose language was unbecoming the subject and the occasion. He was the only one who appealed to the Bible to justify the subjection of woman. And while he awarded to man the right to use force, he said the only influence the Bible authorized woman to use was moral suasion. Man is to rule woman by violence; woman must rule man by love, kindness, and long-suffering. So says the Bible according to the interpretation of the learned Dr. Curtis. The Convention lasted two days. It was a thrilling meeting.
Henry C. Wright.
Yours,
New Garden, Ohio, Oct. 2, 1851.
Dear Friends:—When Goethe was asked if the world would be better if the Golden Age were restored, he answered, "A synod of good women shall decide."
Could his spirit look down upon us he would see those synods, of which he perhaps prophetically spoke, assembling all over the land, not to restore an age of semi-barbarism, but to hasten the advent of a new and far more golden era, when there will be no dangerous pilgrimage of years' duration to win back the Holy Sepulchre, but a far more divine and sacred inheritance shall have been sought and found; namely, freedom for woman to exercise every right, capacity, and power with which God has endowed her.
If there are any natural rights, then they belong to all by virtue of our humanity, and are not graduated by degrees of superiority. If the privilege of voting had been limited to those men who were strong in mind and morals, we should never have had a Governor's signature to "the black laws of Ohio."
It is perverse and cruel to raise the cry that we make war upon domestic life; that we would destroy its natural order and attraction by allowing woman to mingle in the coarse and noisy scenes of political life. Is not the aid of man equally important in the family, and would his necessary duties in the home conflict with his duties as a citizen and a patriot?
Man can not wrong and oppress woman without jeopardizing his own liberty. Cramped and crippled as she may be by inexorable law, she avenges herself, and decides his destiny. So long as woman is outlawed, man pays the penalty in ignorance, poverty, and suffering. Our interests are one, we rise or fall together.
Sisters of Indiana, accept my heartfelt sympathy in the work you have undertaken. It is well for the pioneers of a new country to call down God's blessing on their labors by an early claim to an equality of rights.
Esther Ann Lukens.
Yours, for justice to all,
Having never met the brave women who endured the first shower of ridicule in Indiana, we asked to be introduced to them in some brief pen-sketches, and in the following manner they present themselves:
REV. AMANDA M. WAY
may be truthfully called the mother of "The Woman Suffrage Association" in Indiana organized in 1851, and took an active part in all the Conventions until she became a resident in Kansas in 1872. Miss Way was always an abolitionist, a prohibitionist, and an uncompromising suffragist—the great pioneer of all reforms. It is amusing to hear how many places she has been the first to fill; yet she has done it all in such a quiet way that no one seemed to feel that she was ever out of place. It was a common remark, "Amanda can do that, but she is not like other people." She was the first woman elected Grand Secretary of the "Indiana Order of Good Templars," in 1856; the first State lecturer and organizer; the first in the world to be elected Grand Worthy Chief Templar; the first one in her State to be a representative to the national lodge; the first one admitted as a regular representative to the Grand Division, Sons of Temperance, and the first to be a licensed preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. What is better still, she continues in the work she began, gaining power and influence with the experience of years. An editor, speaking of her, said: "There is no woman more widely and favorably known in this State than Amanda Way. Her name is a household word, and in the hearts of the temperance reformers her memory will ever be sacred."
In 1859, she was associated with Mrs. Underhill in editing The Ladies' Tribune, and has since been connected with the press much of the time. During the Rebellion, her time and thoughts were given to active labors in the hospitals and the sanitary movement. Many a soldier returned to his home who would have died but for her care. In company with Mrs. Swank she presented a memorial, to the Legislature in 1871, asking the elective franchise for women, and made a very effective speech on the occasion.
Her home-life has been equally active and faithful; a widowed mother and a sister's orphaned children, have been her special care, depending on her for support. Once, when asked why she never married, she laughingly replied, "I never had time."
She has been a consistent member of the Methodist Church twenty years, and ten years ago, unsolicited by herself, she was licensed as a minister by the Winchester Quarterly Conference, Rev. Milton Mahin, Presiding Elder. In her travels over the State she preaches almost every Sunday, being invited to fill many pulpits, both in Kansas and this State.
She is a calm, forcible, earnest speaker, and, though quiet and reserved