Lucretia Mott's Heresy. Carol Faulkner

light and William Ellery Channing’s “Idea of Right.” L probably concluded that Grimké’s response was much more effective than her own, as she stopped publication of her series. Still, not all Garrisonians agreed with Grimké’s assessment of women’s “right” to speak against slavery. As abolitionists deliberately and repeatedly violated the nation’s racial and sexual order, the outcry intensified.

      As the controversy over women’s role in the anti-slavery movement grew, Mott took her place on the national stage. After the separation, Mott’s skills as a preacher made her an important ambassador from Philadelphia Friends to Quakers across the country. In 1833, she and her school friend Phebe Post Willis, a cousin of James from Long Island, traveled on a religious mission through New York and Massachusetts, ending in Mott’s birthplace of Nantucket, where Quakers were in a “tried state” following a series of disownments, further reverberations from the schism in Philadelphia. Despite these tensions, Mott relished her time with Phebe, writing “sisters could not have harmonized more entirely.” But the Orthodox journal The Friend pointed out that Lucretia was traveling under false pretenses by claiming she represented the Society of Friends. Classifying Mott as a Hicksite, they argued “the Society of Friends are in no way responsible for her doctrines or movements.” (“Have you seen how I am posted in ‘The Friend’?” Mott asked Willis).²⁷

      Though she still had young children, Lucretia’s calling meant that she was frequently away from home. In May 1834, after several of her children had recovered from scarlet fever, Lucretia left on a three week journey to Southern Quarterly Meeting. Anna Coffin lived with the Motts and helped with domestic duties, as did Lucretia’s older daughters. Nevertheless, James experienced her departure as an emotional as well as a practical trial, writing, “I am not a whit better reconciled to a separation than I was a year ago,—but must make the best of it.” The following spring Mott commented that “I have been less from home this winter than for several years past,” a turn of phrase that suggested she had traveled quite a bit. But the demands of childrearing also declined in the coming years. In 1836, eight-year-old Martha and eleven-year-old Elizabeth went to a school run by Anthony Sharp in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, where Lucretia’s cousin Rebecca Bunker was a teacher. In October of that year, eighteen-year old Maria married Edward M. Davis, a Quaker merchant, member of the Young Men’s Anti-Slavery Society of City and County of Philadelphia, and, in 1838, one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, a state-wide organization affiliated with the American Anti-Slavery Society.²⁸ Lucretia approved whole-heartedly of both her sons-in-law, who were as devoted to abolition as the rest of the family.

      In 1836, in response to the emergence of female anti-slavery societies across New England and the mid-Atlantic, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) suggested the formation of an executive committee to oversee the various groups. Benjamin Lundy praised the idea, writing “Much good would doubtless result from the united exertions, of such minds as those of A. E. Grimké, Lucretia Mott, Mary Parker, Mary Clarke [sic], M. W. Chapman, L. M. Child” and others. Parker, Maria Weston Chapman, and Lydia Maria Child were all members of the Boston society, while Mary Clark hailed from the Concord, New Hampshire, Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, founded in 1834. While the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society approved the proposal, anti-slavery women from Maine to Pennsylvania disagreed about what they could and should do to end slavery. An executive committee offered the possibility of a female alternative to the American Anti-Slavery Society. But some women suggested they preferred to integrate the American Anti-Slavery Society, and still others remained skeptical of the utility of a national organization.²⁹