Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-04-30
JONAS HARTzELL
New England Correspondence.
HYANNIs, Cape Cod, Mass.
April 2lst, 1853.
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April 2lst, 1853.
DEAR MARrUs One of the "exicting topics"
just now among us, is, the question of "Wo-
mans Rights" A Convention is to assemble
early in May, to revise the Constitution of Mass
chusetts. and petitions are in wide circulation,
to demand of that Convention, the entire remo-
val Of all legal disabilities under which woman
now suffers. Several talented and devoted wo-
men are earnestly engaged in the work, both
by writing and public lccturing; and "thc
Unn,' journal recently established in Provi-
dence, under the editorship of Mrs. Paulina
Wright Davis. is also valuable auxiliary in
the good work.
We are often told that She Southern slaves
are contented and happy in their chains. Once,
it seemed to mo impossible. But when l see
the condition Of woman here in New England,
her total and complete subjugation to man, her
exclusion from the most profitable employments,
and then the scanty pay she gets, as compared
with men, for such work as her lords condcsend
to let her do, and then her "taxation without
representation" taxation almost as high as that
of men, notwithstanding the slow and tedious
way in which she accum ulates her scanty gains,
her incapacity in most cases to hold or bequeath
property, (either before or after her husband S
death), however much her superior energy,
enterprise or industry may have attributed to
its accumulation, and even perhaps to keep her
shiftless husband and his family from starva-
ton, when l daily see all this, and find that
most women even glory in their degradation
and count their very chains, their choicest or
naments, it seems no longer strange or impossi-
bic, that thousands of Southern slaves may be
happy and contented with their lot. l think
the women engaged in this Reform, will find
their sternest opposition among their own sex
among those who stand in the most terrible
need of It's elevation and its blessings.
Among those, too, in what is called "high
life," both men and women. there begins to be
seen the snecring, contemptous manner and
bearing towards this reform. Gilded moths
and nav worms, fluttering and. crawling in the
sunshine of fortune, made, for obtained in
some way,] by their ancestry, and who them
selves never earned the value Of the shaaow oi
brown loaf reflected on the wall, let alone the
loaf itself, are shocked all through their hyster-
ical systems, that the poor women who toll day
and night for the bread they eat, and the clothe;
they wear, are seeking to amelorate their con-
dtion. o, did such creatures know, that with
all their self-importance, they are really the
permin which infest society, how soon their in
fation would disappear.
AS the enterprise moves on, it will developo
new sorms of opposition, until VIC shall learn as
never yet what Jesus meant by " setting man
against his father, and daughter against her
mother"
This reform will yet rcnd many families, and
scatter the fragments as the leaves Of autumn
No other. really involves half SO many mpor-
tant and vital interests. 1t opens the inner
sanctuaries of the whole social system. 1t is to
enter the very " holy of holies," in the family
relation, and all pertaining to it. The Right OF
Representation, of occupation,o of Compensation,
of Education. are onlya part of the questions
at issue; and the least important part. Equal
ly connected with the enterprise, are the sub
jects of Courtship, Marriage, and Parcntage,
and whatever pertains to the birth Of children,