Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-01-19
For m Fred. Douglass Paper.
MRS. STANTON TO GERRIT SMITH.

SENECA FALLS, Dec. 81.
GERRIr SMIrH-Dear Friend Your letter on
the "Woman's Rights Movement" l have thor
oughly read and considered. l thank you in the
name of woman for having said what you have on
80 many vital points. You have spoken well for
a man whose convictions on this subject are the
result Of reason and observation, but they alone
whose souls are fred through personal experience
and suffering can set forth the heighth and depth,
the source and centre, of the degradation of wo-
man; they alone can feel a steadfast faith in their
own native energy and power to accomplish a final
triumph over all adverse surroundings, a speedy
and complete success. You say you have but lit
tie faith in this reform, because the changes We
purpose are so great, so radient, so comprehensive,
whilst they who have commenced the work are so
puny, feeble and undeyeloped. The mass of wo-
men are developed at least to the point of discon-
tent, and that, in the dawn of this nation, was con-
sidered q most dangerous point in the British Par
lament, and is now deemed equally so on o South
ern plantation. In the human soul, The steps be-
tween discomfort and action are few and short in
deed. You who suppose the mass Of women con-
tented know but little of the silent indignation,
The deep and settled disgust with which she con
templates our present social arrangements. You
claim to believe that in every sense, thought and
feeling, man and woman are the same. Well now
suppose yourself a woman. You are educated UP
to that point where one feels a deep interest in the
welfare of her country, anu in all the great ques.
tiOhS VI tuc 6y, ih u OuuTCH anu OtlIe, VET
you have ne voice in either. Little men, with lit
tie brains, may pour forth their little sentiments
by the hour in the forum and the sacred desk, but
public sentiment and the religion of our day teach
es us that silence is most becoming in woman. So
TO solitude you betake yourself, and read for your
consolation the thoughts of deat men; but from
the Bible down to Mother Goose's Melodies, how
much complaceney, think you you would feel in
your womanhood. The philosopher, the poet and
the saint, all combined to make the name woman
synonymous with either fool or devil. Every pas
sion OF the human soul, which in manhood burns
50 grand and glorious in its results, is fatal to wo-
mankind. Ambition makes a Lady Macbeth, love
an Ophelia; none but these brainless things, with
out will or passion, are ever permitted to come to
a good end. What measure of content could you
draw from the literature of the past?
' Again, suppose yourself tho wife Of q con-
frmed drunkard. You behold your earthly hap
piness all passing away; your heart is made DESC
late; it has ceased to pulsatc with either love, or
hope, or Joy. Your house is sold over your head,
and with it every article of comfort and decency;
your children gather round you one BY one, each
new conner clothed in rags and covered with shame;
is it with gladnoss you now welcome the embrace
of that beastly husband, feel his fevered breath
upon your check, and inhale the disgusting odor
Of his tobacco and rum? Would not your whole
soul revolt from such an union? So do the forty
tho sand drunkard's wives now in this State
Whey, too, are all DISCONTINUED, and but for the
pressure of law and gospel would speedily sunder
all these unholy ties. Yes, sir, there are women,
pure and virtueus and noble as yourself, spending
every day Of all the years of their existence in the
most intimate association with infamous men, kept
so by that monstrous and unnatural ~artifce, bap-
tized by the sacred name of marriage. l might
take you through many, many phases Ola womans
life, into those sacred relations of which we speak,
Rot 10 our conventions, where woman feels her
deepest wrongs, where in blank despair she drags
out days, and weeks, and months, and years of ST.
lent agony: l might paint you pictures Of real
life so vivid as to force from you an agonized ex-
clamation; How can woman endure such things |.
We who have spoken out, have declared our rights,
political and civil; but the entire revolution about
to dawn upon US by the acknowledgment of wo-
mans social equality has been seen and felt but
by the few. The rights to vote, to hold property,
to speak in public are all-important; but there are
great social rights, before which all others sink in
to utter insignificance. The cause of woman is,
as you admit, a burden, and a deeper one than any
with which you compare it; and this to me is the
very reason why it must succeed. 1t is not a ques-
ton OF. meats and drinks, of money and lands, but
of .Luman rights, the sacred right Of q woman to
her own person, to all her Godgiyen powers of
body and soul. Did it ever enter into the mind of
man, that woman too had an inalienable right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of her individual hap
piness2 Did he ever take in the idea that to the
mctherlof the raee,and the mother alone, belong the
right to say when a new being should be brought
into the world. Has he, ir the qualification of his
blnd passions, ever paused to think whether is was
with JOY and ~gladness that she gave up ten or
twenty years of the hey-day of her existence to all
the cares aud sufferipgs of excessive maternity p
Our present laws, our religious teachings, our So
ciai customs in reference to the whole question of
marriage and divorce are most degrading to wo-
man; and SO long as man continues to think and
msiie, 10 speak and act, as if maternity was the
one and sole object of q woman's existence-so
long as children are conceived In WEAKNESS and
disgust-you must not look for high toned men
and Women capable of accomplishing any great
and noble achievement. But when woman shall
stand ON an even pedestal with man, when they
shall be bound together, not by those withs of law
and gospei, but IN holy unity and love; then and
not I'll then shall all our efforts at minor reforms
be crowned with complete success. Here, in nv
-oPinion, ~ the starting poinE here ia the battle
grpSpd where our Independence must be fought
Gpd VOC. A true marriage relation has far more
todosst6h ne elevation Of woman than the style
AID cut Of her dress. Dress is q natter of taste,
Of fashion; it is changeable, t~rancient, and may be