audiences of men and women. In the old theater in Boston for six
nights in succession, audiences filling all the space listened
entranced to the messenger of emancipation. There is uniform
testimony that, in an age distinguished for oratory, no more
effective speaker appeared than Angelina Grimke. It was she above
all others who first vindicated the right of women to speak to
men from the public platform on political topics. But it must be
remembered that scores of other women were laboring to the same
end and were fully prepared to utilize the new opportunity.

The great world movement from slavery towards freedom, from
despotism to democracy, is characterized by a tendency towards
the equality of the sexes. Women have been slaves where men were
free. In barbarous ages women have been ignored or have been
treated as mere adjuncts to the ruling sex. But wherever there
has been a distinct contribution to the cause of liberty there
has been a distinct recognition of woman's share in the work. The
Society of Friends was organized on the principle that men and
women are alike moral beings, hence are equal in the sight of
God. As a matter of experience, women were quite as often moved
to break the silence of a religious meeting as were the men.

For two hundred years women had been accustomed to talk to both
men and women in Friends' meetings and, when the moral war
against slavery brought religion and politics into close
relation, they were ready speakers upon both topics. When the
Grimke sisters came into the church with a fresh baptism of the
Spirit, they overcame all obstacles and, with a passion for
righteousness, moral and spiritual and political, they carried
the war against slavery into politics.