WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.


The writers of the "History of Woman Suffrage" give the following account
of the founding of their Association. In July, 1848, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha O. Wright, and Ann McClintock issued an
unsigned call for a convention, which was asked to consider the social,
civil, and religious condition and rights of woman; and in preparation for
the meeting, they wrote a "Declaration of Sentiments," which was adopted
by the assembly. They say, in describing the writing of this declaration:--
"The reports of Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were
examined, but all alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration
of a rebellion such as the world had never before seen. We knew women had
wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased
from the fact that we ourselves were fortunately organized and
conditioned.... After much delay, one of the circle took up the
Declaration of 1776, and read it aloud with spirit and emphasis, and it
was at once decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight
changes. Knowing that women must have more to complain of than men under
any circumstances possibly could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen
grievances, a protracted search was made through statute books, church
usages, and the customs of society to find that exact number."

In such solemnly puerile fashion did they work out a travesty on one of
the most august utterances ever penned. A young man who was present
remarked: "Tour grievances must be grievous indeed when you are obliged to
go to books in order to find them out." He might have added, "And they
must be false indeed when you have to found most of your charges on dead-
letter statutes and outgrown usages and customs."