We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of justice; for it is in accordance with the principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it; that as she is amenable to the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their enactment and to all the protective advantages they can bestow; that as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life, she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. Any difference, therefore, in political, civil and social rights, on account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.
During the debate Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, made a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called him to order. As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked him off with cries of "Sit down! Shut up!" His idea of woman's modesty was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home. Miss Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young ministers who had been educated through the efforts of women, and she had always noticed those were the ones most anxious for women to keep silence in the churches. This finished Mr. Hatch.
A young teacher by the name of Brigham also attempted to define the spheres of Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton5 and the other great advocates of woman's freedom and declared: "Women ought to be keepers at home and mind domestic concerns; he had no doubt the true object of this meeting was not so much to acquire any real or supposed rights as to make the speakers and actors conspicuous; he wished to urge upon them to claim nothing masculine for women, for even in animals the spheres were different. He had no objections to woman's voice being heard, but let her seek out the breathing-holes of perdition to do her work." Mr. Brigham was badly worsted in the argument which followed, and at the next session he sent in a protest, declaring he had not had "justice." He evidently did not see the satire of this complaint, since he himself had been loudest in his refusal to do justice to woman.
A heated discussion was called out by a resolution offered by Rev. Antoinette L. Brown declaring that "the Bible recognizes the rights, privileges and duties of woman as a public teacher, as in every way equal with those of man; that it enjoins upon her no subjection that is not enjoined upon him; and that it truly and practically recognizes neither male nor female in Christ Jesus." Mrs. Rose closed the discussion by saying:
I can not object to any one's interpreting the Bible as he or she thinks best; but I do object that such interpretation go forth as the doctrine of this convention, because it is a mere interpretation and not even the authority of the Book; it is the view of Miss Brown only, which is as good as that of any other minister, but that is all. For my part I reject both interpretations. Here we claim human rights and freedom, based upon the laws of humanity, and we require no written authority from Moses or Paul, because those laws and our claim are prior even to these two great men.
Miss Brown's resolution was not adopted. Susan B. Anthony spoke briefly but earnestly in behalf of the People's College and also of the Woman's State Temperance Society, for which she asked their endorsement. She then read the resolutions sent by Mrs. Stanton, all but one of which were adopted. The Syracuse Journal commented: "Miss Anthony has a capital voice and deserves to be made clerk of the Assembly." The Syracuse Standard said of this convention: "It was attended by not less than 2,000 persons. The discussions were characterized by a degree of ability that would do credit to any deliberative body." The Journal said: "No person can deny that there was a greater amount of talent in the woman's rights convention than has characterized any public gathering in this city during the last ten years, if ever before. The appearance of all the ladies was modest and unassuming, though prompt, energetic and confident. Business was brought forward, calmly deliberated upon and discussed with unanimity and in a spirit becoming true women, which would add an unknown dignity to the transactions of public associations of the 'lords.'" The Syracuse Star, however, took a different view:
The women of the Tomfoolery Convention, now being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind and Christian (?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, O.C. Burleigh and S.S. Foster. These men are all woman's righters and preachers of such damnable doctrines and accursed heresies as would make demons of the pit shudder to hear. We have selected a few appropriate passages from God's Bible for the consideration of the infuriated gang at the convention.
The New York Herald, under the elder Bennett, which from the beginning of the demand had been the inveterate foe of equal rights for women, contained the following editorial, September 12, 1852:
The farce at Syracuse has been played out. We publish today the last act, in which it will be seen that the authority of the Bible, as a perfect rule of faith and practice for human beings, was voted down, and what are called the laws of nature set up instead of the Christian code. We have also a practical exhibition of the consequences that flow from woman leaving her true sphere, where she wields all her influence, and coming into public to discuss morals and politics with men. The scene in which Rev. Mr. Hatch violated the decorum of his cloth and was coarsely offensive to such ladies present as had not lost that modest "feminine element" on which he dwelt so forcibly, is the natural result of the conduct of the women themselves who, in the first place, invited discussion about sexes, and, in the second place, so broadly defined the difference between the male and the female as to be suggestive of anything but purity to the audience. The women of the convention have no right to complain, but for the sake of his clerical character, if no other motive influenced him, he ought not have followed so bad an example. His speech was sound and his argument conclusive, but his form of words was not in the best taste. The female orators were the aggressors, but to use his own language he ought not to have measured swords with a woman, especially when he regarded her ideas and expressions as bordering upon the obscene. But all this is the natural result of woman placing herself in a false position. As Rev. Mr. Hatch observed, if she ran with horses she must expect to be betted upon. The whole tendency of these conventions is by no means to increase the influence of woman, to elevate her condition or to command the respect of the other sex....
How did woman first become subject to man, as she now is all over the world? By her nature, her sex, just as the negro is and always will be to the end of time, inferior to the white race and, therefore, doomed to subjection; but she is happier than she would be in any other condition, just because it is the law of her nature....
What do the leaders of the woman's rights convention want? They want to vote and to hustle with the rowdies at the polls. They want to be members of Congress, and in the heat of debate subject themselves to coarse jests and indecent language like that of Rev. Mr. Hatch. They want to fill all other posts which men are ambitious to occupy, to be lawyers, doctors, captains of vessels and generals in the field. How funny it would sound in the newspapers that Lucy Stone, pleading a cause, took suddenly ill in the pains of parturition and perhaps gave birth to a fine bouncing boy in court! Or that Rev. Antoinette Brown was arrested in the pulpit in the middle of her sermon from the same cause, and presented a "pledge" to her husband and the congregation; or that Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, while attending a gentleman patient for a fit of the gout or fistula in ano found it necessary to send for a doctor, there and then, and to be delivered of a man or woman child—perhaps twins.6 A similar event might happen on the floor of Congress, in a storm at sea or in the raging tempest of battle, and then what is to become of the woman legislator?
For months after this convention the discussions and controversies were kept up through press and pulpit. The clergymen in Syracuse