THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES.—On Saturday evening the Broadway Tabernacle reverberated with the shrill, defiant notes of Miss Lucy Stone and her "sisters," who have thrown down the gauntlet to the male friends of temperance and declared not literally "war to the knife" but conflict with tongues.... Henceforth the women's rights ladies—including among them the misses, Lucy herself, Emily Clark, Susan B. Anthony, Antoinette Brown, some Harriets and Angelinas, Melissas and Hannahs, with a Fanny too (and more's the pity for it is a sweet name) and sundry matrons whose names are household words in newspapers—are to be in open hostility to the regularly constituted temperance agencies, under cover of association with whom they have contrived to augment their notoriety. The delegates at the Brick Church, who took the responsibility of knocking off these parasites, deserve the thanks of the temperance friends the Union through.... Such associations would mar any cause. Left to themselves such women must fall into contempt; they have used the temperance cause for a support long enough, and we are glad that the seeming alliance has been thus formally disowned by the temperance delegates.
The New York Sun, Moses Beach, editor, said:
The quiet duties of daughter, wife or mother are not congenial to those hermaphrodite spirits who thirst to win the title of champion of one sex and victor over the other. What is the love and submission of one manly heart to the woman whose ambition it is to sway the minds of multitudes as did a Demosthenes or a Cicero? What are the tender affections and childish prattle of the family circle, to women whose ears itch for the loud laugh and boisterous cheer of the public assembly?...
Could a Christian man, cherishing a high regard for woman and for the proprieties of life feel that he was promoting woman's interests and the cause of temperance by being introduced to a temperance meeting by Miss Susan B. Anthony, her ungainly form rigged out in bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule by her very motions upon the platform? Would he feel that he was honoring the women of his country by accepting as their representatives women whom they must and do despise? Will any pretend to say that women, whose tongues have dishonored their God and their Savior, while uttering praise of infidels and infidel theories, are worthy to receive the suffrages of their Christian sisters?...
We were much pleased with the remark made a few days since by one of the most distinguished as well as refined and polished men of the day on this very subject: "What are the rights which women seek, and have not?" said he; and answering his own question, he replied, "The right to do wrong! that alone is denied to them—that is the only right appropriated exclusively by men, and surely no true woman would seek to divide or participate in such a right."
The Organ, the New York temperance paper, had this to say:
The harmony and pleasantness of the meeting were disturbed by an evidently preconcerted irruption of certain women, who have succeeded beyond doubt in acquiring notoriety, however much they may have failed in winning respect. The notorious Abby Kelly, the Miss Stone whose crusade against the Christian doctrine on the subject of marriage has shocked the better portion of society, and several other women in pantaloons were present insisting upon their right to share in the deliberations of the convention.
We wish our friends abroad to understand that the breeze got up here is nothing but an attempt to ride the woman's rights theory into respectability on the back of Temperance. And what absurd, infidel and licentious follies are not packed up under the general head of woman's rights, it would puzzle any one to say. While, however, we approve the act excluding the women at the Brick Church, we feel bound to say that we regretted what seemed to us an unnecessary acerbity on the part of some of the gentlemen opposing them. What a load of extraneous, foolish and crooked people and things the temperance cause has been burdened with during the years of its progress! To our mind this conspiracy of women to crush the cause by making it the bearer of their woman's rights absurdities, is the saddest of all the phenomena of the reform.
The New York Courier, James Watson Webb, editor, gave its readers the following Sunday article:
Anniversary week has the effect of bringing to New York many strange specimens of humanity, masculine and feminine. Antiquated and very homely females made themselves ridiculous by parading the streets in company with hen-pecked husbands, attenuated vegetarians, intemperate Abolitionists and sucking clergymen, who are afraid to say "no" to a strong-minded woman for fear of infringing upon her rights. Shameless as these females—we suppose they were females—looked, we should really have thought they would have blushed as they walked the streets to hear the half-suppressed laughter of their own sex and the remarks of men and boys. The Bloomers figured extensively in the anti-slavery amalgamation convention, and were rather looked up to, but their intemperate ideas would not be tolerated in the temperance meeting at the Brick Chapel....
A scene of the utmost confusion prevailed and there was a perfect warfare of tongues; but, singular to say, the women were compelled to hold their tongues and depart, followed by a number of male Betties and subdued husbands, wearing the apparel of manhood, but in reality emasculated by strong-minded women....
So the Bloomers put their credentials in their breeches pockets and assembled at Dr. Trail's Cold Water Institute, where the men and Bloomers all took a bath and a drink together.
These sentiments were echoed by the newspapers, great and small, of the entire country. Not a word in regard to "women's rights" had been uttered at the Brick Church meeting except the right to have their credentials from regularly-organized temperance societies accepted, and the same privileges as other delegates granted. The continual reference to the "warfare of tongues" is rather amusing in face of the fact that no woman was allowed to speak and the talking was entirely monopolized by men. Is it a matter of surprise that only a very limited number of women had the courage to ally themselves with a movement which called down upon them and their families such an avalanche of ridicule and condemnation?
Miss Anthony, on reaching home, immediately began active preparations for the first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society, which was to be held in Rochester. As usual she wrote hundreds of letters, raised the money, printed and circulated the call, looked after the advertising, engaged the speakers and took the whole responsibility. The convention assembled in Corinthian Hall, June 1, 1853, with a large attendance. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the president, after stating that the society had over 2,000 members, and was in a most flourishing condition, said:
It has been objected that we do not confine ourselves to the subject of temperance, but talk too much about woman's rights, divorce and the church.... We have been obliged to preach woman's rights because many, instead of listening to what we had to say on temperance, have questioned the right of woman to speak on any subject. In courts of justice and legislative assemblies, if the right of any person to be there is questioned, all business waits until that point is settled. Now, it is not settled in the minds of the masses that woman has any right to stand on an even pedestal with man, look him in the face as an equal and rebuke the sins of her day and generation. Let it be clearly understood then that we are a Woman's Rights Society; that we believe it is woman's duty to speak whenever she feels the impression to do so; that it is her right to be present in all the councils of Church and State.
Continuing, she took firm ground in favor of the right of a woman to be divorced from an habitual drunkard, a position which brought upon her a storm of censure from press, pulpit and society. She was strongly supported, however, by the most prominent women of the day and received many letters of approval, among them one from Lucy Stone, saying: "On the divorce question, I am on your side, for the reason that drunkenness so depraves a man's system that he is not fit to be a father." Gerrit Smith wrote to the convention:
I know not why it is not as much the duty of your sex as of mine to establish newspapers, write books and hold public meetings for the promotion of the cause of temperance. The current idea that modesty should hold women back from such services is nonsense and wickedness. Female modesty! female delicacy! I would that I might never again hear such phrases. There is