Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/273

Rh of her own industry, denies her equal property rights, even denies her right to her children, and the custody of her own person, is grossly unjust to woman, dishonorable to man, and destructive to the harmony of life's holiest relation.

Resolved, That the laws which destroy the legal individuality of woman after her marriage are equally pernicious to man as to woman, and may give to him in marriage a slave, or a tyrant, but never a wife.

William Lloyd Garrison, Emma R. Coe, Josephine S. Griffing, Wendell Phillips, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Rev. S. 8. Griswold, Sarah Pellet, Abby Kelly Foster, Mrs. Morton, and Lucy Stone took part in the debates. Letters were received from Thomas W. Higginson, Rey. A. D. Mayo, Paulina Wright Davis, Mrs. Nichols, and Sarah Crosby. Francis Jackson, of Boston, made a contribution of $50. Committees were appointed from each of the New England States to circulate petitions for securing a change in the laws regulating the property of married women, and limiting the right of suffrage to men. All the sessions drew crowded audiences, and the enthusiasm was sustained to the end. The sympathy fur Burns intensified the feelings of those present against all forms of oppression. Those who had witnessed the military parade through the streets of Boston to drive the slave — a minister of the Baptist denomination in his southern home — from the land of the Pilgrims where he had sought refuge, were roused to plead with new earnestness and power for equal rights to all without distinction of sex or color.

Sept. 19 and 20, 1855.

This Convention was fully attended through six sessions, and gave great satisfaction to all engaged in it. After its close, its officers received such expressions of interest from persons not previously enlisted in the cause, as to convince them that a lasting impression was made. The attendance was the best that Boston could furnish in intelligence and respectability, and to a greater degree 'than usual clerical. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis was again chosen President. Business Committee — Dr. William F. Channing, Caroline II. Dall, Wendell Phillips, and Caroline M. Severance. Among the Vice-Presidents we find the names of Harriot K. Hunt and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Caroline H. Dall, Ellen M. Tarr, and Paulina Wright Davis presented carefully prepared digests of the laws of several of the New England States. Mrs. Davis said: