Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/358

338 the Female Anti-Slavery Societies of Salem and Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, signed by their respective secretaries, Mary Spencer and L. Williams.

At this time, even the one and only right of woman, that of petition, had been trampled under the heel of slavery on the floor of Congress, which roused those noble women to a just indignation, as will be seen in their resolutions on the subject, presented by Juliana A. Tappan:

Resolved, That whatever may be the sacrifice, and whatever other rights may be yielded or denied, we will maintain practically the right of petition until the slave shall go free, or our energies, like Lovejoy's, are paralyzed in death.

Resolved, That for every petition rejected by the National Legislature during their last session, we will endeavor to send jive the present year; and that we will not cease our efforts until the prayers of every woman within the sphere of our influence shall be heard in the halls of Congress on this subject.

offered the following resolution, which was adopted:

, The disciples of Christ are commanded to have no fellowship with the "unfruitful works of darkness"; and

Union in His Church is the strongest expression of fellowship between men; therefore

Resolved, That it is our duty to keep ourselves separate from those churches which receive to their pulpits and their communion tables those who buy, or sell, or hold as property, the image of the living God.

This resolution was supported by Miss Grew, Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelly, Maria W. Chapman, Anne W. Weston, Sarah T. Smith, and Sarah Lewis; and opposed by Margaret Dye, Margaret Prior, Henrietta Wilcox, Martha W. Storrs, Juliana A. Tappan, Elizabeth M. Southard, and Charlotte Woolsey. Those who voted in the negative stated that they fully concurred with their sisters in the belief that slaveholders and their apologists were guilty before God, and that with the former, Northern Christians should hold no fellowship; but that, as it was their full belief that there was moral power sufficient in the Church, if rightly applied, to purify it, they could not feel it their duty to withdraw until the utter inefficiency of the means used should constrain them to believe the Church totally corrupt. And as an expression of their views, Margaret Dye moved the following resolution:

Resolved, That the system of American slavery is contrary to the laws "of God and the spirit of true religion, and that the Church is deeply implicated in this sin, and that it therefore becomes the imperative duty of