Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/398

374 young law students of great promise. We drove to the Plankington House, where a suite of beautifully furnished apartments, with a bright fire in the grate, was prepared for us.

The Convention was held in the City Hall, and lasted two days, three sessions each, and was crowded throughout. Miss Chapin, the regularly ordained pastor of the Universalist church, was the President. Mr. and Miss Peckham, Dr. Laura J. Ross, and Madam Anneke were the ruling spirits of the Convention. Madam Anneke, a German lady of majestic presence and liberal culture, made an admirable speech in her own language. The platform, besides an array of large, well-developed women, was graced with several reverend gentlemen—Messrs. Dudley, Allison, Eddy, and Fellows—all of whom maintained woman's equality with eloquence and fervor. The Bible was discussed from Genesis to Revelation, in all its bearings on the question under consideration. By special request I gave my Bible argument, which was published in full in the daily papers. A Rev. Mr. Love, who took the opposite view, maintained that the Bible was opposed to woman's equality. He criticised some of my Hebrew translations, and scientific expositions, but as the rest of the learned D.D.s sustained my views, I shall rest in the belief that brother Love, with time and thought, will come to the same conclusions. A Rev. Mr. England also profanely claimed the Bible on the side of tyranny, and seemed to think that "Nature intended that the male should dominate over the female everywhere." As Mr. E. is a small, thin, shadowy man, without much blood, muscle, or a very remarkable cerebral development, we would advise him always to avoid the branch of the argument he stumbled upon in the Milwaukee Convention—"the physical superiority of man." Unfortunately for him, the platform illustrated the opposite, and the audience manifested, ever and anon, by suppressed laughter, that they saw the contrast between the large, well-developed brains and muscles of the women who sat there, and those of the speaker. Either Madam Anneke, Mrs. Livermore, or Dr. Ross, could have taken the reverend gentleman up in her arms and run off with him. Now, I mean nothing invidious toward small men, for some of the greatest men the world has known have been physically inferior, for example, Lord Nelson, Napoleon, our own Grant and Sheridan, and ex-Secretary Seward. All I mean to say is, that it is not politic or in good taste for a small man to come before an audience and claim physical superiority; that branch of the argument should be left for the great, burly fellows six feet high and well-proportioned, who illustrate the assertion by their overpowering presence.

We were happy to meet Mr. Butler in Milwaukee, a good Democrat, and one of the most distinguished lawyers in Wisconsin, and to find in him an ardent supporter of our cause. I told him we were looking to the Democrats to open the constitutional doors to the women in the several States. He said he thought they were getting ready to do so in the West. In Milwaukee, my pet resolutions that had been voted down in Washington and Chicago passed without a dissenting voice.

, Wisconsin.

Hearing of the great enthusiasm at Milwaukee, Madison telegraphed for the convention to adjourn to the capitol and address the Legislature. Acc-