Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/925

Rh deplore the stern necessity that drew them from the endearments of home; while we tremble with anxiety lest the mournful tidings that have saddened so many hearts should fall with crushing weight on ourselves, a voice from the army comes to us with thrilling earnestness that awakens with redoubled vigor the feeling of patriotism within us. Our noble soldiery are taking a stand on the broad platform of universal liberty and justice. With scathing words they have rebuked the traitors in our midst; and they now breathe out threatenings and slaughter to the miscreants who would rend the fair heritage transmitted to us by the heroes of the Revolution.

May every patriotic woman in the land do her utmost to uphold and strengthen the holy purpose that inspires the loyal heart of the army. For myself, I regard no sacrifice too great that will conduct to the comfort of the brave men who are risking life and limb in the sacred cause of freedom; and I am proud to say that this is the sentiment of every lady within the circle of my acquaintance. I most sincerely hope that some lady in your Convention will offer a resolution touching a great wrong that has been practiced toward our sick and wounded soldiers in some of the hospitals, namely, the neglect of the proper officers to affix their signatures to discharges made out, in many instances for a long time, until the hope of once more seeing the dear ones at home has faded from the heart of the poor soldier, and he has laid him down to die among strangers, when but for this cruel neglect his life might, perhaps, have been spared to bless the dear ones at home, or at least have given them the great boon of smoothing his passage to the grave. I believe this thing has done much to discourage enlistments. Is there no remedy? I leave it to those of more influence and superior judgment to decide.

With sentiments of respect, I subscribe myself a loyal woman,

, May 4, 1863.


 * —Your call to the loyal women of the nation meets my hearty response. I have been feeling for months that their activities, in the crisis which is upon us, should not be limited to the scraping of lint and concocting of delicacies for our brave and suffering soldiers. Women, equally with men, should address themselves to the removing of the wicked cause of all this terrible sacrifice of life and its loving, peaceful issues. It is their privilege to profit by the lessons being taught at such a fearful cost. And discerning clearly the mistakes of the past, it is their duty to apply themselves cheerfully and perseveringly to the eradication of every wrong and the restoration of every right, as affecting directly or indirectly the progress of the race toward the divine standard of human intelligence and goodness. No sacrifice of right, no conservation of wrong, should be the rally-call of mothers whose sons must vindicate the one and expiate the other in blood! Negro slavery is but one of the protean forms of disfranchised humanity. Class legislation is the one great fountain of national and domestic antagonisms. Every ignoring of inherent rights, every transfer of inherent interest, from the first organization of communities, has been the license of power to robbery and murder, itself the embodiment of a thievish and murderous selfishness.

That the disenfranchisement of the women of '76 destroyed the moral guarantee of a pure republic, or that their enfranchisement would early have broken the chains of the slave, I may not now discuss. Yet it may be well to note that ever since freedom and slavery joined issue in this Government, the women of the free States have been a conceded majority, almost a unit, against slavery, as if verifying the declaration of God in the garden, "I will put enmity between thee (Satan) and the woman." Every legal invasion of rights, forming a precedent and source of infinite series of resultant wrongs, makes it the duty of woman to persist in demanding the right, that she may abate the wrong—and first her own enfranchisement. The national life is in peril, and woman is constitutionally disabled from rushing to her country's rescue. Robbery and arson invade her home; and though man is powerless to protect, she may not save it by appeals to the ballot-box.

A hundred thousand loyal voters of Illinois are grappling with the traitors of the South. If the hundred thousand loyal women left in their homes had been armed with ballots, copperhead treason would not have wrested the influence of that State to the aid and comfort