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 passed a resolution censuring the Grimke sisters, and issued a pastoral letter containing a tirade against "female preachers." But in spite of all efforts, public sentiment in the North in favor of abolition steadily grew, until it became evident that the question could not be settled without an armed conflict.

At a gathering of abolitionists, held on July 19th, 1848, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca, N. Y., the question of women's rights was eagerly discussed. Mrs. Stanton, the daughter of a lawyer, had found by frequent



visits to her father's office that according to the then existing laws, which had been adopted from England, married women had no right of disposal over their own inherited property, their own income, or their own children, no matter how unfit, degraded, and cruel their husbands might be. There was even no redress for corporal punishment which the husbands might inflict on their wives.

Another woman, present at the gathering, was Lucretia Mott, a Quaker teacher. It had been her experience, that