The Collected Works. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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we reached New York, we heard some persons saying that women would be received as delegates, and others saying they would not. We thought we ought to test that matter, and do it, too, as delicately and quietly as possible. There were quite a number of ladies appointed delegates to that meeting, but it was felt that not many would be necessary to make the test of their sincerity.
We met at the Woman's Bights Convention on the day of the opening of the half world's Temperance Convention, and had all decided to be content with our own Temperance Convention, which had passed off so quietly and triumphantly. Wendell Phillips and I sat reconsidering the whole matter. I referred him to the fact, which had come to me more than once during the few last days, that the officials of the Convention in session at Metropolitan Hall, and others, had been saying that women would be received no doubt; that the Brick Chapel meeting was merely an informal preliminary meeting, and its decisions of no authority upon the Convention proper; and that the women were unjust in saying, that their brethren would not accept their co-operation before it had been fairly tested. Then, said Phillips, "Go, by all means; if they receive you, you have only to thank them for rebuking the action of the Brick Chapel meeting. Then we will withdraw and come back to our own meeting. If, on the other hand, they do not receive you, we will quietly and without protest, withdraw, and, in that case, not be gone half an hour." I turned and invited one lady, now on this platform, as gentle and lady-like as woman can be, Caroline M. Severance, of your own city, to go with me. She said: "I am quite willing to go, both in compliance with your wish, and from interest in the cause itself. But I am not a delegate, and I have in this city venerated grandparents, whose feelings I greatly regard, and would not willingly or unnecessarily wound; so that I prefer to go in quietly, but take no active part in what will seem to them an antagonistic position for woman, and uncalled for on my part. In that way I am quite ready to go." And so we went out from our own meeting, Mr. Phillips, Mrs. S., and myself; none others went with us, nor knew we were going.
After arriving at Metropolitan Hall, accompanied by these friends, I did quietly what we had predetermined was the best to do. The Secretary was sitting upon the platform. I handed him my credentials from both societies. He said: "I can not now tell whether you will be received or not. There is a resolution before the house, stating, in substance, that they would receive all delegates without distinction of color or sex. If this resolution is adopted, you can be received." I then left my credentials in his hands, and went down from the platform. It was rather trying, in the sight of all that audience, to go upon the platform and come down again; and I shall not soon forget the sensations with which I stepped off the platform. After a little time they decided that the call admitted all delegates. I thought this decision settled my admission, and I went again upon the platform. In the meantime a permanent organization was effected. I went there, for the purpose of thanking them for their course, and merely to express my sympathy with the cause and their present movement, and then intended to leave the Hall. I arose, and inquired of the President, Neal Dow, if I was rightly a member of the Convention. He said, "Yes, if you have credentials from any abstinence societies." I told him I had, and then attempted to thank him. There was no appeal from the President's decision, but yet they would not receive my expression of thanks; therefore I took my seat and waited for a better opportunity.
And now let me read a paragraph again from this paper, the temperance organ of your State. The writer is still Gen. Carey. (The extract intimated that Miss Brown, supported and urged on by several others, made an unwomanly entrance into the Convention, and upon the platform itself, which was reserved for officers, and as it would imply, already filled). There were only the two other persons I mentioned who went with me to that Convention, but they took their seats back among the audience, and did not approach the platform. There were friends I found in that audience to sustain me, but none others came with me for that purpose. The platform was far from being full; it is a large platform, and there might a hundred persons sit there, and not incommode each other at all.
(Here Miss Brown read another extract from the same article, in which Gen. Carey implies, that concerted measures had been set on foot at the Woman's Rights meeting at the Tabernacle, the evening after Miss Brown's first attempt at a hearing before the Temperance Convention, for coming in upon them again en masse, and revengefully).
Not a word was said that night upon the subject in the Convention at the Tabernacle, except what was said by myself; and I said what I did, because some one inquired whether I was hissed on going upon the platform. As to that matter, when I went upon the platform I was not hissed, at others times I did not know whether they hissed me or others, and
"Where ignorance is bliss,'tis folly to be wise."
I stated some of the facts to our own Convention, but I did not refer to this resolution (the one which was to exclude all but officers or invited guests from the platform), for I was not entirely clear with regard to the nature of it, it was passed in so much confusion. I did state this, that there had been a discussion raised upon such a resolution, and that it was decided that only officers and invited guests should sit upon the platform; but that they had received me as a delegate, and had thus revoked the action of the Brick Chapel meeting, and that on the morrow Neal Dow might invite me to sit upon the platform. That was the substance of my remarks, and not one word of objection was taken, or reply made by our Convention.
I read again from this paper. (An extract implying that among the measures taken to browbeat the Convention into receiving Miss Brown, was the forming of a society instantly, under the special urgency of herself and friends, for this especial object, etc.) That again is a statement without foundation. I intend to-night to use no harsh words, and I shall say nothing with regard to motives. You may draw your own conclusions in regard to all this. I shall state dispassionately, the simple, literal facts as they occurred, and they may speak for themselves.
When Wendell Phillips went out of the Convention, he told persons with whom he came in contact, that a delegate had been received by the President, and that delegate had been insulted, and nobody had risen to sustain her. He said to me, too, "I shall not go to-morrow, but do you go. I can do nothing for you, because I am not a delegate." There were a few earnest friends in New York, however, who felt that the rights of a delegate were sacred. They organized a society and appointed just three delegates to that Temperance Convention. Those three persons were Wendell Phillips, of Boston; Mr. Cleveland, one of the editors of the Tribune; and Mr. Gibbon, son-in-law of the late venerated Isaac T. Hopper. The last two were men from New York City. The question was already decided that women might be received as delegates to that Convention; therefore there was no need of appointing any one to insist upon woman's right to appear, and no one was appointed for that purpose.
The next morning we went there with Mr. Phillips, who presented his credentials. During the discussion, Mr. Phillips took part, and persisted in holding the Convention to parliamentary rules. He carried in his hand a book of rules, which is received everywhere as authority, and when he saw that they were wrong, he quoted the standard authority to them. After a while the preliminary business was disposed of, and various resolutions were brought forward. I arose, and the President said I had the floor. I was invited upon the stand, and was therefore an "invited guest" within their own rules; but when once there, I was not allowed to speak, although the President said repeatedly that the floor was mine. The opposition arose from a dozen or more around the platform, who were incessantly raising "points of order"—the extempore bantlings of great minds in great emergencies. For the space of three hours I endeavored to be heard, but they would not hear me (although as a delegate, and I spoke simply as a delegate), I could have spoken but ten minutes by a law of the house. Twice the President was sustained in his decision by the house; but finally some one insisted that there might be persons voting in the house who were not delegates, and it was decided that the Hall should be cleared by the police, and that those who were delegates might come in, one by one, and resume their seats.
There were printed lists of the delegates of the Convention, but there were several new delegates whose names were not on the lists. Wendell Phillips and his colleagues were among them. He went to the President and said: "I rely upon you to be admitted to the Hall, for we know that our names are not yet on the list." The President assented. As the delegates returned, the names upon the printed lists were called, and while the rest of us were earnest to be admitted to the house, and