The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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or eloquent speaker in the cause than Angelina Grimké. She had not thought at first of speaking in public; but wherever she was, among friends and neighbors, she sought relief to her burdened spirit by testifying to the cruel and fatal influences of slavery. A few women at first came together to meet her and her sister Sarah. The numbers and the interest increased till she became widely known. She and her sister talked to them about slavery in their own parlors. Soon no parlors could hold the throngs that gathered to hear her. The small vestry of a church was given to her, then a large vestry. But this was too small, and the body of the church was opened to the crowd which had been attracted by her. There, on a platform beneath the pulpit, for the first time she stood and spoke at what might be called a public meeting, though she spoke only to women. In the spring of 1837, the sisters went through a similar experience in Boston, speaking to women only. She went to Lynn to address the women, and there men crowded in with their wives and daughters. That was the beginning of women's speaking to promiscuous assemblies in Massachusetts.
"Hers was the eloquence of a broken heart. As she gave way to the deep yearnings of affection for the mother that bore her, still a slaveholder, for her brothers and sisters, a large family circle, and for all who had been most closely bound to her by ties of kindred and neighborhood, she must have felt the desolation of a soul disappointed and broken in its dearest earthly hopes and love. All the sweet and tender affections which intertwine themselves so inseparably with the thought of home had been turned into instruments of torture. As she thought of her native city, and spoke out her feelings toward it, her language might well remind one of the lamentations of the ancient prophets, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee!' But this broken heart had a higher life and a mightier voice than can be given or taken away by any earthly affection. While therefore she often spoke with a pathos which melted and subdued those who listened to her, she also rose into a loftier strain, and spoke with the mingled love and sternness of a messenger from God."
Passages like the following may give some idea of the solemnity and power with which she, who had left all and taken up her cross in defence of a poor and friendless race, could appeal to assembled multitudes:
The sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they are indescribable. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the inflictions of the blood-stained lash; but I can not describe the daily, hourly, ceaseless torture, endured by the heart that is constantly trampled under the foot of arbitrary power. This is a part of the horrors of slavery which, I believe, no one has ever attempted to delineate. I wonder not at it; it mocks all power of language. Who can describe the anguish of that mind which feels itself impaled upon the iron of arbitrary power—its living, writhing, helpless victim! every human susceptibility tortured, its sympathies torn, and stung, and bleeding—always feeling the death weapon in its heart, and yet not so deep as to kill that humanity which is made the curse of its existence?
No one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding community can have any idea of its abominations. It is a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Blessed be God, the angel of truth has descended, and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, and sits upon it. The abominations so long hidden are now brought forth before all Israel and the sun. Yes, the angel of truth sits upon this stone, and it can never be rolled back again.
There is a spirit abroad in this country which will not consent to barter principle for an unholy peace—a spirit which will not hide God's eternal principles of right and wrong, but will stand erect in the storm of human passion, prejudice, and interest, holding forth the light of truth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; a spirit which will never slumber nor sleep till man ceases to hold dominion over his fellow-creatures, and the trump of universal liberty rings in every forest, and is re-echoed by every mountain and rock.
"She who spoke in tones like these never lost one of her purely feminine qualities. Graceful, gentle, retiring, taking upon herself the lowliest duties as if she had been born to them, this woman, who stood up that her light might shine on all, and reveal to them the terrible atrocities of slavery, was like Jeremy Taylor's taper, which cast ever a modest shadow round itself. She had a very lofty idea of what a woman should be. 'Whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights. I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.' 'Sure I am that woman is not to be, as she has been, a mere "second-hand agent" in the regeneration of a fallen world, but the acknowledged equal and co-worker with man in this glorious work.... Just in proportion as her moral and intellectual capacities become enlarged, she will rise higher and higher in the scroll of creation, until she reaches that elevation prepared for her by her Maker, and upon whose summit she was originally stationed, only 'a little lower than the angels.'"
In the darkest hours of that fearful conflict with slavery in which she was engaged, when its advocates were everywhere met with violence, and threatened with death, she wrote to William Lloyd Garrison as follows:
I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn interest with which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the last few weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was not prepared for it so soon; it took me by surprise, and I greatly feared the Abolitionists would be driven back in the first onset and thrown into confusion. I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers lest I should see some indications of a compromise, some surrender, some palliation. But I read thy appeal to the citizens of Boston, and found my fears were utterly groundless, and that thou stoodest firm in the midst of the storm, determined to suffer and to die rather than yield one inch!
Religious persecution always begins with mobs; it is always unprecedented in any age or country in which it commences, and therefore there are no laws by which reformers can be punished; consequently, a lawless band of unprincipled men determine to take the matter into their hands, and act out in mobs what they know are the principles of a large majority of those who are too high in Church and State to condescend to mingle with them, though they secretly approve and rejoice over their violent measures. The first martyr who ever died was stoned by a lawless mob; and, if we look at the rise of various sects—Methodists, Friends, etc.—we shall find that mobs began the persecution against them; and it was not until after the people had thus spoken out their wishes that laws were framed to fine, imprison, or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of laws, even in our free States, against Abolitionists. And how ardently has the prayer been breathed that God would fit us for all He is preparing for us!
My mind has been especially turned toward those who are standing in the fore-front of the battle; and the prayer has gone up for their preservation, not the preservation of their lives, but the preservation of their minds in humility and patience, faith, hope, and charity, that charity which is the bond of perfectness. If persecution is the means which God has ordained for the accomplishment of this great end—emancipation—then, in dependence upon Him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could say, let it come; for it is my deep, solemn conviction that this is a cause worth dying for. At one time, I thought this system would be overthrown in blood, with the confused noise of the warrior; but a hope gleams across my mind that our blood will be spilt instead of the slaveholders'; that our lives will be taken, and theirs spared. I say a hope; for of all things I desire to be spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with the horrors of a servile war.
"These words were written by one who was standing not apart in a place of safety, but in the foremost post of danger, and who knew that she was as likely as any one to share in the martyrdom which she foresaw. The spirit which dictated these sentences went through her whole life as its ruling influence.
"There is the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. There is the courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's mouth, coolly pressing forward amidst engines of destruction on every side. But hers was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced death at the hands of stealthy assassins and howling mobs in her loyalty to truth, duty, and humanity, but she encountered unflinchingly the awful frowns of the mighty consecrated leaders of society, the scoffs and sneers of the multitude, the outstretched finger of scorn, and the whispered mockery of pity, standing up for the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the very bosom of