The Complete History of the Women's Suffrage Movement in U.S.. Jane Addams
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One designated "The Whole World's Convention," including men and women, black and white, orthodox and heretic; the other the "Half World's Convention," restricted to the "simon pure, white (male) orthodox saints"; which for ribaldry of speech and rudeness of action surpassed in its proceedings the outside mob, that raged and raved through an entire week, making pandemonium of our metropolis.
A GRAND GATHERING—ANTI-SLAVERY—WOMAN'S RIGHTS—TEMPERANCE—THE WORLD'S FAIR, SEPTEMBER, 1853.
The opening days of the autumn of this year were days of intense excitement in the city of New York. Added to the numbers attracted by the World's Fair was the announcement of the Anti-Slavery, Woman's Rights, and two Temperance Conventions. The reformers from every part of the country assembled in force, each to hold their separate meetings, though the leaders were to take a conspicuous part in all. The anti-slavery meetings began on Sunday, and every day two or three of these conventions were in session, all drawing crowds to listen or to disturb. William Henry Channing. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Thomas Wentworth. Higginson eloquently pleading for the black man's freedom on the anti-slavery platform, and for the equality of their mothers, wives, and daughters on the woman's rights platform, and for both the woman and the black man on the temperance platform; now face to face with Rynders and his mob, and then with the Rev. John Chambers, Marsh and Hewitt and their mob, the viler of the two.
THE HALF WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,
led by Chambers, Hewitt, and Marsh, was in session in Metropolitan Hall several days. As it was simply an organized mob, we find in the journals of the day no speeches or resolutions on the great question on which they nominally assembled.
In trying to get rid of Antoinette L. Brown, who had been sent as a delegate from two respectable and influential societies, and of James McCune Smith, a colored delegate, they quarrelled through most of the allotted time for the convention over what class of persons could be admitted. In summing up the proceedings of these meetings
Horace Greeley says, in the Tribune, September 7, 1853: "This convention has completed three of its four business sessions, and the results may be summed up as follows:
"First Day—Crowding a woman off the platform.
"Second Day—Gagging her.
"Third Day—Voting that she shall stay gagged. Having thus disposed of the main question, we presume the incidentals will be finished this morning."
Antoinette Brown was asked why she went to that Convention, knowing, as she must, that she would be rejected.
"I went there," she said, "to assert a principle—a principle relevant to the circumstances of that convention, and one which would promote all good causes and retard all bad ones. I went there, as an item of the world, to contend that the sons and daughters of the race, without distinction of sex, sect, class or color, should be recognized as belonging to the world, and I planted my feet upon the simple rights of a delegate. I asked no favor as a woman, or in behalf of woman; no favor as a woman advocating temperance; no recognition of the cause of woman above the cause of humanity; the indorsement of no 'ism' and of no measure; but I claimed, in the name of the world, the rights of a delegate in a world's convention.
"Is it asked. Why did you make that issue at that time? I answer, I have made it at all times and in all places, whenever and wherever Providence has given me the opportunity, and in whatever way it could be made to appear most prominent. Last spring, when woman claimed the supremacy—the right to hold all the offices in the Woman's State Temperance Society—I contended, from this platform, for the equality of man; the equal rights of all the members of this society. I have claimed everywhere the equality of humanity in Church and in State; God helping me, I here pledge myself anew to Him, and to you all, to be true everywhere to the central principle—the soul of the Divine commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' The temperance cause was not injured by our course at that Convention. We went there with thoughtful hearts. Said Wendell Phillips: 'Take courage, and remember that whether you are received or rejected, you are going to make the most effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and humanity that you have ever made in your life.' 'God bless you,' were the fervent words of Mr. Channing, in a moment when there was most need of Divine assistance; and when I stood on the platform for an hour and a half, waiting to be heard, I could read in the faces of men such as these, and in the faces, too, of our opposers, the calm assurance, 'You are making the most effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and humanity, that you have ever made in your life.' I believed it then; I believe it now."101
Rev. William Henry Channing, in giving his report of the World's Temperance Convention to the Toronto Division of Sons of Temperance of the City of Rochester, said:
And now it becomes my disagreeable duty, as one of your delegates, to report to the Toronto Division how my highly honored fellow-delegate was treated. Her credentials were received without dissent; she was, of course, then entitled, equally with every other delegate, to take part in all the proceedings of the Conventions. At a suitable time and in a perfectly orderly manner she rose to speak; the floor was adjudged to her by Hon. Neal Dow, the President, but her right to the platform was questioned. Again and again the President declared your delegate to be in order; again and again appeal was made to the Convention and the decision of the President sustained; but a factious minority succeeded in silencing her voice, and so ended the first session in storm.
On the second morning your delegate wisely waited until the resolutions offered to the convention by the Business Committee were opened for discussion. When the first resolution, declaring the religious character of the Temperance Movement, was submitted to the meeting, Miss Brown rose to speak. She rose calmly in the body of the house; she was a minister of religion, an advocate of temperance; she had it in her heart to press this reformation onward in a religious spirit; she had avoided all disputes on petty points of order, and now wished to address herself earnestly to the momentous theme. Had she not a perfect right to do so? And what fitter occasion could occur? The very topic was of a kind to banish personalities and hush low passions. Your delegate was invited by the President to take the platform; she did so with quiet dignity, but scarcely had she reached the stand when all around her on the platform itself, and among the officers of the Convention, began that disgraceful row, which led an onlooker in the gallery to cry out, "Are those men drunk?" I have no wish to dwell upon that cowardly transaction, but this remark I am bound in honor to make: If any man says that Antoinette Brown forced the subject of "Woman's Rights" on that Temperance Convention in plain Saxon speech, He Lies. She never dreamed of asking any privilege as a woman; she stood there in her right as a delegate; her aim was to urge forward the Temperance Reform. No! the whole uproar on "Woman's Rights" came from the professed friends of Temperance, and began with the insulting cry—from a man on the platform—of, "Shame on the woman!" That man I need hardly tell you was the notorious John Chambers, of Philadelphia—the so-called Rev. John Chambers!—he it was who, with brazen face and clanging tongue, stood stamping until he raised a cloud of dust around him, pointing with coarse finger and rudely shouting "shame on the woman," until he even stood abashed before the indignant cry from the Convention of "shame on John Chambers."
The Reverend John Chambers! Reverend for what? For his piety; manifested in the fact that he, a professed minister of the gospel, could by rowdy tumult drown the voice of another minister of the gospel while she was asserting the religious character of the Temperance Reform! Reverend for what? For his charity; manifested by low cries and insulting gestures, to a gentlewoman who stood there firm yet meek, before him! Strange that he, of all, should thus seek a bad eminence in outraging the decencies of social life; for unless report is false, John Chambers owes whatever position he may have to woman. It is said—I believe on good authority—that he was educated for the ministry by the contributions of women; that he preaches in a church built and endowed by a woman; that his salary is chiefly paid by hard-working needle-women; finally, that he married a rich wife! Now what a sight was there! A man, whose brain had been fed with books by woman, whose body had been fattened with bread by woman, every fragment and stitch of whose ministerial garb, from his collar to his boot-heels, had been paid for by woman, whose