The Grimke Sisters Part 11

Angelina's next letter to her friend is dated, "2d Mo. 4th, 1837," and continues the account of the meetings. She mentions that, at the last one, they had one male auditor, who refused to go out when told he must, so he was allowed to stay, and she says: "Somehow, I did not feel, his presence embarra.s.sing at all, and went on just as though he had not been there. Some one said he took notes, and I think he was a Southern spy, and shall not be at all surprised if he publishes us in some Southern paper."

Truly it was a risky thing for a lord of creation to intrude himself into a woman's meeting in those days!

Angelina goes on to remark that more Friends are attending their meetings, and that if they were not opened with prayer, still more would come. Also, that Friends had been very kind and attentive to them in every way, and never said a discouraging word to them. She then discourses a little on phrenology, at that time quite a new thing in this country, and relates an anecdote of "Brother "Weld," as follows:--

"When he went to Fowler in this city, he disguised himself as an omnibus driver. The phrenologist was so struck with the supposed fact that an omnibus driver should have such an extraordinary head, that he preserved an account of it, and did not know until some time after that it was Weld's. He says that when he first had his head examined at Utica, he was told he was deficient in the organ of color, his eyebrow showing it. He immediately remembered that his mother often told him: 'Theodore, it is of no use to send you to match a skein of silk, for you never bring the right color.' When relating this, he observed a general t.i.tter in the room, and on inquiring the reason a candle was put near him, and, to his amazement, all agreed that the legs of his pantaloons were of different shades of green. Instead of a ridge all around his eyebrow, he has a little hollow in one spot."

A society for the encouragement of abstinence from the use of slave products had just been formed in Philadelphia, and Angelina desired her friend to put her name to the pledge, but not Sarah's. In a postscript Sarah explains this, saying:--

"I do abstain from slave produce as much as I can, just because I feel most easy to do so, but I cannot say my judgment is convinced; therefore, I would rather not put my name to the pledge."

Her judgment was convinced, however, very shortly afterwards, by a discussion of the subject with Weld and some others, and she then wrote to Jane Smith to set her name down, as she found her testimony in the great cause was greatly strengthened by keeping clean hands.

There is much told of their meetings, and their other experiences in New York, which is very interesting, and for which I regret I have not room. Angelina describes in particular one visit they made to a poor family, that of one of her Sunday-school pupils, where they stayed to tea, being afterwards joined by Mr. Weld, who came to escort them home.

She says of him:--

"I have seen him s.h.i.+ne in the Convention and in refined circles, but never did I admire him so much. His perfect ease at this fireside of poverty showed that he was accustomed to be the friend and companion of the poor of this world."

The family here mentioned was doubtless a colored one, as it was in the colored Sunday school that both sisters taught. They had already proved, by their friends.h.i.+p for Sarah Dougla.s.s, the Fortens, and other colored families of Philadelphia, how slight was their prejudice against color, but the above incident proves the entire sincerity of their convictions and their desire to avail themselves of every opportunity to testify to it. Still, there is no doubt that to the influence of Theodore Weld's conversations they owed much of their enlightenment on this as well as on some other points of radical abolitionism. It was after a talk with him that Angelina describes the Female Anti-Slavery Society of New York as utterly inefficient, "doing literally nothing," and ascribes its inefficiency to the sinful prejudice existing there, which shut out colored women from any share in its management, and gave little encouragement to them even to become members.

She adds: "I believe it is our duty to visit the poor, white and colored, just in this way, and to receive them at our houses. I think that the artificial distinctions in society, the separation between the higher and the lower orders, the aristocracy of wealth and education, are the very rock of pauperism, and that the only way to eradicate this plague from our land will be to a.s.sociate with the poor, and the wicked too, just as our Redeemer did. To visit them as our inferiors, the recipients of our bounty, is quite a different thing from going among them as our equals."

In her next letter to Jane Smith, Angelina gives an interesting account of H.B. Stanton's great speech before the Committee of the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; a speech which still ranks as one of the ablest and most brilliant ever delivered in this country. There is no date to this letter, but it must have been written the last of February or first of March, 1837. She begins thus:--

"I was wondering, my dear Jane, what could be the reason I had not heard from thee, when brother Weld came in with thine and Mira's letters hanging from the paper on which they had been tied. 'I bring you,' he said, 'a good emblem of the fate of abolitionists,--so take warning;' and held them up to our view....

"Brother Garrison was here last Sixth Day and spent two hours with us.

He gave us a most delightful account of recent things in Boston, which I will try to tell thee of. "When the abolitionists found how their pet.i.tions were treated in Congress, they sent in, from all parts of Ma.s.sachusetts, pet.i.tions to the legislature, requesting it to issue a protest against such contempt of the people's wishes and rights. The legislature was amazed at the number and respectability of these pet.i.tions, and appointed a committee to take them under consideration.

Abolitionists then asked for a hearing before that committee, not in the lobby, but in the Hall of Representatives. The request was granted, and though the day was exceedingly stormy, a good number were out. A young lawyer of Boston first spoke an hour and a half; H.B. Stanton followed, and completely astonished the audience, but could not get through by dark, and asked for another meeting. The next afternoon an overflowing audience greeted him; he spoke three hours, and did not yet finish. Another meeting was appointed for the next evening, and he says he thinks hundreds went away because they could not get in. Stanton spoke one hour and a quarter, and then broke down from the greatness of the effort, added to the unceasing labors of the winter. A profound silence reigned through the crowded hall. Not one moved to depart. At last a member of the committee arose, and asked if there was any other abolitionist present who wished to speak. Stanton said he believed not, as they now had the views of the Anti-Slavery Society. The committee were not satisfied; and one of them said if there was any abolitionist who wished to follow Mr. Stanton, they would gladly hear all he had to say, but all declined. Brother Garrison said such was the desire to hear more on this subject, that he came directly to New York to get Weld to go and speak before them, but his throat is still so much affected that it will be impossible for him to do so. Isn't this cheering news? Here are seven hundred men in the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature, who, if they can be moved to protest against the unconst.i.tutional proceedings of Congress, will shake this nation to its centre, and rock it in a revolutionary storm that must either sink it or save it."

After closing their meetings in New York, the sisters held similar ones in Newark, Bloomfield, and other places in New Jersey, in all of which Sarah was as active and enthusiastic as Angelina, and from this time we hear no more of the gloom and despondency which had saddened so many of the best years of her life. But, identified completely with her sister's work, she was busy, contented and satisfied of the Lord's goodness and mercy.

These meetings had all been quiet and undisturbed in every way, owing of course, to the fact that only women attended, but the newspapers had not spared them. Ridicule, sarcasm, and pity were liberally bestowed upon the "deluded ladies" by the press generally, and the Richmond Whig published several editorials about "those fanatical women, the Misses Grimke." But writing against them was the extent of the opposition at that time, and this affected them very little.

From New Jersey they went up the North River with Gerrit Smith, holding interesting meetings at Hudson and Poughkeepsie. At the latter place they spoke to an a.s.sembly of colored people of both s.e.xes, and this was the first time Angelina ever addressed a mixed audience, and it was perhaps in accordance with the fitness of things that it should have been a colored one. She often spoke of this in after years, looking back to it with pleasure. Here, also, they attended a meeting of the Anti-slavery Society of the Protestant Episcopal Methodist Church, and spoke against the sin of prejudice. In a letter to Sarah Dougla.s.s, Sarah says:--

"My feelings were so overcome at this meeting that I sat down and wept.

I feel as if I had taken my stand by the side of the colored American, willing to share with him the odium of a darker skin, and I trust if I am permitted again to take my seat in Arch Street Meeting House, it will be beside thee and thy dear mother."

These Hudson River meetings ended the labors of the sisters in New York for the time. They returned to the city to take a little needed rest, and to prepare for the Female Anti-Slavery Convention, which was to meet there early in May. The Society which had sent them forth had reason to be well satisfied with its experiment. Not only had they awakened enthusiasm and sincere interest in abolition, but had demonstrated the ability of women to publicly advocate a great cause, and the entire propriety of their doing so. One of the members, of the committee a.s.serted that it would be as impossible to calculate the number of converts they had made, as to estimate the encouragement and strength their zeal and eloquence had given to abolitionists all over the country. Men were slow to believe the reports of their wives and sisters respecting Angelina's wonderful oratory, and this incredulity produced the itching ears which soon drew to the meetings where the Grimke sisters were to speak more men than women, and gave them the applause and hearty support of some of the ablest minds of New England.

The Female Anti-slavery Convention opened with seventy-one delegates; the Misses Grimke, at their own request, representing South Carolina.

During this convention they met many congenial souls, among whom they particularize Lydia M. Child, Mary T. Parker, and Anna Weston, as sympathizing so entirely with their own views respecting prejudice and the province of woman.

The latter question had long been Sarah's pet problem, to the solution of which she had given much thought and study, ever since the time when she was denied partic.i.p.ation in her brother's education because of her s.e.x. It is scarcely too much to say that to her mind this question was second in importance to none, and though the word enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, as applied to woman, had not yet been uttered, the whole theory of it was in Sarah's heart, and she eagerly awaited the proper time and place to develop it. Angelina, while holding the same views, would probably have kept them in the background longer, but for Sarah's arguments, supported by the objection so frequently urged against the encouragement of their meetings,--that slavery was a political subject with which women had nothing to do. This objection she answered in a masterly paper, an "Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States,"

which was printed in pamphlet form and sent out by the Female Anti-Slavery Convention, and attracted wide attention. The chief point she took was this: "The denial of our duty to act in this cause is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed 'the white slaves of the North,' for, like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair."

The whole argument, covering nearly seventy pages, is remarkable in its calm reasoning, sound logic, and fervid eloquence, and will well repay perusal, even at this day. About the same time a beautiful and most feeling "Address to Free Colored Americans" was written by Sarah, and likewise circulated by the Convention. These two pamphlets made the sisters so widely known, and so increased the desire in other places to hear them speak, that invitations poured in upon them from different parts of the North and West, as well as from the New England States. It was finally decided that they should go to Boston first, to aid the brave, good women there, who, while willing to do all that women could do for the cause in a private capacity, had not yet been persuaded to open their lips for it in any kind of a public meeting. It was not contemplated, however, that the sisters should address any but a.s.semblies of women. Even Boston was not yet prepared for a greater infringement of the social proprieties.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Woman's Rights agitation, while entirely separate from Abolitionism, owes its origin to the interest this subject excited in the hearts and minds of American women; and to Sarah and Angelina Grimke must be accorded the credit of first making the woman question one of reform. Their broad views, freely expressed in their New York meetings, opened up the subject of woman's duties under the existing state of public sentiment, and, in connection with the revelations made concerning the condition of her white and colored sisters at the South, and the frantic efforts used to prevent her from receiving these revelations, she soon began to see that she had some moral obligations outside of her home sphere and her private circle. At first her only idea of aid in the great cause was that of prayer, which men universally granted was her especial privilege, even encouraging her to pray for them; but it must be private prayer--prayer in her own closet--with no auditor but the G.o.d to whom she appealed. As soon as it became public, and took the form of pet.i.tions to legislatures and to Congress, the reprobation began. The enemies of freedom, fully realizing woman's influence, opposed her interference at every point; and when a Southern representative declared from his seat that women had no right to send up pet.i.tions to Congress he was sustained by the sycophantic response which came from the North, that slavery was a political question, with which women had nothing to do. Angelina Grimke answered this so fully and so eloquently in her "Appeal to Northern Women," that no doubt could have been left in the minds of those who read it, not only of woman's right, but of her duty to interfere in this matter. The appeal is made chiefly to woman's tenderest and holiest feelings, but enough is said of her rights to show whither Angelina's own reflections were leading her, and it must have turned the thoughts of many other women in the same direction. A pa.s.sage or two may be quoted as examples.

"Every citizen should feel an intense interest in the political concerns of the country, because the honor, happiness and well-being of every cla.s.s are bound up in its politics, government, and laws. Are we aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizens.h.i.+p because we are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people? Have women no country--no interests staked on the public weal--no partners.h.i.+p in a nation's guilt and shame? Has woman no home nor household altars, nor endearing ties of kindred, nor sway with man, nor power at the mercy-seat, nor voice to cheer, nor hand to raise the drooping, or to bind the broken?... The Lord has raised up men whom he has endowed with 'wisdom and understanding, and knowledge,' to lay deep and broad the foundations of the temple of liberty. This is a great moral work in which they are engaged. No war-trumpet summons to the field of battle; but Wisdom crieth without, 'Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering.' Shall woman refuse her response to the call? Was she created to be a helpmeet for man--his sorrows to divide, his joys to share, and all his toils to lighten by her willing aid, and shall she refuse to aid him with her prayers, her labors, and her counsels too, at such a time, in such a cause as this?"

There had been, from the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation, no lack of women sympathizers with it. Some of the best and brightest of the land had poured forth their words of grief, of courage, and of hope through magazines and newspapers, in prose and in verse, and had proved their willingness to suffer for the slave, by enduring unshrinkingly ridicule and wrath, pecuniary loss and social ostracism. All over the country, in almost every town and village, women labored untiringly to raise funds for the printing of pamphlets, sending forth lecturers and for the pay of special agents. They were regular attendants also on the anti-slavery meetings and conventions, often outnumbering the men, and privately made some of the best suggestions that were offered. But so strong and general was the feeling against women speaking in any public place, that, up to the time when Sarah and Angelina Grimke began their crusade, it was an almost unheard of thing for a woman to raise her voice in any but a church prayer-meeting. During the sittings of the Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia, in 1833, which was attended by a number of women, chiefly Friends, Lucretia Mott, though she had had experience in speaking in Quaker meetings, timidly arose one day, and, in fear lest she might offend, ventured to propose an amendment to a certain resolution. With rare indulgence and good sense, Beriah Green, the president of the convention, encouraged her to proceed; and May, in his "Recollections," says: "She made a more impressive and effective speech than any other that was made in the convention, excepting only the closing address of our president."

Two other ladies, Esther Moore and Lydia White, emboldened by Mrs.

Mott's example, afterwards said a few words on one or two occasions, but these were the only infringements, during all those early years of agitation, of St. Paul's oft-quoted injunction.

When Sarah and Angelina Grimke accepted the invitation of the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Boston, to come and labor there, they found friends on every hand--women of the highest culture and purest religion, eager to hear them, not only concerning what their eyes had witnessed in that land of worse than Egyptian bondage, but ready to be enlightened upon their own duties and rights in the matter of moral reform, and as willing as resolute to perform them. Without experience, as the sisters were, we can hardly be surprised that they should have been carried beyond their original moorings, and have made what many of their best friends felt was a serious mistake, in uniting the two causes, thus laying upon abolitionists a double burden, and a responsibility to which the great majority of them were as much opposed as were their bitterest enemies. But no movement in this direction was made for some time. Indeed, it seems to have grown quite naturally out of, or been forced forward by, the alarm among men, and the means they took to frighten and warn women away from the dangerous topic.

The Ma.s.sachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention met early in June, 1837. In writing about it to Jane Smith, Angelina first touches upon the dawning feeling on this woman question. She says:--

"We had Stanton and Burleigh, Colver and Birney, Garrison and Goodell, etc. Their eloquence was no less delightful to the ear than the soundness of their doctrine was comforting to the heart.... A peace resolution was brought up, but this occasioned some difficulty on account of non-resistance here meaning a repudiation of civil government, and of course we cannot expect many to be willing to do this.... At Friend Chapman's, where we spent a social evening, I had a long talk with the brethren on the rights of women, and found a very general sentiment prevailing that it is time our fetters were broken.

L. Child and Maria Chapman strongly supported this view; indeed, very many seem to think a new order of things is very desirable in this respect.... And now, my dear friend, in view of these things, I feel that it is not the cause of the slave only that we plead, but the cause of woman as a moral, responsible being, and I am ready to exclaim, 'Who is sufficient for these things?' These holy causes must be injured if they are not helped by us. I see not to what point all these things are leading us. But one thing comforts me: I do feel as though the Lord had sent us, and as if I was leaning on his arm."

And in this reliance, in a meek and lowly spirit, impelled not by inclination, but by an overpowering sense of duty, these gentle women, fully realizing the singularity of their position, prepared to enter upon entirely new scenes of labor, encompa.s.sed by difficulties peculiarly trying to their delicate natures.

A series of public meetings was arranged for them as soon as the Convention adjourned, and the first was held in Dorchester, in the town hall, to which they repaired upon finding the number of those who wished to hear them too great to be accommodated in a private house.

Their next was in Boston on the following afternoon. Angelina's heart here almost failed her as she glanced over the a.s.semblage of women of all cla.s.ses, and thought of the responsibility resting upon her. It was at this meeting that a reverend gentleman set the example, which was followed by two or three other men, of slyly sliding into a back seat to hear for himself what manner of thing this woman's speaking was.

Satisfied of its superior quality, and alarmed at its effects upon the audience, he shortly afterwards took great pains to prove that it was unscriptural for a woman to speak in public.

As the meetings were held at first only in the daylight, there was little show of opposition for some time. The sisters went from one town to another, arousing enthusiasm everywhere, and vindicating, by their power and success, their right to speak. Angelina's letters to Jane Smith contain memoranda of all the meetings she and Sarah held during that summer and fall. It is surprising that they were able to endure such an amount of mental and physical labor, and maintain the constantly increasing eagerness to hear them. Before the end of the first week, she records:--"Nearly thirty men present, pretty easy to speak." A few days later the number of men had increased to fifty, with "great openness on their part to hear."

After having held meetings every day, their audience numbering from one hundred and fifty to one thousand, Angelina records on the 21st July, at Lynn:--

"In the evening of the same day addressed our first mixed audience.

Over one thousand present, great openness to hear, and ease in speaking."

This, so briefly mentioned, was the beginning of the revolution in sentiment respecting woman's sphere, which, though it was met at the outset with much the same spirit which opposed abolitionism, soon spread and became a principle of reform as conscientiously and as ably advocated as any other, moral or political. Neither Sarah nor Angelina had any idea of starting such a revolution, but when they found it fairly inaugurated, and that many women had long privately held the same views as they did and were ready to follow in their lead, they bravely accepted, and to the end of their lives as bravely sustained all the responsibilities their opinions involved. They were the pioneers in the great cause of political freedom for women, and opened the way in the true pioneer spirit. The clear sense of justice and the broad humanity which inspired their trenchant rebukes and fervid appeals not only enlightened and encouraged other women, but led to inquiry into various wrongs practised towards the s.e.x which had up to that time been suffered in silence and in ignorance, or in despair of any possibility of relief. The peculiar tenderness of Sarah Grimke's nature, and her overflowing sympathy with any form of suffering, led her, earlier than Angelina, to the consideration of the necessity of some organized system of protection of helpless women and children; and, from the investigation of the impositions and abuses to which they were subjected, was evolved, without much difficulty, the doctrine of woman's equality before the law, and her right to a voice on every subject of public interest, social or political. Sarah's published letters during the summer of 1837 show her to have been as deeply interested in this reform as in abolitionism, and to her influence was certainly due the introduction of the "Woman Question" into the anti-slavery discussions. That this question was as yet a secondary one in Angelina's mind is evident from what she writes to Jane Smith about this time. She says: "With regard to speaking on the rights of woman, it has really been wonderful to me that though, everywhere I go, I meet prejudice against our speaking, yet, in addressing an audience, I never think of referring to it. I was particularly struck with this two days ago. Riding with Dr. Miller to a meeting at Franklin, I found, from conversation with him, that I had a great amount of prejudice to meet at that town, and very much in his own mind. I gave him my views on women's preaching, and verily believe I converted him, for he said he had no idea so much could be adduced from the Bible to sustain the ground I had taken, and remarked: 'This will be quite new to the people, and I believe they will gladly hear these things,' and pressed me so much to speak on the subject at the close of my lecture that I was obliged to promise I would if I could remember to do so. After speaking two hours, we returned to his house to tea, and he asked: 'Why did you not tell the people why you believed you had a right to speak?'

I had entirely forgotten all about it until his question revived the conversation we had on the road. Now I believe the Lord orders these things so, driving out of my mind what I ought not to speak on. If the time ever comes when this shall be a part of my public work, then I shall not be able to forget it."

But to return to the meeting at Lynn. We are told that the men present listened in amazement. They were spell-bound, and impatient of the slightest noise which might cause the loss of a word from the speakers.

Another meeting was called for, and held the next evening. This was crowded to excess, many going away unable to get even standing-room.

"At least one hundred," Angelina writes, "stood around the doors, and, on the outside of each window, men stood with their heads above the lowered sash. Very easy speaking indeed."

But now the opposers of abolitionism, and especially the clergy, began to be alarmed. It amounted to very little that (to borrow the language of one of the newspapers of the day) "two fanatical women, forgetful of the obligations of a respected name, and indifferent to the feelings of their most worthy kinsmen, the Barnwells and the Rhetts, should, by the novelty of their course, draw to their meetings idle and curious women." But it became a different matter when men, the intelligent, respectable and cultivated citizens of every town, began to crowd to hear them, even following them from one place to another, and giving them loud and honest applause. Then they were adjudged immodest, and their conduct denounced as unwomanly and demoralizing. Their devotion to principle, the purity of their lives, the justice of the cause they pleaded, the religious stand-point from which they spoke, all were overlooked, and the pitiless scorn of Christian men and women of every sect was poured down upon them. Nor should we wonder when we remember that, at that time, the Puritan bounds of propriety still hedged in the education and the training of New England women, and limited the views of New England men. Even many of the abolitionists had first to hear Sarah and Angelina Grimke to be convinced that there was nothing unwomanly in a woman's raising her voice to plead for those helpless to plead for themselves. So good a man and so faithful an anti-slavery worker as Samuel J. May confesses that his sense of propriety was a little disturbed at first. Letters of reproval, admonition, and persuasion, some anonymous, some signed by good conscientious people, came to the sisters frequently. Clergymen denounced them from their pulpits, especially warning their women members against them. Munic.i.p.al corporations refused the use of halls for their meetings, and threats of personal violence came from various quarters. Friends especially felt outraged. The New England Yearly Meeting went so far as to advise the closing of meeting-house doors to all anti-slavery lecturers and the disownment the sisters had long expected now became imminent.

We can well imagine how terrible all this must have been to their shrinking, sensitive, and proud spirits. But their courage never failed, nor was their mighty work for humanity stayed one instant by this storm of indignation and wrath. Angelina, writing to her dear Jane an account of some of the opposition to them, says:

"And now, thou wilt want to know how we feel about all these things.

Well, dear, poor enough in ourselves, and defenceless; but rich and strong in the help which our Master is pleased to give from time to time, making perfect his strength in our weakness. This is a truly humbling dispensation, but when I am speaking I am favored to forget little _I_ entirely, and to feel altogether hidden behind the great cause I am pleading. Were it not for this, I do not know how I could face such audiences and such opposition. O Jane, how good it is that we can cast all our burdens upon the Lord."