Colby-Speeches, Women's Rights, Suffrage Leaders, undated (Clara Berwick Colby papers, 1860-1957; Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Box 8, Folder 4)

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principles whose application, even to men, wanted for the slow growth of public opinion and for political emergencies. The women suffragists must educate the one and prepare for the other, and be ready to enter into the exercise of that right of sovereignty which has always been theirs under the original charter of this Republic.

The beautiful and accomplished Frances Wright was the first women to lecture in this country on political subjects. Educated partly in the family of LaFayette, she was an ardent devotee of liberty and came to thier country in 1820 to study its form of givernemnt. Her lectures on American Political institutions and other subjects cultivated in her audiences an understanding of the fundamental value of freedom, and she never failed to show the injustice of depriving women of its blessings and the danger of having an unrepresented class in a Republic. Her radical views brought upon her adium, slander, and persecution, but when the time came to organized effort on behalf of women it was seen how greatly the work of Frances Wright had prepared the way. Her name is lustrous with the honor always, accorded by tardy followers to one who dares to lead the way.

Margaret Fuller was teh first women in this country to acquire great intellectual attainments, and this al,ost [almost] entirely unaided, for in her day no college, academy, or high school, was open to women. The Boston high school had been opened to girls when she was fifteen years of age but so many rushed in that the authorities saw the opportunities for boys endangered and again shut out the girls until 1853.

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Margaret was the first person to conduct a distictively American literary enterprise; [the Dial?] and her conversation classes forecast the Woman's clubs of today. Her essy [essay] on "Woman in the Nineteentth Century" enunciates the philosophy of the whole woman movement. She showed that man could only have his own freedom by making woman free. "Sex" she said, "like rank, wealth, beauty or talent is but an accident of birth. As you would not educate a soul to be an aristocrat, so do not to be a woman." Again, "Let man trust woman entirely and give her every privilege already acquired for himself. Elective franchise, tenure of property, liberty to speak in public assemblies. - Brave words for 1843!

Everybody is familiar with the story of how lucretia Mott, delegate from Philadelphia, was denied admission to the world's antislavery convention in London, in 1840, because of her sex; and how then and there Elizabeth Cady Stanton and she determined to call a woman's right convention, which was accordingly held at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Associated with these in signing the call for this convention were Martha C. Wright and her two daughters, and Jane Hunt and Mary Ann McClintock, the Immortal Seven [ of whom miss Stanton alone [illegible] with us?] Martha C. Wright was sister of Lucretia Mott and one of the most active leaders for over a quarter of a century, holding the position of President of the National Suffrage Association at the time of her death.

Mrs. Stanton was the mother of the Woman Suffrage Movement and Lucretia Mott was its saint and prophet. Mrs. Mott was a leader in three great movements for the humanity's liberation and became a Quaker preacher [preacher] in 1818. From the first woman suffrage meetign in 1848, until her last in 1878, when she was eighty-six years old, she was a tower of strength to the

5 to the cause. With her gentle benignity she overawed mobs and won either the love or the respect of everybody. Her motto was "truth for authority and not authority for truth". At that last convention she was closing her address when her friends came to take her home. Walking slowly down the aisle she continued speaking and shaking hands as she bade farewell to the work and the workers who had been in her heart for thirty years. The audience rose as she went out and there were few dry eyes as the last good-byes were said. Two years later when she was 88 years old there came a day when she repeated often the words "Let thy little standard-bearer go"; and the prayer was granted.

The Mott name, borne by other representatives of the family, is found frequently in the records of the early conventions. There was James, husband of Lucretia, always [illegible] on the finance committee the help so much needed in reform: and lydia, sister to James, who was always to be relied on for the hard work of the conventions. Lydia Mott lived at Albany and the petitions for legislation in behalf of women were always sent to her. For twenty-five years she went up to the State Capitol with speakers who had come to plead in behalf of human rights, and her house was Reformer Home as long as she lived.

Lydia Maria Child's "History of Women" published in 1832 has always been a valuable store house of information to essayists on the woman question. Although her work was mainly literary and for the antislavery cause, she always gave her name and influence to the woman Suffrage society, leaving it a thousand dollars when she died. At the time when Charles Sumner was standing to protect the negro by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, Mrs. Child who had done so much for

Ernestine L Potoski Known only to the American public as Ernestine L Rose was a beautiful Polish Jewish exile from Poland. where she had warmly espoused the cause of civil liberties for her own people. She married an Englishman Wm Rose and soon after in 1836 came to this country to lecture on social subjects her husband so strongly sympathizing with her radical views that he supported her in the field & her lectures were given without- any changes. She lectured in 23 States. and addressed many Legislatures. notably and many times that of New York urging redress of woman's wrongs. She was the first to petition the New York Legislature to give married women a right to hold property in their own name. and af This was in 1837 & after lecturing the whole she could only obtain five signatures. The Woman Suffrage History says of her: "Those who sat with her on the platform in bygone days will remember her matchless powers as a speaker; and how safe we felt while she had the floor. She had a rich musical voice with just enough of foreign accent and idiom to add to the charm of her oratory. As a speaker she was pointed, logical, and impassioned. She not only dealt in abstract principles clearly, but in their application touched the deepest emotion of the human soul.

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