t do we behold? Wendell Phillips has shivered the English
language all to pieces in attempts to describe the baseness and
utter worthlessness of the Republican party. The president has
sold "the poisonous porridge called his soul," to Virginia rebels
and New York and Pennsylvania aristocrats and bondholders, and
yet Mr. Phillips persists in demanding that woman lay her own
right of suffrage at the presidential and Republican party feet,
while they so mould and manipulate the black male element, as by
it, if possible, to save themselves from utter rout and
destruction. Thanks be to God, some of us learned the old
anti-slavery lesson from Wendell Phillips better. And we dare
take our appeal from the Wendell Phillips of to-day, to him of
twenty years ago. And we do "dare to look our past history in the
face." And moreover, we look with triumph, and with hearts
swelling with fervent gratitude that our anti-slavery teachers
schooled us so well. What is it but ludicrous (if mirth be
possible on such a question) for those who are thus seeking the
enfranchisement of but half of even the fragmentary colored race,
to charge with selfishness, compromise, and treachery, the
association, or any of its members, that are earnestly laboring
to extend the ballot to every American citizen, irrespective of
all distinctions of race, complexion or sex? Can such accusers
look each other in the face and not laugh? Cato wondered that
two augurs could meet with gravity. What would he do here? And
still more preposterous, if not ludicrous, is it, when woman
voluntarily stops and becomes the agent of her own degradation,
and with her own hands builds barriers against her own
advancement; piling up opposition, Pelion upon Ossa, when the
majority against her, even in New York and New England, is
already appalling? And then for us to be referred to the
teachings and experiences of the past for lessons in compromise,
cold, calculating compromise, such as Abolitionists ever blasted
with the breath of their nostrils, and scourged from their
presence with fiery indignation! The Equal Rights Association is
not to be turned aside by any seductive devices from its high and
holy purpose of enfranchisement for all American citizens,
KNOWING NO RACE, NO COLOR, NO SEX.