f the truth of our
publications could be desired?

Women of Philadelphia! allow me as a Southern woman, with much
attachment to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to
this work. Especially, let me urge you to petition. Men may
settle this and other questions at the ballot-box, but you have
no such right. It is only through petitions that you can reach
the Legislature. It is, therefore, peculiarly your duty to
petition. Do you say, "It does no good!" The South already turns
pale at the number sent. They have read the reports of the
proceedings of Congress, and there have seen that among other
petitions were very many from the women of the North on the
subject of slavery. Men who hold the rod over slaves rule in the
councils of the nation; and they deny our right to petition and
remonstrate against abuses of our sex and our kind. We have these
rights, however, from our God. Only let us exercise them, and,
though often turned away unanswered, let us remember the
influence of importunity upon the unjust judge, and act
accordingly. The fact that the South looks jealously upon our
measures shows that they are effectual. There is, therefore, no
cause for doubting or despair.

It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish slavery
in her colonies. Nor are they now idle. Numerous petitions from
them have recently been presented to the Queen to abolish
apprenticeship, with its cruelties, nearly equal to those of the
system whose place it supplies. One petition, two miles and a
quarter long, has been presented. And do you think these labors
will be in vain? Let the history of the past answer. When the
women of these States send up to Congress such a petition our
legislators will arise, as did those of England, and say: "When
all the maids and matrons of the land are knocking at our doors
we must legislate." Let the zeal and love, the faith and works of
our English sisters quicken ours; that while the slaves continue
to suffer, and when they shout for deliverance, we may feel the
satisfaction of "having done what we could."

ABBY KELLY, of Lynn, Massachusetts, rose, and said: I ask
permission to pay a few words. I have never before addressed a
promiscuous assembly; nor is it now the maddening rush of those
voices, whic