uch a discussion
as this.

As the hour was late, and as the paltry arguments of the opposition
were unworthy much consideration--as the reader will see from the
specimens given--Mr. Phillips' reply was brief, consisting of the
correction of a few mistakes made by different speakers. The vote was
taken, and the women excluded as delegates of the Convention, by an
overwhelming majority.

George Thompson: I hope, as the question is now decided, that Mr.
Phillips will give us the assurance that we shall proceed with
one heart and one mind.

Mr. Phillips replied: I have no doubt of it. There is no
unpleasant feeling in our minds. I have no doubt the women will
sit with as much interest behind the bar[6] as though the
original proposition had been carried in the affirmative. All we
asked was an expression of opinion, and, having obtained it, we
shall now act with the utmost cordiality.

Would there have been no unpleasant feelings in Wendell Phillips'
mind, had Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis been refused their
seats in a convention of reformers under similar circumstances? and,
had _they_ listened one entire day to debates on their peculiar
fitness for plantation life, and unfitness for the forum and public
assemblies, and been rejected as delegates on the ground of color,
could Wendell Phillips have so far mistaken their real feelings, and
been so insensible to the insults offered them, as to have told a
Convention of men who had just trampled on their most sacred rights,
that "they would no doubt sit with as much interest behind the bar, as
in the Convention"? To stand in that august assembly and maintain the
unpopular heresy of woman's equality was a severe ordeal for a young
man to pass through, and Wendell Phillips, who accepted the odium of
presenting this question to the Convention, and thus earned the
sincere gratitude of all womankind, might be considered as above
criticism, though he may have failed at one point to understand the
feelings of woman. The fact is important to mention, however, to show
that it is almost impossible for the most liberal of men to
understand what liberty means for woman. This sacrifice of human
rights, by men who had assembled from all quarters of the globe to
proclaim universal emancipation, was offered up in the presence of
such women as Lady Byron, Anna Jameson, Amelia Opie, Mary Howitt,
Elizabeth Fry, and our own Lucretia Mo