of you appreciate the galling humiliation,
the refinements of degradation, to which women (the mothers,
wives, sisters, and daughters of freemen) are subject, in this
the last half of the nineteenth century? How many of you have
ever read even the laws concerning them that now disgrace your
statute-books? In cruelty and tyranny, they are not surpassed by
any slaveholding code in the Southern States; in fact they are
worse, by just so far as woman, from her social position,
refinement, and education, is on a more equal ground with the
oppressor.

Allow me just here to call the attention of that party now so
much interested in the slave of the Carolinas, to the similarity
in his condition and that of the mothers, wives, and daughters of
the Empire State. The negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or
Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has
no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose
Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings; he
can not buy or sell, or lay up anything that he can call his own.
Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings she can neither buy nor
sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her
own. Cuffy has no right to his children; they can be sold from
him at any time. Mrs. Roe has no right to her children; they may
be bound out to cancel a father's debts of honor. The unborn
child, even by the last will of the father, may be placed under
the guardianship of a stranger and a foreigner. Cuffy has no
legal existence; he is subject to restraint and moderate
chastisement. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she has not the
best right to her own person. The husband has the power to
restrain, and administer moderate chastisement.

Blackstone declares that the husband and wife are one, and
learned commentators have decided that that one is the husband.
In all civil codes, you will find them classified as one. Certain
rights and immunities, such and such privileges are to be secured
to white male citizens. What have women and negroes to do with
rights? What know they of government, war, or glory?

The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no
stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause,
and manifested very much in the same wa