e women feel to Mr. Longfellow and the
other gentlemen who have identified themselves with an unpopular and
ridiculed cause. Permit me to say one word in relation to this matter
of woman's sphere. There is a lady in my neighborhood, who was
speaking to me not long since, in the most enthusiastic terms, of this
recent law that has passed through our Legislature, and of gratitude
toward Susan B. Anthony, through whose untiring exertions and
executive ability, aided by two or three other women, this law has
been secured. After she had expatiated for a while on this subject,
her husband said, "Miss Anthony had a great deal better have been at
home, taking care of her husband and children." Thank Heaven! there is
one woman who has leisure to care for others as well as herself.
(Applause).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton then presented a series of resolutions,[168] in
support of which she addressed the Convention as follows:

Mrs. PRESIDENT:--In our common law, in our whole system of
jurisprudence, we find man's highest idea of right. The object of
law is to secure justice. But inasmuch as fallible man is the
maker and administrator of law, we must look for many and gross
blunders in the application of its general principles to
individual cases.

The science of theology, of civil, political, moral, and social
life, all teach the common idea, that man ever has been, and ever
must be, sacrificed to the highest good of society; the one to
the many--the poor to the rich--the weak to the powerful--and all
to the institutions of his own creation. Look, what thunderbolts
of power man has forged in the ages for his own destruction!--at
the organizations to enslave himself! And through those times of
darkness, those generations of superstition, behold all along the
relics of his power and skill, that stand like mile-stones, here
and there, to show how far back man was great and glorious! Who
can stand in those vast cathedrals of the old world, as the
deep-toned organ reverberates from arch to arch, and not feel the
grandeur of humanity? These are the workmanship of him, beneath
whose stately dome the architect himself now bows in fear and
doubt, knows not himself, and knows not God--a mere slave to
symbols--and with holy water signs the Cross, whilst He who died
thereon declared man God.

I repudiate the popular idea of