d, is the misfortune of being trained in the atmosphere of a
household where love is not the law, but where discord and bitterness
abound; stamping their demoniac features on the moral nature, with all
their odious peculiarities--thus continuing the race in a weakness and
depravity that must be a sure precursor of its ruin, as a just penalty
of long-violated law.

[169] Thurlow Weed, editor of _The Albany Evening Journal_, opposed
the passage of the Divorce Bill before the New York Legislature in
1860.

[170] _Resolved_, That marriage is the voluntary alliance of two
persons of opposite sexes into one family, and that such an alliance,
with its possible incidents of children, its common interests, etc.,
must be, from the nature of things, as permanent as the life of the
parties.

_Resolved_, That if human law attempts to regulate marriage at all, it
should aim to regulate it according to the fundamental principles of
marriage; and that as the institution is inherently as continuous as
the life of the parties, so all laws should look to its control and
preservation as such.

_Resolved_, That as a parent can never annul his obligations towards
even a profligate child, because of the inseparable relationship of
the parties, so the married partner can not annul his obligations
towards the other, while both live, no matter how profligate that
other's conduct may be, because of their still closer and alike
permanent relationship; and, therefore, that all divorce is naturally
and morally impossible, even though we should succeed in annulling all
legalities.

_Resolved_, That gross fraud and want of good faith in one of the
parties contracting this alliance, such as would invalidate any other
voluntary relation, are the only causes which can invalidate this, and
this, too, solely upon the ground that the relation never virtually
existed, and that there are, therefore, no resulting moral
obligations.

_Resolved_, however, That both men and women have a first and
inviolable right to themselves, physically, mentally, and morally, and
that it can never be the duty of either to surrender his personal
freedom in any direction to his own hurt.

_Resolved_, That the great duty of every human being is to secure his
own highest moral development, and that he can not owe to society, or
to an individual, any obligation which shall be degrading to himself.

_Resolved_, That self-devotion to the good of another, and especially
to