in his brief
hour hope to see the beginning and end of any reform? When you compare
the public sentiment and social customs of our day with what they were
fifty years ago, how can you despair of the temperance cause? With a
Maine Law and divorce for drunkenness, the rum-seller and drunkard
must soon come to terms. Let woman's motto be, "No union with
Drunkards," and she will soon bring this long and well-fought battle
to a triumphant close.

Neither should you despair of the anti-slavery cause; with its
martyrs, its runaway slaves, its legal decisions in almost every paper
you take up, the topic of debate in our national councils, our
political meetings, and our literature, it seems as if the nation were
all alive on this question. True, four millions of slaves groan in
their chains still, but every man in this nation has a higher idea of
individual rights than he had twenty years ago.

As to the cause of woman, I see no signs of failure. We already have a
property law, which in its legitimate effects must elevate the _femme
covert_ into a living, breathing woman, a wife into a property-holder,
who can make contracts, buy and sell. In a few years we shall see how
well it works. It needs but little forethought to perceive that in due
time these large property-holders must be represented in the
Government; and when the mass of women see that there is some hope of
becoming voters and law-makers, they will take to their rights as
naturally as the negro to his heels when he is sure of success. Their
present seeming content is very much like Sambo's on the plantation.
If you truly believe that man is woman, and woman is man; if you
believe that all the burning indignation that fires your soul at the
sight of injustice and oppression, if suffered in your own person,
would nerve you to a life-long struggle for liberty and independence,
then know that what you feel, I feel too, and what I feel the mass of
women feel also. Judge by yourself, then, how long the women of this
nation will consent to be deprived of their social, civil, and
political rights; but talk not to us of failure. Talk not to us of
chivalry, that died long ago. Where do you see it? No gallant knight
presents himself at the bar of justice to pay the penalty of our
crimes. We suffer in our own persons, on the gallows, and in prison
walls. From Blackstone down to Kent, there is no display of gallantry
in your written codes. In social life, true, a man in love