Gerrit Smith. And he imputes the want
of earnestness to her clothes. It in a new doctrine that high and holy
purposes go from without inward, that the garments of men or women
govern and control their aspirations. But do not women _now_ work
right earnestly? Do not the German women and our market women labor
right earnestly? Do not the wives of our farmers and mechanics toil?
Is not the work of the _mothers_ in our land as important as that of
the father? "Labor is the foundation of wealth." The reason that our
women are "paupers," is not that they do not labor "right earnestly,"
but that the law gives their earnings into the hands of manhood. Mr.
Smith says, "That women are helpless, is no wonder, so long as they
are paupers"; he might add, no wonder that the slaves of the cotton
plantation are helpless, so long as they are paupers. What reduces
both the woman and the slave to this condition? The law which gives
the husband and the master entire control of the person and earnings
of each; the law that robs each of the rights and liberties that every
"free white male citizen" takes to himself as God-given. Truth falling
from the lips of a Lucretia Mott in long skirts is none the less
truth, than if uttered by a Lucy Stone in short dress, or a Helen
Maria Weber in pants and swallow-tail coat. And I can not yet think so
meanly of manly justice, as to believe it will yield simply to a
change of garments. Let us assert our right to be free. Let us get out
of our prison-house of law. Let us own ourselves, our earnings, our
genius; let us have power to control as well as to earn and to own;
then will each woman adjust her dress to her relations in life.

Mr. Smith speaks of reforms as failures; what can he mean? "The
Temperance Reform still drags." I have been in New York thirty-seven
days; have given thirty-three lectures; have been at taverns, hotels,
private houses, and depots; rode in stages, country wagons, omnibuses,
carriages, and railroad cars; met the masses of people daily, and yet
have not seen one drunken man, scarce an evidence that there was such
a thing as intemperance in the Empire State. If the whole body has
been diseased from childhood and a cure be attempted, shall we cry out
against the physician that his effort is a failure, because the malady
does not wholly disappear at once? Oh, no! let us rather cheer than
discourage, while we see symptoms of amendment, hoping and trusting
that each day will give ren