at
surrounds her." Is this indeed so? Men have taken from her every power
to protect herself, even the dignity and respect which the right of
suffrage confers upon the lowest man in the community, and which makes
his opinion worth its price among men, is denied her. Men are in the
daily habit of indulging in immoralities and vices, while they enjoin
it upon woman--"poor, frail, weak woman," as they call us--to destroy
the influence they have created. They place the temptation before the
child, then sternly demand of its suffering mother her vigilance and
care to control the appetite, which he has, it may be, inherited from
his fathers, back from the third and fourth generation. Perchance,
even through her own breast, he has sucked the poison that is
corrupting all the streams of his young life. She may have grappled
with the tempter, and come off conqueror; but can she hold him, the
drunkard's child--the drunkard's grandchild--with the twofold curse
upon his brow, while men place this direful temptation ever within his
reach, glaring out upon him in beautiful enticement at every corner of
the street, and at every turn of his daily and nightly walks, and add
their influence and example to draw him away from the counsels of a
mother's love, and the endearments of home? Then, when, under the
influence of men, he outrages society, and in his maniac madness
violates the law of the land, and becomes a felon, wasting away his
days in the gloomy prison, or expiating his crimes upon the gallows,
they forget what they have done, and, turning to the poor, crushed,
and bleeding heart, which they have pierced with a thousand sorrows,
cry out, "You, O mother of that guilty man, have not done your duty,
and society holds you responsible for all his suffering and for all
his crimes. O God! is this not adding insult to injury? How can the
weak control the strong? How can the servant, bound hand and foot by
the master, do the bidding of the tyrant? But all men are not
weak--all men are not oppressive--all men are not unjust. There is a
strong force, ever in the field of battle, struggling for truth and
right with earnest heart and firm resolve. Let us arouse, O my
sisters, and add our strength to theirs. The time is coming, aye, now
is, when we must shake off our dependence and inactivity, and live
more true to ourselves; when we must refuse to live the wives of
drunkards, perpetuating, as mothers, their vices and crimes, to
pollute soci