protection for the innocent.

FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER, OCTOBER 23d and 24th, 1850.

The Conventions in New York and Ohio, though not extensively
advertised, nor planned with much deliberation, for in both cases
they were hastily decided upon, yet their novelty attracted much
attention, and drew large audiences. Those who had long seen and felt
woman's wrongs, were now for the first time inspired with the hope
that something might be done for their redress by organized action.
When Massachusetts decided to call a convention, the initiative steps
were well considered, as there were many men and women in that State
trained in the anti-slavery school, skilled in managing conventions,
who were also interested in woman's enfranchisement. But to the energy
and earnestness of Paulina Wright Davis, more than to any other one
person, we may justly accord the success of the first Conventions in
Massachusetts.

In describing the preliminary arrangements in a report read in the
second decade meeting in New York in 1870, she says:

"In May, 1850, a few women in Boston attending an Anti-Slavery
meeting, proposed that all who felt interested in a plan for a
National Woman's Rights Convention, should consult in the ante-room.
Of the nine who went out into that dark, dingy room, a committee of
seven were chosen to do the work. Worcester was the place selected,
and the 23d and 24th of October the appointed time. However, the work
soon devolved upon one person.[40] Illness hindered one, duty to a
brother another, duty to the slave a third, professional engagements a
fourth, the fear of bringing the gray hairs of a father to the grave
prevented another from serving; but the pledge was made, and could not
be withdrawn.

"The call was prepared, an argument in itself, and sent forth with
earnest private letters in all directions. It covered the entire
question, as it now stands before the public. Though moderate in tone,
carefully guarding the idea of the absolute unity of interests and of
the destiny of the two sexes which nature has established, it still
gave the alarm to conservatism.

"Letters, curt, reproachful, and sometimes almost insulting, came with
absolute refusals to have the names of the writers used, or added to
the swelling list already in hand. There was astonishment at the
temerity of the writer in presenting such a request.

"Some few there were, so cheering and so excellent, that it is but
jus