bliged to appeal
to masculine selfishness in showing the reflex action woman's
education would have upon man. "If," said she, "we mean to have
heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women."
Thus did the Revolutionary Mothers urge the recognition of equal
rights when the Government was in the process of formation. Although
the first plot of ground in the United States for a public school had
been given by a woman (Bridget Graffort), in 1700, her sex were denied
admission. Mrs. Adams, as well as her friend Mrs. Warren, had in their
own persons felt the deprivations of early educational advantages. The
boasted public school system of Massachusetts, created for boys only,
opened at last its doors to girls, merely to secure its share of
public money. The women of the South, too, early demanded political
equality. The counties of Mecklenberg and Rowan, North Carolina, were
famous for the patriotism of their women. Mecklenberg claims to have
issued the first declaration of independence, and, at the centennial
celebration of this event in May, 1875, proudly accepted for itself
the derisive name given this region by Tarleton's officers, "The
Hornet's Nest of America." This name--first bestowed by British
officers upon Mrs. Brevard's mansion, then Tarleton's headquarters,
where that lady's fiery patriotism and stinging wit discomfited this
General in many a sally--was at last held to include the whole county.
In 1778, only two years after the Declaration of Independence was
adopted, and while the flames of war were still spreading over the
country, Hannah Lee Corbin, of Virginia, the sister of General Richard
Henry Lee, wrote him, protesting against the taxation of women unless
they were allowed to vote. He replied that "women were already
possessed of that right," thus recognizing the fact of woman's
enfranchisement as one of the results of the new government, and it is
on record that women in Virginia did at an early day exercise the
right of voting. New Jersey also specifically secured this right to
women on the 2d of July, 1776--a right exercised by them for more than
a third of a century. Thus our country started into governmental life
freighted with the protests of the Revolutionary Mothers against being
ruled without their consent. From that hour to the present, women have
been continually raising their voices against political tyranny, and
demanding for themselves equality of opportunity in every depar