few names they secured show the
hopeless apathy and ignorance of the women as to their own rights. As
similar bills[4] were pending in New York until finally passed in
1848, a great educational work was accomplished in the constant
discussion of the topics involved. During the winters of 1844-5-6,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, living in Albany, made the acquaintance of
Judge Hurlbut and a large circle of lawyers and legislators, and,
while exerting herself to strengthen their convictions in favor of the
pending bill, she resolved at no distant day to call a convention for
a full and free discussion of woman's rights and wrongs.

In 1828, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters of a wealthy planter of
Charleston, South Carolina, emancipated their slaves and came North to
lecture on the evils of slavery, leaving their home and native place
forever because of their hatred of this wrong. Angelina was a natural
orator. Fresh from the land of bondage, there was a fervor in her
speech that electrified her hearers and drew crowds wherever she went.
Sarah published a book reviewing the Bible arguments the clergy were
then making in their pulpits to prove that the degradation of the
slave and woman were alike in harmony with the expressed will of God.
Thus women from the beginning took an active part in the Anti-Slavery
struggle. They circulated petitions, raised large sums of money by
fairs, held prayer-meetings and conventions. In 1835, Angelina wrote
an able letter to William Lloyd Garrison, immediately after the Boston
mob. These letters and appeals were considered very effective
abolition documents.

In May, 1837, a National Woman's Anti-Slavery Convention was held in
New York, in which eight States were represented by seventy-one
delegates. The meetings were ably sustained through two days. The
different sessions were opened by prayer and reading of the Scriptures
by the women themselves. A devout, earnest spirit prevailed. The
debates, resolutions, speeches, and appeals were fully equal to those
in any Convention held by men of that period. Angelina Grimke was
appointed by this Convention to prepare an appeal for the slaves to
the people of the free States, and a letter to John Quincy Adams
thanking him for his services in defending the right of petition for
women and slaves, qualified with the regret that by expressing himself
"adverse to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia," he
did not sustain the cause of free