ury such abuse as that which I shall quote as typical
was hurled from ten thousand throats of men and women unceasingly; that
Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Gage were hissed, insulted, and
offered physical violence by mobs in New York[410] and Boston to an
extent inconceivable in this age; and that the marvellously unselfish
labour of such women as these whom I have mentioned and of men like
Wendell Phillips is alone responsible for the improvement in the legal
status of women, which I propose to trace in detail. Some expressions of
the popular attitude follow:

[Sidenote: Examples of opposition to women's rights.]

From a speech of the Rev. Knox-Little at the Church of St. Clements in
Philadelphia in 1880: "God made himself to be born of a woman to
sanctify the virtue of endurance; loving submission is an attribute of a
woman; men are logical, but women, lacking this quality, have an
intricacy of thought. There are those who think women can be taught
logic; this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education
arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by men, but they have a
quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping at
conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have distinctive
traits of a woman, namely, endurance, loving submission, and quickness
of apprehension. Wifehood is the crowning glory of a woman. In it she is
bound for all time. To her husband she owes the duty of unqualified
obedience. There is no crime which a man can commit which justifies his
wife in leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It
is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can
commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or wicked man,
she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him never. Let divorce
be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it,
curse it! Think of the blessedness of having children. I am the father
of many children and there have been those who have ventured to pity me.
'Keep your pity for yourself,' I have replied, 'they never cost me a
single pang.' In this matter let woman exercise that endurance and
loving submission which, with intricacy of thought, are their only
characteristics."

From the Philadelphia _Public Ledger and Daily Transcript_, July 20,
1848: "Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are
celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as
wit,