gods, but as fallible human beings. They are to
come out of an ignorant innocence, that may be only weakness, into a wise
innocence that will be strength. It is too late to remand American women
into a Turkish or Jewish tutelage: they have emerged too far not to come
farther. In a certain sense, no doubt, the butterfly is safest in the
chrysalis. When the soft thing begins to emerge, the world certainly seems
a dangerous place; and it is hard to say what will be the result of the
emancipation. But when she is once half out, there is no safety for the
pretty creature but to come the rest of the way, and use her wings.

I HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS I WANT

When Dr. Johnson had published his English Dictionary, and was asked by a
lady how he chanced to make a certain mistake that she pointed out, he
answered, "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance." I always feel disposed to
make the same comment on the assertion of any woman that she has all the
rights she wants. For every woman is, or may be, or might have been, a
mother. And when she comes to know that even now, in many parts of the
Union, a married mother has no legal right to her child, I should think her
tongue would cleave to her mouth before she would utter those foolish words
again.

All the things I ever heard or read against slavery did not fix in my soul
such a hostility to it as a single scene in a Missouri slave-jail many
years ago. As I sat there, a purchaser came in to buy a little girl to wait
on his wife. Three little sisters were brought in, from eight to twelve
years old: they were mulattoes, with sweet, gentle manners; they had
evidently been taken good care of, and their pink calico frocks were clean
and whole. The gentleman chose one of them, and then asked her,
good-naturedly enough, if she did not wish to go with him. She burst into
tears, and said, "I want to stay with my mother." But her tears were as
powerless, of course, as so many salt drops from the ocean.

That was all. But all the horrors of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the stories told
me by fugitive slaves, the scarred backs I afterwards saw by dozens among
colored recruits, did not impress me as did that hour in the jail. The
whole probable career of that poor, wronged, motherless, shrinking child
passed before me in fancy. It seemed to me that a man must be utterly lost
to all manly instincts who would not give his life to overthrow such a
system. It seemed to me that the woman who could tolerate