red women from any share
in its management, and gave little encouragement to them even to become
members.

She adds: "I believe it is our duty to visit the poor, white and
colored, just in this way, and to receive them at our houses. I think
that the artificial distinctions in society, the separation between the
higher and the lower orders, the aristocracy of wealth and education,
are the very rock of pauperism, and that the only way to eradicate this
plague from our land will be to associate with the poor, and the wicked
too, just as our Redeemer did. To visit them as our inferiors, the
recipients of our bounty, is quite a different thing from going among
them as our equals."

In her next letter to Jane Smith, Angelina gives an interesting account
of H.B. Stanton's great speech before the Committee of the
Massachusetts legislature on the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia; a speech which still ranks as one of the ablest and most
brilliant ever delivered in this country. There is no date to this
letter, but it must have been written the last of February or first of
March, 1837. She begins thus:--

"I was wondering, my dear Jane, what could be the reason I had not
heard from thee, when brother Weld came in with thine and Mira's
letters hanging from the paper on which they had been tied. 'I bring
you,' he said, 'a good emblem of the fate of abolitionists,--so take
warning;' and held them up to our view....

"Brother Garrison was here last Sixth Day and spent two hours with us.
He gave us a most delightful account of recent things in Boston, which
I will try to tell thee of. "When the abolitionists found how their
petitions were treated in Congress, they sent in, from all parts of
Massachusetts, petitions to the legislature, requesting it to issue a
protest against such contempt of the people's wishes and rights. The
legislature was amazed at the number and respectability of these
petitions, and appointed a committee to take them under consideration.
Abolitionists then asked for a hearing before that committee, not in
the lobby, but in the Hall of Representatives. The request was granted,
and though the day was exceedingly stormy, a good number were out. A
young lawyer of Boston first spoke an hour and a half; H.B. Stanton
followed, and completely astonished the audience, but could not get
through by dark, and asked for another meeting. The next afternoon an
overflowing audience greeted him; he spoke thr