eld not only
willingly but proudly. A man is never ashamed to own such influences,
but feels dignified and ennobled in acknowledging them. But the moment
woman begins to feel the promptings of ambition, or the thirst for
power, her aegis of defence is gone. All the sacred protection of
religion, all the generous promptings of chivalry, all the poetry of
romantic gallantry, depend upon woman's retaining her place as
dependent and defenceless, and making no claims, and maintaining no
right but what are the gifts of honour, rectitude and love.

A woman may seek the aid of co-operation and combination among her own
sex, to assist her in her appropriate offices of piety, charity,
maternal and domestic duty; but whatever, in any measure, throws a woman
into the attitude of a combatant, either for herself or others--whatever
binds her in a party conflict--whatever obliges her in any way to exert
coercive influences, throws her out of her appropriate sphere. If these
general principles are correct, they are entirely opposed to the plan of
arraying females in any Abolition movement; because it enlists them in
an effort to coerce the South by the public sentiment of the North;
because it brings them forward as partisans in a conflict that has been
begun and carried forward by measures that are any thing rather than
peaceful in their tendencies; because it draws them forth from their
appropriate retirement, to expose themselves to the ungoverned violence
of mobs, and to sneers and ridicule in public places; because it leads
them into the arena of political collision, not as peaceful mediators to
hush the opposing elements, but as combatants to cheer up and carry
forward the measures of strife.

If it is asked, "May not woman appropriately come forward as a suppliant
for a portion of her sex who are bound in cruel bondage?" It is replied,
that, the rectitude and propriety of any such measure, depend entirely
on its probable results. If petitions from females will operate to
exasperate; if they will be deemed obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise, by
those to whom they are addressed; if they will increase, rather than
diminish the evil which it is wished to remove; if they will be the
opening wedge, that will tend eventually to bring females as petitioners
and partisans into every political measure that may tend to injure and
oppress their sex, in various parts of the nation, and under the various
public measures that may hereafter be