By the Men for the Men

The idea of a democracy is that it is a system of government by the people for the people. It is established, constructed, and maintained by the people to serve the public good. Yet the great irony of many modern democracies is that they began by excluding whole portions of the population. In the US, this irony cannot be clearer than in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration emerged after the Parliament of Britain imposed tariffs and taxes on the American colonists that they deemed excessive, and after the British removed colonial assemblies, limiting the people’s ability to represent themselves and vote on any new taxes. These policies resulted in the rallying cry, “No Taxation without Representation!” Of course, women were taxed, charged with crimes, and punished under laws that no woman was instrumental in making.

The Founding Fathers borrowed their arguments to break from Britain from John Locke, essentially plagiarizing some of his works. The Lockean basis for the government they intended to form became evident in the second paragraph, which reads:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Locke had said, “life, liberty, and pursuit of property.” Jefferson replaced property with happiness. Either way, this was a Lockean text. Historian Jill Lapore argues that there was nothing “self-evident” about the idea that all men were created equal. In fact, there were few societies in the world that were egalitarian, and they were in very remote places. This was a bold declaration, but one that did little to revolutionize the lives of women.

The Declaration introduced the term “unalienable” or something that cannot be separated from you, into the American psyche. These are rights that all “men” are born with. The use of the word men here has been interpreted contradictorily across our legal code to mean mankind at times and then specifically men at others. But this particular line in the Declaration would be used by women, black, brown, and enslaved people to point out that their subjugation under coverture or slavery was often based on an “inalienable“ characteristic, namely their gender or skin color. Yet the Declaration says that all people are born free, and that unalienable characteristics should not be grounds to deny someone full citizenship: rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

One way to be certain of the document was for men is to examine the exchange between Abigail Adams and her husband, John Adams, who was there while the Declaration was being drafted. Abigail wrote a famous letter to him while he was away and she was maintaining the farm and businesses known as the Remember the Ladies letter. It read:

"Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."

In other words, she encouraged her husband not to create a government where women were ruled by their husbands as patriarchs, as the colonists had been ruled by the patriarch King. John’s response was, “I cannot but laugh.” Abigail was so hurt she didn’t write back for days. Despite being a model couple for the era, John’s attitudes toward women when it came to rights were certainly representative of the men of his generation.

Thomas Jefferson, the original author of the Declaration, chose the word man here and in numerous other places throughout the document. For astute readers, they would note that this was a declaration of men against men. Eleven years later, when it was decided that the Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced by a new, more federal system of government, each state sent delegates to represent them in the discussions and debate. Not one state sent a woman. It appeared, based on the representatives, that this too would be a document by men for men.

When the Constitution was complete, the word man never appeared in the final text, but the pronoun “he” appeared 32 times. The term "man" or "men" is not used in the text. Instead, "person," "persons," and "people" are employed throughout. This does not imply that they intended to include women in the government or as citizens. Apparently, it was “self-evident” that systems of coverture would continue as the family structure, while a more democratic system would replace patriarchal ones in the public sphere.

So, what was “evident” about women’s position in this new government? On the one hand, the household, not the individual, functioned as the core unit of society throughout most of colonial American history. John Winthrop, an early colonist to Massachusetts, had called the home a man’s own “little commonwealth.” The house was not a democracy, but a patriarchy ruled by a sole male head of house who controlled property, managed work, met civic obligations like militia service or voting, and was legally understood as the “ruler” of his own small community. Within this framework, women were grouped with other dependents, such as servants, enslaved people, and young sons, who had neither political authority nor public responsibility. Because wives and daughters were legally and socially subordinate to male heads of household, the Constitution’s framers largely overlooked them.

This explanation, however, is ultimately insufficient to explain why women’s position, or lack thereof, in this new government was self-evident. Systems of coverture were social and economic, and did not explain why some dependents were able to form their own households and vote, but not others. Male dependents, such as sons and servants, could eventually form their own households and gain political standing, and even some formerly enslaved men attained that status.

Women, by contrast, even single women and widows who managed households independently, were never permitted to assume the political authority assigned to household heads. The first woman in the American colonies to ask for the right to vote and represent herself was Margaret Brent, a wealthy landowner and businesswoman who immigrated to Maryland in 1638. She made her wealth by buying contracts for indentured servants, transporting them to the New World then selling their contracts. She was also an accomplished lawyer, arguing many cases in court and never losing. She was so adept that she became the executor of Lord Baltimore’s estate. In January 1648 Margaret petitioned the Maryland General Assembly to grant her two votes in the colony’s elections for the legislature: one because she was his executor and the other because she was a landowner. Her request was denied under English law. Why?

Margaret Brent petitioning for the vote[1]

The real reason for women’s subordination, both for Brent in the mid-1600s and for women living a century and a half later was the subscription to Lockean political ideology that defined the home as a sphere where women existed and denied them space and status in the public world.

New Jersey’s Flirt with Democracy

In 1776, when New Jersey drafted its state Constitution, free landholders were given the right to vote, without any restriction on gender explicitly listed. The “self-evident” nature of women’s status apparently didn’t need to be made explicit. This oversight in language was capitalized on by landowning unmarried and widowed women with enthusiasm. Women in New Jersey became a sizable voting bloc. In the election of 1797, women supported a Federalist candidate who beat a Democratic-Republican candidate, leading male authors of the Federalist Papers to champion women’s suffrage and reject arguments that women were too delicate for the public sphere.

As women’s votes were swaying elections, it rallied a sizable opposition to women’s suffrage on the grounds that engaging in politics was unnatural for women. By 1807, sexism won. John Condict, who was nearly unseated by female voters a decade earlier, successfully pushed a law that disfranchised both women and property-owning free Black men, claiming their votes were more easily corrupted than those of white men. The episode reveals not only divisions between men and women over women’s political capabilities but also that women pushed back against exclusion from the very beginning of the American republic.

What New Jersey’s flirt with democracy showed was that women’s subjugation as voters was not natural. When given the opportunity, women voted with enthusiasm and even swayed elections. It also revealed a great deal about men: when it was politically advantageous to have women voters, they defended women’s suffrage, but when women voted against them, misogynistic arguments about women’s “natural place” emerged.

This history also helps explain why founding-era documents often used gender-neutral words like person instead of man: eighteenth-century men assumed politics was inherently male, so specifying gender seemed unnecessary. They simply could not imagine women seeking political rights. Because of this foundational exclusion, women had a much harder time than Black Americans—half of whom were male—gaining constitutional protections. The Constitution mentioned enslaved people and Native Americans, however briefly, and those clauses became footholds for later expansions of minority rights. Women, by contrast, were not formally acknowledged as political individuals until the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

Finally, this gendered origin story raises a profound question for modern Constitutional interpretation: Is an Originalist interpretation of the Constitution inherently out of step with contemporary values? The Founding Fathers were deeply patriarchal, hierarchical, yet often their views on Constitutional issues are a source for modern understandings.

Politicizing Women

To earn the right to vote, women had to first upend the Lockean concept of separate spheres. At first, women were drawn into the “manly” world of politics by the issues of temperance and abolition. Women took command on these two issues, both impacting and falling into her role at home as the caregiver. Through the temperance movement, women sought to lessen the number of men in society who spent all their money on buying alcohol and became physically violent while under the influence. The abolition movement to end slavery also fell onto women’s plate– the enslavement of human beings was considered a “domestic institution” that often existed in confined, localized places, like the household. As homemakers, women directly interacted with the institution of slavery. Indeed, it was white women who were often the strongest supporters of slavery, in their roles of controlling and disciplining enslaved people in the home. Considering this intimate proximity, women also had some of the strongest motivation to end slavery. Eventually, both black and white women began speaking out against slavery, through writing and public speaking declaring the imperative of ending the institution.

These novel, outspoken women were frequently known as “talking women.” People from around the world wanted to listen to what they had to say, though such interest was not always motivated by genuine interest or curiosity. Emboldened by the Lockean idea that they controlled the public sphere, men were greatly inclined to view these “talking women” as mere comedic spectacles. A woman named Fanny Wright exemplifies this tenuous history very well. In 1818, Wright traveled from her home in England to the United States, publishing several books, like the Views of Society and Manners in America (1821), and speaking publicly around the world about issues of freedom and equality that would help transform the landscape of her society forever. Write spoke out about slavery, advocated for universal and equal education, women’s rights to birth control, divorce, and criticized the patriarchal organization of religion. Wright’s advocacy, though radical for her time, was greatly supported by nominally moderate men. Indeed, an older Thomas Jefferson welcomed her into his home at Monticello, where she met General Marquise Lafayette whom she would follow on his final farewell tour across the country.

A hostile cartoon criticizing Wright for daring to deliver a series of lectures in 1829[2]

While Fanny Wright was one of the most outspoken advocates of her time, she was not alone in her abolitionist desires; most women were more likely to express them in their private correspondence and poems. Indeed, it was rather uncommon for women, especially women of color who were dually disenfranchised by their gender and race, to speak up about these matters publicly. Breaking boundaries, on September 21, 1832, an African American woman named Maria W. Miller Stewart delivered a speech at a meeting of the African American Female Intelligence Society in Boston at Franklin Hall. There, Stewart’s speech took the form of a narrative called a jeremiad, modeling the sermons of popular New England ministers to reach her audience. She accused white society of breaking its covenant with God by upholding the institution of slavery, and that God would judge America for its grave sin. Stewart’s speech condoning slavery would accompany her beyond Franklin Hall, to places throughout New England and across Christian communities. 

Maria Stewart was born to free Black parents in Connecticut, but was orphaned when she was three years old and made an indentured servant to a white minister. She served out her indenture until she was 15, when she would move to Boston and continue work as a domestic servant. She became a part of the free Black middle class when she married her husband, James Stewart in 1826. This new social class and freedom drew her to become an abolitionist. To make social inequality even more tangible, Stewart was denied her rightful share of inheritance upon her husband’s death by the corrupt lawyers in charge of managing his estate. This stark injustice left Stewart both without money and keenly aware of the double inequality she faced as a Black female.

Black women also advocated for abolition by utilizing the power of writing, composing powerful, and often anonymous, testimonies of their experiences during enslavement. The story of Harriet Jacobs has stood the test of time for its gruesome illumination of the institution of slavery. Jacobs lived as inherited ‘property’ on a North Carolina plantation and endured repeated instances of physical and sexual abuse by her owner. Better than surviving another day of torture at the hands of her ‘master,’ Jacobs laid in the crawlspace of her grandmother’s attic for seven years, watching her life as a daughter and mother flash by, as she watched her children grow up from a tiny peephole in the attic’s floorboard. Jacobs eventually escaped the horrors of the south when she fled to New York, working as a nanny and fighting for justice as a feminist and an abolitionist. Her advocacy work culminated in the short, anonymous pieces she published in the New York Tribune about her experiences as an enslaved woman, and especially in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs became officially ‘free’ when her employer and friend purchased and freed her. In her life, Jacobs played an even more intimate role in emancipation by helping found two schools for previously enslaved individuals.

Another striking example of female abolitionist empowerment is Sojourner Truth. In 1826, Sojourner Truth also escaped her enslavement and acquired great renown among sympathetic Northern and Christian communities. Truth’s advocacy for intersectional and equal human rights shines in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” in which she reminded her audiences that Black women are just as much ‘woman’ as white women, even if society did not treat them as equal. She compounds this simple reminder with a call to action for intersectional gender and racial equality– just because they are women, does not mean both Black and white women experience womanhood the same way. While her message is resoundingly clear, it is important to note that Truth may have never said the exact words of her entitled speech, "Ain’t I a Woman,” as a white male journalist was the one recording, interpreting, and publishing her words. 

Harriet Jacobs[3]

White women also became more connected and vocal for the abolition of slavery and equal rights for women. Another example of a “talking woman” was Margaret Fuller. A colleague of famous Transcendentalists like Thoreau and Emerson and a philosopher herself, Fuller frequently hosted structured discussions on economic and political inequality that women faced, comparing their unfreedom to enslaved people. While this comparison surely shocked her audiences, neither the status, struggles, or lived experiences of women and enslaved people were the same. It is one thing to not have the legal status to own property, but it is completely different to be considered the property itself. However short-sighted and incorrect Fuller’s comparison was, it did allow white men the opportunity to see beyond themselves and have a more balanced perception of the world.

Fuller’s advocacy focused on challenging the idea that women should be relegated to the domestic sphere as homemakers. By relegating women to the home, men failed to recognize their full humanity and ability to contribute to all parts of society. Fuller argued that women should not and cannot rely on men for their entire lives for protection and financial security. It was essential that women be independent, have access to a good education, and be able to stand on their own two feet when they needed to. She argued that women were as competent and insightful as men, and that they should have access to the same freedoms as them to learn, grow, and participate in the public sphere of life.

Another female abolitionist is Lydia Maria Child. From a very different background than Fuller, Child was born into a religious family in the North, trained to become a teacher, and eventually founded a school in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1826. Child also published a magazine for children called the Juvenile Miscellany, but quickly lost her southern subscribers upon publishing her views supporting abolition. This did not stop Child from continuing to speak out against slavery. In her 1833 piece, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans, Child called for the immediate emancipation of enslaved peoples in the nation.

While it is easy to think of abolition as having only the support of the North, it is important to remember that there were certain women in the South who also supported the effort. The sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké are an example of Southern abolitionists. The Grimké    sisters were born into incredible wealth on their family’s South Carolina plantation, which operated upon the work of hundreds of enslaved people. Each member of the family even had their own personal enslaved servant. The sisters eventually applied their notions of Christian compassion and charity to the topic of slavery, especially after they discovered their brother had children with an enslaved woman. Shortly after, the Grimké sisters left their lives of wealth on the Southern plantation, going North to work for the cause of abolition. Indeed, one of Angelina’s abolitionist letters was published in William Lloyd Garrison’s famous journal, The Liberator. Her writings were greatly criticized in the South; some of them being burned in Charleston, South Carolina where the sisters used to call home.

Sojourner Truth[4]

“Talking Women”

During the 19th century, women like the Grimké sisters were deeply ridiculed for their advocacy, when addressing “mixed audiences” of both men and women. This act of “unsexing” was deemed inappropriate for women, no matter their race. This radical advocacy enacted by both Black and white women sparked national conversations regarding the “proper” role of women in the public sphere. Such work, however, did not come without great criticism from those afraid of changing societal norms. Such change-making women would often be likened to whores. They would be the subject of mob protests for merely being women speaking to men in public. These women would even draw death threats from men attempting to scare them away from their advocacy work.

This vocal, even violent discrimination did not stop the Grimké sisters from speaking out. Sarah and Angelina became some of the most vocal and well known critics of slavery, breaking several layers of societal taboos by speaking on “mixed” lecture circuits. While their work ricocheted around the nation, raising awareness and emboldening other women to speak out against slavery, it also attracted intense backlash. The sisters faced several mob protesting groups during their lectures to “mixed” audiences in New England. Their male counterparts even tried to withdraw them from the speaking events.

 Sarah and Angelina Grimké overcame great opposition while promoting abolition and women’s rights. They advocated for women’s rights to free speech among Northern abolition groups, arguing that they could not effectively contribute to emancipation without being able to speak publicly on the subject. The sisters spoke up about the total and encompassing restrictions that were placed on women, when they were critiqued for even the smallest forms of advocacy like circulating petitions, singing in church, or participating in non “mixed,” women-only speaking events. The sisters raised the important argument that if women accepted these great restrictions, they would never be able to reach their full potential as activists for abolition. Sarah Grimké raised an even more pointed argument in her published letters, that women had been created both socially and legally subordinate to men for a very long time. Grimké articulated this discrimination. In her society, women were not allowed to have a political status or identity, they were not allowed to own property or allowed an equal education to men. To Grimké, the systems that kept both enslaved people and women down were intertwined. A fight for women’ rights meant fighting for the end of slavery, by overturning oppressive systems of power.

Sarah Moore Grimké[5]

A man named Theodore Weld further complicated the Grimké sisters’ activist pursuits. Weld was an influential abolitionist himself and would also become Angelina’s husband. While Weld was a supporter of both abolition and women’s rights, he believed they could not happen simultaneously. Instead, society could only handle one happening before the other. As such, Weld was fearful that the Grimké sisters’ outspokenness about women’s rights, in addition to abolitionism, would weaken the antislavery movement. He felt that the sisters needed to preserve their unique platform as Southern abolitionists, by not speaking out for gender equality. To Weld, abolition needed to be prioritized as well as separated from any other strains of advocacy; women’s rights could wait.

When acknowledging the great activism of 19th century women, it is equally important to recognize one of women’s history’s great ironies. It was often women, themselves, who perpetuated the patriarchal norms that kept them down. The well-known author and activist Catherine Beecher, for example, greatly subscribed to the gender norms of her time. Beecher believed it was both proper God ordained that women and men occupy different roles in society. God had created men to be naturally suited for things like public speaking and leadership. Women had been created to be peacekeepers and maintain order in their homes. To Beecher, though women were not meant to deliver speeches or endeavor into politics in the public sphere, they should be empowered by their natural inclinations of acting with kindness, respect, and honor towards their loved ones in their home. If women entered the public sphere, Beecher worried that women would be subject to conflict and ridicule. They might even endanger their God ordained status, respect, and protection placed upon them as women in society. As such, women should refrain from even the smallest forms of public facing activism, like signing petitions to Congress. To Beecher, women needed to remain in the sacred “appropriate” sector of society to maintain social order and protect their safety.

Catherine Beecher[6]

While this era of women’s history encompassed many opposing viewpoints and strategies for advocacy, it contended with the same few questions: how long will the harsh lines of public and private spheres determine the “appropriateness” of women’s actions? How much longer will the Cult of Domesticity perpetuate discriminatory power structures? Shouldn’t women be allowed to participate fully in the American democracy they helped to build and maintain? “Talking women” posed these questions throughout the 19th century, making it clear that times were changing.

Women’s Rights

While the abolition movement fought for the freedom and equality of enslaved people, the leaders of the movement were bound by the sexist social norms of their time. Black women were largely excluded from abolitionism’s extension of human dignity and care. Indeed, women were not allowed to obtain full membership in the largest anti-slavery organizations at the time, even if they were the most active members of its working groups and committees. The Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society provides an example for such gender-based discrimination. Founded in 1833, this society benefited from the work of several female abolitionists, like the Quaker preacher, Lucretia Mott. She, nor any other woman, were acknowledged as members of the society they dedicated themselves to. Instead, the men of the Pennsylvania society encouraged women to start their own groups. So, that’s what Mott did. She founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS).

Lott’s society was incredibly progressive, considering the era’s constrictive gender dynamics. PFASS benefited from the work of both Black and white women, who joined and worked openly in the society’s work. The organization provided places of refuge and purpose for women like Hetty Reckless, who along with her young daughter, had just escaped their abusive mistress. Along with helping found the PFASS, Reckless also dedicated her time to the Female Vigilant Association beginning in 1838. Despite the incredible personal risks at stake, she helped assist enslaved people on their incredibly dangerous journeys on the Underground Railroad on their way toward freedom.

Mott’s anti-slavery society sparked much conversation and critique, since it pushed back against social norms of not “mixing” gender, classes, or races. No matter, her organization kept on. They led petitions in Congress for emancipation and beginning in 1836, started hosting annual coalitions of “mixed” Black and white men and women to meet and raise funds for their shared cause of abolition. These meetings allowed women the freedom of the public sphere, and the power to sway “mixed” audiences towards a radical cause. As history has shown, such great progress did not come without anger and backlash. In 1838, a mob broke into one of the group’s meetings which forced them to disperse. However, that did not stop Mott from hosting the annual meeting next year, in 1839.

Mott’s hard work and determination in integrating women into the public sphere paid off when women were allowed to join the American Anti-Slavery Society the very same year. With this acknowledgement, women began challenging sexism, racism, and classism abroad. The vastness of sexism abroad appeared to them at the World Anti-Slavery Convention hosted in London in 1840. Cost to attend the conference was the first prohibitive factor. While American white women were elected and funded to be delegates to this world conference, no Black women, free or formerly enslaved, were elected or able to make the long journey to London for this event. Despite there being an ever-increasing number of powerful Black female abolitionists, the largest anti-slavery conference in the world intentionally chose to exclude them. However, even America’s decision to send any woman to the conference was controversial abroad. When Wendell Phillips, a prominent American abolitionist motioned to admit women to the meeting, he started an hours-long debate on the topic. The members of the meeting inevitably vetoed Phillips’ motion, denying women the right to participate in their conversation, and sequestering them to a sitting area behind a curtain, so men could not see or hear them.

Mott made it clear that there was no way for women to participate in abolition if they were being oppressed themselves. She and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a fellow delegate to the world convention, were empowered by their indignation and started to plan for a conference on women’s rights, to be held upon their return to America. The two women were carried by their determination and momentum for eight years, when they finally held the conference, they had been dreaming up. The “Seneca Falls Convention” gathered women and allies from across the region, and for the first time made a collective demand for women’s right to vote. Mott and Stanton hosted the event in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York and it lasted for two days. The event gathered great publicity and even garnered the presence of the renowned orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, who existed in great solidarity with the fight for women’s rights.

Written by Stanton, the participants of this conference collectively adopted a “Declaration of Sentiments,” in the style of the American Declaration of Independence, containing an itemized list of grievances against the patriarchy. Many women felt the compounding patriarchal pressures of their time and decided to redact their name from the declaration. But, the declaration’s sentiments were still greatly supported at women’s rights conventions throughout the following decades, occurring every year throughout the 1840s and 1850s.The document reads as follows:

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

·      He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

·      He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

·      He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men - both natives and foreigners.

·      Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

·      He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

·      He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

·      He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes, with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master - the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

·      He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women - the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

·      After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

·      He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

·      He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

·      He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education - all colleges being closed against her.

·      He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

·      He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

·      He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

·      He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the movement:

In the days that followed Seneca Falls, many women, facing pressure, redacted their signatures. Still, women’s rights conventions were hosted every year through the 1850s. Then, in 1860, the Civil War broke out and women’s activism was put on hold. Instead, many women’s rights activists became active in the war effort as nurses and volunteers. As a result, women’s rights lost momentum.

In the end, the debate over women’s public speaking was about much more than speeches; it was about Lockean views of the public and private spheres. It raised questions about whether women should be allowed to participate fully in American democracy, whether their talents were equal to men’s, and whether they had a responsibility to speak out against injustice.

“Women’s Issues”

Despite the debate about public speaking, advocacy on behalf of abolition was considered by some to be an acceptable extension of the domestic sphere. This left open an opportunity for women to become politicized on other issues that impacted women and girls predominantly. One of the leading issues affecting the home was widespread alcoholism, from which women and children had little refuge or legal recourse. As divorce laws in many states restricted women’s access to separation, many women found themselves attached to abusers or men who could not provide. The anti-alcohol movement was called the “temperance” movement, and women were at the forefront of it.

Temperance advocacy allowed women a wide platform to enact reform in various corners of their society. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was the largest of its kind and had chapters across the nation. The organization’s first president was Annie Wittenmyer, who served for five years from its founding in 1874 until 1879. While an important and influential advocate, Wittenmyer was limited in her worldview and denied the possibilities of intersectional solidarity, especially with women’s suffrage groups. She saw women’s rights advocacy and temperance as two isolated and distinct problems and did not seek to solve them as two parts of a larger fight against societal injustice.

Wittenmyer’s successor to the WCTU’s presidency was Frances Willard, who held the role from 1879 until the time of her death in 1898. Under the guiding hand of Willard, the WCTU transformed into the largest organization for women, gaining the support and membership of thousands of women across America and abroad. Willard’s great leadership, strategically minded thinking, and enthralling oratory skills helped the society grow in solidarity with women’s rights advocacy. Under her leadership, many of its members became vocal advocates for women’s suffrage, the group officially endorsing suffrage in 1881. This new, dynamic perspective helped achieve both women’s voting rights and temperance at the same time, and faster than they could have been resolved without women empowered and in power.

Black women also joined in the temperance movement, though white women were frequently unwilling to take part in the issues they vocalized. As in other historical instances, Black women carved out their own spaces of activism, resistance, and energy. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, for example, was a member of the WCTU and challenged its president, Willard, to accept the intersectional nature of the work they engaged in. Wells challenged Willard to take against Southern lynching. However, Willard folded to her fears of negative public opinion, believing that taking a stance on lynching would hurt the temperance work they spearheaded in the South. Willard declared she had “not an atom of race prejudice,” but her public statements in the public press proved otherwise. Willard frequently upheld racial stigmas and deemed Black men especially threatening to white women. Wells deemed her a coward. And, after a private meeting with Wells on the issue, Willard finally issued a public statement from the WCTU condemning lynching.

Due to their continued second-class existence in these larger, white female-dominated organizations, Black women continued to carve out their own political spaces in the suffrage and temperance movements. Well-equipped with a firsthand understanding of the great intersection of racial and gender discrimination, these Black women-led organizations spearheaded a campaign of “respectability politics” aimed at creating and abiding by a set of cultural norms meant to counter the negative stereotypes that plagued their society. The conformed to a set of respectable behaviors, morality, and physical appearance that included modesty, chastity, education, economic success, and self-discipline. These intentional behaviors and actions granted Black women legitimacy as they challenged the racist beliefs that deemed them biologically and intellectually inferior.

White women also adopted these “respectability politics,” to prove their own legitimacy among the patriarchy. By being “lady-like,” avoiding emotional responses to insults, and operating within the power structures of the patriarchy, white women could quietly advance their causes of gender equality and suffrage. This strategy, while effective, also garnered the critique that respectability politics placated the patriarchy, instead of advocating for structural reform for social justice, which could have helped Black and white women more directly.

Conclusion

The structure of government was designed to exclude women. The Lockean world was democratic for men in the public sphere while enforcing strict social hierarchies at home. What little progress women made over the 19^th century was limited by a system not designed for them. Still, huge strides were made in the 19^th century. Women were politicized through abolition, temperance, and used their politicization to fight for issues that impacted women and children. What became increasingly obvious as the 19th century turned into the 20th century is that if the needle was going to move on these issues, women needed the vote.

[1] Edwin Tunis, “Speculative painting of Margaret Brent (1601-1671),” Wikimedia Commons, circa 1934, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MargaretBrent.gif.

[2] James Akin (1773-1846), “A Downwright Gabbler: or a goose that deserves to be hissed,” 1829, Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pga.05109.

[3] Gilbert Studios, Washington, D.C. (C. M. Gilbert); restored by Adam Cuerden, Harriet Jacobs, 1894, photograph, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gilbert_Studios_photograph_of_Harriet_Jacobs_(cropped).jpg.

[4] Sojourner Truth, N. D. Photograph, Public Domain, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbcmiller001306/. .

[5] Sarah Moore Grimké (1792-1873), Photograph, Public Domain, https://www.loc.gov/item/2003653378/.

[6] “Catherine Beecher.” Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beecherc.jpg.