Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Elizabeth C. Stanton : Peterboro, December 1, 1855.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 499

PETERBORO, December 1, 1855.

ELIZABETH C. STANTON,

MY DEAR FRIEND,

The "Woman's rights movement" has deeply interested your generous heart, and you have ever been ready to serve it with your vigorous understanding. It is, therefore, at the risk of appearing somewhat unkind and uncivil, that I give my honest answer to your question. You would know, why I have so little faith in this movement. I reply - that [it] is not in the proper hands; and that the proper hands are not yet to be found. The present age, age, although in advance of any former age, is, nevertheless, very far from being sufficiently under the sway of reason to take up the cause of woman, and carry it forward to success. A much stronger and much more widely diffused common sense than has characterized any of the generations must first play its mightiest artillery upon the stupendous piles of nonsense, which tradition and chivalry and a misinterpreted and superstitions christianity have reared in the way of this cause, ere woman can have the prospect of the recognition of her rights and of her confessed equality with man.

It is, in this respect, with other reforms, as with this reform. Of all the great vices, there is none, save the Tobacco vice, that could be so easily conquered as Intemperance: - for, with that exception, there is none, among them all, so entirely unnatural, and where the unvitiated appetites and original forces of nature are so strongly on the side of the reformer. Nevertheless, the Temperance reform still drags. The mass of those, who have undertaken it, are below their undertaking. Not to mention other proofs of their inadequacy, they are foolish enough to vote for rum-drinkers. It is, too, for the reason, that the men, who espoused "Land Reform", were so entirely unworthy to espouse it, that their cause is dead. Never was there a juster cause; and scarcely any more essential to human development and human happiness. What a pity, that it fell into the hands of those, who were so depraved, as to vote for rum-drinking and proslavery men! - so stupid, as to believe, that such men are capable of administering Government, and can be depended on to defend the great, equal, sacred right of all to the soil! The failure of the antislavery cause admits of a similar explanation. That cause would have triumphed ere now, had the mass of its advocates grown up to the high level of its demands. But what can they do toward overthrowing slavery, whose endeavors to that end are worse than neutralized by their admissions, that slavery can be embodied in law - real, obligatory, inviolable law? We say, and say truly, that slavery is she chief of crimes. But what can our saying so avail, if we admit, that it can be legalized, and that we owe to it the obedience and homage due to law? What good effect could possibly come of our denunciations of murder, theft, perjury, forgery, if at the same time, we should admit, that enactments for them are to be honored and obeyed as law? And surely such enactments should be so honored and obeyed, if enactments for slavery should be: - for even murder is a less crime than slavery; and, compared with slavery, theft, forgery, and perjury sink into mere peccadillos. I add, that, with few exceptions, the antislavery men are easily persuaded to vote for slaveholders and the tools of slaveholders; and I ask, whether such men are capable of appreciating the antislavery cause, and accomplishing its success?

But if there is not enough compass of mind and nobility of soul - not enough of strong common sense and bravery and self-sacrifice, in our age, to furnish the necessary bands of reformers against Intemperance, and against Land Monopoly, and against, and against Slavery, certain it is, that it must be left to another age to furnish the reformers, who are competent to carry the cause of woman to victory. For, it must be remembered, that the success of this cause will involve more comprehensive, and radical, and difficult changes, than will the success of all those other reforms put together.

The object of the "Woman's rights movement" is nothing less than to recover the rights of woman - nothing less than to achieve her independence. She is now the dependent of man: and, instead of rights, she has but privileges - the mere concessions (always revocable and always uncertain) of the other sex to her sex. I say nothing against this object. It is as proper, as it is great: and until it is realized, woman cannot be half herself, nor can man be half himself. I rejoice in this object: and my sorrow is, that, they, who are intent upon it, are not capable of adjusting themselves to it - not high-souled enough to consent to those changes and sacrifices in themselves, in their positions and relations, essential to the attainment of this vital object.

What if a nation in the heart of Europe were to adopt, and uniformly adhere to, the practice of cutting off one of the hands and all their new-born children? It would from this cause be reduced to poverty; to helpless dependence upon the charity of surrounding nations; and to just such a measure of privileges, as they might see fit to allow to it, in exchange for its forfeited rights. Very great, indeed, would be this folly of this strange nation. But a still greater folly would it be guilty of, should it, notwithstanding this voluntary mutilation, claim all the wealth, and all the rights, and all the respect, and all the independence, which it enjoyed, before it entered upon this systematic mutilation.

Now, this twofold folly of this one-hand nation illustrates the similar twofold folly of some women. Voluntarily wearing, in common with their sex, a dress, which imprisons and cripples them, they, nevertheless, follow up this absurdity with the greater one of coveting and demanding a social position no less full of admitted rights, and a relation to the other sex no less full of independence, than such position and relation would naturally and necessarily have been, bad they scorned a dress, which leaves them less than half their personal power of self-subsistence and usefulness. I admit, that the mass of women are not chargeable with this latter absurdity of cherishing aspirations and urging claims so wholly and so glaringly at war with this voluntary imprisonment and this self-degradation. They are content in their helplessness and poverty and destitution of rights. Nay, they are so deeply deluded, as to believe, that all this belongs to their natural and unavoidable lot. But the handful of women, of whom I am here complaining - the woman's-rights women - persevere, just as blindly and stubbornly, as do other women, in wearing a dress, that both marks and makes their impotence, and yet, oh amazing inconsistency!, they are ashamed of their dependence, and remonstrate against its injustice. They claim, that the fullest measure of rights and independence and dignity shall be accorded to them, and yet they refuse to place themselves in circumstances corresponding with their claim. They demand as much for themselves, as is acknowledged to be due to men, and yet they refuse to pay the necessary, the never-to-be-avoided, price of what they demand - the price, which men have to pay for it.

I admit, that the dress of woman is not the primal cause of her helplessness and degradation. That cause is to be found in the false doctrines and sentiments, of which the dress is the outgrowth and symbol. On the other hand however, these doctrines and sentiments would never have become the huge bundle they now are, and they would probably have all languished, and perhaps all expired, but for the dress. For, as in many other instances, so in this, and emphatically so in this, the cause is made more efficient by the reflex influence of the effect. Let woman give up the irrational modes of clothing her person, and these doctrines and sentiments would be deprived of their most vital aliment by being deprived of their most natural expression. In no other practical forms of folly, to which they might betake themselves, could they operate so vigorously, and be so invigorated by their operation.

Were woman to throw off the dress, which, in the eye of chivalry and gallantry, is so well adapted to womanly helplessness, and to put on a dress, that would leave her free to work her own way through the world, I see not

[2]

but that chivalry and gallantry would nearly or quite die out. No longer would she present herself to man, now in the bewitching character of a plaything, a doll, an idol, and now in the degraded character of his servant. But he would confess her transmutation into his equal: and, therefore, all occasion for the display of chivalry and gallantry toward her on the one hand, and tyranny on the other, would have passed away. Only let woman attire her person fitly for the whole battle of life - that great and often rough battle, which she is as much bound to fight as man is, and the common sense expressed in the change will put to flight all the nonsensical fancies about her superiority to man, and all the nonsensical fancies about her inferiority to him. No more will then be heard of her being made of a finer material than man is made of: and, on the contrary, no more will then be heard of her being but the complement of man, and of its taking both a man and a woman (the woman, of course, but a small part of it) to make up a unit. No more will it then be said, that there is sex in mind - an original sexual difference in intellect. What a pity, that so many of our noblest women make this foolish admission! It is made by the great majority of the women, who plead the cause of woman.

I am amazed, that the intelligent women engaged in the "Woman's rights movement" see not the relation between their dress and the oppressive evils, which they are striving to throw off. I am amazed, that they do not see, that their dress is indispensable to keep in countenance the policy and purposes, out of which those evils grow. I hazard nothing in saying, that the relation between the dress and degradation of an American woman is as vital as between the cramped foot and degradation of a Chinese woman; as vital as between the uses of the inmate of the harem and the apparel and training provided for her. Moreover, I hazard nothing in saying, that an American woman will never have made her most effectual, nor indeed, any serviceable protest against the treatment of her sex in China, or by the lords of the harem, so long as she consents to have her own person clothed in ways so repugnant to reason and religion, and grateful only to a vitiated taste, be it in her own, or in the other sex.

I notice, that the latest fashion vastly enlarges the circumference of woman's dress, and, of course, proportionally unfits her for her part in the sober and useful business of life. The poor, who have but small rooms - ah, what will they do, should this fashion descend to them? - and it, doubtless, will, as all senseless fashions, tend downward from the select few to the masses. But it is claimed, that not even this, and, more certainly therefore, not the other styles of her dress disable woman from earning her living. She can knit and sew, it is said, as well in long and wide skirts as in short and narrow ones; and, it is added, that her poverty is owing not to her dress, but to the injustice of men in compelling her to work for so inadequate wages. Were all, or most of, the labor of life comprised in knitting and sewing, the present dress of woman would, I admit, be not so absurd, as it now is. But when we reflect, that this dress does, to a greater or less extent, unfit the wearer for the vast majority of human pursuits, and entirely for many of them, we find, that the argument against it is overwhelming. Why is it, that every Winter, thousands of worthy women in the City of New York are brought to the borders of starvation? They can knit and sew. But, alas, they can do little else. Hence, they crowd a few occupations, tread down, and wage a starving competition with, one another. No wonder, that their wages are low, since they are wages for doing what, to a great extent certainly, children, as well as feeble men, could be trained to do, and would be glad to do, for the naturally and properly low wages of children and feeble men. But let women, like men, fit themselves for the numberless employments of life, and their wages will fall but little, if any, below the wages of men. If it shall turn out, that they are inferior to men in strength, it may, also, turn out, that they are superior to them in flexibility and manipulations. However, this may be, we are, nevertheless, bound to infer that the natural powers of woman to produce the means of subsistence are as great as those of man, from the fact, that it requires as much to supply her natural wants, as to supply his. But if it be otherwise, then, surely, all the more need is there of making the most of her inferior physical powers, and of obstructing them by her dress, in the least possible degree. Then, surely, all the stronger is the argument against the dress, which makes her so generally but a sickly house plant; and all the stronger is the argument for a dress, which shall leave her free to participate with man in the healthful and invigorating labors of the open air.

What woman needs to believe and man also is, that, with the exception of that physical difference, which is for the multiplication and perpetuity of the race, man is woman, and woman is man. Believing in this identity, they would necessarily believe, that man and woman are one in their rights, in their responsibilities, in their duties, dignity and destiny. Does woman already believe in all this? She does not. Does even your woman's rights woman believe in all this? If she did, she could not fail to be as much ashamed to hamper her person with an absurd dress, and to trick it off with jewelry and gewgaws, as she would be to see her brother, or father, or husband make a fool of himself, by dishonoring his person in this wise.

The colored men of the North hold their meetings, in which they enforce with great eloquence their demand for the right of suffrage. This is well. But infinitely better would it be for them to quit the towns, where they are congregated in menial services, and to scatter themselves through the country in the capacity of farmers and mechanics. By doing so, they would both get the right of suffrage, and know how to use it. But although it is, like the right of property, a natural right, and should therefore be acknowledged to exist in all, irrespective of condition, or character, or sex; nevertheless, with the little respect and influence commanded by a race of servants, they will be slow to get it: and when they have got it, they must cease to be a race of servants, ere they can exercise it honorably and usefully. The great change which is indispensable, in order to get and enjoy what they demand, is a change in themselves.

Women, too, are holding their meetings; and with great ability do they urge their claim to the rights of property and suffrage. But, as in the case of the colored man, the great needed change is in himself, so, also, in the case of woman, the great needed change is in herself. Of what comparative avail would be her exercise of the right of suffrage, if she is still to remain the victim of her present false notions of herself and of her relations to the other sex? - false notions, so emphatically represented and perpetuated by her dress? Moreover, to concede to her the rights of property would be to benefit her comparatively little, unless she shall resolve to break out from her clothes-prison, and to undertake right earnestly - as right earnestly as a man - to get property. Solomon says: "The destruction of the poor is their poverty". The adage, that knowledge is power, is often repeated; and there are, indeed, many instances to verify it. Nevertheless, as a general proposition, it is a thousand fold more emphatically true, that property is power. Knowledge helps to get property - but property is the power. That the slaves are a helpless prey, is chiefly because they are so poor, and their masters so rich. The masses almost every where are well nigh powerless, because almost every where they are poor. How long will they consent to be poor? Just so long as they shall consent to be robbed of their God-given right to the soil. That women are helpless is no, wonder, so long as women are paupers.

As long as woman shall be silly enough to learn her lessons in the schools of gallantry and chivalry, so long will it be the height of her ambition to be a graceful and amiable burden upon the other sex. But as soon as she shall consent to place herself under the instructions of reason and common sense, and to discard, as wholly imaginary, those differences between the nature of man and the nature of woman, out of which have grown innumerable nonsensical doctrines and notions, and all sorts of namby pamby sentiments; so soon will she find, that, to no greater extent than men are dependent on each other; are women to foster the idea of their dependence on men. Then, and not till then, will women learn, that to be useful and happy, and to

[3]

accomplish the high purposes of their being, they must, no less emphatically than men, stand upon their own feet, and work with their own hands, and bear the burdens of life with their own strength, and brave its storms with their own resoluteness.

The next "Woman's rights Convention" will, I take it for granted, differ but little from its predecessors. It will abound in righteous demands and noble sentiments, but not in the evidence, that they, who enunciate these demands and sentiments, are prepared to put themselves in harmony with what they conceive and demand. In a word, for the lack of such preparation and of the deep earnestness, which alone can prompt to such preparation, it will be, as has been every other Woman's rights Convention, a failure. Could I see it made up of women, whose dress would indicate their translation from cowardice to courage; from slavery to freedom; from the kingdom of fancy and fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness; then would I hope for the elevation of woman, ay and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the common dress, it, nevertheless, affords not half that freedom of the person, which woman is entitled, and bound, to enjoy. I add on this point, that however much the dresses of the sexes should resemble each other, decency and virtue and other considerations require, that they should be obviously distinguishable from each other.

I am not unaware, that such views, as I have expressed in this letter, will be regarded as serving to break down the characteristic delicacy of woman. I frankly admit, that I would have it broken down; and that I would have the artificial and conventional, the nonsensical and pernicious thing give place to the natural delicacy, which would be common to both sexes. As the delicacy, which is made peculiar to one of the sexes, is unnatural, and therefore false; this, which would be common to both, would be natural and therefore true. I would have no characteristic delicacy of woman, and no characteristic coarseness of man. On the contrary, believing man and woman to have the same nature, and to be therefore under obligation to have the same character; I would subject them to a common standard of morals and manners. The delicacy of man should be no less shrinking than that of woman, and the bravery of woman should be one with the bravery of man. Then would there be a public sentiment very unlike that, which now requires the sexes to differ in character, and which therefore holds them amenable to different codes - codes, that, in their partiality to man, allow him to commit high crimes; and that, in their cruelty to woman, make the bare suspicion of such crimes on her part the justification of her hopeless degradation and ruin.

Nor am I unaware, that to write, as I have now written, is to incur the reproach of insanity, - for the world thinks quite too well of itself not to condemn as insane those, who presume to array themselves against its most cherished usages and strongest prejudices. But one had better bear even this deep reproach than suppress his convictions at a point so vital.

Nor am I ignorant, that such writing incurs the still deeper reproach of infidelity. But, for the truth's sake, one can afford to bear even this. That I am right in saying that this is a part of the penalty for daring to write in such a manner, is manifest from the fact, that the Bible, as almost universally interpreted, sinks woman into an inferior order of being as compared with man, and into a poor imbecile dependent upon him. Hence they, who advocate that radical change in her dress, which common sense calls for, are infidels in the eyes of such, as subscribe to this interpretation of the Bible. For if the Bible teaches, that the Heaven-ordained condition of woman is so subordinate and her Heaven-ordained character so mean, then are they infidels, who would have her cast aside a dress so becoming that character and condition, and have her put on a dress so entirely at war with her humble nature, as to indicate her conscious equality with man, and her purpose to assert, achieve, and maintain her independence. Alas, how misapprehended are the true objects and true uses of the Bible? That blessed book is given to us, not so much, that we may be taught by it what to do, as that we may, be urged by its solemn and fearful commands, and won by its melting entreaties, to do what we already know we should do. Such, indeed, is the greatest value of its recorded fact, that Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins. We already know, that we should repent of our sins and put them away; and it is this fact, which furnishes our strongest possible motive for doing so. But men run to the Bible professedly to be taught their duty in matters, where their very instincts - where the laws written in large, unmistakable, ineffaceable letters up on the very foundations of their being - teach them their duty. I say professedly - for generally it is only so. They run to the Bible, not to learn the truth, but to make the Bible the minister of folly and sin. They run from themselves - to the Bible, because they can more easily succeed in twisting its records into the service of their guilty passions and guilty purposes than they can their inflexible convictions. They run to the Bible for a paramount authority, that shall override and supplant these uncomfortable convictions. They run from the teachings of their nature and the remonstrances of their conscience to find some thing more palatable. Hence, we find the rumdrinker and slaveholder and polygamist and other criminals going to the Bible. They go to it for the very purpose of justifying their known sins. But not only may we not go to the Bible to justify what we ourselves have already condemned: but we must not take to the judicature of that book, as an open question, any of the wrongs against which nature and common sense cry out - any of the wrongs, which nature and common sense call on us to condemn. We must never go to the Bible to learn whether its principles justify such abominations as rumdrinking, and slavery, and polygamy - unless, indeed, it be for the purpose of obtaining more proofs of the character of the Bible - more means for trying its claims to our confidence. In other words, if we may ever take such crimes to the Bible, it must be, not for the purpose of trying the moral character of the crimes - for that we know already - but for the purpose of trying the moral character of the Bible.

So fraught with evil and ruinous evil is this practice, on the part even of the Church as well as the world, of inquiring the judgment of the Bible in regard to sins, which the natural and universal conscience condemns, but which the inquirer means to persist in, if only he can get the Bible to testify against his conscience and in favor of his sins; - so baleful, I say, is this practice, as to drive me to the conclusion, that the Bible cannot continue to be a blessing to mankind, in site of it. The practice, in its present wide and well-nigh universal extent, turns the heavenly volume into a curse. Owing to this practice, the Bible is, this day, a hindrance rather than a help to civilization. I cheerfully and gratefully own, that the world is indebted to it for the best forms of civilization, which the world has ever known. But these forms can be improved no farther, if the Bible continues to be abused in the way we speak of. Indeed, there is great danger, that this abuse, growing fast as is natural, will, ere long, turn back into a rapid retrograde movement the highest civilizations of our age. European civilization far surpasses Greek or Roman civilization. But if the bloody hand of war shall be allowed to direct the mighty machinery of European civilization, this very civilization, advanced as it is (and all the more because so advanced,) will but serve to hurry Europe back to barbarism. And why will it not be allowed to direct that mighty machinery, if Europe shall continue to believe in the Bible, and to ask the Bible to indorse the crime of war? It is the Bible too, or, properly speaking, what its authoritative interpreters, and the great men in the State as well as in the Church, make of it, that upholds American slavery. Common sense and common humanity would conquer this abomination in a twelvemonth, but for this satanically interpreted book. Infidel France abolished slavery. But the right hand of America is still busy in forging fetters for the slave, because in her left hand is the Bible. Were she to let it drop with all its proslavery interpretations, the slave would quickly go free. So, too, the Bible, made to give such answers as a wine-drinking clergy would have it give, is by far the greatest obstacle in the way of the Temperance Reformation. Simple reason, had it not to encounter the selfish and sensual and superstitious interpretations

[4]

of the Bible, would he effectual to crown this Reformation with a speedy triumph. But this triumph must necessarily be held back, as long as supreme authority is accorded to these interpretations. To hope to get rid of our slavery and our intemperance, whilst we allow them shelter in the Bible, and acknowledge the supremacy of the Bible, is absurd, as to hope, that the Mormons will put away polygamy, in defiance of their own religious faith.

If then we know, without going to the Bible, that slavery, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors, and polygamy are wrong, and that, because of this knowledge, we are forbidden to ask the Bible if they are not right, so also do we know, without going to the Bible, that to look upon woman as the inferior of man is injustice, and that we are not at liberty to go to the Bible for the purpose of turning that injustice into justice. For, that woman is the equal of man and identical with him, and that she is as full, as he is, of rights and responsibilities, is certainly no less glaring to the eye of reason than that slavery, and rumdrinking, and polygamy are wrong. But if woman is of the same nature and same dignity with man, and if as much and as varied labor is needed to supply her wants, as to supply the wants of man, and if for her to be, as she so emphatically is, poor and destitute and dependent, is as fatal to her happiness and usefulness, and to the fulfilment of the high purposes of her existence, as the like circumstances would be to the honor and welfare of man, why then put her in a dress, which compels her to be a pauper - a pauper, whether in ribbons or rags? Why, I ask, put her in a dress, suited only to those occasional and brief moods, in which man regards her as his darling, his idol, and his angel; or to that general state of his mind, in which he looks upon her as his servant, and with feelings, certainly much nearer contempt than adoration. Strive, as you will, to elevate woman, nevertheless the disabilities and degradation of this dress, together with that large group of false views of the uses of her being and of her relations to man, symbolized and perpetuated, as I have already said, by this dress, will make your striving vain.

But I must bring my too long letter to a close. Whatever the moral war, they, who wage it, must first conquer themselves. Ere they can be effective against the enemy, they must first have compelled their own submission to the claims of reason and the principles of truth. In the war for woman's rights there is no exemption from this necessity. Woman must first fight against herself; against personal and mental habits so deep-rooted and controlling, and so seemingly inseparable from herself, as to be mistaken for her very nature. And when she has succeeded there, an easy victory will follow. But where shall be the battle-ground for this indispensable self-conquest? She will laugh at my answer when I tell her, that her dress - ay, her dress - must be that battle-ground. What, no wider, no sublimer field than this to reap her glories in! My further answer is - that if she shall reap them any where, she must first reap them there. I add, that her triumph there will be her triumph every where; and that her failure there will be her failure every where.

Affectionately yours,

GERRIT SMITH.