OCR Text |
Show I Woman Against Slavery By Rev. Thomas B Gregory. : , -1 APFTITIO.V wiih six hundred thousand signatures, and everv signature that of a woman, i a rare sort Of document, as documents so In 'hi.s- world, vet such wan the- "Address to tlie women of America." Issued by the Duchess of Sutherland acainsi ta -I ery, and received in this country Just I xiNlN cr-ars ago today Coming like a bolt out of th blue, j the monstdr petition shook tne country coun-try like an earthouake. From the nines of yinine to the palms of Florida, Flor-ida, and from Plymouth Rock to tlie Qolden Gate, the excitement cauSed I bv the address 'an high, and the friends and enemies of the "peculiar institution" mad'- the air livid with their crimination and recrimination, their praises and their curses Ai the time of the coming of the KiiBlish woman s address, -is i 1 1 1 its formidable M?t of signatures. the "Free Soil," or Republican party, was bn Its first les. and rhere is no sort of doubt that the embryo political po-litical organisation received from the document invaluable aid. It Is also certain that the sddreae was not without Its effect upon the v7aah-ington v7aah-ington "statesmen" In cnr-rai. Stiffening Stif-fening the backbones of the antU slavery politicians, ii nut fresh vim into iho opposition ranks, and thus greatly embittering the already neated discussions in the house and senate, hiid much to do with oreclplta.tlpg the croat conflict which was to cost a million of hes- and billions of t reasure. Full of irony and paradox is the ihin we call history and the fact Is nowhere more nlalnh illustrated I than it is in the Duchess of Suth- ! Sriand s address. Tin six nundred thousand wdmen whoie name? were attached to that continent-shaking document were the daughters of the men whose cupId- 1 li and brutality had helped t:i plant ! slaver) in thia country, ;md who in olonlal days had repeatedly refused to do anything toward ihe mitiga- I 1 tiou of the ac.-ursed Institution when ' they were earnestly requested to do o h- tlie authorities of Virginia and the Carolines. in the first continental congress Thomas Jefferson tried In heroic fashion fash-ion to get a bill passed which would have stopped the slave trade so f gr as this country wa. concerned, and wiped out the bondage of man to man In nil the colonies, but the t;reat Virginian's effort was defeated by the Mew England slave dealers, backed by om England and s small bul influential minority In the south. If the raiders and siandfatliers of I e women who Kizne.j the Duchess of Sutherland's address h.,,1 done their dutv when jeffersm was using us-ing lo t;et ihcm io do it there would ha'- been no need of the address of IS-".?, and no occasion for The hloorl,- war of brothers which that address helped to precipitate |