Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[315] tion would have declared it inexpedient to do so, and thus nullified the whole thing. It would have been thought a trick, getting away out here and doing what we knew we could not do at the centre.

No; so extraordinary a move as the nomination of national candidates, in my opinion, should not be made by the Am. Society without due notice to that effect. Give due notice, and then all are bound to take notice and be present, or forever after hold their peace.

This is my plan. Wait till both parties have nominated, and then, if Clay and Van Buren are the men, call a great Convention to consider the wisdom of nominating. This will go strong. Anything short of this would split the Society and prove a failure.

Our meeting was a grand one. 400 delegates. No miserable woman question, non-resistance, nor 15-minute rule to perplex,¹ confuse and gag us.

Haste, thine,

H. B. S.

Elizur Wright's ‘good letter’ which elicited the above response, was equally unintended to see the light. Mr. Garrison heard of it a month after the Convention, when he received from a subscriber the following communication, written on the first and third pages of a letter-sheet bearing the device of a kneeling female slave (the ‘miserable woman question ’), and the legend, ‘Am I not a Woman and a Sister?’

To W. L. Garrison.

Ohio City, Nov. 14th, 1839.

² Dear Sir: At the ‘Cleveland Meeting’ there fell into my hands accidentally a letter from Mr. Wright to H. B. Stanton³ —confidential, of course—which stated, in substance, that ‘things in their new society had been most wretchedly managed; that they had harped too much on the woman's rights question, and that they must have a nomination of candidates for the Presidency and V. P., as Garrison would oppose this and they could then shift the issue’—i. e., from woman's rights to the nomination question; and again, ‘if we do not have a nomination the Mass. Abolition Soc. must go down.’