[318] 7. Consistency—the jewel—the everything of such a cause as ours. If we gain these points, what can we lose? Have we not now thoroughly tried everything short of this? Precedents are not to be quoted against us. Anti-Masonry had not such a quarry. Its object slunk away from it. The enterprise was never half baked. Yet it died, not by nominating separate candidates so much as by amalgamating with existing parties. After all, it died for want of tangible work, more than anything else. Our cause is entirely different. But you have thought of this more than I, so no more coals to Newcastle. I throw in my mite. One thing I know. Unless you do take such a step, our New organization here is A gone case. It has been, inter nos, Shockingly mismanaged. Everything has been made to turn upon the woman question. The political has been left to fall out of sight. In our State politics, the Temperance question is so fairly on the ground that we have not room to stand. It won't do for us to start the national politics. But if the Parent Society does so, and not by our move—then we can take hold with all our might, the non-resistants will have to be out upon us under true flag—the confounded woman question1 will be forgotten—and we shall take a living position. You certainly see this. Take my solemn assurance that it is Life and death with us. Make the move, and we will follow and live.—How have I wished, since this shattered right fist has failed me, for voice, and brains to match. But you can do it. For the love of heaven and earth, do it, and write me the earliest word. In everything but heart, I am a cipher in this cause. But I don't occupy the place of a better man, to his exclusion. When he comes, I'm off. I shall do what I can! Dear Stanton, if the Society will cross the Rubicon, (if they knew it they have crossed it already), I will answer with my head for their
This text is part of:
1 ‘The New York Board was so thoroughly imbued with Calvinistic prejudices that it came very near throwing me overboard for encouraging Angelina Grimke to speak as well as write. It was the controversy on that point that led me to transfer all the reverence or respect I ever had for Paul to Hypatia, who sacrificed a far nobler life for humanity some centuries later—murdered by the very monkery which grew out of Paul's doctrine about woman’ (Ms. April 15, 1881, Elizur Wright to Oliver Johnson).
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.