James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

It was as though she had said, “I didn't come here to be humbugged, Mr. Pale Face, and you'd better not try it” The insulted gentleman raised his hands into the air, and did not request her to leave the house, nor manifest in any other way his evidently acute sense of her impertinent conduct. As long as we worship a woman on account of a slight peculiarity in the formation of part of her throat, the woman so worshiped will give herself airs. The blame is ours, not hers. The rapping continued, and the party retired, after some hours, sufficiently puzzled, but apparently convinced that there was no collusion between the table and the “mediums.”

The subsequent history of the spiritual movement is well known. It has caused much pain, and harm, and loss. But, like every other Event, its good results, realized and prospective, are greater far than its evil. It has awakened some from the insanity of indifference, to the insanity of an exclusive devotion to things spiritual. But many spiritualists have stopped short of the latter insanity, and are better men, in every respect, than they were—better, happier, and more hopeful. It has delivered many from the degrading fear of death and the future, a fear more prevalent, perhaps, than is supposed; for men are naturally and justly ashamed of their fears, and do not willingly tell them. Spiritualism, moreover, may be among the means by which the way is to be prepared for that general, that earnest, that fearless consideration of our religious systems to which they will, one day, be subjected, and from which the truth in them has nothing to fear, but how much to hope I

It was about the same time that the Tribune rendered another service to the country, by publishing a fair and full report of the first Woman's Convention, accompanying the report with respectful and favorable remarks. ‘It is easy,’ said the Tribune, ‘to be smart, to be droll, to be facetious, in opposition to the demands of these Female Reformers; and, in decrying assumptions so novel and opposed to established habits and usages, a little wit will go a great way. But when a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give for refusing the demand of women to an equal participation with men in political rights, he must answer, None at all. True, he may say that he believes it unwise in them to make the demand—he may say the great majority desire no such thing; that they prefer to devote their time to ’