They tell us sometimes that if we had only kept quiet, all these desirable things would have come about of themselves. I am remind...ed of the Greek clown who, having seen an archer bring down a flying bird, remarked, sagely: "You might have saved your arrow, for the bird would anyway have been killed by the fall."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... strike the words "white male" from all your constitutions, and then, with fair sailing, let us sink or swim, live or die, surv...ive or perish together.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and... manifested very much in the same way. The Negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to the Negro in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table and eat with the white man; the free Negro may hold property and vote. The woman may sit in the same pew with the white man in church; the free Negro may enter the pulpit and preach. Now, with the black man's right to suffrage, the right unquestioned, even by Paul, to minister at the altar, it is evident that the prejudice against sex is more deeply rooted and unreasonably maintained than that against color ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The representative women of the nation have done their uttermost for the last thirty years to secure freedom for the negro, and so... long as he was lowest in the scale of being we were allowed to press his claims; but now, as the celestial gate to civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see "Sambo" walk into the kingdom first. As self-preservation is the first law of nature, would it not be wiser to keep our lamps trimmed and burning, and when the constitutional door is open, avail ourselves of the strong arm and blue uniform of the black soldier to walk in by his side, and thus make the gap so wide that no privileged class could ever again close it against the humblest citizen of the republic?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Women and negroes, being seven-twelfths of the people, are a majority; and according to our republican theory, are the rightful ru...lers of the nation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The Woman has no name. She is Mr...s. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings; he can not buy or sell, or lay up. Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings; she can neither buy nor sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her own. Cuffy has no right to his children; they can be sold from him at any time. Mrs. Roe has no right to her children; they may be bound out to cancel a father's debt of honor. The unborn child, even by the last will of the father, may be placed under the guardianship of a stranger and a foreigner. Cuffy has no legal existence; he is subject to restraint and moderate chastisement. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she has not the best right to her own person. The husband has the power to restrain, and administer moderate chastisement.... The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The Negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to the (free) Negro in civil rights.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a vo...ter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every man who is not for us in this prolonged struggle for liberty is responsible for the present degradation of the mothers of th...e race. It is pitiful to see how few men ever have made our cause their own, but while leaving us to fight our battle alone, they have been unsparing in their criticism of every failure. Of all the battles for liberty in the long past, woman only has been left to fight her own, without help and with all the powers of earth and heaven, human and divine, arrayed against her.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The talk of sheltering woman from the fierce storms of life is the sheerest mockery, for they beat on her from every point of the ...compass, just as they do on man, and with more fatal results, for he has been trained to protect himself, to resist, to conquer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »