duties of the two sexes. Here was a new element of
discord. In 1838, at the annual New England convention of abolitionists,
a woman was for the first time placed on committees with men, an
innovation upon the general custom of the community, which excited much
dissatisfaction in the minds of many.
About this time the rightfulness of civil and church government began to
be called in question, through the columns of the Liberator, by its
editor and correspondents. These opinions were concurrently advocated
with the doctrine of non-resistance. Those who hold these opinions,
while they deny that civil and ecclesiastical government are of divine
authority, are yet passively submissive to the authority of the former,
though they abstain from exercising the political rights of citizenship.
There were not wanting those, among the opponents of abolition, to
charge the anti-slavery body at large with maintaining these views, and
in consequence serious embarrassments were thrown in the way of a
successful prosecution of the cause. The executive committee of the
Society at New York were placed in a difficult position, but as far as I
am able to judge, they endeavored to hold on the steady tenor of their
way, without, on the one hand, countenancing the introduction of
extraneous matters upon the anti-slavery platform; or, on the other
hand, yielding to the clamor of the pro-slavery party, whether in church
or state.
In subsequent anti-slavery meetings in Boston, New York, and elsewhere,
it became manifest that there was a radical difference of opinion on the
subject of political action; the non-resistant and no-government
influence, operating decidedly against the employment of the elective
franchise in the anti-slavery cause; and the agitation of this question,
as well as that of the rights of women, in their meetings, gave to them
a discordant and party character, painfully contrasting with the
previous peaceful and harmonious action of the societies. That some of
both parties began to ove
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