doubtless horrified to read his conception of a "just divorce law." In this respect he is still a stride or two in advance of even modern practices. Judging by his familiarity with educational problems, he had either taught school himself or been an exceptionally keen observer.19 In Dialogue II the guide explains to Alcuin the doctrine of individual differences-the basic idea now underlying vocational training and elective courses in school and colleges.

Brown is an easy, fluent writer, of more than ordinary ability in depicting telling incidents. The sonorous rhetoric of the period had its attractions for him; his Utopian passages owe much to Johnson's Rasselas, for they are characterized by the same kind of pedantry. There is much greater indebtedness to Sir Thomas More for general design and phraseology. Some similarity to Gulliver's visit to the Houyhnhnms may be found in the second dialogue, also, with the same emphasis on the dialogue as a medium for conveying adverse criticism. In spirit Brown has little in common with Swift; the misanthropy of the latter is entirely lacking in the American commentator. Then, too, there is the author's debt to Godwin, to which reference has been made. It is quite probable that the radical nature of Brown's second dialogue is due to his endeavoring to put into practice in an imaginative setting the revolutionary principles expressed by the English author in Political Justice.

In the execution of his work Brown has used as a warp all that appealed to him in his predecessor's work and interwoven it with the bright-colored woof of his own imagination and clarity of vision.

"See Clark: Charles Brockden Brown: A Critical Biography, page 25, for evidence indicating that Brown was for a time a schoolmaster in Philadelphia

CHAPTER V

JOHN NEAL: “THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN," 1832-43

After the publication of the Dialogues of Alcuin, a full quarter of a century was to elapse before any notable utterance was made on the subject of woman's rights. There are even no grounds for assuming that the stir created by the Crane-Condit contest amounted to any more than a nine-dayswonder. Accordingly, the topic of woman's status was in abeyance for twenty-five years.

The first to disturb the calm of a quarter of a century was John Neal, of Portland, Maine. His interest in the suffrage question dates, as he himself has stated, from his participation in a debate on slavery as member of a debating society in Baltimore. The topic under discussion was the Missouri controversy. Neal's opponents, the anti-slavery group, were about to win the decision, when he arose and made a legal argument in defense of slavery as an institution involving no more serious violation of justice than was tolerated in regard to certain other classes.

Who shall be the judge, when it is asked how long an apprentice, a child, or a wife- and here the great question of woman's rights and woman's wrongs, with all its tremendous bearings, in all their magnitude, opened upon me, as by a flash of lightning-when it shall be asked, how long they shall be rendered by law incapable of acquiring, holding, or transmitting property except under special conditions, like the slave?1

The effects of this flash were destined to be lasting. In the next year, 1824, Neal, now in England, published in Blackwood's Magazine an article, "Men and Women," which was an essay on the intellectual equality of the sexes. When, after his return to America, in 1828, Neal undertook the editorship of The Yankee, at Portland, he almost immediately placed before his readers several articles on woman's rights, bearing such titles as "The Rights of Woman," "Parties and Women," "Capabilities of Women," and others of similar import. His

'Neal: Wandering Recollections of a Somerhat Busy Life; page 50.

most significant work in the field of equal rights, however, was to take the form of public addresses at a slightly later period, and will be taken up further on in this chapter.

One of the most picturesque figures in early American reform movements, contemporary with Neal, was Fanny Wright (1795-1852). A Scotchwoman by birth, she came to the United States in 1818. She first attracted attention by purchasing a large tract of land near Memphis, Tennessee, and establishing a colony for emancipated slaves. She spent several years (1832 to 1836) traveling about, lecturing on slavery, woman's rights, and other social conditions. These itineraries led to the formation of "Fanny Wright Societies," which later were merged into the Woman Suffrage Association. By her temerity in venturing to appear on lecture platforms, accompanied only by Quaker women, the lecturer drew upon herself the enmity of both church and press.

She was an ardent proponent of equal rights for the sexes; Indeed, most of her theories point to Godwinian free-love. Moreover, an excerpt from one of her letters shows that her ultimate scheme went further than the emancipation of negroes and

women:

"I have devoted my time and fortune to laying the foundation of an establishment where affection will form the only marriage, kind feeling and kind action the only religion, respect for the feelings and liberties of others the only restraint, and union of interest the bond of peace and affection."

In June, 1830, Fanny Wright gave a "Parting Address" in the Bowery Theatre, New York, which was printed in pamphlet form and distributed broadcast throughout the country. She took this opportunity to "sum up her reform 'platform,' review the accomplishments of the past, and express hope for the future." She asserted that her confidence in American righteousness was unbounded. Reform, once started here, would soon circle the globe, as the American Revolution and Constitution had done. She believed that perfect liberty and equality should be extended to all; that equal rights, equal privileges, and equal enjoyments were the natural rights of every human being.

'Biography......of Frances Wright D'Arusmont, "Letter to Mary

Shelby."

I would see them shared by every man, by every woman, by every nation, by every race on the face of the globe.'

Fanny Wright's scheme may have been too universal and utopian in conception, yet the formation of the Fanny Wright Societies may be regarded as the starting point of the reform movement that led to the passage of the Married Woman's Property Act at Albany, New York, 1848. Moreover, the entire English-speaking world has since followed the example of New York.

It is extremely interesting to note that the earliest pronouncement of Abraham Lincoln's political views included an endorsement of the principle of woman's participation in the suffrage. Previous to 1836, his political party, the Whigs, had denounced the caucus system of nominating candidates as a "despicable Yankee contrivance, intended to abridge the liberties of the people." The Whigs soon found, however, that they could ill afford to oppose free self-nomination to the more expeditious Jacksonian method of nominating by convention. Lincoln decided to embrace his last opportunity to place himself before the people as candidate for representative to the legislature of Illinois, and to construct his own platform. On June 13, 1836, he indited the following laconic epistle:

To the Editor of The Journal:*

New Salem, June 13, 1836.

In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the signature of "Many Voters" in which the candidates who are announced in The "Journal" are called upon to "show their hands." Agreed. Here's mine.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the rights of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females)."

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support

me.

Parting Address, page 18.

"The Sangamon (Illinois) Journal.

'Morse, J. T.: Abraham Lincoln, page 50. (American Statesmen series).

While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several states to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying interest on it.

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.

Very respectfully,

A. Lincoln.

This is Lincoln's solitary utterance of his belief in the equality of the sexes. Had not questions of gravest national consequence intervened, his love of truth and fair play would, without doubt, have caused him to lend his influence to woman's cause.

In July, 1838, ex-president John Quincy Adams, then a member of the United States House of Representatives, delivered, and later published, a speech which reflected the opinions of his father, John Adams, on the subject of equality of the sexes. This was entitled "On the Right of People, Men and Women, to petition; on the freedom of debate in the House of Representatives of the. United States; on the resolutions of seven state Legislatures, and on the petitions of more than one hundred thousand petitioners, relative to the annexation of Texas."

Feeling had been running high in the House of Representatives; many and violent debates were held upon the question of increasing the power of the slave-holding states. Adam's indignation had been roused by the refusal of certain members to give the petitions signed by women legal recognition. One member, Mr. Howard, of Maryland, had said politics was not woman's sphere. Adams replied in a sweeping condemnation of the previous speaker's "narrowness.'

Why does it follow that women are fitted for nothing but the cares of domestic life-.......... .for promoting the welfare of their husbands, brothers, sons?........I say that the correct principle is that women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic circle, and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and