very child she bears; it is because without her in our
courts, lawyers use foul words that shame the purity of woman.
Until woman takes a place with man in the legislation of the
world, and in the administration of justice, she will suffer, and
man through her will suffer; also, it is not because woman is so
far above man that we claim her rights in this matter. It is
because she is the other half of man and society is imperfect,
and will remain so until she takes her proper place in the labors
of the world. If a pair of scissors be broken in two, and you
have it riveted together, it is not because you concede angelic
superiority to either half, but simply because it takes two
halves to make a whole.

Mrs. CUTLER was the first speaker of the evening session. Ladies
and Gentlemen:--When the cloud of slavery agitation arose--a
cloud at first no bigger than a man's hand, but which at length
became a great tempest, overshadowing all the land, and when the
thunders rolled, and the lightnings flashed, and when we felt
that almost the doom of our nation had come, then we women read,
as one of our number has so grandly expressed it--we read by the
light of a hundred thousand lamps, the judgment of the Almighty
against the institution of slavery. That institution was wrong
because it took away human rights. But what were the rights? The
right to live was not among them--for the slave lived. The right
to bread was not among them--for he was fed and clothed. The
rights that were taken away were the rights inherent in all human
beings to the results of their own labor, to the freedom of the
body and the mind. And when the country once became aroused to
the full significance of this slavery question, the heart of
every mother in the land throbbed in sympathy with the enslaved.
At last War said to us, "These people have not been remembered in
their bonds, and our sons and brothers are now called from us,
and we must offer them upon the altar of sacrifice!" And,
wondering, we read anew the Declaration of Independence, and
swore fealty to its precepts, now to be written with a pen of
iron dipped in the hearts' blood of our sons. It is past, and all
men are free and equal in America.

But there is one thing yet to be done in order that our country
may c