Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were examined, but all
alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion
such as the world had never before seen. They knew women had wrongs,
but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from
the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and
conditioned; they were neither "sour old maids," "childless women,"
nor "divorced wives," as the newspapers declared them to be. While
they had felt the insults incident to sex, in many ways, as every
proud, thinking woman must, in the laws, religion, and literature of
the world, and in the invidious and degrading sentiments and customs
of all nations, yet they had not in their own experience endured the
coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws, or association
with immoral and unscrupulous men, but they had souls large enough to
feel the wrongs of others, without being scarified in their own flesh.

After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776,
and read it aloud with much spirit and emphasis, and it was at once
decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes such
as substituting "all men" for "King George." Knowing that women must
have more to complain of than men under any circumstances possibly
could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen grievances, a protracted
search was made through statute books, church usages, and the customs
of society to find that exact number. Several well-disposed men
assisted in collecting the grievances, until, with the announcement of
the eighteenth, the women felt they had enough to go before the world
with a good case. One youthful lord remarked, "Your grievances must be
grievous indeed, when you are obliged to go to books in order to find
them out."

The eventful day dawned at last, and crowds in carriages and on foot,
wended their way to the Wesleyan church. When those having charge of
the Declaration, the resolutions, and several volumes of the Statutes
of New York arrived on the scene, lo! the door was locked. However, an
embryo Professor of Yale College was lifted through an open window to
unbar the door; that done, the church was quickly filled. It had been
decided to have no men present, but as they were already on the spot,
and as the women who must take the responsibility of organizing the
meeting, and leading the discussions, shrank from doing either, it was
decided, in a hasty council round t