e number. They
did so because, though they knew the call invited all the world
to be present, yet they thought it best to have their delegations
prepared with credentials, if being prepared would do any good.

When we reached New York, we heard some persons saying that women
would be received as delegates, and others saying they would not.
We thought we ought to test that matter, and do it, too, as
delicately and quietly as possible. There were quite a number of
ladies appointed delegates to that meeting, but it was felt that
not many would be necessary to make the test of their sincerity.

We met at the Woman's Bights Convention on the day of the opening
of the half world's Temperance Convention, and had all decided to
be content with our own Temperance Convention, which had passed
off so quietly and triumphantly. Wendell Phillips and I sat
reconsidering the whole matter. I referred him to the fact, which
had come to me more than once during the few last days, that the
officials of the Convention in session at Metropolitan Hall, and
others, had been saying that women would be received no doubt;
that the Brick Chapel meeting was merely an informal preliminary
meeting, and its decisions of no authority upon the Convention
proper; and that the women were unjust in saying, that their
brethren would not accept their co-operation before it had been
fairly tested. Then, said Phillips, "Go, by all means; if they
receive you, you have only to thank them for rebuking the action
of the Brick Chapel meeting. Then we will withdraw and come back
to our own meeting. If, on the other hand, they do not receive
you, we will quietly and without protest, withdraw, and, in that
case, not be gone half an hour." I turned and invited one lady,
now on this platform, as gentle and lady-like as woman can be,
Caroline M. Severance, of your own city, to go with me. She said:
"I am quite willing to go, both in compliance with your wish, and
from interest in the cause itself. But I am not a delegate, and I
have in this city venerated grandparents, whose feelings I
greatly regard, and would not willingly or unnecessarily wound;
so that I prefer to go in quietly, but take no active part in
what will seem to them an antagonistic position for woman, and
uncalled for on my par