e that the constitutional differences of
the sexes which should determine, define, and limit the resulting
differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and
practically observed.

Woman has been condemned for her greater delicacy of physical
organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture,
and to the forfeiture of great social, civil, and religious
privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally
annihilated and actually enslaved in all that concerns her
personal and pecuniary rights, and even in widowed and single
life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of
labor and avocation, as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of
a disabled caste. But by the inspiration of the Almighty, the
beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these
wrongs.

The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers sits no
longer lightly on the world's conscience; the heart's
home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar.
Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from
which it draws its highest life, and womanhood is everywhere
awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights and to fulfill
its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and
righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public
heart and aroused its redressing justice, and through it the
Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of
His creation.

The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to
this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age
and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the
light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name
and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the
principles, devising the methods, and achieving the success of
this high and holy movement.

This call was signed by eighty-nine leading men and women of six
States.[42]

On taking the chair, Mrs. Davis said:

The reformation we propose in its utmost scope is radical and
universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in
motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal
movement--the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the
world, and a conformin