on "The Enfranchisement of Woman," in the _Westminster Review_
of October, 1852.

The same year of the convention, the Married Woman's Property Bill,
which had given rise to some discussion on woman's rights in New York,
had passed the legislature. This encouraged action on the part of women,
as the reflection naturally arose that, if the men who make the laws
were ready for some onward step, surely the women themselves should
express some interest in the legislation. Ernestine L. Rose, Paulina
Wright (Davis), and I had spoken before committees of the legislature
years before, demanding equal property rights for women. We had
circulated petitions for the Married Woman's Property Bill for many
years, and so also had the leaders of the Dutch aristocracy, who desired
to see their life-long accumulations descend to their daughters and
grandchildren rather than pass into the hands of dissipated, thriftless
sons-in-law. Judge Hertell, Judge Fine, and Mr. Geddes of Syracuse
prepared and championed the several bills, at different times, before
the legislature. Hence the demands made in the convention were not
entirely new to the reading and thinking public of New York--the first
State to take any action on the question. As New York was the first
State to put the word "male" in her constitution in 1778, it was fitting
that she should be first in more liberal legislation. The effect of the
convention on my own mind was most salutary. The discussions had cleared
my ideas as to the primal steps to be taken for woman's enfranchisement,
and the opportunity of expressing myself fully and freely on a subject I
felt so deeply about was a great relief. I think all women who attended
the convention felt better for the statement of their wrongs, believing
that the first step had been taken to right them.

Soon after this I was invited to speak at several points in the
neighborhood. One night, in the Quaker Meeting House at Farmington, I
invited, as usual, discussion and questions when I had finished. We all
waited in silence for a long time; at length a middle-aged man, with a
broad-brimmed hat, arose and responded in a sing-song tone: "All I have
to say is, if a hen can crow, let her crow," emphasizing "crow" with an
upward inflection on several notes of the gamut. The meeting adjourned
with mingled feelings of surprise and merriment. I confess that I felt
somewhat chagrined in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments
so summar