men were reached through the gradual and
tentative efforts of women whom the uninitiated supposed to be spending
idle hours at a sewing circle. Interest was maintained by the use of
information of the same general character as that which later took the
country by storm in Uncle Tom's Cabin. In course of time all disguise
was thrown aside. A public speaker of national reputation would appear,
a meeting would be announced, and a rousing abolition speech would be
delivered; the mere men of the neighborhood would have little conception
how the surprising change had been accomplished.

On rare occasions the public presentation of the anti-slavery view
would be undertaken prematurely, as in 1840 at Pendleton, Indiana, when
Frederick Douglass attempted to address a public meeting and was almost
slain by missiles from the mob. Pendleton, however, was not given over
to the enemy. The victim of the assault was restored to health in the
family of a leading citizen. The outrage was judiciously utilized
to convince the fair-minded that one of the evils of slavery was the
development of minds void of candor and justice. On the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the Pendleton disturbance there was another great meeting
in the town. Frederick Douglass was the hero of the occasion. The woman
who was the head of the family that restored him to health was on the
platform. Some of the men who threw the brickbats were there to make
public confession and to apologize for the brutal deed.

In the minds of a few persons of rare intellectual and logical
endowment, democracy has always implied the equality of the sexes. From
the time of the French Revolution there have been advocates of this
doctrine. As early as 1820, Frances Wright, a young woman in Scotland
having knowledge of the Western republic founded upon the professed
principles of liberty and equality, came to America for the express
purpose of pleading the cause of equal rights for women. To the
general public her doctrine seemed revolutionary, threatening the very
foundations of religion and morality. In the midst of opposition and
persecution she proclaimed views respecting the rights and duties of
women which today are generally accepted as axiomatic.

The women who attended the meetings for the organization of the American
Anti-Slavery Society were not suffragists, nor had they espoused any
special theories respecting the position of women. They did not wish to
be members of the men's