umns is that my political antagonists take advantage of such
publications to make the Tribune responsible for the anti-Bible,
anti-Union, etc., doctrines, which your conventions generally put
forth. I do not desire to interfere with your "free speech." I
desire only to secure for myself the liberty of treating public
questions in accordance with my own convictions, and not being made
responsible for the adverse convictions of others. I can not,
therefore, print this programme without being held responsible for
it. If you advertise it, that is not in my department, nor under my
control.[23]

From Gerrit Smith came these emphatic opinions:

You invite me to attend the woman's convention in New York. It will
not be in my power to do so. You suggest that I write a letter in
case I can not attend, but so peculiar and offensive are my views
of the remedy for woman's wrongs, that a letter inculcating them
would not be well received. Hence, I must not write it. I believe
that poverty is the great curse of woman, and that she is powerless
to assert her rights, because she is poor. Woman must go to work to
get rid of her poverty, but that she can not do in her present
disabling dress, and she seems determined not to cast it aside. She
is unwilling to sacrifice grace and fashion, even to gain her
rights; albeit, too, that this grace is an absurd conventionalism
and that this fashion is infinite folly. Were woman to adopt a
rational dress, a dress that would not hinder her from any
employment, how quickly would she rise from her present degrading
dependence on man! How quickly would the marriage contract be
modified and made to recognize the equal rights of the parties to
it! And how quickly would she gain access to the ballot-box.

Thus one man refused to assist the cause because its advocates were too
radical, and another because they were not radical enough; or, in other
words, each wanted the women to be and to do according to his own
ideas.

The Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention met in the Broadway
Tabernacle, New York, November 25 and 26. Lucy Stone presided and
Wendell Phillips was one of the prominent speakers. The election was
over, the mob spirit temporarily quieted, and the convention was not
disturbed except when certain of the men attempted to make long
speeches or introduce politics. The audience had co