The
religious persecution of the ages
has been done under what was claimed to be
the command of God. I distrust those people who
know so well what God wants them to do to
their fellows, because it always coincides with
their own desires.
"Are you going to
cater to the whims and prejudices of people who have no intelligent knowledge
of what they condemn?"
In 1896, Susan B. Anthony
stepped down from the chair and addressed the National-American Woman Suffrage
Association meeting when a resolution was offered to repudiate Elizabeth
Cady Stanton's Woman's Bible.
Aunt Susan's impassioned appeal
was directed more at religious freedom and the rights of individuals than
the contents of the book. She was 76 at the time of this speech and although
it was given 101 years ago, it could be delivered today - in view of the
growing bigotry of the religious right.
"The one distinct feature of our Association
has been the right of the individual opinion for every member.
We have been beset at every step with the cry that
somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of some sentiments that
differed with those held by the majority of mankind.
The religious persecution of the ages has been done
under what was claimed to be the command of God.
I distrust those people who know so well what God
wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their
own desires.
"All the way along the history of our movement
there been this same contest on account of religious theories.
Forty years ago one of our noblest men said to me:
`You would be never hold another convention than let Ernestine L. Rose
stand your platform,' because that talented and eloquent Polish woman who
ever stood for justice and freedom, did not believe in the plenary inspiration
of the Bible.
Did we banish Mrs. Rose? No, indeed!
(at
left, Susan B. Anthony in her younger days.)
"Every new generation of converts threshes
over the same old straw.
Twenty-five years ago a prominent woman, who stood
on our platform for the first time, wanted us to pass a resolution that
we were not free lovers; and I was not more shocked that am today at this
attempt.
The question is whether you will sit in judgment on
one who has questioned the Divine inspiration of certain passages in the
Bible derogatory to women.
If she had written approvingly of these passages,
you would not have brought this resolution because you thought the cause
might be injured among the liberals in religion.
In other words, if she had written your views, you would
not have considered a resolution necessary. To pass this one is to set
back the hands on the dial of reform. It is the reviving of the old time
censorship, which I hoped we outgrown.
"What you should do is to say to outsiders
that a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our Association than
an atheist.
When our platform becomes too narrow for people of
all creeds and of no creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it.
Many things have been said and done by our orthodox
friends that I have felt to be extremely harmful to our cause; but I should
no more consent to a resolution denouncing them than I shall consent to
this.
"Who is to draw the line?
Who can tell now whether Mrs. Stanton's commentaries
may not prove a great help to woman's emancipation from old superstitions
that have barred her way?
Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had injured the
cause of all woman's other rights by insisting upon the demand for suffrage,
but she had sense enough not to bring in a resolution against it.
In I860, when Mrs. Stanton made a speech before the
New York Legislature in favor of a bill making drunkenness a cause for
divorce, there was a general cry among the friends that she had killed
the woman's cause.
I shall be pained beyond expression if the delegates
here are so narrow and illiberal as to adopt this resolution.
You would better not begin resolving against individual
action or you will find no limit.
This year it is Mrs. Stanton; next year it may be
me or one of yourselves who will be the victim.
"Are you going to cater to the whims and
prejudices of people who have no intelligent knowledge of what they condemn?
If we do not inspire in woman a broad and catholic
spirit, they will fail, when enfranchised, to constitute that power for
better government which we have always claimed for them.
You would better educate ten women into the practice
of liberal principles than to organize a thousand on a platform of intolerance
and bigotry.
I pray you, this solution, adopted, will be a vote
of censure upon a woman who without a peer in intellectual and statesmanlike
ability; one who as stood for half a century the acknowledged leader of
progressive thought and demand in regard to all matters pertaining to the
absolute freedom of women."
[Ed Note: The religious bigots won the day
and the convention voted censure against The Woman's Bible. The
book has been out of print for years and years and years but WiiN obtained
a copy and we are scanning the text, an action that has proved to be difficult
because of the old type, etc.]
|