LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 October Rare Books & Manuscripts #675  / 

30677

Lucretia Mott Autograph Letter Signed, 1845

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:475.00 USD Estimated At:700.00 - 900.00 USD
Lucretia Mott Autograph Letter Signed, 1845
<B>Lucretia Mott Autograph Letter Signed, "</B></I><I>L. Mott".</B></I> Two pages, 7.62" ´ 9.37", Philadelphia, May 5, 1845 to fellow abolitionist and future women's rights activist, Maria W. Chapman (1806-85) concerning divisions within the abolitionist movement: <I>...My husband & self have indulged the hope of being with you at the convention-have been talking of it since last fall but as the time draws near, difficulties interpose-and we have now decided that it will be best for us to stay at home this year. I regret that there are so few from Penna. going to New York for the Annual Meeting. The conflicting opinions among Abolitionists, greatly endanger their strength, and impede their progress. Is the cause of this, as L. N. Child remarked when she refused to join the Non-resistance Society at its formation - that each organisation </B></I> <I>sic</B></I> <I> has within it the seeds of its dissolution? If you knew how nearly discouraged I have been, & how conservative I have grown, you would hardly want to see me at any of your Meetings. While I fully united with the onward step of the American Society last spring, I cannot join with the agents who have been among us, in their condemnation of those of a different opinion. Nor am I prepared to say that Third Party is not an instrumentality in the Anti-Slavery cause - tho' as L. Pugh justly remarked - not the wisest, nor the best. The transfer of the Emancipator too had been dwelt upon it seems to be me needlessly and to the prejudice of our cause - especially in some of our large Anti-Slavery meetings - called together to hear A. Kelly & others. The time has been occupied with these odd matters - little understood by the audiences, rather then pouring in to their prepared hearts, appeals for the slave...the sad rupture with N athaniel . P. Rogers too! I have felt sick at heart, in reading the oft-repeated articles in the Liberator...my sympathy was warmly reaching forth to poor Rogers - who had been Garrison's very friend - and who now probably enfeebled by disease...If the dissentions in N. Hampshire must be thus searched & exposed, could not W iliam L loyd G arrison have been excused from taking so active a part in it - being on the committee &c? Had I not seen how well he & N. P. Rogers loved each other in England, I should not probably have deplored the circumstances as I have done. Let Wm. L. Garrison's combativeness be directly applied to the wicked slaveholder & his apologist. Large tho' it is & strengthened by reason of use, he has now to spare for these collateral subjects - Edmund Quincy & Wendell Phillips can attend to them...</B></I>" Nathaniel P. Rogers (1794-1846) was a New Hampshire abolitionist and edited the anti-slavery paper, <I>Herald of Freedom.</B></I> At the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, Rogers walked out of the meeting to protest the refusal of the convention to seat women delegates. Discord had erupted the previous year when Rogers and her correspondent Mary Weston Chapman were nominated to sit on the executive committee of the Anti-Slavery Society. This event prompted Arthur Tappan, Gerrit Smith and others to leave in protest. These men then formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society referenced to in this letter as the "<I>American Society</B></I>". These experiences convinced Mott to organize the first women's rights convention held in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York. Usual folds, one small hole in integral address panel, else fine. <I>Ex. Henry E. Luhrs Collection.</B></I><BR><BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
Sign In to Bookmark Lot