Table Of ContentFREDERICK DOUGLASS
ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS
PHILIPS. FONER, EDITOR
FREDERICDKO UGLASS
ON WOMEN'SR IGHTS
DA CAPO PRESS NEW YORK
•
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Douglass, Frederick, 18177-1895.
Frederick Douglass on women's rights I Philip S. Foner, editor.-lst Da Capo
Press ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-306-80489-1
1. Women's rights-United States. I. Foner, Philip Sheldon, 1910. . II. Title.
HQ1236.5.U6D68 1992 92-17609
323.314-dcZO CIP
First Da Capo Press edition 1992
This Da Capo Press paperback edition of Frederick DouglASS on Women's Rights
is an unabridged republication of the edition published in New York in Westport,
Connecticut in 1976. It is reprinted by arrangement with Greenwood Press.
Copyright© 1976 by Philip S. Foner
Published by Da Capo Press, Inc.
A Subsidiary of Plenum Publishing Corporation
233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013
All Rights Reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
No man,h oweveerl oquecnatn,s peafko rw omanas
womanc anf ohre rself.
NevertheIlh eoslstd,h atth icsa usiesn ota ltogeatnhde r
exclusiwvoemlayn 'csa usIet.is thec ausoef h uman
brotherhaso owde lasl thec ausoefh umans isterhood,
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pressweidt hoduetp resswiomnagn a lso.
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aW omanS uffraCgoen vention.
CONTENTS
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION 3
1. THE WOMAN'S CAUSE 49
Woman, The North Star, May 26, 1848 49
The Ladies, The North Star, August 10, 1848 49
The Rights of Women, The North Star, July 28, 1848 49
The Only True Basis of Rights, The North Star, August 11, 1848 51
The Women's Association of Philadelphia, The North Star, June 15, 1849 51
Our Colored Sisters, The North Star, November 16, 1849 52
The Woman's Temperance Convention, Frederick Douglass' Paper,
April 22, 1851 53
Woman's Rights Convention at Worcester, Mass., Frederick Douglass's
Paper, October 30, 1851 55
The National Woman's Rights Convention at Syracuse, Frederick Douglass'
Paper, September 17, 1852 55
Women and Politics-The Next Presidency, lite., Frederick Douglass' Paper,
February 25, 1853 56
Antoinette L. Brown, Frederick Douglass' Paper, March 4, 1853 57
Woman and Her Wishes, Frederick Douglass' Paper, March 11, 1853 57
Some Thoughts on Woman's Rights, Frederick Douglass' Paper. June 10, 1853 58
Women's New York State Temperance Society, Frederick Douglass' Paper,
June 10, 1853 60
The Just and Equal Rights of Women, Frederick Douglass' Paper, November
25, 1853 63
Woman's Rights: Circulate the Petitions, Frederick Douglass' Paper,
December 25, 1853 65
Lucy Stone at Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia, Frederick Douglass' Paper,
February 17, 1854 67
Letter from Francis Barry, Frederick Douglass' Paper, March 17, 1854 70
Mr. Barry's Letter, Frederick Douglass' Paper, March 17, 1854 71
Address to the Legislature of the State of New York, Frederick Douglass' Paper,
March 3, 1854 73
viii CONTENTS
Lucy Stone and Senator Douglas, Douglass' Monthly, October 1859 74
The Vote, The Liberator, February 10, 1865 77
A Thought, The Woman's Advocate, January 1866 78
Equal Rights Convention for New York State, New York Tribune,
December21, 1866 78
Memorial of the American Equal Rights Association to the Congress of the
United States, Natioiral Anti-Slavery Standard, December 22, 1866 81
Resolution Adopted at First Annual Meeting, American Equal Rights
Association, New York City, May 9-10, 1867 83
Proceedings of the American Equal Rights Association Convention,
New York, May 14, 1868 83
To Josephine Sophie White Griffing, September 27, 1868 85
Proceedings of the American Equal Rights Association Convention, New York
City, May 12, 1869 86
The Woman Question, The New Era, May 12, 1870 90
Woman Suffrage Movement, The New National Era, October 20, 1870 92
Woman and the Ballot, The New National Era, October 27, 1870 95
A Union of Hearts, The New National Era, November 24, 1870 99
The Constitution the Title Deed to Woman's Franchise, The New National Era,
September 2\, 1871 100
Woman Suffrage in Austria, The New National Era, December 7, 1871 101
The Woman's Rights Convention, The New National Era, January 23, 1873 102
A Woman Assistant Editor, The New National Era, May 14, 1874 103
Why I Became A 'Woman's Rights Man," 1881 105
To L. M. Saunders, 1885 107
The Woman's Suffrage Movement. Address before Woman Suffrage
Association, April 1888 109
Emancipation of Women. Speech at the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the
New England Woman Suffrage Association, Boston, May 28, 1888 116
Address before Woman Suffrage Convention (undated) 124
Woman Suffrage Movement. Address before Bethel Literary Society
(undated) 125
Address to Members of Women's League (undated) 128
Woman Suffrage (undated) 131
NOTES 147
2. TRIBUTES TO WOMEN 156
A Gallery of Anti-Slavery Women 156
Harriet Tubman 159
Myrtilla Miner 160
Ida B. Wells 162
Elizabeth Cady Stanton 163
The Merits of Lucy Stone 164
NOTES 167
APPENDIX: TWO BLACK WOMEN DISCUSS FREDERICK DOUGLASS AS A
CHAMPION OF THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT 171
Mrs. Rosa H. Hazel at Douglass Memorial Meeting, St. Paul, Minnesota 171
Frederick Douglass by Mary Church Terrell 175
NOTES 182
PREFACE
In their long, continuing struggle for equality, American women have
had to rely primarily on their own resources. This is not to say,
however, that men have not helped advance their cause. Throughout
our history they have had the vigorous support of a group of men
who lent their names and voices to the woman's movement in the
face of ridicule and even violence. William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore
Parker, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Frederick
Douglass, William Henry Channing, Henry Ward Beecner, Charles
Lenox Remond, Henry B. Stanton, and Parker Pillsbury were among
those active in the early woman's movement. According to woman's
own testimony, foremost among them was Frederick Douglass. For
when the American women who led the early movement were asked
later in their lives to suggest the names of men who should be placed
on an honor roll of male supporters, the list was invariably headed
by this man who, having been born a slave in Maryland, had known
oppression first-hand. "He was the only man I ever saw who under
stood the degradation of the disfranchisement of women," said
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the pioneer of the American woman's
rights movement. On July 25, 1919, the Atlanta Constitution re
ported that in opposing the Georgia legislature's ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment granting woman suffrage, white suprema
cist representative J. B. Jackson climaxed his argument with the
statement: "Frederick Douglass is the father and Susan B. Anthony,
who received the Negro in her home, is the mother of this amendment!"
The writings and speeches of Frederick Douglass collected in this
volume provide ample explanation of both the choice of names and
the racist attack. Since suffrage was the major, though not the sole,
concern of the nineteenth-century woman's rights movement, it is
not surprising that Douglass frequently dealt with the issue of votes
