NAWSA Gen. Corresp. Wright, Henry C. Boston July. 15, 1854 Dear Lucy- I wrote you a line saying I could spend Sunday the 23, in Gardner. I think now I shall come there on Thursday or Friday, & rest till Tuesday unless meetings are appointed for me in Gardner or vicinity I shall be at leisure. Could not a meeting be held there Saturday or Monday night to consider what this state can do to protect her citizens against kidnappers.? This comes to say if you have not written to me in Boston to reach me Monday here - Direct a word to me care of Mrs. Ann Bigelow Concord Mass. as shall be there Monday [*Henry C. Wright 1854*] [nig] night - 17th still Wednsday the 19th. Thursday I may go to the Mass. meeting in Worcester. I greatly desire to see how Politicions are to manage their land in these Times of Trial. God bless you - dear Lucy, & give you [stright] strength to body & soul to do all your large heart prompts you to do. Henry C. Wright Lucy Stone [*Henry C. Wright*] Boston July 13, '56 Lucy - Mine - the "wee un" come into my hands last night. I had great times at Pepperell - but could not come to Gardner. I bespoke a horse & buggy to come & spend one night with you + your friends - but - found it too far to drive a horse in a hot day - as I was to be in 6. Tuesday night. I go to Houghton on Saturday to be there next week & in vicinity Sundy the 23rd - I think I can be in Gardner. I'll let you know— in season by Middle of the week. Meantime—let me know by what train I can leave Boston on Saturday afternoon & reach Gardner by 7 or 8 o clock—& when I am to stop to get there. Direct to 21 [Cornhill]. Darling Lucy—you are dear to many hearts- that long & pray for poor. Humanity, [By?] none [is] are your Mission & your [pit??p] for it more appreciated than by myself. Have you a settled, definite End for which to live? Do you clearly see & comprehend the object of life? Is it definite? Do you see its depth & hight, its length & breadth? I feel that you do. Take care of your health—for the worlds sake & for the sake of all who love you. How can you live— dear Lucy—& not have some loved one to share all the wealth of heart, soul & sense you have to bestow? Would that your Entire being—your whole Wealth of Womanhood were shared by one who could share it, & who is worthy to share it. Deeply do I feel that such are none. But I cannot bear to think of traversing life's entire journey—Alone— & not one to share fully, & joyfully, the deep, deep treasures of your rich memory sound. Thus to know your being with another - where all is freely & gladly given, & freely & gladly received —would give to your life ten[d] the world brighter, richer [tirests?] , & a sweeter [??]. But—My God! Lucy— I'd rather see thee tread the journey alone—all alone - than to see thou victimized as most women are. Cry aloud & spare not -for the torment is great. But— I must see thee once more— if I can. Let me hear from thee —a word by Monday next— to know if thou art to be at home—on the 23d— Lucy Stone Henry C Wright [*1848*] Upton. Jan. 3. 1848 Dear Lucy- I received your note in Boston & sent it to its destination. We had a good time at our Non-Resistance meeting in Boston. Words were there spoken & things done which would have please you. It was a meeting of pure, devoted spirits. I love to mingle mine with theirs. Poor Abby Folsonie was among us & it grieved me to see her give such undoubted exhibitions of her insanity on certain points. Her heart seems kindly & benevolent, but her head is deranged. Garrison, Adin Ballou, Pilsbury, Wendall Phillips & others were among us. I wished that you could have been there to have added your testimony. I believe the principle of Self-Sacrifice & of Good for evil, love for hate - is the conservative principle of the Universe, & that evil for evil is the law of violence the principle of all confusion, anarchy & blood. I am weary of seeing Man sacrafised to institutions- to observances - to times & places - I am disgusted when I see professed Christians [*I will send you a Document which we are going to put forth on the Sabbath. I will send it from Blackstone on [?] Falls, if I can get one. I want you to see it & A. Walker & any others who wish.*] & Ministers spending their money, their zeal & influence to rescue a day, a ceremony, an office, a title - an institution from Desecration - but caring nothing to rescue Man from Desecration. When I go to a place to rescue a day from [the] desecration I am admitted to all the pulpits in the land - when I go to rescue [a] Man from the horrible pollutions of the Auction Block, the gallows or Battlefield - I am put out of churches & driven into Town Houses. Is not Town House Humanity-better than Meeting House Religion? Is it not more loving & kind - more Christlike, more good Samaritan [like] like? How deeply have I long felt the evils that grow out of popular notions that a human ceremony or Rite can add to or diminish from the obligations that grow out of our Relations to God & to one another! What is right or wrong previous to a human ceremony is right & wrong after it - & what is right or wrong after such ceremony is right or wrong before. No human ceremony, rite, oath, agreement, or contract can convert what was wrong into right, nor convert what was right into wrong. Our obligation, to speak the truth, & nothing but the truth, can never be increased by an oath administered by a judge or any human being - my obligation not to lie, not to steal, not to murder, not to commit adultery - not to [?], not to covet - can never be increased nor diminished by an oath, or agreement or compact. Our obligation to be pure, loving, & forgiving, can never be diminished by any ceremony, or contract whatever. You will say these admissions lead a great way - further, perhaps, than I am aware - but, lead where they may, I am prepare to abide by them. So tell me, dear L where you think they lead, if you thin do not see their end. I am as disgus as you are with the utterly corrupt state of Society. The principles of social & domestic life - that now underlie the Social structure are enough to convert this earth into a pandemonium. I wish I could have had more talks with you about Slavery, War, & other Social evils, & the means of regenerating the world. I know not when I shall see you again, but if your heart gets full of horror at the wrongs & outrages that are perpetrated around you, & you cannot find a betterment. Will you not write out what is in you - put all your Soul into a letter - or letters - & forward it to me to commune with. It would do me good, right have they to marry? Or if they do - What right have they to [propagate] have children & propagate their physical & mental diseases? What ought people to do? What can they do? When I think of these things - What a fearful [?] on my mind! I know God never made men & women to produce Monsters - of deformity in body or mind. Yet they do. & then blasphemously cast the blame upon God & talk of being submissive to His will! Oh, Lucy - I feel sad, & heart sick - when I think on these things, I can find none to whom I can utter the indignation & horror that are in me. I wrote to Maria to answer you. I hope she will & that you & she may hold [?] communication by letter, but I don't know what she will do 000333 & may do you good. I must stop short - I shall be at Vally Falls Rhode Island - Jan 11th, 12th, &13th. I am concerned to know about your health. You were far from well when I left you. I want you to live long in this world to help redeem it. Do let me know how you are - [Direct to the care of Samuel & Elizabeth Chace, Valley Falls R. I. Lucy Stone Care of Amora Walken North Brookfield Mass. H. C. Wright 1847-8 I shall be at James B. Whitcomb's, Brooklyn, Connecticut, Jan. 15 + 16. Saturday + Sunday - & a letter to his care would reach me there. Do send me your health if nothing more. I was at Uxbridge yesterday - to lecture here to night at Hopedale tomorrow night, at Milford next day. Jan. 5th at Mendon, Jan 6th at Uxbridge Jan 7th at Blackstone, Jan 8th & 9th with J. J Foster, + at Valley Falls, Jan. 11th, 12th, + 13th. Dear love to Amora Walken + family. H. C. Wright Lucy Stone. P. S. I read yours to Maria deeply interested in it. I ? that such things can be tolerated in the institutionary to the females ate Oberlin. I often have conversation with married men + women, on their responsibilities in giving existence to human beings that are deformed in body + mind. How few are sightly made. There lies as a general truth, that the entailing of distortion of soul + body is purely the work of parents. It is fearful to propagate such diseases + agonies of body, + much persuasion of mind. with propensities to many such obliquities of temper Evil tempered people, & discord in body, What (Reception to Frances Willard, Oct. 19, 1887.) (Notes by Lucy Stone of her speech) When the campaign for Equal Rights for women began, more than forty years ago, its solitary soldiers went out alone, strangers to each other. They had no commanding officer; there was no quartermaster; no one for picket duty; not even a corporal's guard. Their banner bore the one word "Equality." Their only equipment was boundless and unshaken faith in the justice of their cause. The press ridiculed them; the pulpit sent down its anath emas upon them; the mob assailed them. But not once did they lower their colors or rebate an atom from their demand for justice. The slow decades went by, and now the bugle notes come to us from millions who are in our ranks. Our guest this evening, Miss Willard is herself the leader of an army 200,000 strong. Everyone of them marshalled on the side of the battle for women. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, a host in herself, will, in behalf of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, welcomes Miss Willard. P.2 The Liberator - Aug 26 - 1853 - p 136 Notes By The Way. Brattleboro' Vt. Aug. 15, 1853 Dear Garrison. I arrived in this town today ---- The first thing that attracted attention, as I walked the streets, was a notice of a lecture on slavery, by Lucy Stone, in the Baptist Church. I am just returned to our rooms from that lecture. The room was full, though 12 1/2 cents were charged for admission. Her power over an audience it is easy to feel, but it is not possible to describe. Her subject was, the causes of the existence and perpetuity of slavery in this land - while it is being abolished, and slave holders are being is being abolished, and slaveholders are being lauded with infamy, amid the hardest despotisms of Europe. These causes were, first, the government; then, the religion of the country. She drew a true, a terribly true picture of the Whig, Democratic, and the Free Soil parties, showing most conclusively, that while they remain in political fellowship with slaveholders, they are powerless for good to the cause of freedom; that all their political reuconshauces and votes against slavery are utterly futile, while they consent to sit down with slave holders as legislators, judges, executives, on terms of perfect political equality. As well remonstrate and vote against piracy, and then hold fellowship with pirates as worthy co-partners in a political confederation. She demonstrated, to the head and heart of the audience, that the only ground from which slavery can be successfully assailed and overthrown, is outside the government. Then she took up the Church, and showed how her altars shaud in a sea of blood and tears - drawn by deep and unmitigated cruelty and injustice from three millions of slaves; showing that at the tribunal where the testimony of the imbruted slave will be Page 2 received, it will be more tolerable for the State than the Church. By the power and pathos of her thoughts and her tones, combined with her earnestness, simplicity and directness, she held the audience in breathless silence, while she gave utterance to the great anti-slavery watchword, "No union with Slaveholders!" I could not think there was a heart in the assembly which did not whisper, God bless her in her mission! And that prayer is answered. With true womanly grace and dignity she nobly bears aloft the standard so long and so nobly borne by Abby Kelley Foster. Such brave, true words as she has spoken to-night must be a savior of life unto life or of death unto death to this guilty land. ----- Henry C. Wright Henry C. Wright writes from Hartford to Lucy Stone. May 16, 1854: I received your note from Mt. Vernon. It was very grateful to my heart. I have already received quite a number of warm-hearted, approving letters touching that book, and some from furious - married women and mothers - from who I least expected them. If the developments in some of them be true - and I cannot doubt that they are - then indeed is legal marriage but another name for legalized rape and murder. It is horrible. God help you, dear Lucy, to stand before the world as Woman's Redeemer, and in redeeming her and restoring her to the absolute control of her own womanhood, you will do more to redeem Man than all the existing Religions of Mankind ever did, or can do. God is with thee in this work, and He will sustain thee by the Right Arm of his power, and no women found against thee can prosper. We missed you at N.Y. greatly. When your note was read to that great gathering, but one thought and feeling pervaded it - deep regret at your absence, and deep sympathy with you by reason of the cause of that absence; but Wendell most happily turned your absence into a vindication of women from the charge of neglecting domestic duties & relations to act as public lecturers. We had a grand time there. I am requested by a woman who deeply respects you, & whom you would as deeply respect & cherish did you but know her personally, if you would be willing to enter into the relation of a wife & mother, provided the man who sought to attract you into those relations embodied in your estimation the Ideal of a man & husband as delineated in Ernest, & you felt an assurance that he would actualize to you what Ernest idealizes to Nina? Are you free to answer this? Boston, July 15, 1854 Dear Lucy- I wrote you a line saying I could spend Sunday the 23, in Gardner. I think now I shall come there on Thursday or Friday, & rest until Tuesday - unless meetings are appointed for me in Gardner or vicinity I shall be at leisure. Could not a meeting be held there Saturday or Monday night to consider what this State can do to protect her citizens against kidnappers? This comes to say if you have not written to me in Boston to reach me Monday here. Direct a word to me care of Mrs. Ann Bigelow, Concord Mass., as I shall be there Monday night, 17th & till Wednesday the 19th. Thursday I may go to the Mass Meeting in Worcester. I greatly desire to see how politicians are to manage their card (?) in these times of trial! God bless you dear Lucy & give you strength to body &soul to do all your large heart prompts you to do. Henry C Wright. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.