comprised a large portion of the delegates and threatened to withdraw
if the women were admitted. Their action had alarmed the other
delegates, who feared a disturbance in the convention, and they had
requested Mr. May, as probably having the most influence, to call upon
the ladies and urge them not to ask for recognition. When they told him
they should go to the meeting and present their credentials, he
expressed great satisfaction and said that was just the decision he had
hoped they would make. They quietly entered the hall and took seats
with other ladies at one side of the platform. Immediately Rev.
Mandeville, of Albany, turned his chair around with back to the
audience and, facing them, attempted to stare them out of countenance.
William H. Burleigh, secretary, read the annual report, which closed,
"We hail the formation of the Woman's State Temperance Society as a
valuable auxiliary." This precipitated the discussion. Rev. Mandeville
sprung to his feet and moved to strike out the last sentence. His
speech was filled with such venom and vulgarity as the foulest-mouthed
politician would hesitate to utter. He denounced the Woman's State
Temperance Society and all women publicly engaged in temperance work,
declared the women delegates to be "a hybrid species, half man and half
woman, belonging to neither sex," and announced finally that if this
sentence were not struck out he would dissolve his connection with the
society.
A heated debate followed. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered an amendment
recognizing "the right of women to work in their proper sphere--the
domestic circle." Rev. May, of the Unitarian church, Rev. Luther Lee,
of the Wesleyan Methodist, Hon. A.N. Cole, a leading Whig politician,
and several others, defended the rights of the women in the most
eloquent manner, but were howled down. Miss Anthony made only one
attempt to speak and that was to remind them that over 100,000 of the
signers to a petition for a Maine Law, the previous winter, were women,
but her voice was drowned by Rev. Fowler, of Utica, shouting, "Order!
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