The most noteworthy of the early conventions were those held in Massachusetts, in which such men as Garrison, Phillips, Channing, Parker, and Emerson took part.  It was one of these that first attracted the attention of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, and drew from her pen that able article on “The Enfranchisement of Woman,” in the Westminster Review of October, 1852.

The same year of the convention, the Married Woman’s Property Bill, which had given rise to some discussion on woman’s rights in New York, had passed the legislature.  This encouraged action on the part of women, as the reflection naturally arose that, if the men who make the laws were ready for some onward step, surely the women themselves should express some interest in the legislation.  Ernestine L. Rose, Paulina Wright (Davis), and I had spoken before committees of the legislature years before, demanding equal property rights for women.  We had circulated petitions for the Married Woman’s Property Bill for many years, and so also had the leaders of the Dutch aristocracy, who desired to see their life-long accumulations descend to their daughters and grandchildren rather than pass into the hands of dissipated, thriftless sons-in-law.  Judge Hertell, Judge Fine, and Mr. Geddes of Syracuse prepared and championed the several bills, at different times, before the legislature.  Hence the demands made in the convention were not entirely new to the reading and thinking public of New York—­the first State to take any action on the question.  As New York was the first State to put the word “male” in her constitution in 1778, it was fitting that she should be first in more liberal legislation.  The effect of the convention on my own mind was most salutary.  The discussions had cleared my ideas as to the primal steps to be taken for woman’s enfranchisement, and the opportunity of expressing myself fully and freely on a subject I felt so deeply about was a great relief.  I think all women who attended the convention felt better for the statement of their wrongs, believing that the first step had been taken to right them.

Soon after this I was invited to speak at several points in the neighborhood.  One night, in the Quaker Meeting House at Farmington, I invited, as usual, discussion and questions when I had finished.  We all waited in silence for a long time; at length a middle-aged man, with a broad-brimmed hat, arose and responded in a sing-song tone:  “All I have to say is, if a hen can crow, let her crow,” emphasizing “crow” with an upward inflection on several notes of the gamut.  The meeting adjourned with mingled feelings of surprise and merriment.  I confess that I felt somewhat chagrined in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments so summarily disposed of, and the serious impression I had made on the audience so speedily dissipated.  The good man intended no disrespect, as he told me afterward.  He simply put the whole argument in a nutshell:  “Let a woman do whatever she can.”