I hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion.  It would be contrary to all parliamentary usage that when the speeches which advocated them are published in the proceedings, the resolutions should not be.  I wholly dissent from the point that this question does not belong on our platform.  Marriage has ever been a one-sided contract, resting most unequally upon the sexes.  Woman never has been consulted; her wish never has been taken into consideration as regards the terms of the marriage compact.  By law, public sentiment and religion, woman never has been thought of other than as a piece of property to be disposed of at the will and pleasure of man.  This very hour, by our statute books, by our so-called enlightened Christian civilization, she has no voice whatever in saying what shall be the basis of this relation.  She must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at all.

And then again, on Mr. Phillips’ own ground, the discussion is perfectly in order, since nearly all the wrongs of which we complain grow out of the inequality, the injustice of the marriage laws, that rob the wife of the right to herself and her children and make her the slave of the man she marries.  I hope, therefore, the resolutions will be allowed to go out to the public, that there may be a fair report of the ideas which actually have been presented here and that they may not be left to the mercy of the press.

Abby Hopper Gibbons supported Mr. Phillips, but Mr. Garrison favored the publication of the resolutions.  The motion to expunge them from the minutes was lost.

[Autograph: 

  Yours affectionately
  Ernestine L. Rose]

This discussion stirred the country from center to circumference, and all the prominent newspapers had editorials favoring one side or the other.  It produced the first unpleasantness in the ranks of those who had stood together for the past decade.  Greeley launched thunderbolts against the right of divorce under any circumstances, and Mrs. Stanton replied to him in his own paper.  Lucy Stone, who just before the convention had written to Mrs. Stanton, “That is a great, grand question, may God touch your lips,” now took sides with Phillips.  To Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony came letters from far and wide, both approving and condemning.  Mrs. William H. Seward and her sister, Mrs. Worden, wrote that it not only was a germane question to be discussed at the convention but that there could be no such thing as equal rights with the existing conditions of marriage and divorce.  From Lucretia Mott came the encouraging words:  “I was rejoiced to have such a defense of the resolutions as yours.  I have the fullest confidence in the united judgment of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony and I am glad they are so vigorous in the work.”  Parker Pillsbury sent a breezy note:  “What a pretty kettle of hot water you tumbled into at New York!  Your marriage and divorce speeches and resolutions you must have learned in the school of a Wollstonecraft or a Sophie Arnaut.  You broke the very heart of the portly Evening Post and nearly drove the Tribune to the grave.”