Hon. Gerrit Smith here made his first appearance upon the woman suffrage platform, although he had written many letters expressing sympathy and encouragement, and made a grand argument for woman’s equality.  He closed by saying:  “All rights are held by a precarious tenure if this one right to the ballot be denied.  When women are the constituents of men who make and administer the laws they will pay due consideration to woman’s interests, and not before.  The right of suffrage is the great right that guarantees all others.”  Here also was the first public appearance of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the youngest woman taking part in the convention, who read an excellent paper urging that daughters should be educated with sons, taught self-reliance and permitted some independent means of self-support.  A fine address also was made by Paulina Wright Davis, who had managed and presided over the two conventions held in 1850 and 1851 at Worcester, Mass.[14]

The queen of the platform at this time was Ernestine L. Rose, a Jewess who had fled from Poland to escape religious persecution.  She was beautiful and cultured, of liberal views and great oratorical powers.  Her lectures on “The Science of Government” had attracted wide attention.  Naturally, she took a prominent part in the early woman’s rights meetings.  On this occasion she presented and eloquently advocated the following resolution: 

We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of justice; for it is in accordance with the principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it; that as she is amenable to the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their enactment and to all the protective advantages they can bestow; that as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life, she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges.  Any difference, therefore, in political, civil and social rights, on account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.

During the debate Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, made a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called him to order.  As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked him off with cries of “Sit down!  Shut up!” His idea of woman’s modesty was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home.  Miss Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young ministers who had been educated through the efforts of women, and she had always noticed those were the ones most anxious for women to keep silence in the churches.  This finished Mr. Hatch.