Margaret Fuller (Essay Date 1843)

SOURCE: Fuller, Margaret. "The Great Lawsuit." In Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism, edited by Dawn Keetley and John Pettegrew, pp. 187-90. Madison, Wisc.: Madison House, 1997.

In the following excerpt, from an essay which first appeared in The Dial in July, 1843, Fuller compares the status of women with the status of slaves and urges women to avoid letting love and marriage constitute their entire existence.

… Of all its banners, none has been more steadily upheld, and under none has more valor and willingness for real sacrifices been shown, than that of the champions of the enslaved African. And this band it is, which, partly in consequence of a natural following out of principles, partly because many women have been prominent in that cause, makes, just now, the warmest appeal in behalf of woman.

Though there has been a...