Mott was born on the island of Nantucket in 1793. She was a Quaker and from this religion she formed various strong beliefs for the rights of women and also for the abolition of slavery. Mott was a school teacher and she realized then how women were not treated equally. She got paid only half the wages the male teachers were paid (http://www.npg.si.edu/col/spot/women.htm). This event in her life made her realize even more that women deserved every right that men did. Therefore, she wrote passionately about the wrongs of slavery and the rights of women. She hoped that she and other women would make a difference, and they did.
For more information about Mott's biography go to the following websites:
http://www.npg.si.edu/col/spot/women.htm
http://www.quaker.org/mott
Mott's Speeches
Likeness to Christ
This speech took place at Cherry Street Meeting in Philadelphia on September 30, 1849. This speech reflects her views according to her Quaker background. In my opinion, it is a landmark speech and represented her driving force of two causes which were the abolition of slavery and women's movement for equal rights.
It is time that Christians were judged more by their likeness to Christ than their notions of Christ. Were this sentiment generally admitted we should not see such tenacious adherence to what men deem the opinions and doctrines of Christ while at the same time in every day practice is exhibited anything but a likeness to Christ. My reflections in this meeting have been upon the origin, parentage, and character of Jesus (Greene 107).Let us not hesitate to regard the utterance of truth in our age, as of equal value with that which is recorded in the scriptures. None can revere more than I do, the truths of the Bible. I have read it perhaps as much as any one present, and, I trust, with profit. It has at times been more to me than my daily food (Greene 111).
The Laws In Relation To Women
This speech took place on October 5-7, 1853 in Cleveland Ohio. She spoke to the National Women's Rights Convention.
When woman shall be properly trained, and her spiritual powers developed, she will find in entering the marriage union nothing necessarily degrading to her. The independence of the husband and wife should be equal, and the dependence reciprocal. But Oh! how different now! Why the barbarous ages are now! Even now, she may be yoked with the beasts of the burden in the field. In France, she loads herself most heavily with the baggage of passengers. The Irishwoman now goes about barefoot, the husband with shoes and stockings;-she with her child in her arms, he carrying nothing (Greene 219).
I Am No Advocate of Passivity
This speech was very short in comparison to her other lengthy speeches. This took place on October 25-26, 1860 at the meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.
I am no advocate of passivity. Quakerism, as I under- stand it, does not mean quietism. The early Friends were agitators;disturbers of the peace; and were more obnoxious in their day to charges which are now so freely made than we are(Greene 261).
No Greater Joy Than To See These Children Walking In The Anti-Slavery Path
This speech took place on December 3-4, 1863 in Philadelphia. Mott spoke to the American Anti-Slavery Society.
We might, as women, dwell somewhat upon our own restrictions, as connected with this Anti- Slavery movement. When persons interested in the cause were invited to send delegates to the London Convention of 1840, and some of those delegates were women, it was found out in time for them to send forth a note declaring that women were not included in the term "persons," but only men; and therefore, when we arrived in London, we were excluded from the platform. Yet, let me say, in justice to the Abolitionists there, that we were treated with all courtesy, and with a good deal of flattery in lieu of our rights. But all those things we may pass by (Greene 264)Some of us women can perhaps more fully sympathize with the slave, because the prejudice against him is somewhat akin to that against our sex; and we ought to have been more faithful than we have been so that when we hear the words applied to us, "Come, ye blessed of my Father," we might be ready to ask, "When saw we thee ahungered, or athirst, or in prison, and ministered unto thee?" (Greene 265).
This speech took place on May 9-10, 1867 in New York . She was speaking to the American Equal Rights Association. In this speech, she makes a comparison between women and slaves. Both groups wanted freedom. The slaves wanted to be permitted to be released from a bondage of terror and hate. They wanted to stop being beaten and treated subhuman. They wanted to have all the rights that the white man had. Women also wanted freedom to be able to vote and have equal rights as the white man.
The argument that has been made that women do not want to vote is like that which we had to meet in the early days of the Anti-Slavery enterprise that the slaves did not want to be free. I remember that in one of our earliest Woman's Rights Conventions, in Syracuse, the reply was made to this argument, that woman was not much to be blamed, because the power of the government and of the church, what was vested in man by the laws, made it impossible for woman to rise, just as it was impossible for the slave to rise while the chains were around him, and while the slaveholder's foot was upon his neck (Greene 287)The objection has been made to me- "Here you assume equality and independence. Now, I feel dependent on my husband for everything." Women in our Society do not feel dependent for anything. They are independent themselves; and in the true relation of marriage the husband and wife will be equal. Let woman be properly educated: let her physically, intellectually and morally be properly developed; and then, in the marriage relation, in spite of law and custom and religious errors, the independence of the husband and wife will be equal (Greene 289-90).
Place Women In Equal Power
Place women in equal power, and you will find her capable of not abusing it: give her the elective franchise, and there will be unseen, yet a deep and universal movement of the people to elect into office only those who are pure in intention and honest in sentiment! Give her the privilege to cooperate in making the laws she submits to, and there will be harmony without severity and justice without oppression. Make her, if married, a living being in the eye of the law-she will not assume beyond duty; give her rights of property and you may justly tax her patrimony as the result of her wages. Open to her your colleges- your legislative, your municipal, your domestic laws will be purified and ennobled. Forbid her not, and she will use moderation (Greene 393).
Bibliography
Greene, Dana. Lucretia Mott: Her Complete Speeches and Sermons. The Edwin Mellen Press, New York and Toronto, 1980.
Pattie Park, pip1980 @uncwil.edu