Adapted from Resilience on Parade: Short Stories of Suffragists and Women’s Battle for the Vote.
February 12, 2024, was Abraham Lincoln’s 215th birthday. Although I’ve not written a book featuring Lincoln in the leading role, I have touched on his story through the stories of others, including the excerpt below.
In 2020, I released a book on women’s right to vote for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. InResilience on Parade, I shared the stories of several suffragists, such as Abigail Adams in 1776 and Susan B. Anthony in the 1800s. Below is a portion of the chapter on Sojourner Truth. Although the book covers her emancipation from slavery, this excerpt starts with her famous suffrage speech and ends with her meeting with Abraham Lincoln. Enjoy!
The fifty-four-year-old black woman, who often wore a turban woven with brightly colored threads, entered the convention in Akron, Ohio, that spring day in May 1851. Isabella Van Wagener no longer existed.
When she left her former master’s house of bondage, she left everything behind. Years later, she went to the Lord and asked Him to give her a new name after her conversion to Christianity in 1848. The Lord gave her Sojourner, because she was to travel up and down the land to show the people the sin of slavery and to be a sign unto them. Later, she wanted a last name, because everyone had two names, and God gave her Truth because she was to proclaim truth to the people.
As the attendees of the women’s rights conference in Akron on May 29, 1851, would soon discover, Sojourner Truth may have entered that conference known as an abolitionist, but she left it known by another name, too—suffragist.
“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter,” she began, saying that she was an example of women’s rights.
“I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?” Indeed, as her autobiography declared, she’d endured the toil of slavery and had the lashes to prove it.
“I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.
“As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full?” Her pint had recently been full. This woman who could not read had become a published author the previous year. How was that possible?
She’d shared with abolitionist Oliver Gilbert her story of perseverance and how she’d transformed from a slave into a free person, and he had written it down and published it. Called Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth, her story shed light on the cruelties of slavery and launched her into the role of an activist. It was time to stand up for African women.
“You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do,” she continued.
“Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble,” she said in her own version of remember the ladies.
“I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again,” Sojourner proclaimed, turning her talk into a mini sermon of sorts.
“The lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept—and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him.”
Then she ended with a zinger, recognizing the dual reform movements facing the nation: abolition and women’s rights. She represented both.
“Man, where is your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between-a hawk and a buzzard.”
The most memorable speech of that convention, her remarks as presented here were published a few weeks after her speech by Marius Robinson in the Anti‐Slavery Bugle of New Lisbon, Ohio, on June 21, 1851. The event’s organizer, Frances Dana Gage, published another version in 1863 in the New York Independent. Hailed by suffragists, it was branded as Ar’n’t I a Woman? The accuracy of Gage’s version is doubtful because it was published twelve years after she first delivered it. Regardless, the speech brought Sojourner notoriety.
Around this time, Sojourner traveled to Massachusetts, where she met Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose book Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the Common Sense of the Civil War. Harriet wrote about their meeting in the Atlanta Monthly.
Sojourner believed that if God could help her do such big things as speaking at the women’s conference or meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, then he would help her meet the man she most wanted to meet in the world. Heaven’s Great Emancipator would help her meet the emancipator of her people.
In October 1864, Truth’s ultimate sojourn led her to the great white house where he lived. As she stared at the pillars flanking the president’s house, her mind may have flashed back to the island of the willow trees, her kneeling pillars of prayer under the stars above. She had never seen such a grand house before, whose columns reached to the sky as if to proclaim something special, such as justice or freedom. Then she walked into the house as freely as anyone else.
A dozen or so guests waited in the president’s reception area. Sojourner noticed that two of the women were also black. A gentleman escorted the guests one by one to the president, who was seated in an adjacent room. One observation made her smile.
He showed as much kindness and consideration to the colored persons as to the whites, in her opinion. It was hard to hold back a tear or two. If there was any difference, he showed more pleasantries to the emancipated. Then her moment came. The gentlemen escorted her to the president’s desk.
“This is Sojourner Truth, who has come all the way from Michigan to see you,” the host said, introducing her to the president.
Abraham Lincoln stood, extending his hand to her. She responded by taking his hand and shaking it. Then he bowed.
“I am pleased to see you,” he said.
As many people did before meeting a president, she had rehearsed a thousand times what she planned to say.
“Mr. President, when you first took your seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into the lions’ den. And if the lions did not tear you into pieces, I knew that it would be God that had saved you; and I said if He spared me I would see you before the four years expired, and He has done so, and now I am here to see you for myself.”
Tapping his wit, Lincoln congratulated her on being spared.
“I appreciate you, for you are the best president who has ever taken the seat.”
Lincoln paused, perhaps crossing his long arms as if thinking.
“I expect you have reference to my having emancipated the slaves in my proclamation,” he said, naming many of his predecessors, especially Washington. “They were all just as good, and would have done just as I have done if the time had come,” he said, pausing again.
“If the people over the river,” he said, pointing across the Potomac, “had behaved themselves, I could not have done which gave me the opportunity to do these things.”
“I thank God that you were the instrument selected by Him and the people to do it,” Sojourner replied, acknowledging that she hadn’t heard of him before he became president. He upped the compliment, noting that he’d heard of her many times before.
Lincoln then turned toward his desk, sat down, and picked up a large elegant book. He told her it had been given to him by the colored people of Baltimore.
Sojourner was speechless as she stared at the Bible. She glanced at the president. He nodded, as if giving her permission to open it and look through it.
“This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book. And for what? Let them answer who can.”
Then Sojourner pulled a small book from her skirt pocket and handed it to the president.
He picked up a pen from his desk and wrote, “For Aunty Sojourner Truth, Oct. 29, 1864. A. Lincoln.”
Lincoln stood and took her hand with his large bony hand, the same one that had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. He told her he would be pleased to have her call upon him again.
Sojourner smiled. As she exited through the door and passed through the pillars of the president’s house, she wanted to shout to God and thank him for Abraham Lincoln, but she didn’t have to shout to be heard by the Almighty anymore. God knew her heart.
“I felt that I was in the presence of a friend, and I now thank God from the bottom of my heart that I always have advocated his cause, and have done it openly and boldly. I shall feel still more in duty bound to do so in time to come. May God assist me.”
Now more than ever, she would advocate for her people, her now free people. She longed to return home, to make Michigan a place where the emancipated could come and pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Perhaps one day she could vote. As she began her journey home, she believed that the Greatest Emancipator would help her.
Jane Hampton Cook is the author of 10 books, a frequent guest in the national news media, a screenwriter, a former White House staffer, and a former Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission Consultant.
“What began as a movement with the principled intention of equality for women has turned into an abstract ideology that is seeking to overthrow all traditional structures under the guise of women empowerment.”
I wrote this over a year ago for a thesis project, which I titled “Behind the Veil of Feminism.” My goal for the assignment was to look beyond the boss babe propaganda and the gender pay gap debate to answer the deeper question, “What is the ideology of feminism?”
After researching its ideology and those who have historically promoted it, I firmly concluded, and still believe, that feminism is, in fact, “an abstract ideology that is seeking to overthrow all traditional structures under the guise of women empowerment.”
However, I excused first-wave feminism, arguing that feminism fell short of its original, righteous design during the third and fourth waves. It wasn’t until recently when I revisited the first wave, that I became convinced that feminism has never been “a movement with principled intentions.”
Feminism, from its conception, has always been a dangerous ideology, designed to destroy all traditional structures and ways of life.
The Origin of Feminism
The ideology of feminism was born out of the minds of women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These women were discontented with the status of women in 19th century America. They worked to revolutionize the relationship between women and the broader society.
The movement was officially conceived in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention with the signing of the Declaration of Sentiments. The first wave ended in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
This period of feminism is largely looked upon with approval by both conservatives and progressives because it resulted in a woman’s right to vote, which in turn led to educational, vocational, and political equality between the sexes. Surely, with these results, we must conclude that first-wave feminism was principled and beneficial. Before we come to this conclusion, we must challenge ourselves with the question, why didn’t feminism dissolve after these political wins? Why have we continued to see a second, third, and fourth wave (each more radical than the last)?
Because the feminist mission was not complete after the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The amendment was only a means to an end to the early feminists. So, what then, is their end? Thankfully, we do not have to ponder this question long because the early feminists clearly laid out their radical intentions in the Declaration of Sentiments. After examining exactly what the first feminists wrote, I believe it will become clear that the end of feminism has always been social revolution through the reproach and replacement of men and the rejection of the family.
Social Revolution
Leftist movements always have a shared value of revolution. Whether it is climate change, critical race theory, or the LGBTQIA+ movement, all progressive movements call for the dismantling of the past to prepare for the restructuring of the future. Feminism is no exception to this rule.
In the Declaration of Sentiments, Elizabeth Stanton makes the case that in order for women to have the rights they deserve and the positions in society that they desire, a political and social revolution is required. Stanton writes that such a revolution “Has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.”
Stanton wrote revolution into the fabric of feminism. The ideology itself demands the overthrowing of systems, ideas, and traditions which constrain it. Revolution—the foundation of the philosophy—has manifested itself largely in feminism’s insistence on the reproach and replacement of men in society and the rejection of marriage.
All progressive movements call for the dismantling of the past to prepare for the restructuring of the future.
The Reproach and Replacement of Men
We are never surprised today when we hear feminists complaining about the so-called “patriarchy” and expressing their disdain for men. However, this argument has been made since the founding of the ideology.
Stanton wrote, “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” She continues by saying, “He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”
The brash claim that all men have “an absolute tyranny” over all women is not new. From the beginning, feminists have implanted a disdain for men into their followers. They have done this largely by convincing women of a long list of grievances that men have committed against them. Stanton included such a list in her declaration and used it to justify the destructive nature of the ideology of feminism against men. In short, she argued that men have conducted the government, conditioned society, and instituted religion in order to oppress women. You may be more familiar with this concept as it is known today—the patriarchy.
The feminist solution to this alleged problem is for women to stand up and overthrow men’s tyranny over them. Or as we hear it today, “women need to be empowered to rise up and overthrow the patriarchy.” The effects of this thinking have been women replacing men in almost all spheres of life. Husbands and fathers have been replaced by single mothers or unconventional family units, the universities have been dominated by women, the military has manipulated its standards to uphold women over men, and the workplace has been radically reworked to value women workers over men. The list goes on.
Whether you support these social trends is irrelevant. The fact that cannot be denied is we are seeing the replacement of men in society, and this is all by the first feminists’ design.
The Rejection of Marriage
The most destructive war that feminism has waged since its founding is the war against the traditional family. Some may be tempted to believe that the feminist attack on the family began in 1963 when Betty Friedan published her book Feminine Mystique. In it, Friedan argued that the station of a wife and homemaker is equivalent to that of a slave—where the home is a prison, children the chains, and the husband the jailer. Sadly, this flawed thinking dates back much farther than the 20th century.
The most destructive war that feminism has waged since its founding is the war against the traditional family.
The Declaration of Sentiments reads, “In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.” From its beginning, feminism has ruthlessly attacked the institution of marriage by degrading and misrepresenting it.
Not only this, but the early feminists have always fought to loosen divorce laws to favor wives over their husbands. “He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; …the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.”
A world in which men “lose” and women “win” in a divorce was the world that the early feminists were seeking to create. Thanks to legislation like no-fault divorce, we are living in the first feminists’ imagined utopia where marriage vows are easily broken, and families are routinely torn apart.
The Results of Feminism
Feminism is arguably one of the most powerful leftist movements in history. This is partially because it has had over two centuries to do its damage and also because it has wrongly been accepted as a societal good.
Feminism is arguably one of the most powerful leftist movements in history.
Whether you consider the decline of masculinity, the rise of “boss babe” culture, the acceptance of abortion as a “Constitutional right”, the rejection of marriage, and the rise of divorce—it cannot be denied that we live in a society today that has been gravely affected by the ideology of feminism.
While we cannot attribute all these civil illnesses to feminism alone, we must recognize that this was the future that the first feminists envisioned. Elizabeth Stanton closes her feminist declaration with the words, “We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.”
Congratulations, Elizabeth, you got your wish.
It should not surprise us when we see modern feminism bent on destruction. The first feminists planted these seeds of destruction and revolution from the beginning. They only needed time to grow.
We need to stop excusing first-wave feminism as a “principled movement” because once we accept that premise, we lose the fight. Feminism has always used corruption and destruction as its means to its end—and that end has always been a revolution of society, the reproach and replacement of men, and the rejection of marriage.
Elise DeYoung is a Public Relations and Communications Associate and a Classical Conversations® graduate. With CC, she strives to know God and make Him known in all aspects of her life. She is a servant of Christ, an avid reader, and a professional nap-taker. As she continues her journey towards the Celestial City, she is determined to gain wisdom and understanding wherever it can be found. Soli Deo gloria!
