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.
Fascism. It is a term widely used but hardly understood.
Are you aware of the history and philosophy surrounding this term? Can you define it?
When these questions arise, men like Benito Mussolini are often accredited with the philosophy of fascism, and words such as “authoritarianism” and “right-wing extremism” are frequently given as synonyms. Armed with these ambiguous and frightening words as arrows in their quiver, left-wing politicians commonly use the word fascism to attack their right-wing opponents. We are all familiar with CNN anchors referring to Donald Trump as a right-wing, MAGA fascist.
Where did this term originate? Is fascism really right-wing extremism? Are there fascists in America today?
By exploring each of these questions, we will come across three misconceptions of fascism that have distorted our understanding of this powerful word.
These misconceptions are:
Benito Mussolini founded fascism.
Fascism is a radical right-wing ideology.
The modern Left is anti-fascist.
Misconception One: Mussolini and Fascism
Contrary to popular belief, Benito Mussolini was not the founder of fascism. Instead, he explicitly recognized the real founder of fascism as Giovanni Gentile, and gave him the title, “The philosopher of Fascism.”
Gentile lived from 1875 to 1944 and was an extremely prominent Italian philosopher, politician, and educator. He established the idea of fascism, and with his ideology, he paved the way for the dictatorship of Mussolini, which lasted from 1922 to 1943.
Gentile, like Marx, sought to create a form of government that resembles the family unit. What would this look like exactly? Well—if you think of the family unit, who is the head of the household? Traditionally, it is the father. And what is the role of the father? It is to provide for and to protect his family.
Likewise, Gentile ordered his fascist ideology in such a way that the government would be the father of civilization—its sole provider and protector. With this structure, personal responsibility and individual liberty, which Gentile condemned as “selfish,” are thrown out the window and replaced by slothful dependence and security through submission to Father Government. It is obvious why authoritarianism is so closely attributed to fascism; they have many similarities. Now that we understand Gentile’s philosophical intention, we can define his term.
Fascism is a political movement that seeks to establish an authoritarian system of government that resembles the family unit.
There is one final fact about Gentile that must be understood to have a well-rounded understanding of his philosophy of fascism. That is—Gentile was a Leftist. This may come as a shock because fascism has been attributed to the right for many decades, but when we consider the philosophy of fascism in relation to the modern right and left, it begins to make sense.
Misconception Two: Fascism and the Right
As I said before, fascism has been viewed as the end game of radical right-wing politics for many decades. Republican politicians have seemed to accept this abuse of language and have allowed it to continue all these years.
However, a brief comparison of conservatism and fascism will expose the ridiculous claim that fascism is rooted in the right. Allow me to ask this simple question: Do conservatives want big government? The answer is an obvious and resounding no.
If there is one thing that has not changed in the Republican party, it is the desire for small government. To claim otherwise is folly.
Additionally, what true conservative wants to surrender personal responsibility and individual liberty to Father Government? The answer is none.
For fascism to work at all, liberty and responsibility must be discarded and replaced by a far-reaching, powerful, all-consuming government that rules its complacent society with an iron fist. That is what happened in Italy under Mussolini’s fascist reign, and that is precisely what conservatives are actively fighting against.
Misconception Three: The Left and Modern-Day Fascists
So, if Republicans are not undercover fascist dictators, are there fascists in America at all?
I am not here to make the argument that all leftist politicians and Democrat voters are fascists. Because that is not the case, however, there are clear-cut agreements between the two political movements that we must acknowledge.
“At the 1984 convention of the Democratic Party, the governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, likened America to an extended family where, through the government, people all take care of each other.”
They continue bysaying,
“Nothing has changed. Thirty years later, a slogan of the 2012 Democratic Party convention was, ‘The government is the only thing we all belong to.’ They might as well have been quoting Gentile.”
The left has taken Gentile’s idea of collectivism under Father Government and applied it to their political philosophy. We must be aware of the left’s implementation of this core fascist ideal in its policies and plans for our country.
Fascist Philosophy Embedded in Leftist Policies
Just to name a few, the Welfare system has resulted in a complete dependence upon the government by large swaths of the American public. In addition, the left’s movement to ban assault rifles would instantly create a total dependence on Father Government for protection. These two examples prove that the left is furthering our dependence on the government for provision and protection; Gentile would be proud.
The most glaring example, however, of fascist philosophy embedded in leftist policies was the effort by Democratic politicians to instate federal mask and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would have exponentially multiplied the scope and influence of the state and greatly increased our submission to it in the name of security. Gentile’s philosophy continues infiltrating institutions today, such as education and healthcare, through Democratic policies.
It is abundantly clear that there are extreme misconceptions surrounding the term and ideology of fascism. Thankfully, we can know the facts behind the philosophy. With a newfound clarity of the origin and political affiliation of fascism, we must now boldly oppose all efforts to instate Father Government in our fascist-free country.
You can read other articles written by Elise here.
Elise DeYoung is a PR & Communications Associate as well as 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!
James Madison embedded the freedom of speech in American society when he penned the Bill of Rights in 1791.
The free speech clause in the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech or the press.” Abridging can be understood simply as “to impose a restriction on.” If I may be so bold as to reconfigure Madison’s words, he wrote, “Congress shall make no law… that imposes a restriction on freedom of speech or the press.” It is abundantly clear that the right to freedom of speech is absolute. The government may apply no restrictions on speech without violating the First Amendment.
How was this right exercised by the early Americans?
Historically, before the internet and social media, even before mass-produced papers and articles, the public square was represented by a physical space where citizens would gather to reason with one another. It was a place of persuasion. The idea was that you would come with your belief, and I would come with mine, and we would discuss and debate our differences until the best idea won.
Consider the masterful debates between “Honest Abe” and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. These debates would gather large crowds who would eagerly attend the speeches that were known to span three or four hours.
Why?
The answer is that Americans loved and respected their public square. They yearned for truth and wanted their views to be challenged and improved. This era embodied Romans 12:2 (ESV) when it says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Of course, this does not represent every individual; there are always those who are too proud to listen. But this accurately represents the posture of the 19th-century American mind.
In short, freedom of speech is the right of an American to express any idea or belief without imposition from the government; the public square is where this right is exercised freely.
With these definitions in mind, we can now examine our modern day.
The Modern Public Square
In 2017, the Supreme Court made the case in Packingham v. North Carolina that “social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are now the “town squares” of America where the right of freedom of speech is exercised.” They officially titled this phenomenon the “modern public square.”
I believe you would agree with me when I say that today, our modern public square has regressed far from its original model. Rather than hosting serious, intellectual, and reasonable discussions, social media has become a war zone that wields mockery, foolishness, and manipulation as its weapons.
In recent decades, the term “hate speech” has gained traction among Americans as we label opposing perspectives as dangerous, violent, or harmful. Terms like misogynistic, homophobic, or transphobic rhetoric (I am probably missing a “phobic”) and ultra-MAGA speech have been thrown around on platforms like X and TikTok to describe speech that disagrees with a mainstream position on culture, politics, or religion.
These developments have profound implications because freedom of speech cannot flourish in a public square where people are shamed and mocked for speaking. So, we must ask ourselves: how can we change the status quo?
The Solution
I believe the solution is Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Freedom of speech is essential because it ensures that language, thought, and expression cannot be controlled by and conform to the ruling power of this world.
Today, the world is racing towards mass control and conformity to a specific set of ideas and beliefs. They are achieving their objective by silencing and shaming specific speech before the debate has even begun. Thankfully, Romans 12:2 gives us two ways to fight against conformity to the world.
The Romans 12: Strategy
First, renew your mind. One of the reasons why our modern public square is suffering is because ignorance has taken over the conversation. Ignorance of history, logic, and truth have all blended to confuse and anger both sides of the debate. We need well-educated individuals to enter into places of confusion to provide clarity and understanding. And this begins with you and me. By educating ourselves on the topics of the day, we will know the truth more fully and be prepared when our positions are challenged.
Second, discern the truth through testing. Another reason why our public square is in disarray is that we have forgotten how to test ideas through debate. Our public square echoes with the screaming of political slogans, but this is not a debate. These statements are only childish expressions of emotional opinions. If we wish for productive conversations to flourish once more, we must learn to discern ideas and put them to the test together. When we allow the opposing argument to confront our ideas, we will grow in both humility of mind and wisdom in opinion. Without this vital testing process, how can we arrive at the truth?
The right to freedom of speech has been the bedrock of American society since our founding, and it must remain the bedrock of our modern public square today. So, let us learn to converse with one another, and may the best idea win.
Elise DeYoung is a Public Relations and Communications Associate and aClassical Conversationsgraduate. 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!
