Maria Weston Chapman

Maria Weston Chapman (July 25, 1806 – July 12, 1885) was an American abolitionist. She was elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 and from 1839 until 1842, she served as editor of the anti-slavery journal The Non-Resistant.

Let us rise in the moral power of womanhood; and give utterance to the voice of outraged mercy, and insulted justice, and eternal truth, and mighty love and holy freedom.

Quotes

• Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong:
  The women have leaped from "their spheres"
  And instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along,
  And are setting the world by the ears!
  • From "The Times That Try Men's Souls", as quoted in Squire, Belle (1911). The Woman Movement in America: A Short Account of the Struggle for Equal Rights. A. C. McClurg & Company. p. 71-2. 
• If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.
  • As a mob was poised to disrupt a meeting, as quoted in Maria Weston Chapman: American Abolitionist. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on 4 January 2019.
• Grudge no expense — yield to no opposition — forget fatigue — till, by the strength of prayer and sacrifice, the spirit of love have overcome.
  • In Liberator, August 13, 1836, as quoted in Thomsett, Michael C.; Thomsett, Linda Rose (17 March 2009). A Speaker's Treasury of Quotations: Maxims, Witticisms and Quips for Speeches and Presentations. McFarland. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-7864-2945-5. 
• Let us rise in the moral power of womanhood; and give utterance to the voice of outraged mercy, and insulted justice, and eternal truth, and mighty love and holy freedom.
  • From Boston Female Anti-slavery Society (1836). Annual Report of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. The Society. p. 30. , as quoted in Dell, Diana (December 2000). Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers of the Past. iUniverse. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-595-16230-7. 
• Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.
  • As quoted in McInerney, Daniel John (1994). The Fortunate Heirs of Freedom: Abolition & Republican Thought. U of Nebraska Press. p. 83-4. ISBN 0-8032-3172-5. 
• In a republican land the power behind the throne is the power. Save yourself the trouble of calling caucuses, printing party journals, distributing ballots, and the like. Let men who are fit for nothing of more consequence do this little work, which is best done by mere nobodies … Don’t drag the engine, like an ignoramus, but bring wood and water and flame, like an engineer.
  • As quoted in McInerney, Daniel John (1994). The Fortunate Heirs of Freedom: Abolition & Republican Thought. U of Nebraska Press. p. 96-7. ISBN 0-8032-3172-5. 

Quotes about Maria Weston Chapman

• The Female Anti-Slavery Society was the first national woman's rights organization in the United States. It was composed of Black and white women, and Black women made up a significant part of its leadership, notably in Boston and Philadelphia. Sara Parker Remond, Charlotte Forten, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Letetia Still, the Forten sisters (Margaretta, Harriet, and Sarah), among others, joined forces with white women such as Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelley Foster, and Maria Weston Chapman to organize the collective labors of the antislavery movement.
  • Bettina Aptheker Woman's Legacy: Essays on Race, Sex, and Class in American History (1982)

• Feminist writers, not trained historians, were the first to undertake a systematic attempt to approach the problem of women's role in American life and history. This took the form of feminist tracts, theoretical approaches, and compilations of woman's "contributions." The early compilers attacked the subject with a missionary zeal designed, above all, to right wrong. Their tendency was to praise anything women had done as a "contribution" and to include any women who had gained the slightest public attention in their numerous lists. Still, much positive work was done in simply recounting the history of the woman's rights movement and some of its forerunners and in discussing some of the women whose pioneering struggles opened opportunities to others. Feminist writers were hampered by a two-fold bias. First, they shared the middle-class, nativist, moralistic approach of the Progressives and tended to censure out of existence anyone who did not fit into this pattern. Thus we find that women like Frances Wright and Ernestine Rose received little attention because they were considered too radical. "Premature feminists" such as the Grimké sisters, Maria Weston Chapman, and Lydia Maria Child are barely mentioned.
  • Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History’’ (1979)

See also

• Emancipation Proclamation
• Angelina Grimké, also an early woman abolitionist
• Slavery

External links

• The Liberator Files. Items concerning Maria Weston Chapman from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.