Lucretia mott discourse on women

​​​​​​​A year after the Seneca Falls Convention, Lucretia Mott was continuing her speaking tours around the country working for women’s rights. In 1849, she attended a lecture by Richard Henry Dana, Sr. that criticized the budding women’s right movement.

She was most concerned that the speech was “replete with intellectual beauty, and containing much that was true and excellent, was yet fraught with sentiments calculated to retard the progress of women to the highest elevation destined by her Creator.” Being a skilled orator herself, Lucretia Mott felt the best response was a rebuttal speech.

She used reasoned arguments and concrete examples of women in the Bible who are treated as equals in the scriptures.

Lucretia mott

She makes a solid case for women preachers by naming Biblical women who were looked upon as great counselors and spiritual leaders. She argues that it is only by using “perverted applications of the text” that it is considered improper for women to speak before assemblies.

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