[377] violation of the resolution already passed, but which may be useful to this important subject, for publicity will thereby be secured. I took the liberty, in a note to Mr. Wendell Phillips yesterday, of suggesting the propriety of giving notice at this Convention that he should recommend the societies in America to continue to delegate women, and raise the debate upon their rights at every future Convention. This will keep the mind of the Convention alive to the subject, and it will ultimately be carried because it is right. We owe much to Mr. Wendell Phillips for his firmness in resisting the urgent entreaties made to him to withdraw his motion. I am aware how much your time must be occupied, and as a stranger I have no right to intrude an invitation upon you. I apologize, therefore, for saying that if it should be convenient to you on Sunday next to drive as far as Muswell Hill in the1 afternoon, I shall be very glad to see you, and you will meet my friends William and Mary Howitt (unless some unexpected circumstance should prevent their coming), whom it may be a pleasure to you to meet. Lucretia Mott is, I think, also likely to come, with Mr. Dawes and Mr. Keep.2 We dine at 3 o'clock, and shall be glad to see you then, or before or after, as may best accord with your arrangements and inclinations. Whether I see you or not, accept my thanks for all that you have done and are doing for human redemption in this world, and believe me to be Yours faithfully, Muswell Hill is near Hornsey, and a cab will bring you for 5s. from town.
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1 June 21, 1840.
2 William Dawes and the Rev. John Keep, of Oberlin. who were collecting aid for that institution. The dinner party came off on the date Appointed—‘a visit full of interest and delight’ to Mrs. Mott ( “Life,” p. 158). To her wrote William Howitt subsequently (Lib. 10.139): ‘I have heard the noble Garrison blamed that he has not taken his place in the Convention, because you, his fellow-delegates, were excluded. I, on the contrary, honor him for his conduct. In mere worldly wisdom he might have entered the Convention, and there entered his protest against the decision—but in at once refusing to enter where you, his fellow-delegates, were shut out, he has entered a far nobler protest, not in the mere Convention, but in the world at large. I honor the lofty principle of that true champion of humanity, and shall always recollect with delight the day Mary and I spent with you and him.’
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