We have been obliged to preach woman's rights because many, instead of listening to what we had to say on temperance, have questioned the right of woman to speak on any subject.

In courts of justice and legislative assemblies, if the right of any person to be there is questioned, all business waits until that point is settled.

Now, it is not settled in the minds of the masses that woman has any right to stand on an even pedestal with man, look him in the face as an equal and rebuke the sins of her day and generation.

Let it be clearly understood then that we are a Woman's Rights Society; that we believe it is woman's duty to speak whenever she feels the impression to do so; that it is her right to be present in all the councils of Church and State.
Continuing, she took firm ground in favor of the right of a woman to be divorced from an habitual drunkard, a position which brought upon her a storm of censure from press, pulpit and society.

She was strongly supported, however, by the most prominent women of the day and received many letters of approval, among them one from Lucy Stone, saying: "On the divorce question, I am on your side, for the reason that drunkenness so depraves a man's system that he is not fit to be a father." Gerrit Smith wrote to the convention: I know not why it is not as much the duty of your sex as of mine to establish newspapers, write books and hold public meetings for the promotion of the cause of temperance.