Many of its leaders were equally ardent in their support of Women's Rights as they were then understood.

The slavery agitation was coupled from the start with the question of Women's Rights.

It was injustice that was being challenged--the right of the stronger to put the weaker at a disadvantage for any reason--because he was poor, not rich; black, not white; female, not male,--that is, there has been nothing special to women in the injustice she has suffered except its particular form.
Moreover, it was not man alone who was responsible for this injustice.
Stronger women have often imposed upon the weak--men and women--as strong men have done.

In its essence, it is a human, not a sex, question--this of injustice.
The hesitation of this country in the earlier part of the nineteenth century to accord to women the same educational facilities as to men is often cited as a proof of a deliberate effort to disparage women.
But it should not be forgotten that the wisdom of universal male education was hotly in debate.

One of the ideals of radical reformers for centuries had been to give to all the illumination of knowledge.
But to teach those who did the labor of the world, its peasants and its serfs, was regarded by both Church and State as a folly and a menace.