by
Douglas M. Strong

In the historiography of the antislavery movement, it is frequently asserted that women's rights were advocated by religiously heterodox abolitionists and opposed by evangelical abolitionists. According to this interpretation, the promotion of women's rights was one of the major reasons why William Lloyd Garrison's coterie of anticlerical, anarchistic reformers was bitterly attacked by church-oriented, politically-minded reformers.¹ Orange Scott, a founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, is often cited as one of these conservative, anti-women's rights clerics. In 1839, for example, Scott forthrightly declared that neither he nor any other abolitionist Methodists would support Garrison's "rotten-hearted, no human government, women's rights" organization.²

In a seeming contradiction, religious historians such as Donald Dayton and Nancy Hardesty have indicated a probable connection between early women's rights activism and antebellum evangelicalism, especially the Wesleyan Methodists and other perfectionists. They point to the fact that the first women's rights convention was held in the Seneca Falls, New York, Wesleyan Methodist Church, that Wesleyan Methodist leader Luther Lee was an active participant in women's rights meetings, and that Lee preached the sermon at the South Butler, New York, ordination of Antoinette Brown, the first woman to be ordained in the United States. They also mention the fact that Brown and other women who were active in the early women's rights movement were educated at Oberlin College, a center for evangelical perfectionism.³

Since some of the groups to which these reformers belonged later became part of the holiness movement, Wesleyan-Holiness historians see such support for feminist issues by antebellum perfectionists as prescient of the expansion of woman's sphere by postbellum Holiness churches.⁴ The postbellum advancement of women's issues in the holiness movement is typically traced to evangelist Phoebe Palmer, whose 1858 book, Promise of the Father, argued for a larger role for women in the church.⁵

There are historiographical problems with the assumed connection between the feminism of antebellum abolitionist perfectionists and the enhanced role for women in the church encouraged by postbellum holiness leaders. To what extent were the forerunners of the holiness movement actually involved in feminist issues? How is one to interpret the opposition to women's rights by persons such as Orange Scott? How is one to interpret Phoebe Palmer's noninvolvement in abolition? If the formative antecedents of the holiness movement were involved in women's rights, why was the postbellum holiness movement nearly invisible in the later suffragist movement?⁶ Conversely, to what extent did early women's rights activists actually embrace the ideology of Christian perfection?

The lack of a clear connection between the early women's rights movement and the later holiness movement seems to leave us with a conundrum: many social historians assert that women's rights advocacy was derived almost solely from anarchistic, heterodox Garrisonianism, while holiness historians assert that women's rights activity was (somehow) influenced by Phoebe Palmer and other relatively conservative evangelical progenitors of the holiness movement.

I suggest that neither view is complete because the full spectrum of perfectionistic abolitionism in the antebellum period has not been appreciated. More specifically, Luther Lee, Antoinette Brown and many other abolitionist women's rights activists were neither Garrisonian anti-institutionalists nor evangelically "orthodox" supporters of established institutions. Rather, they held to a position in between these two extremes. It is important to comprehend the breadth of antebellum perfectionist and abolitionist options in order to have a more complete understanding of the formative history of both the holiness movement and the women's rights movement. And, by determining the theological content behind women's rights advocacy and the extent of feminist involvement in the nascent holiness movement, we will also have a better understanding of how the antebellum doctrine of Christian perfection operated in the personal lives and in the faith communities of its proponents.

I

Digging to the roots of the these questions demands that we unearth the complexity and interrelatedness of antebellum reform. The nuances of the differences between various perfectionists and various abolitionists become very important for our present study, since the differences shed light on the rationale that the reformers developed for their support of or rejection of women's rights agitation. Thus it is necessary to unravel the complicated history of these reform movements, beginning with their revivalistic heritage, particularly in the "burned-over district" of upper New York state.⁷

One of the best known of Charles G. Finney's controversial revival methods in New York was his encouragement of women to pray publicly in so-called "promiscuous assemblies." Methodists had long permitted women to "testify" publicly,⁸ but among Presbyterians in the late 1820s this tactic was considered a "new measure."⁹ Many of the evangelists who radiated out from the burned-over district of upstate New York began to advocate the public participation of women -- and often for very pragmatic reasons, since women tended to be the strongest supporters of the revival work.¹⁰ At least as early as 1833, for instance, itinerant preacher Luther Myrick was challenging the way that women were traditionally treated in Presbyterian churches -- treated, he contended, "as if they had no souls." Myrick was formally charged with heresy by his Presbytery because of such perfectionist challenges to the status quo; not surprisingly, he found that it was women who most often came to his defense.¹¹

Hundreds of churches were disrupted in a similar fashion in the 1830s and 1840s by controversies over various perfectionist reforms.¹² During these disputes, the perfectionists realized that they needed the political support of the women in the churches. They therefore encouraged the public participation of women in congregational decision making.¹³ One "come-outer" Congregational church, for example, was angrily divided over the demands by some members for more preaching of holiness doctrine and for a more democratic, nonsectarian polity. In order to gain political advantage for their cause, these perfectionist members of the congregation argued that "women have the right to vote on all questions in this church" -- a radically new principle. Even more startling was their contention that "females in the church have the same right to preach and administer the ordinances as the regular ordained minister."¹⁴

It is evident that the earliest expressions of support for an enlarged public sphere of influence for women came from evangelical perfectionist revivalism.¹⁵ The promotion of women's "spiritual" rights of self-expression and suffrage in the church set the stage for the promotion of their civil rights of self-expression and suffrage in the broader society -- and this promotion began several years before women's rights were advocated by abolitionists. In fact, the revivalists' support for feminist issues developed before abolitionism had even organized as a popular movement.¹⁶

Thus, when perfectionist revivalists became involved in the antislavery crusade (which they were from the beginning of the movement), they brought with them their interest in women's issues. Some of Finney's converts were most conspicuous in this regard. Oberlin College, the center for the training of persons in perfectionist abolitionism, was both biracial and coeducational from 1835. Through the influence of Oberlin and several similar, but less famous colleges,¹⁷ scores of itinerants were trained to preach a perfectionist agenda that included abolitionism, radically democratic antisectarianism, and women's rights, among other reforms.

In 1840, the united front of the abolition movement was shattered by a tumultuous schism. One faction was centered at Boston around the personality of William Lloyd Garrison. The Garrisonians were characterized by their commitment to furthering the expansion of human rights to all oppressed groups -- African Americans, of course, but also to women. Thus the Garrisonian faction was known to favor "universal reform" rather than solely the emancipation of slaves. They were also opposed to hierarchical power in any form and established institutions of any kind, such as political parties, clerically controlled churches, and even the national government. The Garrisonians desired that there be no mediating authorities -- no human laws or institutions -- between themselves and the "higher law" of God. According to the Garrisonians, humanly written creeds or rules are unnatural and coercive. Consequently, they rejected the binding authority of the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, and any religious doctrines that they considered to be human-made (such as the doctrine of the Trinity). Due to such ideas, the Garrisonians were considered to be "anarchistic," since they did not believe in the need for any human authority.

The basis for the views of the Garrisonians was their particular conception of perfectionism. Although their interpretation of perfection eventually became quite unorthodox, nonetheless it was derived from some of the same sources as the more evangelical perfectionism preached by Finney, Myrick and others. After all, it was the eccentric perfectionist John Humphrey Noyes who convinced both Garrison and Finney of the truth of holiness doctrine.¹⁸ It is not so surprising, then, that the perfectionism of the burned-over district revivalists would have much in common with the more anarchistic perfectionism of the Garrisonians.

Directly opposed to the Garrisonians was another faction, the conservative abolitionists, who were centered in New York City and Cincinnati.¹⁹ The conservative abolitionists were committed to working for change within established denominations and the existing political system. They were opposed to broadening the abolitionist agenda beyond antislavery to other issues such as women's rights. The theology of most of the conservative abolitionists was pragmatic, and not favorable toward the idealism that tended to be inherent within perfectionism.²⁰

Many historians have described these two opposing abolitionist factions, but only recently have a few historians realized that a third group existed, centered in the burned-over district of upper New York.²¹ The orientation of this third group was in between the other two -- neither completely institution -- supporting nor fully anti-institutional. Along with the Garrisonians, these folks felt that existing "pro-slavery" denominations and political institutions were corrupt; but, contrary to the Garrisonians, they thought that such institutions could be "reformed" as sanctified, purified organizations. In short, they believed in (what they called) "secession and reorganization."²²

As a result of these ideas, the "reformist" abolitionists seceded (or "came out") from their denominations to form independent "abolition churches" such as the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, the Union churches, the antislavery Congregational churches, the Freewill Baptists, the Congregational Friends, and others. They also "came out" of their political parties to form the Liberty party. Most significantly, they cooperated together in the work of political abolitionism and antisectarianism. By the early 1840s, a well-developed network of Liberty party/abolition church evangelical perfectionists was operating in upstate New York and elsewhere.²³

The reformist abolitionists tried to hold a balance between the two other extreme abolitionist positions.²⁴ The various come-outer abolition churches, for instance, promoted both a moderate view of Christian perfection and a moderate attitude toward existing institutions. Like the Garrisonians, these abolitionists believed that Christians should perfectly obey the higher law of God. But unlike the Garrisonians, they affirmed that some human laws and structure were necessary for the orderly governing of society.²⁵ Since the established structures were compromisingly sinful, it was imperative that they be replaced with holy institutions. The abolition churches thus gave unequivocal support to the Liberty party as a righteous alternative to the slavery-tainted Whig and Democratic parties. They also insisted on a radically democratic restructuring of ecclesiastical polity, which included the breaking down of denominational distinctions, the elimination of centralized denominational authorities, and mutual cooperation with other like-minded congregations in the work of revivalistic reform. This acceptance of what might be called a "Campbellite ecclesiology" was a common trend in the nineteenth century, and was characteristic of groups as diverse as the Christians, the Disciples of Christ, the Church(es) of Christ, the Church(es) of God, the Church of Christ in Christian Union, the New Testament Church of Christ (a fore-runner of the Church of the Nazarene) and, I would argue, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection. These groups (most of which later became part of the Holiness movement) were seeking a Christian unity that was undivided by "artificial" sectarian creeds and dogmas.²⁶ By a similar logic, they advocated equal rights for women, because obedience to the law of God required that no unnatural or "artificial" distinctions be made on the basis of creed, social class, race or gender.

Several examples will demonstrate the strength of this interlocking network of reformist abolitionists. Hiram Whitcher was a perfectionist Freewill Baptist preacher who actively campaigned for the Liberty party. He encouraged the Freewill Baptists to abandon their sectarian trappings and join other abolition churches in a merged, multi-denominational antislavery sect.²⁷ Freewill Baptists had long encouraged a public role for women,²⁸ so it was not unusual that Whitcher was one of the leading voices at a women's rights convention in Rochester, New York, held just two weeks after the famous Seneca Falls convention.²⁹

Rhoda DeGarmo and Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock also demonstrate the broad linkages among reformist abolitionists. They were leaders of a come-outer group of Congregational Friends in Waterloo, New York, a perfectionist abolition church that supported the Liberty party.³⁰ DeGarmo and the McClintocks were strong early women's rights activists -- Mary Arm McClintock was one of the organizers of the Seneca Falls convention.³¹

Other examples can be drawn from the Union churches. Union churches were intended to unite abolitionist come-outers from all denominations.³² The Union church in Cleveland, Ohio,³³ was founded by Caroline Maria Seymour Severance, who learned her radical ecelesiological views from her association with Oberlinite revivalism. Severance was a Finney convert, and she later became very active in the Liberty party and women's rights advocacy.³⁴ Another Union church -- in Peterboro, New York -- was founded by the perfectionist Gerrit Smith, a leading figure in political abolitionism and one of the most prominent and persistent voices to advocate for women's rights. Smith's ideas were influential with his famous feminist cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.³⁵

Also active in the interconnecting web of reforming abolitionists were antislavery Congregational churches. These churches were "Congregational" in name, but were in fact wholly independent like the Union churches. They did not belong to any Congregationalist judicatory because they were fearful of hierarchical authority. The come-outer Congregational church in China, New York, hosted Liberty party political rallies, circulated a controversial perfectionist Statement of Faith written by Oberlin-trained pastors, and encouraged the public speaking and preaching of women. The state Liberty party's candidate for Lieutenant Governor was the head elder of this church. One of the pastors of the church was the former slave, Samuel Ringgold Ward, a fervent Liberty party campaigner and feminist; another was the husband of Mary Hosford Fisher, the first woman ever to graduate with a liberal arts degree (from Oberlin).³⁶ Similar stories could be related about other Union churches and antislavery Congregational churches -- at least eighty of which existed in New York state alone.

The largest group of come-outer abolition churches was the Wesleyan Methodist Connection, established in l843.³⁷ The close affiliation of the Wesleyan Methodists with the Liberty party is well established.³⁸ Less known is the fact that the early Wesleyan Methodists in New York state were interested in merging with other abolitionist seceders (such as the Unionists, Freewill Baptists and antislavery Congregationals) into a comprehensive, antislavery, antisectarian "sect."³⁹ The Wesleyan Connection, it must be remembered, was founded expressly to counter both "slavery and episcopacy" (italics mine); often, in historical treatments of the denomination, only the former is emphasized. The burned-over district Wesleyan Methodists, in particular, shared with the other antislavery come-outers of their region a disdain for undemocratic institutional hierarchies within the church or state.

Luther Lee, for instance, held a view of church reform that was close to the perfectionist views of his abolitionist come-outer associates. Like the Unionists and the antislavery Congregationals, Lee insisted that each abolitionist church was not to allow its "personal identity and rights to be swallowed up in the power and general government of a connexion." He believed in a congregational polity, and opposed any "development of power and undue influence" within the new Wesleyan Methodist structure.⁴⁰ It is a telling observation that some of his contemporaries thought that Luther Lee was, in fact, a Congregational minister.⁴¹

The views of Lee and the other New York state Wesleyan Methodists regarding democratic church polity were so similar to the views of their fellow abolitionist come-outers that Wesleyan Methodist congregations were often confused for Union churches or antislavery Congregational churches.⁴² In practice, the various abolition churches were not distinguishable from each other, despite their respective origins within differing Arminian and Calvinist traditions. Antislavery advocates in Watertown, New York, built a "Free Church" that would accommodate all "the friends of the abolition cause," although it happened to be "under the supervision of the Wesleyan Society." Likewise, in Ashford, the abolitionist congregants were not denominationally discriminating even though they were supplied by a Wesleyan preacher. They called themselves simply the "Anti-Slavery Church Society" of Ashford.⁴³

A significant difference, however, is evident in the abolitionist activity of Orange Scott, a Wesleyan Methodist founder who was not from the burned-over district. He was from Massachusetts, and reacted strongly to the excesses of anti-institutionalism and unorthodox doctrine characteristic of his Garrisonian neighbors. Scott's context helps to explain why he was so opposed to women's rights advocacy; in his mind it was too intimate with Garrisonian anarchism. For similar reasons, Scott favored retaining the centralized Methodist form of episcopal polity with only slight alterations, since he believed that the ecclesiastical structure of the parent church was not inherently evil but simply "overgrown."⁴⁴

There was a clear difference of opinion among early Wesleyan Methodists over the degree of acceptance of anti-institutional perfectionist ideas. On the one hand, Orange Scott was a relatively conservative abolitionist, who was less troubled by the trappings of denominationalism than his Wesleyan colleagues in New York state. Scott did not see the need to broaden the agenda of the abolitionist movement to include women's rights. Luther Lee and other burned-over district Wesleyan Methodists, on the other hand, embraced a more radical, yet still moderately reformist abolitionism. Their views were similar to the Garrisonians' on issues of institutional corruption and universal reform (particularly regarding women's rights), but differed from the Garrisonians' on the need for a limited organizational structure, the expediency of political action, and the retention of evangelical doctrine.

II

Two interrelated factors help to explain the women's rights activism characteristic of this network of reforming abolitionists: their particular formulation of the doctrine of Christian perfection and their political involvement in the Liberty party. It was their ethical interpretation of entire sanctification that grounded their political antislavery work and propelled them into advocacy of feminist causes.

Christian perfection, according to these abolitionists, was defined as a higher level of religious commitment in which the believer fully obeyed the moral law of God. Entire sanctification did not "consist mainly . . . in sensations or emotions," but rather in "being perfect in obedience."⁴⁵ Abolitionist come-outers desired not only preach the doctrine of Christian holiness "in the abstract, but to reduce it to practice, and urge it upon our people as a gospel requirement."⁴⁶ For reformist abolitionists, entire sanctification was synonymous with an ethical earnestness demonstrated in practical terms.

This view of Christian perfection differed from the other two perfectionist views then current, particularly regarding the Christian's appropriate response to traditional institutions. On the one side, the Garrisonians believed that perfect obedience to God's law required the rejection of all human laws and authorities. Consequently, they rejected political action because human government was corrupt; they rejected the Bible and the doctrine of the Trinity because human-made creeds were unnaturally coercive; and, they rejected the patriarchal rules of the society that denied women their rights because such social conventions were artificial human constructions.

On the other side, Phoebe Palmer believed that entirely sanctified believers should support established human laws and institutions. Sanctified Christians should leave the correction of societal wrongs to God. In fact, according to Timothy Smith, Palmer's followers "were laggards in whatever demanded stern attacks on persons and institutions" -- including women's rights.⁴⁷

The reformist abolitionists were consistent in their "middle course" between the two positions of institutional support and anti-institutionalism. They accepted the idea that perfect obedience to the law of God required a rejection of the corrupt human laws and institutions that were then in force but, at the same time, believed that God required them to reconstitute those institutions on a purified basis.

Reformist abolitionists were critical of any doctrine of Christian perfection, such as that preached by Palmer, that continued to support established political and ecclesiastical institutions. They decried any "monkish search after sanctification" that was not accompanied by the "fruits and evidences of that holiness" demonstrated in social and political reform.⁴⁸ The politically active abolitionists who became women's rights advocates were more concerned with sanctified reform activity than with the attainment of a sanctification experience abstracted from the work of reform.⁴⁹

But these abolitionists also disagreed with the type of perfectionism promoted by the Garrisonians, for different reasons. Contrary to the anarchism of the Garrisonians, the reformist abolitionists believed that entire sanctification would result in the right discharge of "political duties."⁵⁰ Holiness was defined in terms of concrete moral obligation, which is why Luther Lee urged the Wesleyan Methodists to "vote the Liberty ticket as a religious duty."⁵¹ If perfection was the practical fulfillment of one's religious duty to the moral law of God, then a Liberty vote demonstrated the abolitionist's sanctified resolve. For reformist abolitionists, the ballot became an essential symbol of holy living and the extension of human rights to all people.⁵² They believed that the perfect millennial day would be near if those who were enfranchised voted in a holy manner and if oppressed people who were disenfranchised were given the right of suffrage.⁵³

At first the platform of the Liberty party was restricted to obtaining social and political rights for the slaves.⁵⁴ But soon, the perfectionist leanings of most of the party's leaders led them to advocate a broad social agenda that was similar to the universal reform promoted by the Garrisonians. As early as 1843, the Liberty party members stated that they were obliged by their obedience to the moral law of God to "carry out the principles of Equal Rights, into all their practical consequences and applications."⁵⁵ Because of the interconnectedness of various kinds of oppression, Liberty party members were convinced of their need to be "comprehensive in their views of human rights." Thus by 1847 the participants at a Liberty convention stated that if they could be shown "any other measure that justice requires" beyond simply the elimination of slavery, they would add it to their platform.⁵⁶ The stage was set for the Liberty party to address the injustice of the disenfranchisement of women.

It was the very next year, at the National Liberty Convention in June 1848, that the party members compared the exclusion of slaves from the right of suffrage to the "exclusion of woman" from the right of suffrage. A pure and perfected government, they reasoned, must include the purifying influence of women. Backing up their assertions with concrete action, the names of two women, along with several men, received votes for nomination as the party's candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, in both 1847 and l848.⁵⁷ The Liberty party national convention thus raised the issue of woman's suffrage one year earlier than the similar (and more famous) action at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls.⁵⁸ That simultaneity was no mere coincidence, because the same influences were shaping both events -- a belief in Christian perfection and support for political abolitionism.⁵⁹

Indeed, there is a clear connection between the early women's rights movement and perfectionistic political abolitionism.⁶⁰ Liberty party leaders and women's rights activists were in regular correspondence; the Liberty party frequently declared its support for the equal social and political rights of women; and women's rights leaders spoke at Liberty party conventions.⁶¹ And since many of the early feminist leaders believed in Christian holiness, they used perfectionist phraseology in their speeches and writings.⁶²

The women's rights movement also evidenced the middling position characteristic of the reformist abolitionists. Although some feminist leaders were associated with Garrison's anarchistic brand of abolitionism, many others were more comfortable with the political action they had learned from the Liberty party. In language identical to that used by their colleagues who had "come out" from conventional denominations and political parties in order to organize purified ones in their place, the women stated that their task was to "pull down [the] present worn-out and imperfect human institutions" and "reconstruct them upon a new and broader foundation."⁶³ From the Seneca Falls convention onward, they stressed the importance of obtaining the ballot for women. "The Right of Suffrage," they declared, is "the cornerstone of this enterprise." This commitment to reforming the political system posed a problem for women who were anarchistic Garrisonians, but not for those many other women right's advocates who were schooled on the perfectionistic political platform of the Liberty party.⁶⁴

III

Let us return to where we began -- to the more familiar parts of the crusade for women's rights -- but with some of the missing pieces in place. The location of the first Women's Rights Convention in 1848, for instance, is now more understandable. The Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Church was not merely the closest available building that would accommodate the feminist meeting but was, rather, a particularly appropriate venue for the beginning of the women's rights movement.

This Wesleyan church was formed in 1843 when some of the leading antislavery activists in Seneca Falls seceded from the Methodist Episcopal Church. It soon became the religious haven for come-outer abolitionists from many denominations. Similar to the members of abolition churches in other communities, the Seneca Falls Wesleyans were active in the Liberty party.⁶⁵ And like other perfectionist abolition churches, this Wesleyan Methodist congregation struggled to develop a church polity that was not too institutionally bound.⁶⁶ Consequently, after several years, the pastor and some of the members of the church voted to sever their ties with the Wesleyan Methodist connection and become a "Congregational" church.⁶⁷

It was in this environment of perfectionist doctrine, political abolitionism, and antisectarianism that Elizabeth Cady Stanton found a suitable place to hold her women's rights convention. She chose the Wesleyan church in her town because she knew that the Liberty party supporting perfectionists of that church would embrace the radically innovative ideas of social and political equality for women. In fact, ten of the one hundred signers⁶⁸ of the "Declaration" that resulted from that first Women's Rights Convention were members or constituents of the Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Church.⁶⁹

An apocryphal story has developed regarding this convention. In Stanton's account of the meeting, it is recorded that some of the persons arrived early and found the church door locked, so a young boy was lifted through an open window to unlock it.⁷⁰ From that simple statement, a number of historians have erroneously deduced that the "reluctant minister had regretted his rash act in making his premises available for such an occasion."⁷¹ The preposterousness of this statement is made evident by the fact that, of the ten Wesleyan Methodist signers of the Women's Rights Declaration, one was Saron Phillips, the minister of the church!⁷²

News of the radical proposals made at the Seneca Falls convention spread rapidly. At the Ladies Literary Society of Oberlin College, the ideas put forth at Seneca Falls were eagerly discussed and had a profound impact on a young student of theology, Antoinette Brown.⁷³ Brown was particularly drawn to the resolutions that encouraged women "to speak and teach... in all religious assemblies" and to "overthrow the monopoly of the pulpit" held by men.⁷⁴

Soon Brown was one of the many Oberlin perfectionists committed to a moderate, reformist abolitionism. She disliked the unorthodoxy and extreme anti-institutionalism of the Garrisonians. But Brown also disapproved of the existing political parties and the hypocrisy of the so-called "orthodox," yet pro-slavery denominations.⁷⁵ Not surprisingly, she became a lecturer for women's rights and an active campaigner for the Liberty party, serving as a member of the party's National Committee.⁷⁶ This speaking on behalf of political abolitionism and her prominent leadership positions in the women's rights movement thrust her into the public limelight.⁷⁷

Brown's longtime desire was to be a fully-qualified, local pastor.⁷⁸ Her opportunity came when the radical members of the abolition church in South Butler, New York, called her to be their minister. Previous ministers of this church included Lewis Lockwood, a leading antisectarian political abolitionist and Samuel Ringgold Ward, an African-American Liberty party leader.⁷⁹ Therefore Brown came to a church that was accustomed to unconventional leadership and political activism.

Antoinette Brown and the South Butler church that she served are usually labeled as "Congregationalist." But neither she nor the church was Congregationalist in any formal denominational sense. Like so many of the political abolitionists, they were congregational in polity but were actually abolitionist come-outers -- associated more with the Union churches and the Wesleyan Methodists than with the New England Congregationalist denomination.⁸⁰

Consequently, Luther Lee's participation in Brown's ordination (or, more properly "installation"⁸¹) is now more comprehensible. Lee and Brown were colleagues in the work of reformist abolitionism.⁸² They agreed on several key principles that motivated their mutual ministry: moderate evangelical perfectionism, Liberty party activism, antisectarianism, congregational church polity, and a commitment to universal reform, including the equal rights of women in both ecclesiastical and political life.

IV

Several summarizing questions will recapitulate this discussion and point the way toward further research. The first question is quite basic: What was the relation of the early women's rights movement to evangelical perfectionism? Feminist historians have often argued that most women's rights activists were Garrisonian abolitionists who held unorthodox perfectionist doctrines. While this contention is true, it is not the whole story. A network of other early women's rights activists were reformist abolitionists who affirmed evangelical (Oberlinite) perfectionist doctrines. These evangelical perfectionists adopted a moderate anti-institutionalism in which the task of "re-formers" was interpreted as the restructuring of corrupt ecclesiastical and political organizations into sanctified abolition churches and the sanctified Liberty party. Such "practical" perfectionism was more in line with the "practical" goals of early feminists, who desired above all to obtain political power (specifically, the franchise) for women. Since involvement in the political process was anathetical to the views of anarchistic Garrisonians, many women were drawn toward the pragmatic perfectionism characteristic of the Liberty party and the come-outer churches, such as the Wesleyan Methodist Connection.

Despite their participation in early feminist activism, however, it is important to observe that for most antebellum evangelical perfectionists, women's rights advocacy was never as central a reform interest as antislavery had been. Indeed, some evangelical perfectionists did not support women's rights at all. The determinative factor was their connection to burned-over district revivalism and political abolitionism, which radically challenged prevailing social conventions. Those evangelical perfectionists (such as Phoebe Palmer) and those abolitionist come-outers (such as Orange Scott) who were from other regions tended to be more conservative concerning feminist issues.

While Palmer had a progressive attitude regarding women within the church, she did not challenge the societal norms regarding woman's role in the broader political institutions of the culture, as did Antoinette Brown, Luther Lee and others. Palmer's articulation of an enhanced role for religious women was carefully limited so as not to disturb the dominant patriarchal structures of the society.⁸³ Within the framework of nineteenth-century gender roles, church activities -- even those outside the home – were considered an extension of a woman's domestic sphere. Thus the encouragement for women to express themselves religiously (including the right to preach) did not necessarily indicate a substantive change in women’s social status, especially when that encouragement neglected to call for an improvement in the political and economic rights of women.⁸⁴

Interestingly, Orange Scott seems to have been influenced to a greater degree by Palmer's more static conception of holiness than by the ethically-defined, Oberlinite doctrine of perfection embraced by Lee and the New York state Wesleyan Methodists. This theological dependence of Scott's may help to explain his conservatism on women's rights.⁸⁵

A second summarizing question follows up on the first question; viz., what was the extent of the relationship between the postbellum Holiness movement and the burned-over district reformist abolitionists who were women's rights advocates? That is, to what degree was political abolitionism and its concomitant reform movement, feminism, formative for some of the groups that would later coalesce into the Holiness movement? The answer, I would contend, is that there was a strong connection between these movements. In the first place, it is likely that the antisectarianism of the various abolition churches provided a model for the ecclesiology of later Holiness groups such as the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), the Church of Christ in Christian Union, and the New Testament Church of Christ. This is an area of unexplored, but potentially fruitful research. Furthermore, it is evident that the major source for the radical reform of early Wesleyan Methodism, at least in the burned-over district where Wesleyanism was strongest, was Oberlin perfectionism and the network of Liberty party-supporting abolition churches. Thus the Liberty party and the Unionist and antislavery Congregational churches need to be interpreted by Holiness historians as a significant, but neglected part of the pre-history of the Holiness movement. Particularly in the case of women's rights agitation, the Liberty party and the Unionists were a more important influence on the Wesleyan Methodists than Phoebe Palmer.⁸⁶ The Wesleyans offered a systemic critique of many of the social structures of the day. In contrast, Palmer's relatively conservative views regarding established institutions and her equivocation on the slavery issue would have been anathema to the Wesleyans.⁸⁷

A related question regarding the origins of Holiness groups has to do with why the earliest Free Methodists in western New York were not drawn toward the Wesleyan Methodists -- who were already very strong in the same region. B. T. Roberts, for instance, pastored Methodist Episcopal churches in small communities (Eagle and Rushford, New York) in the 1840s that had well-established Wesleyan Methodist churches.⁸⁸ Although one would suppose that the Wesleyans would have been his natural allies, Roberts makes no mention of his affinity with them.

Perhaps part of the answer to this curious question about the lack of connection between the early Wesleyan Methodists and the early Free Methodists has to do with Roberts' well-documented attraction to Palmer's interpretation of entire sanctification in contrast to the Wesleyans' early preference for Oberlinite perfectionism.⁸⁹ While these two groups agreed on many issues, their priority of emphasis on the issues differed. Wesleyan Methodists stressed political abolitionism and antisectarianism, undergirded by a dynamic, ethically-oriented perfectionism, while Free Methodists stressed the sanctification experience first, which was then manifested in their support for "free pews" and "free men."

After the Civil War, when the issue of slavery was ostensibly settled with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, Wesleyan Methodists were left without their primary raison d'etre. During this post-war period many Wesleyans concentrated on denominational consolidation and drifted toward the particular sanctification emphases characteristic of Palmer and the Free Methodists. That is, there was a conflation of interests among those who were beginning to institutionalize the Holiness movement. Some of the more radical Wesleyan Methodists interpreted these institution-building developments as the reintroduction of sectarianism and a withdrawal from earlier commitments to universal reform. Consequently, many of the radicals, such as Luther Lee⁹⁰ and a portion of the Seneca Falls church, left the Wesleyan Methodist Connection.

This brings us to a final question arising from our study: how should we understand the character of mid-nineteenth century evangelical perfectionism? Several attributes of evangelical perfectionism are evident. For example, the abolitionist evangelical perfectionists were broadly ecumenical. Wesleyan Methodist churches, Union churches, antislavery Congregational churches, and so forth, were not denominationally specific. Rather, they tended to view themselves as generic abolition churches. They were more concerned with an individual's sanctified reform activity (especially regarding political antislavery and women's rights) than with one's assent to creedal formulae.

Consequently, these perfectionists were not doctrinally rigid. While they considered themselves to be "evangelicals," they nonetheless experimented with the prevailing social and even theological norms. Antoinette Brown, for instance, called herself a believer in "limited orthodoxy." It is not surprising, therefore, that in the 1850s and 1860s, some of the reformist abolitionists left evangelical Christianity for Unitarianism or freethinking religious ideas (Antoinette Brown and Gerrit Smith are examples). Historian Ruth Doan refers to this as a "boundary crisis at the edges of orthodoxy" that was common in the antebellum period.⁹¹ Not all antislavery come-outers, of course, left the faith. Many reformist abolitionists and their progeny remained thoroughly committed evangelicals. Nonetheless, even the Holiness heirs of antebellum perfectionism continued to be more comfortable emphasizing Christian experience than creedal orthodoxy -- at least until the mid-twentieth century, when fundamentalist concerns became influential with some in the Holiness movement.

Lastly, antebellum reformist abolitionists were committed to a type of perfectionist doctrine that was ethically focussed toward the disenfranchised of their society. Their agitation on behalf of African-American slaves drew them toward the needs of the many others who were marginalized in American culture: Native Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, industrialized workers, poor immigrants -- and women.⁹² Their identification with the disenfranchised grew directly out of their particular understanding of Christian perfection -- an ethical earnestness that challenged (and reformulated) the conventional power structures of their culture.

NOTES

¹ Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), 39-62; Blanche Glassman Hersh, "To Make the World Better: Protestant Women in the Abolitionist Movement," in Richard L. Greaves, ed., Triumph Over Silence: Women in Protestantism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 173-74, 187; idem, The Slavery of Sex: Feminist-Abolitionists in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978); idem, "'Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?' Abolitionist Beginnings of Nineteenth-Century Feminism," in Lewis Perry and Michael Fellman, Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 272- 76; Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York: Harper Brothers, 1960), 130-31, 134-35; Richard H. Sewell, Ballots For Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press 1976), 28, 34, 40; Robert H. Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 115; Ronald G. Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism After 1830 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 93.

² Liberator (11 October 1839), cited in David M. Ludlum, Social Ferment in Vermont, 1791-1850 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), 161. See also John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1963), 261- 62. Orange Scott was referring to the Garrison-controlled Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the state branch of the American Anti- Slavery Society.

³ Donald W. Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage (New York: Harper and Row, 1976); Lucille Sider Dayton and Donald W. Dayton, "'Your Daughters Shall Prophesy': Feminism in the Holiness Movement," Methodist History 14 (January 1976), 70-72; Nancy Hardesty, Lucille Sider Dayton and Donald W. Dayton, "Women in the Holiness Movement: Feminism in the Evangelical Tradition," in Rosemary Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin, Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), 230-32; Nancy A. Hardesty, Women Called To Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), 46-51, 97, 125.

⁴ On "woman's sphere" in the nineteenth century, see Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven,Yale University, 1977); Mary P Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 186-91, 218-225; and Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976).

⁵ Phoebe Palmer, Promise of the Father: or a Neglected Specialty of the Last Days (Boston: H. V. Degen, 1859). Hardesty (op. cit., 55-58) moves immediately from her discussion of Oberlin perfectionism to an account of Phoebe Palmer. Similarly, Dayton and Dayton (op. cit., 72) describe Oberlin and then imply a connection to Palmer's work: "In the next generation Holiness leadership passed to Phoebe Palmer." This ostensibly easy transition from the relatively anti-institutional Oberlin to the institutionally-supportive Tuesday Meeting has yet to be demonstrated; indeed, although some persons interacted with both of these centers of Holiness preaching, a direct transferal of perfectionist leadership from Oberlin to the Tuesday Meeting is not self-evident from the available data.

⁶ A notable exception to this invisibility was Frances Willard. Although Willard experienced and advocated Christian perfection, she was not considered a leading voice for the Holiness movement. See Hardesty, op. cit., 13-25, 63-64.

⁷ See Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950).

⁸ See Russell E. Richey, Early American Methodism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 18.

⁹ See Hardesty, op. cit., 44-46, on Finney's conflict over mixed, or "promiscuous" assemblies.

¹⁰ Ryan, op. cit., 83-98.

¹¹ J. I. Root, et. al., An Account of the Trial of Luther Myrick, Before The Oneida Presbytery (Syracuse: J. P. Patterson, 1834), 38, text located at the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA.

¹² See, for example, Glenn C. Altschuler and Jan M. Saltzgaber, Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over Distnct: The Trial of Rhoda Bement (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Warsaw [New York] Presbyterian Church, Schism the Offspring of Error, Illustrated in Historical Sketches of the Presbyterian Church of Warsaw, Genesee County, N.Y (Buffalo: Robert D. Foy, 1841); Douglas M. Strong, "Organized Liberty: Evangelical Perfectionism, Political Abolitionism, and Ecclesiastical Reform in the Burned-Over District" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1990), 179-262, 266-71, 336.

¹³ See, for example, Trial of the Rev. Asa T. Hopkins, Pastor of The First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, Before A Special Meeting of The Buffalo Presbytery: Commencing October 22, and ending October 31, 1844 (Buffalo, 1844), 6.

¹⁴ China [Arcade], New York, Congregational Church, Church Records for the 1st Congregationalist Church of The Town of China (Volume 2, 1836-1858), 3 March 1849, manuscript located in the church office, Arcade United Church of Christ, Congregational, Arcade, NY.

¹⁵ Evangelical support for a greater role for women was especially the case in the burned-over district. In other areas, Quakers often initiated the discussion regarding an increased sphere of influence for women. The impact of the Friends in upstate New York, however, was quite minimal.

¹⁶ Garrison's American Antislavery Society was not organized until 1834 and the New York State Antislavery Society was organized in 1835. The overt support of the AASS for women's rights was not until the late 1830s. Meanwhile, Myrick and other "new measures" revivalists were promoting an increased role for women by at least the early 1830s.

¹⁷ Two other perfectionist/abolitionist colleges were Oneida Institute (Whitestown, NY) and New York Central College (McGrawville, NY). These institutions gave support to the women's rights movement. See Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, 2nd ed. (Rochester, NY: Charles Mann, 1889), I, 519n.

¹⁸ James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833- 1883 (Oberlin: E. J. Goodrich, 1883), 81-90; George Wallingford Noyes, Religious Experience of John Humphrey Noyes (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), 122, 333-34; Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison. 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children (New York: The Century Co., 1885), 144-53, 172, 286.

¹⁹ Lawrence J. Friedman, Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionism, 1830-1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 68-70; Robert Merideth, 'Edward Beecher: A Conservative Abolitionist at Alton," Journal of Presbyterian History 42 (June 1964): 101; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York: Hill & Wang, 1976), 92-96, 100ff.; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969), 272ff., 279.

²⁰ Finney was loosely connected with this conservative faction, through his association with the Tappan brothers. However, Finney continued to be closely associated with the more radical perfectionists of upstate New York, as well. Finney, a complex man, was quite supportive of the Liberty party and come-outer churches, and he never completely broke his ties to the Garrisonians. A number of Garrisonian women attended Oberlin, and Garrisonian speakers were always accorded a cordial welcome at the school (although their anarchistic ideas were not generally accepted). The conservative and progressive sides of Finney are explored in James H. Moorhead, "Social Reform and the Divided Conscience of Antebellum Protestantism," Church History 48 (December 1979): 416-30.

²¹ Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), 158ff.; Lawrence Friedman, Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionism, 1830-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

²² Christian Investigator 3 (June 1845): 237-38.

²³ See Douglas M. Strong, "The Application of Perfectionism to Politics: Political and Ecclesiastical Abolitionism in the Burned-Over District," Wesleyan Theological Journal 25:1 (Spring 1989): 21-41.

²⁴ The balancing act of the reformist abolitionists is evident in their desire to keep the lines of communication open between themselves and the Garrisonians, with whom they felt strong sympathy in their common commitment to universal reform and their shared suspicion of established institutions (although they were wary of the unorthodoxy of the Garrisonians). The reformist abolitionists also kept in contact with the more conservative abolitionists (such as the Tappan brothers, Gamaliel Bailey, Owen Lovejoy, Edward Beecher, Orange Scott, and Henry B. Stanton), some of whom were colleagues in the Liberty party and others who were old friends from earlier revival work. Consequently, the reformist abolitionists of the burned-over district labored to end the schism within the antislavery movement between the Garrisonians and the conservatives. See "The National Liberty Convention," in Emancipator Extra (September 1843): 31; Madison County Abolitionist 1 (7 December 1841): 45, 46, serial located American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA.

²⁵ See Jonathan Blanchard, A Perfect State of Society (Oberlin: James Steele, 1839).

²⁶ See Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Even the Mormons originally called themselves the "Church of Christ." Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 38.

²⁷ G. A. Burgess and J. T. Ward, Free Baptist Cyclopaedia. Historical and Biographical (Chicago: The Women's Temperance Publication Association, 1889), 692; The Liberty Press 3 (16 November 1844): 5; ibid. (15 February 1845): 59; Morning Star 18 (8 November 1843): 114; Christian Investigator 1 (December 1843): 88.

²⁸ See Timothy L. Smith, op. cit., 82.

²⁹ Whitcher was invited to open this Rochester woman's rights convention with prayer. In the comments regarding the Rochester convention in the History of Woman Suffrage, Whitcher (misspelled "Wicher") is proudly held up as an example: "even at that early day, there were many of the liberal clergymen in favor of equal rights for women." Stanton, et.al., History of Woman Suffrage I, 76.

³⁰ Congregational Friends, Waterloo Yearly Meeting, Earnest and Affectionate Address to all people and especially religious professors of every name, and an address to reformers: from the Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends, held at Waterloo, N.Y. (Auburn: Oliphant's Press, 1849), 13, 16; Liberty Party Paper 2 (21 May 1851); Allen C. Thomas, "Congregational or Progressive Friends," Bulletin of Friends' Historical Society of Philadelphia 10 (November 1920): 25, 28.

³¹ Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, eds., Elizabeth Cady Stanton (New York: Arno Press, 1969), I, 146-47; Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage, 67-71.

³² In practice, Union churches consisted primarily of seceders from Presbyterian and Congregational churches.

³³ This perfectionist abolition church in Cleveland was called the "Independent Christian Church."

³⁴ See Edward T. James, ed., Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), III, 265-67. Severance remained personally close to Garrison even though she campaigned for the Liberty party, which was not unusual for reformist perfectionists.

³⁵ See Stanton and Blatch, 53-66; Elizabeth Griffith, In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 24, 40.

³⁶ Jeffrey C. Mason and Harry S. Douglass, Alive in the Spirit Since 1813: The Arcade United Church of Christ, Congregational (Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes Publishing, 1990), 60-64,73-75,79-99.

³⁷ Approximately 120 Wesleyan Methodist congregations existed in New York state in the 1840s. See Strong, "Organized Liberty," 336.

³⁸ See Douglas M. Strong, "Partners in Political Abolitionism: The Liberty Party and the Wesleyan Methodist Connection," Methodist History 23 (January 1985): 99-115. One minister, Wesley Bailey, served as the Connection's Utica District Chairman while editing the state Liberty party's leading newspaper, The Liberty Press.

³⁹ The paradox (and seeming hypocrisy) of organizing a new sect comprised of those who rejected "sectarianism" was not lost on their opponents. See Warsaw Presbyterian Church, Schism the Offspring of Error, 14; Morning Star 16 (3 November 1841): 112.

⁴⁰ Lee accepted the concept of a limited "connexion" for the Wesleyan Methodists, but each congregation's involvement in that "connexion" was completely voluntary. Luther Lee and E. Smith, The Debates of the General Conference of the M.E. Church, May, 1844 (New York: O. Scott, 1845), 476-77; Ira Ford McLeister and Roy Stephen Nicholson, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, 3rd ed. (Marion, IN: The Wesley Press, 1959), 38; Christian Investigator 2 (July 1844): 151; ibid. 6 (August 1848): 512, 528. Other leaders of New York state Wesleyan Methodism, such as Cyrus Prindle, agreed with Lee.

⁴¹ In an account of Antoinette Brown's ordination, Lee was referred to as a "prominent Congregationalist from Syracuse," Rochester Daily Democrat (20 September 1853): 2, cited in Joseph Michael Saeli, "South Butler's Reverend Antoinette L. Brown," TMs in Wayne County Historian's Office, Lyons, NY.

⁴² Timothy Smith, for example, incorrectly identified Unionist Luther Myrick as a Wesleyan Methodist (op. cit., 116), and Whitney Cross mistakenly identified the South Butler antislavery Congregational church as a Wesleyan Methodist church (op. cit., 283).

⁴³ The Liberty Press 4 (29 November 1845): 15; William Adams, ed., Historical Gazateer and Biographical Memorial of Cattaraugus County, N.Y. (Syracuse: Lyman, Horton & Co., Ltd., 1893), 451-52.

⁴⁴ Lucius C. Matlack, The Life of Rev. Orange Scott (New York: C. Prindle and L. C. Matlack, 1851), 202-3, 255-57; Lee and Smith, The Debates of the General Conference, 477.

⁴⁵ William Goodell, "Entire Sanctification" (manuscript sermon), Goodell Papers, Berea College, Berea, KY

⁴⁶ Franckean Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Journal of the Third Annual Session of the Franckean Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Convened at Stone Mills, Jefferson Co., June 4, 1840 (Fort Plain, NY: David Smith, 1840), 23. For a similar statement by the Wesleyan Methodists, see Matlack, op. cit., 343.

⁴⁷ Timothy L. Smith, op. cit., 212; Dayton and Dayton, "Your Daughters Shall Prophesy," 72.

⁴⁸ Christian Investigator 2 (July 1844) 149; ibid. 1 (July 1843): 48.

⁴⁹ See Goodell, "Entire Sanctification," 23, 25. Theodore Hovet, "Phoebe Palmer's 'Altar Phraseology' and the Spiritual Dimensions of Woman's Sphere," The Journal of Religion 63 (July 1983): 267-70, describes the way in which Palmer's theology emphasized "a supernatural experience as the central element in the Christian life." See also Charles Edward White, The Beauty of Holiness: Phoebe Palmer as Theologian, Revivalist, Feminist, and Humanitarian (Grand Rapids, MI: Francis Asbury Press, 1986), 204. The political abolitionists did not deny the need for a supernatural sanctification experience, but they insisted that such an experience go hand in hand with specific reform activity.

⁵⁰ William Goodell, "Discussions on Perfection" (manuscript sermon, 1844), 14, Goodell Papers, Berea College, Berea, KY.

⁵¹ Luther Lee, Autobiography of the Rev. Luther Lee (reprint, New York: Garland Publishing, 1984), 227.

⁵² According to the Liberty party, voting was "a moral and religious duty" because they needed to obey the "moral laws of the Creator." "National Liberty Convention," in Emancipator Extra (September 1843): 5 (resolutions 26 and 37).

⁵³ J. N. T. Tucker, The Liberty Almanac. No. Two. 1845. (Syracuse: Tucker & Kinney, 1845), 29. See also Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage 1, 77.

⁵⁴ Although the Liberty party platform was initially restricted to legislating for the equal rights of African-Americans, the party (in upper New York) had a practice of extending equal rights to women, as well. The "womanish propensities" of the New York Liberty party were in sharp contrast to the views of their "third party brethren in Massachusetts, who left the old society for the woman question." The New Yorkers encouraged the conservative Massachusetts Liberty men (presumably including Orange Scott) to emulate their "radicalism" on this question -- perhaps, then, the conservatives would also have "new ideas of woman." Madison County Abolitionist 1(7 December 1841): 46, serial located at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA.

⁵⁵ "'The National Liberty Convention," in Emancipator Extra (September 1843): 3 (Resolution 4). Likewise, the next year the Liberty party asserted that it was 'the only [party] that sustains unequivocally the Equal Political Rights of All." J. N. T. Tucker, ed., The Liberty Almanac, for 1844 (Syracuse: I. A. Hopkins, 1844), 15.

⁵⁶ William Goodell, Address of the Macedon Convention By William Goodell; And Letters of Gerrit Smith (Albany: S.W. Green, Patriot Office, 1847), 8-14. The Macedon Convention was actually a gathering of the "Liberty League," a perfectionist splinter from the Liberty party that existed for two years. Perkal, op. cit., 204-24.

⁵⁷ Perkal, op. cit., 204; Proceedings of the National Liberty Convention Held at Buffalo, N.Y, June 14th and 15th, 1848, Including the Resolutions and Addresses Adopted By that Body and Speeches of Beriah Green and Gerrit Smith On That Occasion (Utica: S.W. Green, 1848), 5, 14.

⁵⁸ Although the Seneca Falls convention received a great deal of notoriety from the press, the proceedings of the 1848 national Liberty party convention (held one month before the Seneca Falls convention), including its position on women's suffrage, would have been well known among abolitionists.

⁵⁹ On his way from his home in Peterboro, New York, to the 1848 Liberty party convention in Buffalo, Gerrit Smith visited his cousin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in Seneca Falls. One can presume that they spoke of the impending issues to come before the Liberty convention, including women's rights. It is difficult to know exactly who influenced whom, but certainly there must have been mutual encouragement to feminist advocacy during that visit.

⁶⁰ In 1848 there was a split among political abolitionists. Some remained with the Liberty party, while the majority went into the new coalition of the Free Soil party. Women's rights advocates were found in both factions.

⁶¹ "The Liberty Party of the United States, To the People of the United States," Proceedings of the National Liberty Convention, 14; Liberty Party Paper 2 (12 February 1851); Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage I, 519-20; "Minutes of the State Liberty 'Party Convention,'" Liberty Party Paper 1(1 August 1849). Some of the persons who operated within movements included Lucretia Mott, Gerrit Smith, Luther Lee, Antoinette Brown, Caroline Severance, Jonathan Metcalf (of Seneca Falls), G.W. Johnson (New York state chairman of the Liberty party), and Dr. Cutcheon (of New York Central College in McGrawville).

⁶² Sanctification and millennial language were part of the women’s rhetoric. See Stanton, et. Al., History of Women Suffrage I, 78, 523. Elizabeth Cady Stanton used a characteristically perfectionist phrase when she remembered that at the Seneca Falls convention "a religious earnestness dignified all the proceedings." Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, op. cit., 146.

⁶³ Stanton, et. al., History of Women Suffrage I, 524.

⁶⁴ Stanton, et. al., History of Women Suffrage I, 825; Walters, op. cit., 108. Gerrit Smith, speaking to the 1852 Women’s Rights Convention, affirmed the franchise as the "great right that guarantees others." Stanton, et. al., History of Women Suffrage, I, 527.

⁶⁵ Joseph and Jonathan Metcalf, both seceders from the Methodist Episcopal Church, were leaders in the state Liberty party. Joseph Metcalf was the prime financial backer of the new Wesleyan church. The Abolitionist 2 (11 October 1842): 223; ibid. 2 (18 October 1842): 227; Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Church, "Book No. 1. The Property of the First Wesleyan M. Church, Seneca Falls, N.Y.," manuscript located at the Seneca Falls Historical Society; George Pegler, Autobiography of the Life and Times of the Rev. George Pegler. Written by Himself (Syracuse: Wesleyan Methodist Publishing House, 1879), 409-15; Seneca Falls Methodist Episcopal Church, "Minutes of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Seneca Falls," 1838-1843, manuscript located at the United Methodist Church office, Seneca Falls, NY.

⁶⁶ See Matlack, op. cit., 178.

⁶⁷ Seneca County, New York, Manual of the Churches and Pastos of Seneca County, 1895-1896 (Seneca Falls: Courier Printing Co., 1896), 171-72.

⁶⁸ Three hundred persons are estimated to have attended the convention, but only one hundred signed the "Declaration." Obviously, many came as curious onlookers. Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 77.

⁶⁹ Signers of the "Declaration and Resolutions" included the following persons: Sophia Taylor, Sarah Whitney, Joel Bunker, Saron Phillips, and probably Sally Pitcher and Jonathan Metcalf were members of the Wesleyan Methodist church; the parents of signers Mary and Elizabeth Conklin were members of the church; the husband of signer Mary Martin was a member; and the wife of signer Henry Seymour was a member. See Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Church, "Book No.1"; idem, "Roll of Members," 5, 7, manuscript located at the Seneca Falls Historical Society; Stanton and Blatch, op. cit., 147. I wish to express my appreciation to Judith Wellman, State University of New York at Oswego, for her assistance in locating the identities of these persons. Other "subscribers" to the Women's Rights Convention included Jeremy and Rhoda Bement, who attended the Wesleyan Methodist chapel, but were not members. Glenn C. Altschuler and Jan M. Saltzgaber, Revivalism, Social Conscience, and Community in the Burned-Over District: The Trial of Rhoda Bement (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 48, 143.

⁷⁰ Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage I, 69.

⁷¹ Flexner, op. cit., 76. See also Pheta Childe Dorr, Susan B. Anthony: The Woman Who Changed the Mind of a Nation (New York: AMS Press, 1970, reprint), 49; Dayton, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage, 91.

⁷² See Manual of the Churches and Pastors of Seneca County, 171; Stanton and Blatch, op. cit., 147.

⁷³ Elizabeth Cazden, Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography (Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1983), 28, 36.

⁷⁴ Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage I, 72-73.

⁷⁵ Cazden, op. cit., 31, 42, 56, 70, 84-85; Carol Lasser and Marlene Deahl Merrill, eds., Friends and Sisters: Letters between Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell. 1846-93 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 133.

⁷⁶ Lasser and Merrill, op. cit., 108, 123; Cazden, op. cit., 67-68; National Era (9 September 1852), cited in Perkal, op. cit., 233.

⁷⁷ Cazden, op. cit., 70-71; Stanton, et. al., History of Woman Suffrage I, 519n, 524-25, 535-40.

⁷⁸ Cazden, op. cit., 35ff.

⁷⁹ Christian Investigator 3 (March 1845): 216; ibid. 4 (April 1846): 318; W. H. McIntosh, History of Wayne County, New York (Philadelphia: Everts, Ensign, and Everts, 1877), 79; Marjorie Allen, "First United States woman minister ordained in S. Butler," Wayne County Star (2 September 1973), located in the files of the Wayne County Department of History, Lyons, NY. Most of the South Butler church members were "political abolitionists of the most frantic and rabid kind" (ibid.).

⁸⁰ See McIntosh, History of Wayne County, 79; Cazden, op. cit., 77- 78; Lasser and Merrill, op. cit., 133. Historian Whitney Cross (op.cit., 283), mistakenly identified the South Butler congregation as a Wesleyan Methodist church. Lasser and Merrill, 133n, incorrectly determined that Brown's attendance at a "Christian Union" meeting was the "American and Foreign Christian Union." Clearly the context demonstrates that Brown was at a meeting of antisectarian Union churches.

⁸¹ There is some doubt as to whether Brown was actually "ordained." Lee seemed to have some question about it later (See Cazden, op. cit., 84). Was Lee betraying a latent patriarchy or an ambivalence about women's rights? Probably not. More accurately, Lee was merely demonstrating his antisectarian antipathy toward any formal distinction between lay and clergy. Among reformist abolitionists, the laying on of hands in ordination signified the establishment of a clerical "caste." One local account states that Brown was "'installed' as pastor of the church (authority by any one to 'ordain' being disclaimed and denied)." McIntosh, op. cit., 79. See also Perkal, op. cit., 169.

⁸² Another colleague who took part in Brown's installation was Gerrit Smith. Smith's perfectionist theology, political abolitionism and universal reform principles put him at the center of all of these diverse movements. It is interesting that he was a participant at Brown's installation and also a strong influence on Stanton's women's rights advocacy.

⁸³ Hovet, op. cit., 275; White, The Beauty of Holiness, 206; Dayton and Dayton, "Your Daughters Shall Prophesy," 72.

⁸⁴ See Welter, Dimity Convictions, 21-23; and Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood, 140-43, 146-48, 154-59. This interpretation of Palmer differs from the one advanced by Charles White (The Beauty of Holiness, 204-5). White correctly states that Palmer encouraged women to have a mission-minded focus to persons beyond the home. Although the outward focus of women does demonstrate an enlargement of their religious role, White contends, nonetheless it did not challenge the essential definition of woman's place within the domestic sphere, because religious activities (even those external to the home) were viewed as appropriate, even essential, to woman's domesticity.

⁸⁵ See, for instance, Scott's description of holiness ("our souls and our bodies" are to be "laid on the altar" [Matlack, op. cit., 250]) which is very similar to Palmer's terminology regarding holiness.

⁸⁶ Here, I am countering Timothy Smith's interpretation of Wesleyan Methodist origins. Smith (Revivalism and Social Reform, 212-13) implies that the major influences on the Wesleyans were Phoebe Palmer's ideas combined with those from Oberlin.

⁸⁷ Smith, op. cit., 212; White, op. cit., 228.

⁸⁸ Benson Howard Roberts, Benjamin Titus Roberts. Late General Superintendent of the Free Methodist Church. A Biography (North Chili, NY: "The Earnest Christian" Office, 1900), 51; Clarence Howard Zahniser, Earnest Christian: Life and Works of Benjamin Titus Roberts (Circleville, OH: Advocate Publishing House, 1957), 44, 47; Helen Josephine White Gilbert, Rushford and Rushford People (n.p.: Chautauqua Print Shop, 1910), 232-34; John Horton, Edward Williams, and Harry Douglass, History of Northwestern New York (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1947) I, 573.

⁸⁹ Benson Howard Roberts, op. cit., 56; Zahniser, op. cit., 45-46.

⁹⁰ In 1866, Lee and a large portion of the Wesleyan Methodist leadership returned to the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is likely that Lee and the others were so deeply disappointed by the failure to create an ecumenical "union" of reform-minded Methodist Protestants and Wesleyan Methodists that they simply returned to their parent church. This move to Methodist Episcopacy is somewhat ironic given Lee's antipathy to hierarchy.

⁹¹ Ruth Doan, The Miller Heresy, Millennialism, and American Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 16-30, 215- 28.

⁹² Goodell, Address of the Macedon Convention, 8-14; Proceedings of the National Liberty Convention (1848), 5, 14; Perkal, op. cit., 204.

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