Characters:
Katie- Lucetia Mott
Skylar- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Yessika- Sojourner Truth
Kadijah- Fredrick Douglass
At rise:
At the Seneca Falls convention giving speeches.
Elizabeth Stanton
We have met here today to discuss our rights and wrongs,
civil and political, and not, as some have supposed, to go
into the detail of social life alone. We do not propose to
petition the legislature to make our husbands just,
generous, and courteous, to seat every man at the head of a
cradle, and to clothe every woman in male attire. None of
these points, however important they may be considered by
leading men, will be touched in this convention. As to
their costume, the gentlemen need feel no fear of our
imitating that, for we think it in violation of every
principle of taste, beauty, and dignity; notwithstanding all
the contempt cast upon our loose, flowing garments, we still
admire the graceful folds, and consider our costume far more
artistic than theirs.
(Everyone Claps)
Sojourner Truth
(Stands up)
And ain’t I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me…And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man-when I could get to it-And ain’t I a woman? I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery and when I cried a mother’s grief none but Jesus heard me…. And ain’t I a woman?
(Everyone Claps)
Fredrick Douglass
(Stands up)
A woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.
(Everyone claps)
Lucretia Mott
Whereas, the great precept of nature is conceded to be; "that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness." Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the glove, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original;
Therefore, Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and of no validity; for this is "superior in obligation to any other."
Katie- Lucetia Mott
Skylar- Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Yessika- Sojourner Truth
Kadijah- Fredrick Douglass
At rise:
At the Seneca Falls convention giving speeches.
Elizabeth Stanton
We have met here today to discuss our rights and wrongs,
civil and political, and not, as some have supposed, to go
into the detail of social life alone. We do not propose to
petition the legislature to make our husbands just,
generous, and courteous, to seat every man at the head of a
cradle, and to clothe every woman in male attire. None of
these points, however important they may be considered by
leading men, will be touched in this convention. As to
their costume, the gentlemen need feel no fear of our
imitating that, for we think it in violation of every
principle of taste, beauty, and dignity; notwithstanding all
the contempt cast upon our loose, flowing garments, we still
admire the graceful folds, and consider our costume far more
artistic than theirs.
(Everyone Claps)
Sojourner Truth
(Stands up)
And ain’t I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me…And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man-when I could get to it-And ain’t I a woman? I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery and when I cried a mother’s grief none but Jesus heard me…. And ain’t I a woman?
(Everyone Claps)
Fredrick Douglass
(Stands up)
A woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments. The case is too plain for argument. Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.
(Everyone claps)
Lucretia Mott
Whereas, the great precept of nature is conceded to be; "that man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness." Blackstone, in his Commentaries, remarks, that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the glove, in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original;
Therefore, Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and of no validity; for this is "superior in obligation to any other."
