Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1881 — Old Time Reformers. [ARTICLE]

Old Time Reformers.

It is the general opinion of the reformers of our day that they, or at most their immediate predecessors, were first in the field, and that all was darkness before. As far as suffrage is concerned, the fact that women could vote in New Jersey seventy or eighty years ago throws some doubt upon this claim. The suspicion is strengthened into conviction by an appeal to history. A Massachusetts woman has discovered that Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, and generally his wisest counselor, as far back as 1774 wrote to him in behalf of woman’s. citizenship. He was at the time in attendance on the first Constitutional Congress at Philadelphia. She specially asked him to remember the ladies in the new code of laws and to treat them better than his ancestors had done. Mercy Otis, sister of James Otis, about the same time hit upon the since much used phrase of “ inherent rights,”'declaring that they “ belonged to all marikind, apd had all been conferred on all by the God of nations. ” These are old ffulnoritej according to the American standard *ol antiquity, but we think Semiramis aefl Zenobir, saying nothing of other ancierft" women of note, must have held very much the same idea of the equality the sexes. If no utterances of theirs tm this effect are extant, their careers'can. still be studied, and “actions speak louder than words.” The annual product of gold is now less than $100,000,000, and its foreign coinage is practically suspended. In the United States the production has gradually diminished. In 1878 it was $47,266,107; in 1879, it was $38,900,000; in 1880. $36,000,000.