Proposed by Julia Ward Howe
1870
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of
water or tears! Say firmly: 'We will not have great questions decided
by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken
from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and
patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of
another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs'.
From the bosom of the devastated earth, a voice goes up with our
own. It says, 'Disarm, Disarm!' The sword of murder is not the
balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence
indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the
anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left
of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after
his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the
earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance
of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of
international questions, the great and general interests of peace."
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