commotiocordis

Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

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Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have
hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We
will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will
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 been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be
too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to
injure theirs."

From the voice of a 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 our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate
possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough 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 humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general
congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at
someplace deemed most convenient
And 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.