Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was a Quaker and a “non-resistant”
pacifist who was committed to black emancipation and women’s rights.
As a woman, her role in official abolitionist movements was fraught with
difficulties. In 1840, she and six other American female delegates to
the World Anti-Slavery Convention in England were refused seats. Because
of her opposition to violence of any kind, Mott did not support the Civil
War as a means of liberating slaves. She did, however, welcome the War’s
hastening of emancipation. Of her principles she wrote, “I have
no idea, because I am a non-resistant, of submitting tamely to injustice
inflicted either on me or on the slave. I will oppose it with all the
moral powers with which I am endowed. I am no advocate of passivity.”
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