THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

and women’s activism in abolitionism. Yet, her later works urged women to use their
ascribed moral influence to challenge the boundaries of female activism. In the fall of
1829, Chandler and Sarah J. Hale, editor of the Ladies’ Magazine debated the role of
women in the abolitionist movement.
“An Appeal to the Ladies of the United States” is one of Chandler’s most forceful
calls for female action against slavery. She blamed women’s inaction on a lack of
education. Women, she noted, had been educated by custom to believe slavery as a
“natural” and “necessary evil.” Thus, improvements in female education would lead to
greater intellectual independence. Chandler also used the ideal of republican
motherhood. “Are ye not sisters, and daughters, and wives, and mothers?” she asked.
Chandler argued that, as the first educators of children, women had the power to save or
ruin the nation through the power of their influence. Chandler encouraged women to
form associations to promote free produce and abolition. Anti-slavery associations would
help women throw off social custom and subvert male authority. “Will you not stand
boldly and nobly forth, in the face of the world, and declare that American women will
never be tamely made the instruments of oppression?” Chandler demanded. 83
Printed first in the Genius of Universal Emancipation in September 1829,
Chandler’s “Appeal” was reprinted two months later in the Ladies’ Magazine, edited by
Sarah J. Hale. Hale attributed the essay to a “southern lady,” which may explain why this
reprint has gone unnoticed in analyses of Chandler’s work. Hale abridged Chandler’s
83 Genius of Universal Emancipation, September 16, 1829. For a discussion of republican
motherhood, see Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America
(New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1986).
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