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interference of women.” Chandler denied any desire to transform women into a “race of
politicians.” Rather than emulating men, through political behavior, Chandler instead
encouraged women to take female values into the world. Like Heyrick, Chandler argued
that moral power came before politics. 85
The debate between Chandler and Hale reflects the flexibility of the rhetoric of
domesticity. Both women used domestic ideology; yet, both women sought very
different responses from their readers to the issue of slavery. In this regard, the debate
bears striking similarities to the later debate between Catharine Beecher and Angelina
Grimké. Historians point to the exchange between Beecher and Grimké in 1837 as a
watershed moment in the debate about women’s role in reform movements such as
abolitionism. In 1836, Grimké had published An Appeal to the Christian Women of the
South in which she urged southern women to free their slaves (or at the very least educate
them) and to petition their legislatures. 86 In early 1837, Catharine Beecher published her
response to Grimké’s Appeal. In An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, Beecher
defended the American Colonization Society and gradualism and argued against efforts
to organize women into anti-slavery societies. While Beecher shared abolitionists’ belief
in women’s role as moral guardian, she believed women’s influence should be limited to
85 [Elizabeth Margaret Chandler], “Opinions,” Genius of Universal Emancipation, December 11,
1829. For a discussion of “female politicians,” see Rosemarie Zaggari, Revolutionary Backlash: Women
and Politics in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 75-81.
86 Grimké, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. The classic work on Angelina and Sarah
Grimké is Gerda Lerner, The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Woman’s Rights and
Abolition (New York: Schocken Books, 1967). For the Grimké-Beecher debate see 183-187.
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