In this comprehensive history of women's antislavery petitions
addressed to Congress, Susan Zaeske argues that by petitioning,
women not only contributed significantly to the movement to abolish
slavery but also made important strides toward securing their own
rights and transforming their own political identity.
By analyzing the language of women's antislavery petitions,
speeches calling women to petition, congressional debates, and
public reaction to women's petitions from 1831 to 1865, Zaeske
reconstructs and interprets debates over the meaning of female
citizenship. At the beginning of their political campaign in 1835
women tended to disavow the political nature of their petitioning,
but by the 1840s they routinely asserted women's right to make
political demands of their representatives. This rhetorical change,
from a tone of humility to one of insistence, reflected an ongoing
transformation in the political identity of petition signers, as
they came to view themselves not as subjects but as citizens.
Having encouraged women's involvement in national politics, women's
antislavery petitioning created an appetite for further political
participation that spurred countless women after the Civil War and
during the first decades of the twentieth century to promote causes
such as temperance, anti-lynching laws, and woman suffrage.