View TEI
The Dorr Letters Project
Mary
Jane
Campbell
to
Thomas
Wilson
Dorr
: |
Introduction
Along with her letter to Thomas Dorr, Mary Jane Campbell enclosed a bottle of ointment that she hoped would help the People’s Governor with his rheumatism. Campbell relates news about the suffrage cause. According to Campbell, former suffrage men were now taking part in the arrests.
Letter
Dear Sir,
I hope you will not think me presumptuous
when you receive this scrach from one who has not the honour of your
acquaintance and one whose existence you probably knew not of until
you received this. I heard you was afflicted with the Rheumatism and
have taken the liberty to send you an Ointment which I am quite
shure will will give you relief if you will take the trouble to use it
according to the directions. it has cured many and I hope it will many
more but there is none that it ever has or ever will help that would
give me so much satisfaction as to hear that it has helped you. Then
lay it not one side as unworthy of your attention before A trial
it has already ben effectuall administered to some of your faithful
men who would have stood by you till death but who were tied up
and drove by inhuman monsters to the loathsome dungions of A
prison. I will not attempt to describe to you scenes of this State
you have already been made acquainted with them; but believe me
Sir I have not been a silent or uninterested observer. I watched
your progress with delite when all nature and natures God seem’d
to smile upon your labours and there seemed to be but one step
more to be taken before the wishes of by far the greatest portion of
our fellow Citizens would be realized. but alas that step was
lost and by the enemy gained and they have certainly made
the best or worst of it for they have not only tried to crush
you but all who dared to vindicate your cause.
is it possible thought I, as I ‸gaised upon ‸the countenances of some of my
neighbors that I behold before me fellow beings so deprived,
so totally destitute of all moral sense and the fear of an
Omnipresent God to whom he is accountable for all his deeds
as thus to attack their fellow men as the wild beasts of the forest
attack their enemys. had I not seen it I should have scarcely
believed it but I have seen men dragged to prison by the hands
of some who first persuaded them to vote for the People’s Constitution
but I do not wright this to depress your spirits. they are already
so much waid down but not by guilt or inhumanity to man
but because the dearest rights of the people are trampled upon by
tyrants ‸even the hoasts on high with gazeing saints lean forward from the sky
their spirits bent with eager eyes they viewed the sad event they view
the people’s wrongs the foes delite they view their wrongs and loathe
the hateful site.
I fear I have already tried your patience if I have pardon me.
I have only to ad that I beleave the days of the tyrants are already
numbered already the day star is beginning to arise the democracy
of other States is coming to the rescue the countenance of the oppressors
begins to look sad and the hearts of hundreds are waiting to receive
you their rightful Gov.
Mary Jane Campbell
Providence October 4th 1842
Questions
What do you learn about those Dorrites who were arrested in Rhode Island?
Was the suffrage reform cause making any grounds according to Campbell?
Why were former suffrage men helping the Charter authorities?