Note 114 — Chapter XXII

A circumstance at the Woman's National Convention served to impress me profoundly with the monstrousness of slavery, and of the prejudice it created and has left behind it, which I have been waiting a convenient opportunity to tell you about. Far into the first evening of the Convention, when the debate had waxed warm between Mrs. Stanton—who opposed the admission of any more men (referring to the negroes) to the political franchise, until the present arbiters of the question were disposed to admit women also—and Mr. Downing and Dr. Purvis, of Washington, an elegant looking gentleman arose upon impulse and began to talk in his seat, but, after a little hesitancy, accepted the invitation of Mrs. Mott and Miss Anthony to take the platform. As he stood up before the audience, he appeared a tall, slender, elderly gentleman, with the white hair and other marks of years, at least not less than sixty, graced with a handsome face of the highest type, strikingly fine in character. I have seen many nations and conditions of people, and I do not fear to say with some regard for my reputation as an observer—that I believe it one of the most benevolent and exalted faces—one of the most elevated and least mixed with the animal and earthly alloys of our humanity, that adorn the whole globe. He spoke but a few words. They were all of the character of the generous impulse upon which he rose. In his gratitude for what those noble women had done for the colored race, with which he was identified, he was willing to wait for the ballot for himself, his sons, and his race, until women were permitted to enjoy it. The speaker was Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, Dr. Purvis's father. By the gas light of the hall, he not only appeared to be a white man, but a light complexioned white man. It may be that he has one thirty-second—possibly one-sixteenth—negro blood in his veins. There is so little in effect, that the whole make-up of the man is after the highest pattern of white men. Besides—to descend a little—Mr. Purvis is a gentleman of wealth and culture, and surrounds his family with all the gratifications of the intellectual, esthetic and moral desires, and carefully developed his children at home and at the best schools into which they could gain admission.—Correspondence of the Denver News.