Library Collections: Document: Full Text

INTRODUCTION.

"A wounded spirit who can bear." Spirit wrongs are the keenest wounds that can be inflicted upon woman. Her nature is so sensitively organized that an injury to her feelings is felt more keenly than an injury to her person.

The fortitude of her nature enables her to endure physical suffering heroically; but the wound which her spirit feels under a wanton physical abuse is far more deeply felt, and is harder to be borne than the physical abuse itself.

Her very benevolent, confiding, forgiving nature, renders it a greater crime to abuse her spirit, than to abuse her person. To most men, and some women, this position may appear absurd, yet it is true; neither do we feel disposed to blame this class for not appreciating it, for their coarser organization incapacitates them to understand us.

When woman is brought before our man courts, and our man juries, and has no bruises, or wounds, or marks of violence upon her person to show as a ground of her complaint, it is hard for them to realize that she has any cause for appeal to them for protection; while at the same time her whole physical system may be writhing in agony from spirit wrongs, such as can only be understood by her peers.

Spiritual, sensitive women, knowing this fact, suffers on in silent anguish without appeal, until death kindly liberates her from her prison-house of unappreciated suffering.

It is to delineate these spiritual wrongs of women, that I have given my narrative to the public, hoping that my more tangible experiences may draw the attention of the philanthropic public to a more just consideration of married woman's legal disabilities; for since the emancipation of the negro, there is no class of American citizens who so much need legal protection, and who receive so little, as this class.

As their representative, I do not make complaint of physical abuses, but it is the usurpation of our natural rights of which we complain; and it is our legal position of nonentity, which renders us so liable and exposed to suffering and persecution from this source.

In the following narrative of my experiences, the reader will therefore find the interior of a woman's life delineated through the exterior surroundings of her bitter experiences. I state facts through which the reader may look into woman's soul, as through a mirror, that her realm of suffering may be thus portrayed.

Mrs. E. P. W. PACKARD.
CHICAGO, ILLS., January, 1873.
(1498 Prairie Avenue.)

Illustrations.

PICTURE I.
The Home from which Mrs. Packard was kidnapped.

PICTURE II.
Rev. Theophilus Packard.

PICTURE III.
Senate Scene, Springfield, Illinois.

PICTURE IV.
Dr. McFarland Punishing One-Armed Wyant.

PICTURE V.
Dr. McFarland's Self-Accusation.

PICTURE VI.
Dr. Morrison's Interview with Governor Palmer.

PICTURE VII.
Governor Carpenter, of Iowa, Signing the "Bill to Protect the Insane."

PICTURE VIII.
The Re-United Family -- Mrs. Packard and all her Children.

CONTENTS.

Introduction. 3
CHAPTER I. Imprisoned at Home by my Husband. 9
CHAPTER II. My Release on a Writ of Habeas Corpus. My Jury Trial. 22
CHAPTER III. Mr. Packard Takes my Children and Property and Flees his Country. 62
CHAPTER IV. Return to my Home -- Married Woman a Slave. 66
CHAPTER V. Defense of my Right to Property. 73
CHAPTER VI. An Incident. 81
CHAPTER VII. How to Commence Business without Capital. 84
CHAPTER VIII. Visit to my Father in Massachusetts -- Mr. Packard Forbids my Seeing my Children. 91
CHAPTER IX. My Successful Appeal to the Massachusetts Legislature. 96
CHAPTER X. My Father Becomes my Protector. 101
CHAPTER XI. Mr. Packard a Beggar. 107
CHAPTER XII. Why I do not get a Divorce. 111
CHAPTER XIII. The Opinions which Caused this Family Rupture. 117
CHAPTER XIV. Progression the Law of Our Being. "Seeing Eye to Eye." 126
CHAPTER XV. An Asylum Incident -- A Spiritual Conquest. 132
CHAPTER XVI. A Dream audits Interpretations. 142
CHAPTER XVII. A Prophecy and its Fulfillment. 151
CHAPTER XVIII. Can you Forgive Mr. Packard? 156
CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Packard Condemned by the Popular Verdict. 160
CHAPTER XX. Mr. Packard's Monomania. 163
CHAPTER XXI. Strong Language an Appropriate Drapery for Reformers. 174
CHAPTER XXII. Testimonials. 178
CHAPTER XXIII. Dangerous to be a Married Woman in Illinois! 186
CHAPTER XXIV. Passage of the Personal Liberty Bill in Illinois Legislature. 190
CHAPTER XXV. Opposition to the Bill. 196
CHAPTER XXVI. Signing of the Bill by the Governor. 207
CHAPTER XXVII. The Personal Liberty Bill and its Application. 210
CHAPTER XXVIII. Appointment of the Investigating Committee. 220
CHAPTER XXIX. Dr. McFarland's Punishment of Mr. Wyant. 228
CHAPTER XXX. Dr. McFarland's Infamous Proposal to Miss Julia A. Wilson. 232
CHAPTER XXXI. Testimony Presented to the Committee by Mrs. Tirzah F. Shedd, of Aurora, Illinois. 238
CHAPTER XXXII. Testimony of Eight Employees Taken by Committee, Under Oath. 245
CHAPTER XXXIII. Dr. McFarland's Self-Accusation. 258
CHAPTER XXXIV. Result of this Investigation. 261
CHAPTER XXXV. Dr. McFarland's Exit from the Asylum. 266
CHAPTER XXXVI. The Death Penalty to be Annihilated. 272
CHAPTER XXXVII. The Imputation of Insanity a Barrier to Human Progress. 276
CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Guilt of Folly. 281
CHAPTER XXXIX. Orthodox Heaven and Hell. 288
CHAPTER XL. My Effort in Connecticut Legislature. 291
CHAPTER XLI. The Opposition of the Conspiracy. 295
CHAPTER XLIL Tribute to Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Hawes, of Hartford, Connecticut. 300
CHAPTER XLIII. Passage of the Iowa Bill to Protect the Inmates of Insane Asylums. 303
CHAPTER XLIV. Opposition to the Enforcement of the Law. 317
CHAPTER XLV. An Act to Protect the Insane by Law. 326
CHAPTER XLVI. Educating the People. 329
CHAPTER XLVII My Visit to the Insane Asylum, Mount Pleasant, Iowa. 333
CHAPTER XLVIII. The Belgium Mode of Collecting the Mail from Inmates of Asylums. 341
CHAPTER XLIX. Life in Bloomingdale Asylum, New York. 345
CHAPTER L. Testimony from Ward's Island, Taunton, Trenton and Brattleboro Asylums 354
CHAPTER LI. Is Man the Lord of Creation? 361
CHAPTER LII. Getting my Children -- A Re-united Family. 365
CHAPTER LIII. The Family Disperse. 382
CHAPTER LIV. An Appeal to the Government to Equalize the Rights and Responsibilities of the Husband and Wife. 385
Appendix. 393

Page 2:

CHAPTER I. Imprisoned at Home by My Husband.

The Trustees ordered Mr. Packard to take me out of the Asylum, as no other person could legally remove me. I protested against being again put into his hands without some protection, knowing as I did, that he intended to incarcerate me for life in Northampton Asylum, Mass., if he was ever compelled to remove me from this.

But like as I entered the Asylum against my will, and in spite of my protest, so I was put out of it, into the absolute power of my persecutor against my will, and in spite of my protest to the contrary.

Mr. Packard removed me to Granville, Putnam County, Illinois, and placed me in the family of Mr. David Field, who married my adopted sister, where my son paid my board for about four months. Mr. Packard instructed this family to prevent my ever returning home to my children, adding:

"If she ever does come to see them I shall put her into another Asylum!"

During this time Granville community became acquainted with me and the facts in the case. And finding how intensely I desired to see my children, and be reinstated again into the duties of the maternal relation, and seeing no reason why this natural yearning of my nature should not be gratified, they called a meeting of the citizens where this subject was fully discussed, and Sheriff Leaper was appointed to communicate to me the result.

Their decision was that I go home to my children, taking their voluntary pledge as my protection, that should Mr. Packard again attempt to imprison me without a trial, they would use their influence to get him imprisoned in a Penitentiary, where they thought the laws of this Commonwealth would place him.

They also presented me thirty dollars to defray the expenses of my journey home to Manteno, and offered me the protection of a Sheriff as my travelling companion, if I desired it.

I declined this kind offer, fearing its effect upon Mr. Packard's feelings. I preferred to come to him alone and unprotected, hoping thus to arouse his manliness into exercise towards me, as one wholly dependent upon him for protection and shelter. And coming alone under these circumstances, might possibly lead him to reconsider his plan for perpetuating my imprisonment. For since this entire community, after becoming personally acquainted with me, had combined in defense of my sanity, he might be led to fear that the popular current might interpose a barrier to his treating me as an insane person in future.

My Granville friends appreciated the force of my argument, and therefore allowed me to return home unattended.

It was about ten o'clock, on a cold morning in November, that I arrived at the depot in Manteno. A few inches of snow had fallen the previous night, and now this snow was melting so as to render it very wet and sloppy under foot.

Without speaking to any one, I left my trunk at the depot and started to walk to my home, about one hundred yards distant. But before I had stepped from the platform I thought that my trunk, containing my valuable papers, must be carefully looked after, lest Mr. Packard get access to it and rob it of its valuables. I therefore concluded to return and request Mr. Harding, the depot master, to retain the trunk until called for by myself or my written order.

But as I turned round, I saw for the first time a boy following me, and seeing how very sloppy the platform was, I asked this boy if he would please go back and tell Mr. Harding that:

"Mrs. Packard requests him to please retain her trunk until she calls for it -- or, simply say, Mrs. Packard wishes Mr. Harding to not let Mr. Packard take her trunk."

The boy hesitated.

Said I, "an't you willing to do this favor for me? It is so wet I don't like to go back."

"I don't want to say anything against my Pa!"

Raising his cap, I looked him full in the face, exclaiming:

"Who are you? Is this my little George! Didn't I know my darling boy!"

As I embraced my precious child, and bestowed upon him kisses of the tenderest affection, I said:

"My darling George shall have his mother again. We shall never be separated now. Kind people are going to protect me and your Pa can't take your mother from you again."

At this point he drew back from my embrace, saying:

"My Pa has done right. He has not done wrong."

"Yes, George, your Pa has done wrong to take your mother from you and imprison her, as he has, without cause. An't you glad to see your mother?"

"Yes, mother! Yes! But -- but" -- and he burst into tears.

Seeing the conflict, between filial love and filial obedience that was going on in his little breast, I remarked:

"We wont talk any more about your father," and taking his hand, I said:

"Go with me, George."

"No, mother, I can't, Pa said I must get the mail and come directly home."

"I will go with you then to the Post-office."

And as we walked on together, I said:

"Did you know me, George?"

"Yes, mother, I knew you when you got off the train; Pa said you were coming to-day, and he told me to go to the depot and see if you came."

Page 3:

"How did he know I was coming?"

"He had a despatch from Chicago last night, saying you were on the way home."

While at the Post-office, I informed Mr. La Brie, the post-master, of the offer of protection the Granville community had extended to me, and asked him to see to it that my mail was not interfered with, so as not to intercept communication with them.

He promised me it should not be disturbed.

Noticing George in tears, I said:

"What is the matter, my son!"

"Pa said I must come directly home with the mail."

"You may go, then, my child, and I will come by-and-by."

And he left for his home.

My arrival had now become known throughout the village, and friends met in consultation as to what course to advise me to pursue. Mr. Blessing insisted that I should dine at his hotel, and then his team would transport me and my trunk to my house.

They also offered me a body-guard, not only to the house, but to remain with me in it if I chose. I declined both for the same reason I had refused my Granville guard.

Mr. Blessing accordingly landed my trunk upon the portico of our house, and left me to enter in alone. Before removing my trunk from the depot, I took from it my papers and delivered them into the hands of my friend, Mrs. Haslett.

I entered the front door and passed through the reception room and opened the door into the kitchen before seeing any one. Mr. Packard sat about opposite the door near the stove, in his stuffed easy chair, holding Arthur, my babe, in his arms. He simply bowed, without rising, and said:

"Good morning, Mrs. Packard."

I went up to my babe, and taking him from his father's arms commenced caressing him, when George and Elizabeth came in from the back yard. After embracing and kissing each other, I sat down with Arthur upon my lap and told them they were now going to have a mother again -- that I had come to take care of them, and hoped we should be very happy, and never be separated again, adding:

"It is my desire to do you all the good I can, and promote your welfare in every possible way. My daughter, won't it be pleasant to have some one to relieve you of your cares and responsibilities?"

Mr. Packard replied:

"No, you an't wanted here! We get along better without you than with you! "

Addressing my daughter, I said:

"I am thankful the law protects me in my right to my own home."

Said he: "You have no 'right' here! The law does not protect you here! I am your only protector!"

I exchanged no words with Mr. Packard upon this or any other subject -- I knew argument was useless, and every attempt at self-vindication would only add fuel to the flame of hatred and distrust which evidently still rankled within him. I had returned with the settled determination to do my whole duty in the family, as mother and housekeeper, so far as possible, without interfering in the least with his own duties or privileges.

With a sad, and yet joyful heart, I commenced to reconstruct my now desolate-looking home, by first cleaning it of its extra amount of defilement -- the accumulations of three years.

Before going home after my arrival, I engaged a hired girl to come the next day and assist me in cleaning my house. She came, and although Mr. Packard knew I had engaged to pay her from the money Granville people had donated for my use, he ordered her out of the house, even before I had had time to welcome her in, and told her never to come to his house to assist his wife without his permission. Of course she left, as the married woman has no rights which her husband is bound to respect!

I then commenced alone with my own sleeping room by removing the carpet, and being unable to lift it alone I asked one of my children to assist me. Mr. Packard forbid their helping me at all, saying:

"It is of no use to clean -- it don't need it -- and you must not assist your mother at all in doing it."

I put some water upon the kitchen cook-stove to heat for the purpose of cleaning the paint. He took it off, saying:

"You shall heat no water upon my stove for cleaning."

I accordingly cleaned my room with cold water.

In passing through the kitchen I saw my little daughter rolling out some pie-crust. I stepped up to the table and said:

"Let me show you how to make your crust, my daughter, I see you don't understand how to do it right."

Mr. Packard came up to the table, and in a loud and most authoritative tone, with his hand upraised, said:

"I forbid your interference! I will attend to this business myself! Elizabeth shall make her pies as she pleases."

I thought the "interference" was on the other side -- that it was he who was interfering with my duties instead of I with his. Nevertheless, I maintained my determination, never to speak in self-defense.

I sought for clean sheets for our beds, but found them locked up and the key in Mr. Packard's hands, and I could only get a change when in his judgment it was needed, not when I thought it even indispensable to health and cleanliness.

Page 4:

I sought for my wardrobe, but this too I found was under Mr. Packard's lock and key, and not even a decent pair of winter hose would he allow me from it, because in his judgment a useless worn out pair was all I needed.

One morning as I was doing the chamber work up stairs, I saw a bunch of keys left by the thoughtlessness of some of the children, who used them when they wished, in the closet door where our family stores and bedding and wardrobe were deposited to keep them from me; and I took them into my custody, assuring myself that I, as my husband's partner, had some right to carry the keys part of the time at least, and I concluded now was the time to test this principle. As locks and keys were an article introduced into my family during my banishment, I ventured to leave the door so much used, unlocked, so that the keys would not be necessary to their comfort or convenience.

But when, behold! the keys were missing, suspicion at once fell upon me, and Packard ordered my person and my room to be searched; which was done most thoroughly.

Now I saw the wisdom of not having my papers in my trunk, for he took an inventory of every article, and would doubtless have taken my papers had they been there, and he might have done as Dr. McFarland advised, "Burn them!"

But the search for the keys was all in vain -- they were nowhere to be found!

This search was not confined to my person and my room merely, but the entire house and premises were most carefully and diligently searched in every corner, nook, and crevice -- even the embers of my stove were examined. Both the front and back yard were also included in Packard's "search-warrant" -- every stone, leaf, and shrub were upturned to find the missing keys -- but all to no purpose! He could not find them, for the simple reason he did not look in the right place!

He then locked me up in my nursery so I could have no opportunity for using them.

Thus was my imprisonment in my home secured, whereby a writ of habeas corpus could be legally obtained. Thus, this my painful imprisonment of six weeks was the stepping-stone to my freedom.

I never was allowed to eat at the table with my family afterwards. My food was sent to my room in as good order as such cooks could prepare it. My health suffered much from confined air, as my windows were nailed down so my room could not be properly ventilated.

Mr. Packard cut me off from all communication with the community, and my other friends, by intercepting my mail -- refused me interviews with friends who called to see me, so that he might meet with no interference in carrying out the plan he had devised to have me incarcerated again for life.

During the day he allowed my four children, Samuel, Elizabeth, George, and Arthur, to occupy the room with me, as my scholars, and great was the proficiency they acquired during this their short school term of six weeks, in the knowledge of arithmetic, grammar, algebra, reading, spelling, writing, composition, and elocution -- Samuel especially being enthusiastic over his attainments during this school term -- said he: "Mother, I have learned more here this winter under your teaching, than I learned during one whole term of twelve weeks at the Academy at Kankakee."

While in my room I demanded and received from all my children the respect and obedience due me, as their teacher. But when I attempted to dictate in reference to their personal habits in relation to their bathing, toilet duties, hours of rising and retiring, and their wardrobe, Mr. Packard required them to disregard my directions, whenever they conflicted with his own plans or wishes in these matters.

The door of my room was not kept locked during the day, when the front outside door was securely fastened and the back door sufficiently guarded to prevent my escape; but at night it was always locked by himself.

One evening I proposed to my children that we clean and polish our cook-stove in the kitchen which Mr. Packard now used as his study, to which they readily consented. And to avoid disturbance during the time, Mr. Packard removed his stationery and papers to my room to study by himself by my warm stove.

When our merry polishing party had completed their task to their entire satisfaction, insisting upon it that "Black Prince" looked now just as bright as he used to shine when mother was housekeeper, we cleaned ourselves and all retired to my room to warm before retiring for the night. Our entrance was the signal for Mr. Packard's leaving, of course, and in his haste or carelessness in gathering up his papers he overlooked a package of letters, which he left behind upon my table. These I did not notice until all had dispersed and Mr. Packard had locked me up for the night.

My first thought was not to examine them, as they were undoubtedly left by mistake. But upon second thought I concluded it not only right to see my husband's papers, but also to avail myself of every lawful means of self-defense which lay within my reach. Accordingly I spent several hours of this night in carefully reading these letters, received during my incarceration and since my discharge. From these replies to his own letters, his platform of action, both past, present, and future, was distinctly portrayed, bearing most fearful and unmistakable evidence that I was to be entered in a few days into Northampton Insane Asylum for life!

Page 5:

One of these letters from Doctor Prince, Superintendent of that Asylum, assured me of this fact, in these words:

"I will receive Mrs. Packard as a case of hopeless insanity, upon the certificate of Dr. McFarland that she is 'hopelessly' insane."

Another from Dr. McFarland, saying:

With this certificate he could get me entered without any sort of trial, and thus I could be disposed of without jeopardizing their own interests, for he added:

"The dignity of silence is the only safe course for us both to pursue!"

Another from his sister, Mrs. Marian Severance, of Massachusetts, revealed the mode in which she advised her brother to transfer me from my home prison to my Asylum prison. She advised him to let me go to New York, under the pretence of getting my book published, and have him follow in a train behind, assuring the conductors that I must be treated as an insane person, although I should deny the charge, as all insane persons did, and thus make sure of their aid as accomplices in this conspiracy against my personal liberty. The conductor must be directed to switch me off at Northampton, Mass., instead of taking me to New York, and as my through ticket would indicate to me that all was right, she thought this could be done without arousing my suspicions; then engage a carriage to transport me to the Asylum under the pretext of a hotel, and lock me up for life as a state's pauper! Then, said she:

"You will have her out of the way, and can do as you please with her property, her children, and even her wardrobe; don't be even responsible this time for her clothing."

Mr. Packard was responsible for my wardrobe in Jacksonville prison, but for nothing else. I was supported there three years as a state pauper. This fact, Mr. Packard most adroitly concealed from my rich father and family relatives, so that he could persuade my deluded father to place more of my patrimony in his hands, under the false pretence that he needed it to make his daughter more comfortable in the Asylum. My father sent him money for this purpose, supposing Mr. Packard was paying my board at the Asylum; but instead of that he appropriated it all to his own exclusive use.

Another, letter was from Dr. McFarland, wherein I saw that Mr. Packard had made application for my re-admission there; and Dr. McFarland had consented to receive me again as an insane patient!

But the Trustees put their veto upon it, and would not consent to his plea that I be admitted there again. Here is his own statement, which I copied from his own letter:

"Jacksonville, December 18, 1863. Rev. Mr. Packard, Dear Sir: The Secretary of the Trustees has probably before this communicated to you the result of their action in the case of Mrs. Packard. It is proper enough to state that I favored her re-admission!"

Then follows his injunction to Mr. Packard to be sure not to publish anything respecting the matter.

Why is this? Does an upright course seek concealment?

Nay, verily: It is conscious guilt alone that seeks concealment, and dreads agitation lest his crimes be exposed. Mine is only one of a large class of cases, where he has consented to re-admit a sane person, particularly the wives of men whose influence he was desirous of securing for the support of himself in his present lucrative position.

Yes, many intelligent wives and mothers did I leave in that awful prison, whose only hope of liberty lies in the death of their lawful husbands, or in a change of the laws, or in a thorough ventilation of that Institution. Such a ventilation was needed, in order that justice be done to that class of miserable inmates who were then unjustly confined there.

When I had read these letters over three or four times, to make it sure I had not mistaken their import, and even had taken copies of some of them, I determined upon the following expedient as my last and only resort, as a self-defensive act.

There was a stranger who passed my window daily to get water from our pump. One day as he passed I beckoned to him to take a note which I had pushed down through where the windows came together, adding:

"Stranger, please hand this note to Mrs. Haslet."

My windows were firmly nailed down and screwed together, so that I could not open them.

This note was directed to Mrs. A. C. Haslet, the most efficient friend I knew of in Manteno, wherein I informed her of my imminent danger, and begged of her if possible in any way to rescue me, to do so forthwith, for in a few days I should be beyond the reach of all human help.

She communicated these facts to the citizens, when mob law was suggested as the only available means of rescue which lay in their power to use, as no law existed which defended a wife from a husband's power, and no man dared to take the responsibility of protecting me against my husband.

And one hint was communicated to me clandestinely that if I would only break through my window, a company was formed who would defend me when once outside our house. This rather unlady-like mode of self-defense I did not like to resort to, knowing as I did, if I should not finally succeed in this attempt, my persecutors would gain advantage over me, in that I had once injured property, as a reason why I should be locked up.

Page 6:

As yet, none of my persecutors had the shadow of capital to make out the charge of insanity upon outside of my opinions; for my conduct and deportment had uniformly been kind, lady-like, and Christian; and even to this date, 1873, I challenge any individual to prove me guilty of one unreasonable or insane act.

The lady-like Mrs. Haslet sympathized with me in these views; therefore she sought counsel of Judge Starr of Kankakee City, to know if any law could reach my case so as to give me a trial of any kind, before another incarceration.

The Judge told her that if I was a prisoner in my own house, and any were willing to take oath upon it, a writ of habeas corpus might reach my case and thus secure me a trial.

Witnesses were easily found who could take oath to this fact, as many had called at our house and had seen that my windows were screwed together on the outside, and our front outside door firmly fastened on the outside, and our back outside door most vigilantly guarded by day and locked at night.

In a few days this writ was accordingly executed by the Sheriff of the county, and just two days before Mr. Packard was intending to start with me for Massachusetts to imprison me for life in Northampton Lunatic Asylum, he was required by this writ to bring me before the court and give his reasons to the court why he kept his wife a prisoner.

The reason he gave for so doing was, that I was insane.

The Judge replied, "Prove it!"

The Judge then empanelled a jury of twelve men, and the following trial ensued as the result. This trial continued five days.

Thus my being made a prisoner at my own home was the only hinge on which my personal liberty for life hung, independent of mob law, as there was then no law in the State that would allow a married woman the right of a trial against the charge of insanity brought against her by her husband; and God only knows how many innocent wives and mothers my case represents, who have thus lost their liberty for life, by this arbitrary power, unchecked as it then was by no law on the Statute Book of Illinois.

CHAPTER II.
My Release on a Writ of "Habeas Corpus," and my Sanity Tried by a Jury -- My Sanity Fully Established.

By Stephen R. Moore, Attorney at Law

In preparing a report of this Trial, the writer has had but one object in view, namely, to present a faithful history of the case as narrated by the witnesses upon the stand, who gave their testimony under the solemnity of an oath. The exact language employed by the witnesses has been used, and the written testimony given in full, with the exception of a letter, written by Dr. McFarland, to Rev. Theophilus Packard, which letter was retained by Mr. Packard, and the writer was unable to obtain a copy. The substance of the letter is found in the body of the report, and has been submitted to the examination of Mr. Packard's counsel, who agree that it is correctly stated.

This case was on trial before the Hon. Charles B. Starr at Kankakee City, Illinois, from Monday, January 11th, 1864, to Tuesday the 19th, and came up on an application made by Mrs. Packard, under the Habeas Corpus Act, to be discharged from imprisonment by her husband in their own house.

The case has disclosed a state of facts most wonderful and startling. Reverend Theophilus Packard came to Manteno, in Kankakee county, Illinois, seven years since, and has remained in charge of the Presbyterian Church of that place until the past two years.

In the winter of 1859 and 1860, there were differences of opinion between Mr. Packard and Mrs. Packard, upon matters of religion, which resulted in prolonged and vigorous debate in the home circle. The heresies maintained by Mrs. Packard were carried by the husband from the fireside to the pulpit, and made a matter of inquiry by the church, and which soon resulted in open warfare; and her views and propositions were misrepresented and animadverted upon, from the pulpit, and herself made the subject of unjust criticism. In the Bible-Class and in the Sabbath School, she maintained her religious tenets and among her kindred and friends, defended herself from the obloquy of her husband.

To make the case fully understood, I will here remark, that Mr. Packard was educated in the Calvinistic faith, and for twenty-nine years has been a preacher of that creed, and would in no wise depart from the religion of his fathers. He is cold, selfish, and illiberal in his views, possessed of but little talent, and a physiognomy innocent of expression. He has large self-will, and his stubbornness is only exceeded by his bigotry.

Mrs. Packard is a lady of fine mental endowments, and blest with a liberal education. She is an original, vigorous, masculine thinker, and were it not for her superior judgment, combined with native modesty, she would rank as a "strong-minded woman." As it is, her conduct comports strictly with the sphere usually occupied by woman. She dislikes parade or show of any kind. Her confidence that Right will prevail, leads her to too tamely submit to wrongs. She was educated in the same religious belief with her husband, and during the first twenty years of married life, his labors in the parish and in the pulpit were greatly relieved by the willing hand and able intellect of his wife.

Page 7:

Phrenologists would also say of her, that her self-will was large and her married life tended in no wise to diminish this phrenological bump. They have been married twenty-five years, and have six children, the issue of their intermarriage, the youngest of whom was eighteen months old when she was kidnapped and transferred to Jacksonville. The older children have maintained a firm position against the abuse and persecutions of their father towards their mother, but were of too tender age to render her any material assistance.

Her views of religion are more in accordance with the liberal views of the age in which we live. She scouts the Calvinistic doctrine of man's total depravity, and that God has foreordained some to be saved and others to be damned. She stands fully on the platform of man's free agency and accountability to God for his actions. She believes that man, and nations, are progressive; and that in his own good time, and in accordance with His great purposes, Right will prevail over Wrong, and the oppressed will be freed from the oppressor. She believes slavery to be a national sin, and the church and the pulpit a proper place to combat this sin. These, in brief, are the points in her religious creed which were combated by Mr. Packard, and were denominated by him as "emanations from the devil," or "the vagaries of a crazed brain."

For maintaining such ideas as above indicated, Mr. Packard denounced her from the pulpit, denied her the privilege of family prayer in the home circle, expelled her from the Bible Class, and refused to let her be heard in the Sabbath School. He excluded her from her friends, and made her a prisoner in her own house.

Her reasonings and her logic appeared to him as the ravings of a mad woman -- her religion was the religion of the devil. To justify his conduct, he gave out that she was insane, and found a few willing believers, among his family connections.

This case was commenced by filing a petition in the words following, to wit:

STATE OF ILLINOIS,
KANKAKEE COUNTY.

To the Honorable CHARLES R. STARR, Judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit in the State of Illinois.

William Haslet, Daniel Beedy, Zaimon Hanford, and Joseph Younglove, of said county, on behalf of Elizabeth P. W. Packard, wife of Theophilus Packard, of said county, respectfully represent unto your Honor, that said Elizabeth P. W. Packard, is unlawfully restrained of her liberty, at Manteno, in the county of Kankakee, by her husband, Rev. Theophilus Packard, being forcibly confined and imprisoned in a close room of the dwelling-house of her said husband, for a long time, to wit; for the space of six weeks, her said husband refusing to let her visit her neighbors and refusing her neighbors to visit her; that they believe her said husband is about to forcibly convey her from out the State; that they believe there is no just cause or ground for restraining said wife of her liberty; that they believe that said wife is a mild and amiable woman. And they are advised and believe, that said husband cruelly abuses and misuses said wife, by depriving her of her winter's clothing, this cold and inclement weather, and that there is no necessity for such cruelty on the part of said husband to said wife; and they are advised and believe, that said wife desires to come to Kankakee City, to make application to your Honor for a writ of habeas corpus, to liberate herself from said confinement or imprisonment, and that said husband refused and refuses to allow said wife to come to Kankakee City for said purpose; and that these petitioners make application for a writ of habeas corpus in her behalf, at her request. These petitioners therefore pray that a writ of habeas corpus may forthwith issue, commanding said Theophilus Packard to produce the body of said wife, before your Honor, according to law, and that said wife may be discharged from said imprisonment.

(Signed), WILLIAM HASLET.
DANEL BEEDY.
ZALMON HANFORD.
J. YOUNGLOVE.

J.W. ORR,
H. LORING, Petitioners' Attorneys.

STEPHEN R. MOORE, Counsel.

STATE OF ILLINOIS,
KANKAKEE COUNTY.

William Haslet, Daniel Beedy, Zalmon Hanford, and Joseph Younglove, whose names are subscribed to the above petition, being duly sworn, severally depose and say, that the matters and facts set forth in the above petition are true in substance and fact, to the best of their knowledge and belief.

WILLIAM HASLET.
DANEL BEEDY.
ZALMON HANFORD.
J. YOUNGLOVE.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 11th day of January, A. D. 1864.

MASON B. LOOMIS, J. P.

Upon the above petition, the Honorable C. R. Starr, Judge as aforesaid, issued a writ of habeas corpus, as follows:

STATE OF ILLINOIS,
KANKAKEE COUNTY,

The People of the State of Illinois, To THEOPHILUS PACKARD:

WE COMMAND YOU, That the body of Elizabeth P. W. Packard, in your custody detained and imprisoned, as it is said, together with the day and cause of caption and detention, by whatsoever name the same may be called, you. safely have before Charles R. Starr, Judge of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit, State of Illinois, at his chambers, at Kankakee City in the said county, on the 12th instant, at one o'clock, P.M., and to do and receive all and singular those things which the said Judge shall then and there consider of her in this behalf, and have you then and there this writ.

Page 8:

Witness, Charles R. Starr, Judge aforesaid, this 11th day of January, A. D. 1864. -REVENUE STAMP- CHARLES R. STARR, -SEAL.-

Judge of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit of the State of Illinois.

Indorsed: "By the Habeas Corpus Act."

To said writ; the Rev. Theophilus Packard made the following return:

The within named Theophilus Packard does hereby certify, to the within named, the Honorable Charles R. Starr, Judge of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit of the State of Illinois, that the within named Elizabeth P. W. Packard is now in my custody, before your Honor. That the said Elizabeth is the wife of the undersigned, and is and has been for more than three years past insane, and for about three years of that time was in the Insane Asylum of the State of Illinois, under treatment, as an insane person. That she was discharged from said Asylum, without being cured, and is incurably insane, on or about the 18th day of June, A. D. 1863, and that since the 23rd day of October, the undersigned has kept the said Elizabeth with him in Manteno, in this county, and while he has faithfully and anxiously watched, cared for, and guarded the said Elizabeth, yet he has not unlawfully restrained her of her liberty; and has not confined and imprisoned her in a close room, in the dwelling-house of the undersigned, or in any other place, or way, but, on the contrary, the undersigned has allowed her all the liberty compatible with her welfare and safety. That the undersigned is about to remove his residence from Manteno, in this State, to the town of Deerfield, in the county of Franklin, in the State of Massachusetts, and designs and intends to take his said wife Elizabeth with him. That the undersigned has never misused or abused the said Elizabeth, by depriving her of her winter's clothing, but, on the contrary, the undersigned has always treated the said Elizabeth with kindness and affection, and has provided her with a sufficient quantity of winter clothing and other clothing; and that the said Elizabeth has never made any request of the undersigned, for liberty to come to Kankakee City, for the purpose of suing out a writ of habeas corpus. The undersigned hereby presents a letter from Andrew McFarland, Superintendent of the Illinois State Hospital, at Jacksonville, in this State, showing her discharge, and reasons of discharge, from said institution, which is marked "A," and is made a part of this return. And also presents a certificate from the said Andrew McFarland, under the seal of said hospital, marked "C," refusing to re-admit the said Elizabeth again into said hospital, on the ground of her being incurably insane, which is also hereby made a part of this return.

THEOPHILUS PACKARD. Dated January 12, 1864.

The Court, upon its own motion, ordered an issue to be formed, as to the sanity or insanity of Mrs. E. P. W. Packard, and ordered a venire of twelve men to aid the Court in the investigation of said issue. And thereupon a venire was issued.

The counsel for the respondent, Thomas P. Bonfield, Mason B. Loomis, and Hon. O. A. Lake, moved the court to quash the venire, on the ground that the court had no right to call a jury to determine the question, on an application to be discharged on a writ of habeas corpus. The court overruled the motion; and thereupon the following jury was selected:

John Stiles, Daniel G. Bean, Y. H. Young, F. G. Hutchinson, Thomas Muncey, H. Hirshberg, Nelson Jarvais, William Hyer, George H. Andrews, J. F. Mafet, Lemuel Milk, G. M. Lyons.

CHRISTHOPHER W. KNOTT was the first witness sworn by the respondent, to maintain the issue on his part, that she was insane; who being sworn, deposed and said:

I am a practicing physician in Kankakee City. Have been in practice fifteen years. Have seen Mrs. Packard; saw her three or four years ago. Am not much acquainted with her. Had never seen her until I was called to see her at that time. I was called to visit her by Theophilus Packard. I thought her partially deranged on religious matters, and gave a certificate to that effect. I certified that she was insane upon the subject of religion. I have never seen her since.

Cross-examination. -- This visit I made her was three or four years ago. I was there twice -- one-half hour each time. I visited her on request of Mr. Packard, to determine if she was insane. I learned from him that he designed to convey her to the State Asylum. Do not know whether she was aware of my object or not. Her mind appeared to be excited on the subject of religion; on all other subjects she was perfectly rational. It was probably caused by overtaxing the mental faculties. She was what might be called a monomaniac. Monomania is insanity on one subject. Three-fourths of the religious community are insane in the same manner, in my opinion. Her insanity was such that with a little rest she would readily have recovered from it. The female mind is more excitable than the male. I saw her perhaps one-half hour each time I visited her. I formed my judgment as to her insanity wholly from conversing with her. I could see nothing except an unusual zealousness and warmth upon religious topics. Nothing was said in my conversation with her, about disagreeing with Mr. Packard on religious topics. Mr. Packard introduced the subject of religion the first time I was there; the second time, I introduced the subject. Mr. Packard and Mr. Comstock were present. The subject was pressed on her for the purpose of drawing her out. Mrs. Packard would manifest more zeal than most of people upon any subject that. interested her. I take her to be a lady of fine mental abilities, possessing more ability than ordinarily found. She is possessed of a nervous temperament, easily excited, and has a strong will. I would say that she was insane, the same as I would say Henry Ward Beecher, Spurgeon, Horace Greeley, and like persons, are insane. Probably three weeks intervened between the visits I made Mrs. Packard. This was in June, 1860.

Page 9:

Re-examined. -- She is a woman of large, active brain, and nervous temperament. I take her to be a woman of good intellect. There is no subject which excites people so much as religion. Insanity produces, oftentimes, ill-feelings towards the best friends, and particularly the family, or those more nearly related to the insane person -- but not so with monomania. She told me, in the conversation, that the Calvinistic doctrines were wrong, and that she had been compelled to withdraw from the church. She said that Mr. Packard was more insane than she was, and that people would find it out. I had no doubt that she was insane. I only considered her insane on that subject, and she was not bad at that. I could not judge whether it was hereditary. I thought if she was withdrawn from conversation and excitement, she could have got well in a short time. Confinement in any shape, or restraint, would have made her worse. I did not think it was a bad case; it only required rest.

J. W. BROWN, being sworn, said:

I am a physician; live in this city; have no extensive acquaintance with Mrs. Packard. Saw her three or four weeks ago. I examined her as to her sanity or insanity. I was requested to make a visit, and had an extended conference with her; I spent some three hours with her. I had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion, in my mind, that she was insane.

Cross-examination. -- I visited her by request of Mr. Packard, at her house. The children were in and out of the room; no one else was present. I concealed my object in visiting her. She asked me if I was a physician, and I told her no; that I was an agent, selling sewing machines, and had come there to sell her one.

The first subject we conversed about was sewing machines. She showed no sign of insanity on that subject.

The next subject discussed, was the social condition of the female sex. She exhibited no special marks of insanity on that subject, although she had many ideas quite at variance with mine, on the subject.

The subject of politics was introduced. She spoke of the condition of the North and the South. She illustrated her difficulties with Mr. Packard, by the difficulties between the North and the South. She said the South was wrong, and was waging war for two wicked purposes: first, to overthrow a good government, and second, to establish a despotism on the inhuman principle of human slavery. But that the North, having right on their side, would prevail. So Mr. Packard was opposing her, to overthrow free thought in woman; that the despotism of man may prevail over the wife; but that she had right and truth on her side, and that she would prevail. During this conversation I did not fully conclude that she was insane.

I brought up the subject of religion. We discussed that subject for a long time, and then I had not the slightest difficulty in concluding that she was hopelessly insane.

Question. Dr., what particular idea did she advance on the subject of religion that led you to the conclusion that she was hopelessly insane?

Answer. She advanced many of them. I formed my opinion not so much on any one idea advanced, as upon her whole conversation. She then said that she was the "Personification of the Holy Ghost." I did not know what she meant by that.

Ques. Was not this the idea conveyed to you in that conversation: That there are three attributes of the Deity -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Now, did she not say, that the attributes of the Father were represented in mankind, in man; that the attributes of the Holy Ghost were represented in woman; and that the Son was the fruit of these two attributes of the Deity?

Ans. Well, I am not sure but that was the idea conveyed, though I did not fully get her idea at the time.

Ques. Was not that a new idea to you in theology?

Ans. It was.

Ques. Are you much of a theologian?

Ans. No.

Ques. Then because the idea was a novel one to you, you pronounced her insane.

Ans. Well, I pronounced her insane on that and other things that exhibited themselves in this conversation.

Ques. Did she not show more familiarity with the subject of religion and the questions of theology, than you had with these subjects?

Ans. I do not pretend much knowledge on these subjects.

Ques. What else did she say or do there, that showed marks of insanity?

Ans. She claimed to be better than her husband -- that she was right -- and that he was wrong -- and that all she did was good, and all he did was bad -- that she was farther advanced than other people, and more nearly perfection. She found fault particularly that Mr. Packard would not discuss their points of difference on religion in an open, manly way, instead of going around and denouncing her as crazy to her friends and to the church.

She had a great aversion to being called insane. Before I got through the conversation she exhibited a great dislike to me, and almost treated me in a contemptuous manner. She appeared quite lady-like. She had a great reverence for God, and a regard for religious and pious people.

Page 10:

Re-examined. Ques. Dr., you may now state all the reasons you have for pronouncing her insane.

Ans. I have written down, in order, the reasons which I had, to found my opinion on, that she was insane. I will read them.

1. That she claimed to be in advance of the age thirty or forty years.
2. That she disliked to be called insane.
3. That she pronounced me a copperhead, and did not prove the fact.
4. An incoherency of thought. That she failed to illuminate me and fill me with light.
5. Her aversion to the doctrine of the total depravity of man.
6. Her claim to perfection, or nearer perfection in action and conduct.
7. Her aversion to being called insane.
8. Her feeling towards her husband.
9. Her belief that to call her insane and abuse her, was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.
10. Her explanation of this idea.
11. Incoherency of thought and ideas.
12. Her extreme aversion to the doctrine of the total depravity of mankind, and in the same conversation, saying her husband was a specimen of man's total depravity.
13. The general history of the case.
14. Her belief that some calamity would befall her, owing to my being there, and her refusal to shake hands with me when I went away.
15. Her viewing the subject of religion from the osteric standpoint of Christian exegetical analysis, and agglutinating the polsynthetical ectoblasts of homogeneous asceticism.

The witness left the stand amid roars of laughter; and it required some moments to restore order in the court room.

JOSEPH H. WAY, sworn, and said:

I am a practicing physician in Kankakee City, Illinois. I made a medical examination of Mrs. Packard a few weeks since at her house; was there perhaps two hours. On most subjects she was quite sane. On the subject of religion I thought she had some ideas that are not generally entertained. At that time I thought her to be somewhat deranged or excited on that subject; since that time I have thought perhaps I was not a proper judge, for I am not much posted on disputed points in theology, and I find that other people entertain similar ideas. They are not in accordance with my views, but that is no evidence that she is insane.

Cross-examined. -- I made this visit at her house, or his house, perhaps, at Manteno. I conversed on various subjects. She was perfectly sane on every subject except religion, and I would not swear now that she was insane. She seemed to have been laboring under an undue excitement on that subject. She has a nervous temperament, and is easily excited. She said she liked her children, and that it was hard to be torn from them. That none but a mother could feel the anguish she had suffered; that while she was confined in the Asylum, the children had been educated by their father to call her insane. She said she would have them punished if they called their own mother insane, for it was not right.

ABIJAH DOLE, sworn, and says:

I know Mrs. Packard; have known her twenty-five or thirty years. I am her brother-in-law. Lived in Manteno seven years. Mrs. Packard has lived there six years. I have been sent for several times by her and Mr. Packard, and found her in an excited state of mind. I was there frequently; we were very familiar. One morning early, I was sent for; she was in the west room; she was in her night clothes. She took me by the hand and led me to the bed. Libby was lying in bed, moaning and moving her head. Mrs. Packard now spoke and said, "How pure we are." "I am one of the children of heaven; Libby is one of the brandies." "The woman shall bruise the serpent's head." She called Mr. Packard a devil. She said, Brother Dole, these are serious matters. If Brother Haslet will help me, we will crush the body. She said Christ had come into the world to save men, and that she had come to save woman. Her hair was disheveled. Her face looked wild. This was over three years ago.

I was there again one morning after this. She came to me. She pitied me for marrying my wife, who is a sister to Mr. Packard; said, I might find an agreeable companion. She said if she had cultivated amativeness, she would have made a more agreeable companion. She took me to another room and talked about going away; this was in June, before they took her to the State Hospital. She sent for me again; she was in the east room; she was very cordial. She wanted me to intercede for Theophilus, who was at Marshall, Michigan; she wanted him to stay there, and it was thought not advisable for him to stay. We wished him to come away, but did not tell her the reasons. He was with a Swedenborgian.

After this I was called there once in the night. She said she could not live with Mr. Packard, and she thought she had better go away. One time she was in the Bible-class. The question came up in regard to Moses smiting the Egyptian; she thought Moses had acted too hasty, but that all things worked for the glory of God. I requested her to keep quiet, and she agreed to do it.

I have had no conversation with Mrs. Packard since her return from the Hospital; she will not talk with me because he thinks I think she is insane. Her brother came to see her; he said. he had not seen her for four or five years. I tried to have Mrs. Packard talk with him, and she would not have anything to do with him because he said she was a crazy woman. She generally was in the kitchen when I was there, overseeing her household affairs.

Page 11:

I was Superintendent of the Sabbath School. One Sabbath, just at the close of the school, I was behind the desk, and almost like a vision she appeared before me, and requested to deliver or read an address to the school. I was much surprised; I felt so bad, I did not know what to do. (At this juncture the witness became very much affected, and choked up so that he could not proceed, and cried so loud that he could be heard in any part of the court-room. When he became calm, he went on and said,) I was willing to gratify her all I could, for I knew she was crazy, but I did not want to take the responsibility myself, so I put it to a vote of the school, if she should be allowed to read it. She was allowed to read it. It occupied ten or fifteen minutes in reading.

I cannot state any of the particulars of that paper. It bore evidence of her insanity. She went on and condemned the church, all in all, and the individuals composing the church, because they did not agree with her. She looked very wild and very much excited. She seemed to be insane. She came to church one morning just as services commenced, and wished to have the church act upon her letter withdrawing from the church immediately. Mr. Packard was in the pulpit. She wanted to know if Brother Dole and Brother Merrick were in the church, and wanted them to have it acted upon. This was three years ago, just before she was taken away to the hospital.

Cross-examined. -- I supposed when I first went into the room that her influence over the child had caused the child to become deranged. The child was ten years old. I believed that she had exerted some mesmeric or other influence over the child, that caused, it to moan and toss its head. The child had been sick with brain fever; I learned that after I got there. I suppose the mother had considerable anxiety over the child; I suppose she had been watching over the child all night, and that would tend to excite her. The child got well. It was sick several days after this; it was lying on the bed moaning and tossing its head; the mother did not appear to be alarmed. Mr. Packard was not with her; she was all alone; she did not say that Mr. Packard did not show proper care for the sick child. I suppose she thought Libby would die.

Her ideas on religion did not agree with mine, nor with my view of the Bible.

I knew Mr. Packard thought her insane, and did not want her to discuss these questions in the Sabbath School. I knew he had opposed her more or less. This letter to the church was for the purpose of asking for a letter from the church.

Question. Was it an indication of insanity that she wanted to leave the Presbyterian Church?

Answer. I think it strange that she should ask for letters from the church. She would not leave the church unless she was insane.

I am a member of the church -- I believe the church is right. I believe everything the church does is right. I believe everything in the Bible.

Ques. Do you believe literally that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and remained in its belly three days, and was then cast up?

Ans. I do.

Ques. Do you believe literally that Elijah went direct up to Heaven in a chariot of fire -- that the chariot had wheels, and seats, and was drawn by horses?

Ans. I do -- for with God all things are possible.

Ques. Do you believe Mrs. Packard was insane, and is insane?

Ans. I do.

I never read any of Swedenborg's works. I do not deem it proper for persons to investigate new doctrines or systems of theology.

Re-examined. -- I became a Presbyterian eight years ago. I was formerly a Congregationalist; Mr. Packard was a Congregationalist.

Re-cross-examination. -- Ques. Was it dangerous for you to examine the doctrines or theology embraced in the Presbyterian Church, when you left the Congregationalist Church, and joined it?

Ans. I will not answer so foolish a question.

Witness discharged.

JOSEPHUS B. SMITH, sworn, says:

Am aged fifty years; have known Mrs. Packard seven years. I cannot tell the first appearance of any abnormal condition of her mind. I first saw it at the Sabbath School. She came in and wished to read a communication. I do not recollect everything of the communication. She did not read the letter, but presented it to Brother Dole. She said something about her small children, and left. She seemed to be excited. There was nothing very unusual in her appearance. Her voice was rather excited; it could be heard nearly over the house. I merely recall the circumstance, but recollect scarce anything else. It was an unusual thing for any person to come in and read an address. I do not recollect anything unusual in her manner.

(At this stage of the trial, an incident occurred that for a time stopped all proceedings, and produced quite an excitement in the court-room; and this report would not be faithful if it were passed over unnoticed. Mrs. Dole, the sister of Mr. Packard, came in, leading the little daughter of Mrs. Packard, and in passing by the table occupied by Mrs. Packard and her counsel, the child stopped, went up to her mother, kissed and hugged her, and was clinging to her with all child-like fervor, when it was observed by Mrs. Dole, who snatched the child up -- and bid it "come away from that woman;" adding, "She is not fit to take care of you -- I have you in my charge;" and thereupon led her away. The court-room was crowded to its utmost, and not a mother's heart there but what was touched, and scarce a dry eye was seen. Quite a stir was made, but the sheriff soon restored order.)

Page 12:

Cross-examined. -- I had charge of the Sunday School; am a member of Mr. Packard's church. I knew Mr. Packard had considered her insane; knew they had had difficulties. I was elected Superintendent of the school in place of Brother Dole, for the special purpose of keeping Mrs. Packard straight.

SYBIL DOLE, sworn, and says --

I am Mr. Packard's sister; have known her twenty-five years. Her natural disposition is very kind and sweet. Her education is very good; her morals without a stain or blemish. I first observed a change in her after we came to Manteno. I had a conversation with her, when she talked an hour without interruption; she talked in a wild, excited manner; the subject was partly religion. She spoke of her own attainments; she said she had advanced in spiritual affairs. This was two or three years before she went to the Asylum.

The next time was when she was preparing to go to York State. She was weeping and sick. Her trunk was packed and ready to go, but Mr. Packard was sick. From her voice, and the manner she talked, I formed an opinion of her insanity; "he talked on various points; the conversation distressed me very much; I could not sleep. She was going alone; we tried to persuade her not to go alone. She accused Mr. Packard very strangely of depriving her of her rights of conscience -- that he would not allow her to think for herself on religious questions, because they disagreed on these topics. She made her visit to New York. The first time I met her after her return, her health was much improved; she appeared much better. In the course of a few weeks, she visited at my house.

At another time, one of the children came up, and wanted me to go down; I did so. She was very much excited about her son remaining at Marshall. She was wild. She thought it was very wrong and tyrannical for Mr. Packard not to permit her son to remain there. She said very many things which seemed unnatural. Her voice, manner and ways, all showed she was insane?

I was there when Mr. Baker came there, to see about Theophilus remaining at Marshall with him. She was calmer than she was the day before. She said that she should spend the day in fasting and prayer. She said he had come in unexpectedly, and they were not prepared to entertain strangers. She was out of bread, and had to make biscuit for dinner. (One gentleman in the crowd turned to his wife and said, "Wife, were you ever out of bread, and had to make biscuit for dinner? I must put you into an Insane Asylum! No mistake!") I occupied the same room and bed with her. She went to Mr. Packard's room, and when she returned, she said, that if her son was not permitted to remain at Marshall, it would result in a divorce. She got up several times during the night. She told me how much she enjoyed the family circle. She spoke very highly of Mr. Packard's kindness to her. She spoke particularly of the tenderness which had once existed between them. I did not notice anything very remarkable in her conduct toward Mr. Packard, until just before she was sent to the Hospital.

One morning afterward, I went to her house with a lady; we wanted to go in, and were admitted. She seemed much excited. She said, "You regard me insane. I will thank you to leave my room." This was two or three months before she was sent to Jacksonville. Mr. Packard went out. She put her hand on my shoulder, and said she would thank me to go out too. I went out.

I afterward wanted to take the baby home. One morning I went down to see her, and prepared breakfast for her. She appeared thankful, and complimented me on my kindness. She consented for me to take the child; I did so. In a short time, about ten days after, the other children came up, and said, that she wanted to take her own child. I took the child down. Her appearance was very wild. She was filled with spite toward Mr. Packard. She defied me to take the child again, and said that she would evoke The strong arm of the law to help her keep it.

At another time, at the table, she was talking about religion, when Mr. Packard remonstrated with her; she became angry, and told him she would talk what and when she had a mind to. She rose up from the table, and took her tea-cup, and left the room in great violence.

Cross-examined. -- I am a member of Mr. Packard's church, and am his sister. He and I have often consulted together about Mrs. Packard. Mr. Packard was the first to ever suggest that she was insane; after that, I would more carefully watch her actions to find out if she was insane. The religious doctrines she advanced were at variance with those entertained by our church. She was a good, neat, thrifty, and careful housekeeper. She was economical; kept the children clean and neatly dressed. She was sane on all subjects except religion. I do not think she would have entertained these ideas, if she had not been insane. I do not think she would have wanted to have withdrawn from our church, and unite with another church, if she had not been insane. She said she would worship with the Methodists. They were the only other Protestant denomination that held service at Manteno at the time. I knew when she was taken to Jacksonville Hospital. She was taken away in the morning. She did not want to go; we thought it advisable for her to go.

Page 13:

SARAH RUMSEY, sworn, and says:

Have lived one week in Mrs. Packard's house. I was present at the interview when Mrs. Packard ordered us to leave the room. Mrs. Packard was very pale and angry. She was in an undress, and her hair was down over her face. It was 11 o'clock in the forenoon -- I staid at the house; Mrs. Packard came out to the kitchen. She was dressed then. She said she had come to reveal to me what Mr. Packard was. She talked very rapidly; she would not talk calm. She said Mr. Packard was an arch deceiver; that he and the members of his church had made a conspiracy to put her into the Insane Asylum; she wanted me to leave the Conspirators. Soon after dinner she said, "Come with me, I have something to tell you." She said she had a new revelation; it would soon be here; and that she had been chosen by God for a particular mission. She said that all who decided with her, and remained true to her, would be rewarded in the millennium, and if I would side with her, that I would be a chief apostle in the millennium. She wanted to go to Batavia, but that Mr. Packard would give her no money to take her there; that Mr. Packard called her insane. She started to go out, and Mr. Packard made her return; took her into Mr. Comstock's, and Mr. Comstock made her go home.

I saw her again when Libby had the brain fever. She was disturbed because the family called her insane. She and Libby were crying together; they cried together a long time. This was Tuesday. She would not let me into the room. The next morning while at breakfast Mr. La Brie passed the window and came in. He said that Georgie had been over for him, and said that they were killing his mother. She acted, very strangely all the time; was wild and excited.

Cross-examined. -- Knew Mr. Packard two years before I went there to live. He was the pastor of our church. I am a member of the church. I did not attend the Bible-class. Brother Bole came to me and said somebody of the church should go there and stay at the house, and assist in packing her clothes and getting her ready to take off to the Hospital, and stay and take care of the children. I consented to go; I heard that Brother Packard requested Brother Dole to come for me. I never worked out before. They had a French servant, before I went there; Mr. Packard turned her off when I came, the same day. I did not want to take Mrs. Packard away. I did not think she exhibited any very unusual excitement, when the men came there to take her away. Doctors Merrick and Newkirk were the physicians who came there with Sheriff Burgess. She did not manifest as much excitement, when being taken away, as I would have done under the same circumstances; any person would have naturally been opposed to being carried away.

The church had opposed her, in disseminating her ideas in the church; I was opposed to her promulgating her religious ideas in the church; I thought them wrong, and injurious. I was present at the Sabbath School when she read the paper to the school; I thought that bore evidence of insanity. It was a refutation of what Mrs. Dixon had written; I cannot give the contents of the paper now.

I was present when she read a confession of her conduct to the church; she had had her views changed partially, from a sermon preached upon the subject of the sovereignty and immutability of God. I did not think it strange conduct that she changed her views; and never said so. This was in the spring before the June when they took her away.

The article she read in the school was by the permission of the school.

I was present when she presented a protest against the church for refusing to let her be heard; I have only an indistinct recollection of it; it was a protest because they refused to listen to her.

Mr. Dole was the only person who came to the house when she was taken away, except the men with Burgess.

She said that Mr. Packard had deprived her of the liberty of conscience in charging her to be insane, when she only entertained ideas new to him.

I thought it was an evidence of insanity, because she maintained these ideas. I do not know that many people entertain similar ideas; I suppose a good many do not think the Calvinistic doctrine is right; they are not necessarily insane because they think so.

When she found I was going to stay in the house, and that the French servant had been discharged, she ordered me into the kitchen; before that she had treated me kindly as a visitor.

I thought it was an evidence of insanity for her to order me into the kitchen; she ought to have known that I was not an ordinary servant. The proper place for the servant is in the kitchen at work, and not in the parlor; I took the place of the servant girl for a short time.

She wanted the flower beds in the front yard, cleaned out, and tried to get Mr. Packard to do it; he would not do it. She went and put on an old dress and went to work, and cleaned the weeds out, and worked herself into a great heat. It was a warm day; she staid out until she was almost melted down with the heat.

Page 14:

Question. What did she do then?

Ans. She went to her room, took a bath and dressed herself, and then lay down exhausted. She did not come down to dinner.

Ques. And did you think that was an evidence of insanity?

Ans. I did -- the way it was done.

Ques. What would you have done under similar circumstances? Would you have set down in the clothes you had worked in?

Ans. No.

Ques. Probably you would have taken a bath and changed your clothes too. And so would any lady, would they not?

Ans. Yes.

Ques. Then would you call yourself insane?

Ans. No. But she was angry and excited, and showed ill-will. She was very tidy in her habits; liked to keep the house clean, and have her yard and flowers look well. She took considerable pains with these things.

I remained there until she was taken away. I approved taking her away; I deemed her dangerous to the church; her ideas were contrary to the church, and were wrong.

The baby was eighteen months old when she was taken away. She was very fond of her children, and treated them very kindly. Never saw her misuse them. Never heard that she had misused them. Never heard that she was dangerous to herself or to her family. Never heard that she had threatened or offered to destroy anything or injure any person.

JUDGE BARTLETT was next called to the stand.

Am acquainted with Mrs. Packard. Had a conversation with her on religious topics. We agreed very well in most things. She did not say she believed in the transmigration of souls; she said, some persons had expressed that idea to her, But she did not believe it. It was spoken of lightly. She did not say ever to me, that Mr. Packard's soul would go into an ox. She did not say anything about her being related to the Holy Ghost. I thought then, and said it, that religious subjects were her study, and that she would easily be excited on that subject. I could not see that she was insane. I would go no stronger than to say, that her mind dwelt on religious subjects. She could not be called insane, for thousands of People believe as she does, on religion,

MRS. SYBIL DOLE, recalled.

At the time she got up from the table she went out. She said, "I will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. No! not so much as to eat with them."

Re-cross-examined. -- Question. Did you deem that an evidence of Insanity?

Answer. I did.

Ques. She called Mr. Packard the unfruitful works of darkness?

Ans. I suppose so.

Ques. Did she also include you?

Ans. She might have done so.

Ques. This was about the time that her husband was plotting to kidnap her, was it not?

Ans. It was just before she was removed to the Asylum.

Ques. He had been charging her with insanity, had he not, at the table?

Ans. He had.

The prosecution now wished to adjourn the court for ten days, to enable them to get Dr. McFarland, Superintendent of the State Hospital, who, they claimed, would testify that she was insane. Counsel stated, he had been telegraphed to come, and a reply was received, that he was in Zanesville, Ohio, and would return in about ten days. They claimed his testimony would be very important. This motion the counsel of Mrs. Packard opposed, as it was an unheard-of proceeding to continue a cause after the hearing was commenced, to enable a party to hunt up testimony.

The matter was discussed on each side for a considerable length of time, when the court held that the defense should go on with their testimony, and after that was heard, then the court would determine about continuing the case to get Dr. McFarland, and perhaps he could be got before the defense was through, and if so, he might be sworn; and held that the defense should go on now.

The counsel for Mrs. Packard withdrew for consultation, and in a brief time returned, and announced to the court that they would submit the case without introducing any testimony, and were willing to submit it without argument. The counsel for Mr. Packard objected to this, and renewed the motion for a continuance; which the court refused.

The counsel for Mr. Packard then offered to read to the jury a letter from Dr. McFarland, dated in the month of December, 1863, written to Rev. Theophilus Packard; and also a certificate, under the seal of the State Hospital at Jacksonville, certifying that Mrs. Packard was discharged from the institution in June, 1863, and was incurably insane, which certificate was signed by Dr. McFarland, the Superintendent. To the introduction of this to the jury, the counsel for Mrs. Packard objected, as being incompetent testimony, and debarred the defense of the benefit of a cross-examination. The court permitted the letter and certificate to be read to the jury.

These documents were retained by Rev. Theophilus Packard, and the reporter has been unable to obtain copies of them. The letter is dated in December, 1863, at the State Hospital, Jacksonville, Illinois, and written to Rev. Theophilns Packard, wherein Dr. McFarland writes him that Mrs. Packard is hopelessly insane, and that no possible good could result by having her returned to the Hospital; that the officers of the institution had done everything in their power to effect a cure, and were satisfied she could not be cured, and refused to receive her into the institution.

Page 15:

The certificate, under the seal of the Hospital, was a statement, dated in June, 1863, at Jacksonville, Illinois, setting forth the time (three years) that Mrs. Packard had been under treatment, and that she had been discharged, as beyond a possibility of being cured.

The above is the import of these documents, which the reporter regrets he cannot lay before the public in fall.

The prosecution now announced that they closed their case.

Defense.

J. L. SIMINGTON was the first witness called for the defense. Being sworn, he said:

I live in Manteno; lived there since 1859, early in the spring. Knew Rev. Mr. Packard and Mrs. Packard. First became acquainted with them in 1858; I was then engaged. in the ministry of the Methodist Church. I have practiced medicine eleven years.

I was consulted as a family physician by Mrs. Packard in 1860. Was quite well acquainted with Mrs. Packard, and with the family. Lived fifty or sixty rods from their house. Saw her and the family almost daily. I did not see anything unusual in her, in regard to her mind. I never saw anything I thought insanity with her. So far as I know she was a sane woman. I have seen her since she came from the Hospital; have seen nothing since to indicate she was insane. My opinion is, she is a sane woman.

No cross-examination was made.

Dr. J. D. MANN, sworn, and says:

I live in Manteno; have lived there nine years. Practiced medicine there six years. I am not very intimately acquainted with either Mr. or Mrs. Packard. Mr. Packard invited me to go to his house to have an interview with Mrs. Packard. I went at his request. He requested me to make a second examination, which I did. There had been a physician there before I went. The last time he wanted me to meet Dr. Brown of this city, there. This was late in November last. He introduced me to Mrs. Packard. I had known her before she was taken to the Hospital, and this was the first time I had seen her since she had returned. I was there from one to two hours. I then made up my mind, as I had made up my mind from the first interview, that I could find nothing that indicated insanity. I did not go when Dr. Brown was there. Mr. Packard had told me she was insane, and my prejudices were, that she was insane. He wanted a certificate of her insanity to take East with him. I would not give it. The witness was not cross-examined.

JOSPEH F. LA BRIE, sworn, and says:

Have known Mrs. Packard six years; lived fifteen or twenty rods from their house. Knew her in spring of 1860. Saw her nearly every day -- sometimes two or three times a day. I belong to the Catholic Church. Have seen her since her return from Jacksonville. I have seen nothing that could make me think her insane. I always said she was a sane woman, and say so yet.

Cross-examined. -- I am not a physician. I am not an expert. She might be insane, but no common-sense man could find it out.

Re-examined. -- I am a Justice of the Peace, and Notary Public. Mr. Packard requested me to go to his house, and take an acknowledgment of a deed from her. I went there, and she signed and acknowledged the deed. This was within the past two months.

Re-cross-examined. -- I was sent for to go to the house in the spring of 1860. My wife was with me. It was about taking her to Jacksonville. Mrs. Packard would not come to the room where I was. I stayed there only about twenty minutes.

Have been there since she returned from the Hospital. The door to her room was locked on the outside. Mr. Packard said, he had made up his mind to let no one into her room.

The counsel for Mrs. Packard offered to read to the jury the following paper, which had been referred to by the witnesses, as evidence of Mrs. Packard's insanity, and which Deacon Smith refused to hear read. The counsel for Mr. Packard examined the paper, and admitted it was the same paper.

The counsel for Mrs. Packard then requested permission of the court for Mrs. Packard to read it to the jury, which was most strenuously opposed. The court permitted Mrs. Packard. to read it to the jury. Mrs. Packard arose, and read in a distinct tone of voice, so that every word was heard all over the court-room.

How Godliness is Profitable.

DEACON SMITH -- A question was proposed to this class, the last Sabbath Brother Dole taught us, and it was requested that the class consider and report the result of their investigations at a future session. May I now bring it up? The question was this:

"Have we any reason to expect that a Christian farmer, as a Christian, will be any more successful in his farming operations, than an impenitent sinner -- and if not, how is it that godliness is profitable unto all things? Or, in other words, does the motive with which one prosecutes his secular business, other things being equal, make any difference in the pecuniary results?"

Mrs. Dixon gave it as her opinion, at the time, that the motive did affect the pecuniary results.

Now the practical result to which this conclusion leads, is such as will justify us in our judging of Mrs. Dixon's true moral character, next fall, by her success in her farming operations this summer.

Page 16:

My opinion differs from hers on this point; and my reasons are here given in writing, since I deem it necessary for me, under the existing state of feeling toward me, to put into a written form all I have to say, in the class, to prevent misrepresentation.

Should I be appropriating an unreasonable share of time, as a pupil, Mr. Smith, to occupy four minutes of your time in reading them? I should like very much to read them, that the class may pass their honest criticism upon them.

An Answer to the Question.

I think we have no intelligent reason for believing that the motives with which we prosecute our secular business, have any influence in the pecuniary results.

My reasons are common sense reasons, rather than strictly Bible proofs, viz.: I regard man as existing in three distinct departments of being, viz,, his physical or animal, his mental or intellectual, his moral or spiritual; and each of these three distinct departments are under the control of laws, peculiar to itself; and these different laws do not interchange with, or affect each other's department.

"For instance, a very immoral man may be a very healthy, long-lived man; for, notwithstanding he violates the moral department, he may live in conformity to the physical laws of his animal nature, which secure to him his physical health -- and on the other hand, a very moral man may suffer greatly from a diseased body, and be cut off in the very midst of his usefulness by an early death, in consequence of having violated the physical laws of his animal constitution. But on the moral plane he is the gainer, and the immoral man is the loser.

So our success in business depends upon our conformity to those laws on which success depends -- not upon the motives which act only upon the moral plane.

On this ground, the Christian farmer has no more reason to expect success in his farming operations, than the impenitent sinner. In either case, the foundation for success must depend upon the degree of fidelity with which the natural laws are applied, which cause the natural result -- not upon the motives of the operator; since these moral acts receive their penalty and reward upon an entirely different plane of his being.

Now comes in the question, how then is it true, that "godliness is profitable unto all things," if godliness is no guarantee to success in business pursuits?

I reply, that the profits of godliness cannot mean, simply pecuniary profits, because this would limit the gain of godliness to this world, alone; whereas, it is profitable not only for this life, but also for the life to come. Gain and loss, dollars and cents, are not the coins current in the spiritual world.

But happiness and misery are coins which are current in both worlds. Therefore, it appears to me, that happiness is the profit attendant upon godliness, and for this reason, a practically godly person, who lives in conformity to all the various laws of his entire being, may expect to secure to himself, as a natural result, a greater amount of happiness than the ungodly person.

So that, in this sense, "Godliness is profitable unto all things," to every department of our being.

MANTENO, March 22,1860.
E. P. W. PACKARD

Mrs. Packard then stated that the above was presented to the class, the 15th day of the following April, and was rejected by the teacher, Deacon Smith, on the ground of its being irrelevant to the subject, since she had not confined herself to the Bible alone for proof of her position.

As she took her seat a murmur of applause arose from every part of the room, which was promptly suppressed by the sheriff.

DANIEL BEEDY sworn, and says:

I live in Manteno. Have known Mrs. Packard six years; knew her in the spring of 1860. I lived a mile and a halt from them. Have seen her very frequently since her return from Jacksonville. Had many conversations with her before she was taken away, and since her return. She always appeared to me like a sane woman. I heard she was insane and my wife and I went to satisfy ourselves. I went there soon after the difficulties in the Bible-class.

She is not insane. We talked about religion, politics, and various matters, such as a grey-haired old farmer could talk about, and I saw nothing insane about her.

Mr. BLESSING, sworn, and says:

I live in Manteno; have known Mrs. Packard six years; knew her in the spring of 1860; lived eighty rods from their house. She visited at my house. I have seen her at church. She attended the Methodist church for a while after the difficulties commenced, and then I saw her every Sunday. I never thought her insane.

After the word was given out by her husband that she was insane, she claimed my particular protection, and wanted me to obtain a trial for her by the laws of the land, and such an investigation she said she was willing to stand by. She claimed Mr. Packard was insane, if any one was. She begged for a trial. I did not then do anything, because I did not like to interfere between man and wife. I never saw anything that indicated insanity. She was always rational. Had conversations with her since her return. She first came to my house. She claimed a right to live with her family. She considered herself more capable of taking care of her family than any other person.

Page 17:

I saw her at Jacksonville. I took Dr. Shirley with me to test her sanity. Dr. Shirley told me she was not insane.

Cross-examination waived.

Mrs. BLESSING, sworn, and says:

I have known Mrs. Packard seven years; knew her in 1860. Lived near them; we visited each other as neighbors. She first came to our house when she returned from Jacksonville. I did not see anything that indicated that she was insane. I saw her at Jacksonville. She had the keys, and showed me around. I heard the conversation there with Dr. Simley they talked about religion; did not think she talked unnatural. When. I first went in, she was at work on a dress for Dr. McFarland's wife. I saw her after she returned home last fall, quite often, until she was locked in her room. On Monday after she got home, I called on her; she was at work; she was cleaning up the feather beds; they needed cleaning badly. I went there afterward; her daughter let me in. On Saturday before the trial commenced, I was let into her room by Mr. Packard; she had no fire in it; we sat there in the cold. Mr. Packard had a handful of keys, and unlocked the door and let me in. Mrs. Hanford was with me. Before this, Mrs. Hanford and myself went there to see her; he would not let us see her; he shook his hand at me, and threatened to put me out.

Mrs. HASLET, sworn, and said:

Know Mrs. Packard very well; have known her since they lived in Manteno; knew her in the spring of 1860; and since she returned from Jacksonville, we have been on intimate terms. I never saw any signs of insanity in her. I called often before she was kidnapped and carried to Jacksonville, and since her return.

I recollect the time Miss Rumsey was there; I did not see anything that showed insanity. I called to see her in a few days after she returned from Jacksonville; she was in the yard, cleaning feather, beds. I called again in a few days; she was still cleaning house. The house needed cleaning; and when I again called, it looked as if the mistress of the house was at home. She had no hired girl. I went again, and was not admitted. I conversed with her through the window; the window was fastened down. The son refused me admission. The window was fastened with nails on the inside, and by two screws, passing through the lower part of the upper sash and the upper part of the lower sash, from the outside. I did not see Mr. Packard this time.

Cross-examination. -- She talked about getting released from her imprisonment. She asked if filing a bill of complaint would lead to a divorce. She said she did not want a divorce; she only wanted protection from Mr. Packard's cruelty. I advised her to not stand it quietly, but get a divorce.

Dr. DUNCANSON, sworn, and said:

I live here; am a physician; have been a clergyman; have been a practicing physician twenty-one years. Have known Mrs. Packard since this trial commenced. Have known her by general report for three years and upwards. I visited her at Mr. Orr's. I was requested to go there and have a conversation with her and determine if she was sane or insane. Talked three hours with her, on political, religious and scientific subjects, and on mental and moral philosophy. I was educated at and received diplomas from the University of Glasgow, and Anderson University of Glasgow. I went there to see her, and prove or disprove her insanity. I think not only that she is sane, but the most intelligent lady I have talked with in many years. We talked religion very thoroughly. I find her an expert in both departments, Old School and New School theology. There are thousands of persons who believe just as she does. Many of her ideas and doctrines are embraced in Swedenborgianism, and many are found only in the New School theology. The best and most learned men of both Europe and this country, are advocates of these doctrines, in one shape or the other; and some bigots and men with minds of small calibre may call these great minds insane; but that does not make them insane. An insane mind is a diseased mind. These minds are the perfection of intellectual powers, healthy, strong, vigorous, and just the reverse of diseased minds, or insane. Her explanation of woman representing the Holy Ghost, and man representing the male attributes of the Father, and that the Son is the fruit of the Father and the Holy Ghost, is a very ancient theological dogma, and entertained by many of our most eminent men. With every topic I introduced, she was perfectly familiar, and discussed them with an intelligence that at once showed she was possessed of a good education, and a strong and vigorous mind. I did not agree with her in sentiment on many things, but I do not call people insane because they differ from me, nor from. a majority, even, of people. Many persons called Swedenborg insane. That is true; but he had the largest brain of any person during the age in which he lived; and no one now dares call him insane. You might with as much propriety call Christ insane, because he taught the people many new and strange things; or Galileo; or Newton; or Luther; or Robert Fulton; or Morse, who electrified the world; or Watts, or a thousand others I might name. Morse's best friends for a long time thought him mad; yet there was a magnificent mind, the embodiment of health and vigor.

Page 18:

So with Mrs. Packard. There is wanting every indication of insanity that is laid down in the books. I pronounce her a sane woman, and wish we had a nation of such women.

This witness was cross-examined at some length, which elicited nothing new, when he retired.

The defense now announced to the court that they had closed all the testimony they wished to introduce, and inasmuch as the case had occupied so much time, they would propose to submit it without argument. The prosecution would not consent to this arrangement.

The case was argued ably and at length, by Messrs. Loomis and Bonfield for the prosecution, and by Messrs. Orr and Loring on the part of the defense.

It would be impossible to give even a statement of the arguments made, and do the attorneys justice, in the space allotted to this report.

On the 18th day of January, 1864, at 10 o'clock, p.m., the jury retired for consultation, under the charge of the sheriff. After an absence of seven minutes, they returned into court, and gave the following verdict:

STATE OF ILLINOIS,
KANKAKEE COUNTY.

"We, the undersigned, Jurors in the case of Mrs. Elizabeth P. W. Packard, alleged to be insane, having heard the evidence in the case, are satisfied that said Elizabeth P. W. Packard is SANE.

JOHN SYILES, Foreman. H. HIRSHBERG.
DANIEL G. BEAN. NELSON JERVAIS.
F. G. HUTCHINSON. WILLIAM HYER.
Y. H. YOUNG. GEO. H. ANDREWS.
G. M. LYONS. J. F. MAFIT.
THOMAS MUNCEY. LEMUEL MILK.

Cheers rose from every part of the house; the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and pressed around Mrs. Packard, and extended her their congratulations. It was sometime before the outburst of applause could be checked. When order was restored, the counsel for Mrs. Packard moved the court, that she be discharged. Thereupon the court ordered the clerk to enter the following order:

STATE OF ILLINOIS,
KANKAKEE COUNTY,

It is hereby ordered that Mrs. Elizabeth P. W. Packard be relieved from all restraint incompatible with her condition as a sane woman.

C. E. STARR,
Judge of the Twentieth Judicial District of the State of Illinois.

January 18, 1864.

Thus ended the trial of this remarkable case. During each day of the proceedings the court-room was crowded to excess by an anxious audience of ladies and gentlemen, who are seldom in our courts. The verdict of the jury was received with applause, and hosts of friends crowded upon Mrs. Packard to congratulate her upon her release.

During the past six weeks, Mr. Packard had locked her up in her own house, fastened the windows outside, and carried the key to the door, and made her a close prisoner. He was maturing a plan to immure her in an Asylum in Massachusetts, and for that purpose was ready to start on the Thursday before the writ was sued out, when his plan was disclosed to Mrs. Packard by letters he accidentally left in her room, one of which was written by his sister in Massachusetts, telling him the route he should take, and that a carriage would be ready at the station to put her in and convey her to the Asylum.

Vigorous action became necessary, and she communicated. this startling intelligence through her window to some ladies who had come to see her, and were refused admission into the house.

On Monday morning, and before the defense had rested their case, Mr. Packard left the State, bag and baggage, for parts unknown, having first mortgaged his property for all it is worth to his sister and other parties.

We cannot do better than close this report with the following editorial from the Kankakee Gazette, of January 21,1864:

Mrs. Packard.

The case of this lady, which has attracted so much attention and excited so much interest for ten days past, was decided on Monday evening, last, and resulted, as almost every person thought it must, in a complete vindication of her sanity. The jury retired on Monday evening, after hearing the arguments of the counsel; and after a brief consultation, they brought in a verdict that Mrs. Packard is a sane woman.

Thus has resulted an investigation which Mrs. Packard has long and always desired should be had, but which her cruel husband has ever sternly refused her. She has always asked and earnestly pleaded for a jury trial of her case, but her relentless persecutor has ever turned a deaf ear to her entreaties, and flagrantly violated all the dictates of justice and humanity.

She has suffered the alienation of friends and relatives -- the shock of a kidnapping by her husband and his posse when forcibly removed to the Asylum -- has endured three years incarceration in that Institution -- upon the general treatment in which there is severe comment in the State, and which, in her special case, was aggravatingly unpleasant and ill-favored -- and when at last returning to her home found her husband's saintly blood still congealed; a winter of perpetual frown on his face, and the sad, dull monotony of "Insane! Insane!" escaping his lips in all his communications to and concerning her -- her children, the youngest of the four at home being less than four years of age, over whose slumbers she had watched, and whose wailings she had hushed with all a mother's care and tenderness -- taught to look upon her as insane, and not to respect the counsels or heed the voice of a maniac just loosed from the Asylum, doom sealed by official certificates.

Page 19:

Soon her aberration of mind led her to seek some of her better clothing carefully kept from her by her husband, which very woman-like act was seized by him as an excuse for confining her in her room, and depriving her of her apparel, and excluding her lady friends. Believing that he was about to again forcibly take her to an asylum, four responsible citizens of that village made affidavit of facts which caused the investigation as to her sanity or insanity. During the whole of the trial she was present, and counseled with her attorneys in the management of the case.

Notwithstanding the severe treatment she has received for nearly four years past, the outrages she has suffered, the wrong to her nature she has endured, she deported herself during the trial as one who is not only not insane, but as one possessing intellectual endowments of a high order, and an equipoise and control of mind far above the majority of human kind.

The heroic motto: "suffer and be strong," is fairly illustrated in her case. While many would have opposed force to his force, displayed frantic emotions of displeasure at such treatment, or sat convulsed and "maddened with the passion of her part," she meekly submitted to the tortures of her bigoted tormentor, trusting and believing in God's Providence the hour of her vindication and her release from thraldom would come. And now the fruit of her suffering and persecution has all the autumn glory of perfection.

"One who walked
From the throne's splendor to the bloody block,
Said: 'This completes my glory' with a smile
Which still illuminates men's thoughts of her."

Feeling the accusations of his guilty conscience, seeing the meshes of the net with which he had kept her surrounded were broken, and a storm-cloud of indignation about to break over his head in pitiless fury, the intolerant Packard, after encumbering their property with trust deeds, and despoiling her of her furniture and clothing, left the country. Let him wander! with the mark of infamy upon his brow, through far-off states, where distance and obscurity may diminish till the grave shall cover the wrongs it cannot heal.

It is to be hoped Mrs. Packard will make immediate application for a divorce, and thereby relieve herself of a repetition of the wrongs and outrages she has suffered by him who for the past four years has only used the marriage relation to persecute and torment her in a merciless and unfeeling manner.

Note to the Reader.

It is but justice to myself to say, that the testimony of the two great Conspirators, Deacon Abijah Dole and Deacon Josephus B. Smith, ought to be taken by my readers at a discount, since those who were present during the whole trial saw the fact demonstrated, that both of these Deacons perjured themselves openly, upon the witness stand, while giving in their manufactured testimony against my moral character.

A part of the time of the five days trial was consumed in taking testimony from these two witnesses while making a most malign attack upon my moral character, by manufactured testimony, which, when tested by cross-examination, would not hold together -- in fact, was so plainly contradictory and absurd, that I was strongly urged, by my friends, to enter a prosecution, at once, against them both, for perjury.

This part of the trial was not reported by Mr. Moore, because, as he said, this attack was entirely foreign to the question at issue. My moral character was not the question the jury were called upon to consider -- but whether I was insane or not.

This most wanton and cruel attack, made at Packard's dictation, was shown to be merely an act of desperation on their part to save their sinking cause; but as it proved, these weapons of cruel slander and defamation were most signally turned against themselves, by forcing the conviction upon the jury, and all who heard it, that their testimony, as witnesses against my sanity, was of no account whatever. In fact the remark was often made to me:

"We do not believe a word that Deacon Dole or Deacon Smith have spoken against your sanity, now that they have so plainly proved themselves to be lying witnesses against your virtue."

E. P. W. P.

CHAPTER III.
Mr. Packard takes My Children and Property and Flees His Country.

When this trial terminated, I returned to my home in Manteno, where five days previous I had bestowed the parting kiss upon my three youngest children, little thinking it would be the last embrace for years I should be allowed to bestow upon these dear objects of my warmest affections.

But alas! so it proved!

Mr. Packard had fled with them to Massachusetts, leaving me in the court-room a childless widow. He could not but see that the current of popular indignation was concentrating against him, as the revelations of the Court ventilated the dreadful facts of this conspiracy, and he "fled his country," a fugitive from justice!

He, however, left a letter for me which was handed me before I left the Court-house, wherein he stated that he had moved to Massachusetts, and extended to me an invitation to follow him, with the promise that he would provide me a suitable home.

Page 20:

But I did not feel much like trusting either to his humanity or judgment in providing me another home. Indeed, I did not think it safe to follow him, knowing that the laws of Massachusetts as well as those of Illinois then gave him the absolute custody of my person.

He went to South Deerfield, Massachusetts, and sought shelter for himself and his children in the family of his sister, Mrs. Severance, his co-conspirator. Here he found willing ears to credit his tale of abuses he had suffered in this interference with his right to do as he pleased with his lawful wife -- and in representing the trial as a "mock trial," an illegal interference with his rights as head of his own household, and a "mob triumph," -- in short, he was an innocent victim of a persecution against his legally constituted rights as a husband, to protect his wife in the way his own feelings of bigotry and intolerance should dictate!

This was the region of his nativity and former pastorate, which he had left about eleven years previously, with an unblemished external character, and sharing, to an uncommon degree, the entire confidence of the public as a Christian man and a minister. Nothing had occurred, to their knowledge, to disturb this confidence in his present integrity as an honest reporter, and the entire community credited his testimony as perfectly reliable, in his entire misrepresentations of the facts in the case, and the character of the trial.

His view was the only view the community were allowed to hear, so far as it was in his power to prevent it. The press also lent him its aid, as his organ of communication.

He met his old associates in the ministry, and by his artfully arranged web of lies, and his cunning sophistries, he deluded them also into a belief of his views, so that they, unanimously, gave him their certificate of confidence and fraternal sympathy!

This certificate served as a passport to the confidence of Sunderland people in Mr. Packard as a man and a minister, and procured for him a call to become their minister in holy things. He was accordingly hired, as stated supply, and paid fifteen dollars a Sabbath for one year and a half, and was boarded by my father in his family, part of the time, free of charge.

The condition in which Mr. Packard left me I will now give in the language of another, by inserting here a quotation from one of the many Chicago papers which published an account of this trial with editorial remarks accompanying it. The following is a part of one of these Editorial Articles, which appeared under the caption:

"A Heartless Clergyman." Chicago, March 6, 1864.

"We recently gave an extended account of the melancholy case of Mrs. Packard, of Manteno, Ill., and showed how she was persecuted by her husband, Rev. Theophilus Packard, a bigoted Presbyterian minister of Manteno.

Mrs. Packard became liberal in her views, and as her husband was unable to answer her arguments, he thought he could silence her tongue, by calling her insane, and having her incarcerated in the Insane Asylum at Jacksonville, Illinois.

He finally succeeded in finding one or two orthodox physicians, as bigoted as himself, ready to aid him in his nefarious work, and she was confined in the asylum, under the charge (?) of Mr. McFarland, who kept her there three years.

She at last succeeded in having a jury trial, and was pronounced sane.

Previous, however, to the termination of the trial, this persecutor of his wife mortgaged his property, took away his children from the mother, and left her penniless and homeless, without a cent to buy food, or a place where to lay her head! And yet he pretended to believe that she was insane!

Is this the way to treat an insane wife?

Abandon her, turn her out upon the world without a morsel of bread, and no home?

Her husband calls her insane. Before the case is decided by the jury, he starts for parts unknown.

Was there ever such a case of heartlessness?

If Mr. Packard believed his wife to be hopelessly insane, why did he abandon her? Is this the way to treat a companion afflicted with insanity?

If he believed his own story, he should, like a devoted husband, have watched over her with tenderness, his heart full of love should have gone out towards the poor, afflicted woman, and he should have bent over her and soothed her, and spent the last penny he had, for her recovery!

But instead of this, he gathers in his funds, "packs up his duds," and leaves his poor insane wife, as he calls her, in the court-room, without food or shelter. He abandons her, leaving her homeless, penniless and childless!"

CHAPTER IV.
Return to my Home -- Married woman a Slave!

After my acquittal from the court at Kankakee, I, of course, turned my attention and thoughts towards my dear children, whom I had left five days previous in my own dear home in Manteno.

But alas! Upon arriving at the spot I once called my home, I found there was no home left for me! Mr. Packard had left the court-room on the previous Saturday evening, spent the night in removing my furniture to the house of his brother-in-law, Deacon Dole, then rented the place to Mr. Wood, who had taken possession; and taking my wardrobe, money, notes, and children, had fled, Sabbath morning, to parts unknown.

Page 21:

Ignorant of this purpose of Mr. Packard, on my return from my trial this Saturday evening previous to my acquittal on the Monday evening following, I had fortunately arrived prior to Mr. Packard, on account of the extra fleetness of Mr. Hanford's team to that of Mr. Dole's. Indeed, our merry sleigh-bells were soon lost in the distance as we flew past Mr. Dole's sleigh load including Mr. Packard, for we had an especial object in seeking an arrival before them, hoping thus to be able to remove my trunk without interference.

At about eleven o'clock at night we arrived at the door of my house, to find it unoccupied -- but locked -- both doors and windows.

"How shall we enter?" was the question to be solved.

"Shall my men force an entrance and thus expose themselves to a prosecution for larceny? or, shall I introduce them into my own house by opening the door myself with my own key?"

The latter policy prevailed, for neither Mr. Packard, nor a other person had seen fit to disturb the locality where I had chosen to place the keys two months before. Therefore, instead of directing my men, as Mr. Packard had directed his children to look where the keys were not, I simply told them to look where they were, in the "right place," for, of course, that was the only place in which to find them! And, although the snow and ice had buried them a trifle deeper than my own hands had done, under the sod beneath my window, yet, by the aid of the identical axe by which Packard had broken into my window three years and a half before, my men easily found the keys, so that we could unlock the door and enter quietly and peaceably into my own house, when I directed my men to take my trunk, already packed with my Asylum wardrobe, and remove it to their sleigh, and thus it was transported with myself to Mr. Hanford's house, where I quietly rested until Monday morning, while Mr. Packard was robbing me and my house and fleeing from justice.

Thus robbed of all my life earnings, and bereaved of my children, in addition to my three years of 'false imprisonment,' as the decision of the jury proved it to have been, I now appealed to the laws for protection, as a married woman, when, alas! I found I had no laws to appeal to!

My counsel assured me, that before the law, I was merely a "nonentity," and therefore, as I had no rights, I had no protection in the law, except in a divorce.

I replied, "Gentlemen, I cannot conscientiously get a divorce, as I am a Bible woman, and cannot claim that I have any Bible cause for a divorce. Besides, I claim the right to be a married woman, therefore I claim protection, as a married woman."

My counsel replied, "As a married woman, you have no protection in law. Your husband is the only protector you have."

"But he has become my persecutor! can't you protect me against my persecutor?"

"There is no way, but by a divorce, that we can extend to you the protection of any law to shield you from marital usurpation; for on the principle of common law, whatever is yours is his -- your property is his -- your earnings are his -- your children are his -- and you are his. Whatever you hold in common with him, in his own name, you have no more right to than any other woman, while your husband lives. But should you outlive him, you have a 'right of dower' in his real estate, which you have a right to use during your lifetime. But while he lives, you have not a right even to the hat on your head."

"But, Sir, I have bought and paid for my hat with my own money!"

"That is of no consequence. If you did not hold this money you purchased it with in your own name, as a single woman, independent of himself, you have no more legal right to use it, as your own, than any other woman."

"I had supposed that I was his partner, in law, as I am in society."

"No indeed! there is your grand mistake. There is no such thing as a partnership relation in the marriage union. The man and wife become one, but that one is the man! for the rights of the married woman are all 'suspended during coverture,' while all the rights of the married man remain established and protected by law, just as they were before marriage."

"But why do you not allow married woman a right to an existence as before, also? Can't she, as a woman, be as well protected while she is married, as he is as a man, while he is married?"

"No. For married woman is a slave! and we cannot protect slaves, except through their masters."

"Slave!" said I, "Why, I have always been an abolitionist and I never before knew that I was a slave. I supposed I was the partner and companion of my husband. I never suspected or thought I was his slave!"

"You are his companion and partner, socially; but legally, you are his slave."

"Why is this? Why don't our legal and social condition correspond more nearly?"

"Because married woman has never been legally emancipated from the slavish social position she occupied in the uncivilized state of society in the dark ages. Society then made married woman a slave to her husband, and in order to make her legal position to correspond to this her social position, the law-makers of that age inaugurated this common law as their basis of the marriage union. Thus married woman became a 'nonentity,' by a legal suspension of her rights during coverture. And a person whose rights are all suspended is a mere chattel before the law. Then this legal position corresponded with her social position. But now her social and legal position do not correspond; for civilization has elevated woman from this slavish social position, so that she is now the companion and partner of her husband. She is not now his slave socially, but legally she is still in the position of a slave.

Page 22:

"True her slavish position has been somewhat modified by statute law, still she is not yet emancipated; for her position of 'nonentity' still excludes her from becoming in law a companion or partner of her husband."

"But why don't you emancipate married women? You have emancipated the negro slave, and we think our claim to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is equal, at least, to that of the colored men."

"'Tis true, it ought to be done," my counsel replied, "but as men generally protect their wives, as public sentiment, and her social position both demand she should be, and as it is not generally known that married woman is a slave in law, there has been no special call for the agitation of this question. But your case demonstrates the fact that she ought to be emancipated, for since you insist upon the right to be a married woman, there is no possible way to protect even your personal liberty from this marital usurper so long as you claim a right to your individual conscience and opinions in religious matters. Certainly her present condition not only encourages divorce or disunion of the married pair, but it makes the laws of divorce an imperative necessity.

"Besides this is only substituting one evil to supplant another. It is not removing any evil. The great underlying cause of the evils of our social system as yet remains unremoved and unmolested by legislation. Until this relic of barbarism is expunged from the laws of our Christian government, and woman is allowed to be an individualized partner or companion of her husband in law, as she now is in society, there can be no legal remedy for the constantly increasing and momentous evils of our social system. So long as this legalized usurpation of human rights exists, these social evils must necessarily increase -- they cannot diminish under, the fostering influence of injustice."

From one more stand point allow me to portray married woman's legal disabilities for my readers' consideration.

Finding, as I had, that my property rights -- my rights of conscience and opinion -- and my personal liberty -- were at the mercy of my legal usurper, I inquired with the most intense anxiety how it was with my children. "Can I not have children protected to me while I am a married woman? "

"No! The children are all the husband's after the 'tender age.' Yon can have no legal right to your children without you get a divorce, and then the Judge will give you children and alimony."

"Then your laws do protect children to the single woman, while they do not protect them to the married woman?"

"Yes, the laws do respect the right of maternity in the single woman, but in the married woman this right, like all her other rights, is ignored by this suspension of rights during coverture."

Now, we married women claim that the time has fully come to have our natural rights, as women, established and protected by law, equally, at least, to those of the single woman, for by such laws as these the government is offering a premium on infidelity, and encourages divorce. Whereas, the best interests of society demand that the sacred institution of marriage be based on the principle of right and justice to both parties, so that neither party can ignore or usurp the inalienable rights of the other.

Until this is done, the children of this Republic have only half their rights, in law. They can claim a legal right to a father's training, but none to a mother's care!

Inasmuch as the law of manliness did not influence my husband to respect my rights, I had no tribunal whatever to appeal to, since this law did not recognize any separate interest or identity in the married woman.

The law of manliness is the only law the married woman has to depend upon for protection under the common law.

This I at once recognized as an all-sufficient refuge in most cases; for doubtless this law is based upon the almost universal fact that man will defend his own wife even before he would himself. Therefore, laws for the wife's protection seem almost to ignore this principle of manhood.

Yet, in such cases as my own, that is -- exceptional cases -- where the higher law is not a sufficient guarantee for the protection of the wife, there seems to be a necessity for the lower law of human enactments to enforce the dictates of he higher law. In such cases, and in these alone, there does seem to be a necessity for some laws to ensure the safety of the married woman.

But at that date the common law in Illinois had not been modified by statute law as it has since been. Thus Mr. Packard's course was sustained and is still sustained under common law, wherever it exists unmodified by statute law.

And it is hoped that this delineation of its injustice to married woman may have its influence in securing its modification still farther, where justice to woman requires it, so that no other married woman may be compelled to go without protection, for want of laws to shield her from marital injustice.

Page 23:

Under these painful circumstances I found that Mr. Packard had only been telling me the simple truth when he said, that:

"For twenty years I have given you a home to live in -- and also allowed you the privilege of taking care of my own children in it -- and to me alone are you indebted for these privileges -- as by law you have no legal right to my home, my property, or my children while I live!"

Finding I could not prosecute my husband for doing a legal act, and also that he had put his property out of his own hands to prevent his paying any bills I might contract, I found that necessity was laid upon me to become my own protector.

CHAPTER V.
Defense of my Right to Property.

I therefore went to Kankakee to get out "a replevy" to get possession of my own things at Deacon Dole's, or at least, so many of them as would furnish me a room decently for my accommodation.

But, to my sorrow, I found that a married woman could not even replevy her own stolen property -- that I was literally outlawed, so far as legal rights and self-protection were concerned, as much so as an "infant, idiot, insane or criminal."

And these rights were not denied on the plea that I was an insane person, for a jury of my country had just pronounced me sane, and entitled to all the rights and privileges of a sane person; but the right of citizenship was denied me simply, because I was a married woman, and therefore I was no longer an individual before the law.

With equal propriety, as it seemed to me, might I have been informed:

"You have no right to eat or sleep now that you are a married woman, for you are no longer an individual before the law!"

If the married woman has no right to her home, no right to her food, or property to buy food with, and no right to her children, what right has she to be hungry or to be cold, or to desire offspring, if she is a "nonenity" or a chattel, as is the case while she is a married woman, under the common law?

As the laws of my country denied me the right to my own property, as this furniture was bought with my own patrimony, I concluded I would use the law of justice as my claim to my own things, in defiance of human enactments by which justice was denied me.

As my furniture, was too heavy for me to lift without assistance, and as I had no team to transport it from Mr. Dole's to my room, a distance of about two miles, I was obliged to hire help to get it for me, and therefore engaged six men with three teams to help me, and we proceeded to Deacon Dole's for the purpose of quietly taking my own things into my own possession.

Upon arriving there, and finding no one in the house except his daughter, I led my men quietly into the room where I found my best furniture snugly packed, and told them to carry it to their wagons as fast as possible.

Meeting no opposition except the protest of his daughter, Laura, we soon cleared that room, and I went up stairs for my bedding, when I heard Mr. Dole's voice below stairs demanding what this meant. My men, of course, directed him to me, and we met on the stairs, while I was helping one of my men carry down one of my feather beds.

He stopped us, and said:

"What are you doing?"

"I am getting my own things."

"Show me your papers!"

"I did not come to show papers -- I simply came to get my own things."

Adding:

"Mr. Holden, carry my bed to your wagon!"

Mr. Dole closed the front door against him, and locked it, and put the key into his own pocket, while Mr. Holden looked to me for directions. Said I:

"Mr. Holden, pass out the back-door with your load!"

He did so, while I retreated to the chamber in pursuit of more articles. Finding a pile of my own bedclothes, I took them and threw them over the banister, down stairs to my men, who were there to take them, while Mr. Haslet detained Mr. Dole, by an argument in defense of their act.

I then went into his pantry and took articles from "thence which belonged to me and gave them to my men to put into their wagons.

Mr. Dole headed them again, and said:

"You shall not take them!"

"Go ahead with the things, gentlemen!" said I.

Which they did.

I then looked overhead in his back-kitchen and saw some of my bedsteads, and said:

"Gentlemen, I must have one bedstead to sleep upon. Take down one of these bedsteads and I will not ask you to get anything more."

They tried to do so, but Mr. Dole interfered, and in the struggle one light of glass was broken in Mr. Dole's window.

I apologized to Mr. Dole, adding:

"I will repair it."

And accordingly sent a glazier the next day to replace, it, but Mr. Dole would not allow him to do it.

After another short but lively contest about some boxes of books which Mr. Dole said did not belong to him, and which Mr. Haslet said he would therefore claim for my benefit, we left, but not until I had, in the hearing of all the witnesses, which, with Mr. Dole's hired men and his wife, in addition to my own men, now formed quite a company, distinctly stated:

Page 24:

"I wish to say in the presence of you all, that this is my act -- I, alone, assume all the responsibility of it -- these men are merely my agents carrying out my orders, therefore the acts are my own acts, not theirs, and upon me rests the entire responsibility of getting this portion of my own things. Those that I have not taken I claim as my own things, and shall take them when I think proper."

We then left the premises unimpeded, but had not gone far' before we were overtaken by Mr. Dole on horseback, who was going in hot haste for a Sheriff to arrest us. But he could find no one, either in Manteno or Kankakee, who were willing to undertake such a prosecution!

But by his persistency in going several times, and at last with his wife to Kankakee, and threatening to prosecute the officer who should refuse to act when called upon, he succeeded in finding one, whom he almost impressed into service, who did prosecute my men for riot and trespass!

I claimed the right to be prosecuted for my own acts, and protested against prosecuting my agents instead of the one who employed them, but:

"No, we can't prosecute you, for you are a married woman, and therefore are a nonentity, or nobody before the law 1

"Does not the law hold me responsible for my own acts?"

"Not in such a case -- your husband is responsible for your actions, but you are not responsible for your own! You must remember, Mrs. Packard, you have no legal right to hold any kind of property, while you are a married woman, therefore you have no right to defend any kind of property. For this reason you cannot be prosecuted, while your men can be, as they are regarded as responsible individuals before the law, while you are not."

My men were prosecuted before a Justice, both for "riot" and "trespass," and bound over for trial before the court the next fall term -- about six months from date.

I instructed my men to be sure and not compromise in any manner, but to stand their ground like men, and I would stand between them and all harm -- that I had received voluntary offers from two of the most influential lawyers in Illinois, one of whom then stood candidate for Congress, that they would defend any case of mine free of cost to me -- that I wished the case to come to trial as a test case, to ventilate the laws for married women -- that a trial of this kind might do more for the enlightenment of public sentiment on this subject, than any series of lectures could do.

I told them in addition, that before the time for the trial I hoped to get my book into print, and by its sale I should raise money to pay their costs and fines if they had any to pay, so that in the end they should suffer no harm, if they stood their ground like men.

I did as I proposed, printed my book and sold enough above all my expenses to pay my three lawyers at Kankakee, in full, for their defense of my case six months previously, and was fast laying up money for these men, when to my surprise I was informed that their fears had triumphed over their courage and manliness and they had agreed to return all my furniture to Mr. Dole and pay him two hundred dollars in addition!

This they did without my knowledge or consent.

While I was in Boston prosecuting my business, about a year from this time, I received a letter from one of these men, stating what they had done, and that Mr. Dole, acting as Mr. Packard's agent, demanded the two hundred dollars to be paid at once. They therefore wished me to send them the money as I had agreed.

Following my impressions I counted out the money and found it took every cent I then had outside of my business, and then lacked fifty cents of being two hundred dollars. I accordingly wrote a letter acknowledging the debt as being one of honor, and saying:

"Enclosed you will find a draft of two hundred dollars to meet it, &c."

And took my money and letter and went to the bank to get my draft, hoping to sell a book on the way to get the fifty cents needed.

At the door of the bank I met a gentleman waiting for the door to be opened, and I improved the opportunity by introducing my book to his notice, and as an inducement for him to purchase, I mentioned the pressing emergency which had brought me out in such a rainy morning and my lack of fifty cents to meet it.

As it proved the banks did not open on this New Year's Day, and therefore we both seemed to have leisure for quite a lengthy discussion, which finally ended with these remarks from this stranger:

"Mrs. Packard, I will buy your book," adding as he handed me the fifty cents:

"I think I comprehend the case. Now, will you allow me to give you a little advice! I am capable of doing so. I am a lawyer of some note in this city, and have just returned from Washington where I have been sent on official business. My advice is, that you do not send this money to these men. It is neither a debt of honor or of justice. Your men have not complied with your conditions to stand a trial, and thereby help on the cause of married woman, for which you willingly would spend your hard earnings. But without your consent, they have done just what you had forbid their doing -- compromised -- and thereby have defeated your purpose to ventilate the laws. By so doing, I think they have forfeited all their claims on you to stand between them and all harm, since they have broken the terms of the contract themselves. Therefore, it is not a debt of honor.

Page 25:

"Neither is it a debt of justice. You are the injured party. This money and the goods go into the hands of your husband. You are doing yourself injustice by giving him two hundred dollars more of your own money, by your own act. And this very act he may employ as a precedent to claim the whole of your earnings, on some other false pretest.

"Again. Your men are not guilty either of riot or trespass. You had a just and a moral right to your own things, and no jury of our country would have convicted them of riot or trespass, for assisting you, as they did, under the circumstances. You would not have had one cent of fine to pay for them, had they possessed the moral courage of men to stand the trial. But they did not. And the money they claim from you now does not help married woman's cause, nor your own either. Therefore I advise you to keep it, and go directly to your boarding place and write another letter and tell them who has advised you to take this course."

I did so, and soon came a response upbraiding me seriously for allowing my own impressions of duty to be supplanted by the sophistry of a pretended Lawyer, or a pretended Congressman!

I then decided it was not my duty to distress or incommode myself greatly to meet this demand, but let the matter rest for the present.

About two years after, when my earnings had so accumulated as to render it no inconvenience for me to part with a few hundred dollars, I concluded I would make these men a present of two hundred dollars; and as an act of self-defense against slanderous reports which were in circulation respecting my conduct in this transaction, I decided that the following certificate must be signed by each before receiving this money, namely:

"I do hereby certify that in the year 1864, while Mrs. Packard was absent from her home, attending her trial at Kankakee City, Mr. Abijah Dole took from her house, in the night, her household furniture without her knowledge or consent, and deposited it in his own house.

"That Mrs. Packard claims that she had bought this furniture with her own money. That Mrs. Packard was at that time in a penniless and defenseless condition.

"That at Mrs. Packard's request, I went, with five other men, in company with Mrs. Packard, to Mr. Dole's house, and in his absence, quietly took a portion of this furniture, without Mr. Dole's knowledge or consent, to supply Mrs. Packard's wants and necessities.

"That Mrs. Packard voluntarily promised to stand between us and all harm in case of a prosecution, if we would stand a fair jury trial, like men.

"That Deacon Dole entered a prosecution against us, both for not and trespass, at Rev. Mr. Packard's especial request.

"That instead of standing these trials, as Mrs. Packard wished us to, we settled with Mr. Dole, by returning all of Mrs. Packard's furniture, and paid him in addition two hundred dollars.

"That we made this settlement in the absence of Mrs. Packard, and without her knowledge or consent.

"That we have asked Mrs. Packard to pay us this two hundred dollars from her own earnings -- and she has refused to pay it, on the ground of its not being either a debt of honor or justice. But she now presents us this amount of money as a free, voluntary gift on her part, for this act of gallantry to a dependent and defenseless woman; and as such, I accept my share of the money from her."

I sent each man a copy of the above, with the assurance that I would send him his share, in a draft, by return of the mail on condition that he return me this certificate signed and with his Post-Office address.

The certificates were all returned without a single signature, and I have never sent or offered them another present.

These facts are delineated, not for the purpose of injuring the feelings or reputation of any of the parties concerned, but that the public may see how exceedingly difficult it is for an outlawed person to be protected in her natural rights; hoping it may force conviction upon the hearts of law-makers that the time has fully come, to restore to married woman her right of citizenship which the common law denies her.

The Government does with eminent propriety establish and protect the rights of married men, and it is equally proper that it should establish and protect the rights of married women also. As the mother produces all the men who compose this great American Government, therefore she -- the mother -- should be protected by that Government. These sons should shield the mother who bore them, in all her rights, as a woman, equally at least, with the father, in all his rights, as a man.

CHAPTER VI.
An Incident.

In the winter of 1868, while on board the train from Chicago to Aurora, my attention was arrested by the very earnest conversation of two ministerial looking gentlemen, who sat directly opposite me, but each in a seat by himself, so they were obliged to speak in quite an elevated tone of voice to be understood.

By what I overheard I soon perceived they were talking about a certain woman, with whom I was quite intimately acquainted, and thereby my curiosity became so dominant, as to draw my attention to their remarks about her, without seeming to notice them.

Page 26:

I found the knowing gentleman on the front seat was instructing his uninformed listener on the back seat into the details of Mrs. Packard's persecution. And I soon became satisfied that he was the defender of Mr. Packard, and therefore clothed facts with such a fictitious drapery that the truth became too distorted to be even recognized by his listener.

He seemed determined to defend the position that this lady was insane, and in making out his proof he used lies and misrepresentations as his evidence.

"Did I understand you she had a trial of her sanity?" asked the inquirer.

"Yes, she had a trial before a jury of twelve men."

"What was their decision? "

"After hearing all the evidence in the case, strange to say! they decided she was sane."

"Indeed! What did Mr. Packard do then?"

"He, for some unaccountable reason, fled his country."

"What became of his wife? "

"She returned to Manteno, made quite a fuss about his robbing her of her things, and got some men to assist her in getting them, promising them she would stand between them and all harm, and then fled, without paying them as she had promised."

"Indeed! then she showed herself out at last! didn't she?"

At this point my indignation could no longer be repressed -- I could hear that woman slandered no longer, without rushing to the defense of the injured one. I arose from my seat, stepped across the car, and thus addressed them:

"Gentlemen, excuse me for interrupting you, but I am too staunch a defender of truth and justice, to allow a falsehood to pass unnoticed. I know the facts in relation to the lady of whom you speak to be a little different from what you state. I think you stated she left her men without paying them as she promised -- the fact is she offered each one of them the money they asked and they would not accept it."

"That does give a different view to the case. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Packard?" inquired the listener.

"Yes, I am somewhat acquainted, and am very familiar with the facts in the case?"

"Will you please sit down and inform us, for I have become interested in her case."

As I did so, he inquired:

"Do you think Mrs. Packard a sane woman? "

"There is a difference of opinion on that point," I replied.

"What do you think about it?"

"I am inclined to think the decision of the jury was correct, for had there been even any evidence of insanity I think it would have been presented to the jury. But they failed to produce the slightest evidence."

Here the knowing minister remarked, for they both told me they were ministers: "I hear Dr. Sturtevant. and all the ministers in Jacksonville, are down upon her!"

"Yes, so are the Calvinists generally, as she is fearless in exposing their system as an anti-Christian one. But I don't think they have any right to call her insane for this reason alone. But they do."

Thus he asked and I answered questions for about one-half hour about this lady they had been so long slandering, and I gave her such a good defense as led the uninformed minister to change his opinion of her, and even to express sympathy for her in these words:

"I do feel some pity for that woman after all. She may have been a much injured woman!" I retraced the whole ground gone over by his informant, who now evidently quailed before the truth when divested of its false habiliments, and I think, when the cars stopped at Aurora, he did not regret to hear me say:

"I stop here."

But the blank look of astonishment which overspread his countenance, I shall not soon forget, as I arose to leave and introduced myself in these words:

"Gentlemen, before leaving, allow me to introduce myself as Mrs. Packard! Good morning, gentlemen!"

CHAPTER VII.
How to Commence Business Without Capital.

The sad lesson was now learned, by my own experience, that as the laws then were, married woman could hold no legal right to either her own or her husband's property, while he lived, and as there was no prospect of my coming into possession of my "right of dower" by becoming his widow, and as my principles forbade my seeking protection under the divorce laws, by alimony, I seemed driven to the alternative of either following Mr. Packard to Massachusetts, to be imprisoned by him, for life, in an Insane Asylum, or to keep out of his reach and support myself.

This last I chose, inasmuch as I preferred personal liberty, on a self-supporting basis, rather than imprisonment with my food and clothing provided at public expense.

"Yes, give me liberty and want, rather than imprisonment and plenty."

"But what need is there of my suffering want in this free country, with health and education for my capital?"

"None at all!"

"But how shall I commence a lucrative business without money?" is the question now to be solved.

I left the Asylum prison with a book written, ready for publication, which would cost two thousand five hundred dollars to print one thousand copies.

Page 27:

This sum I could not, of course, borrow, neither could I get a publisher to print it, at his own risk.

I therefore concluded to publish only an Introductory volume, of about one hundred and fifty pages, trusting that by the sale of this I might raise enough in time to print the entire volume.

"But how could I print even this, without one dollar for a capital to work upon?"

This was a problem which cost me much study before I found its solution. But I did, at last, find a satisfactory solution in the following devise.

I found, in the judgment of Chicago publishers, it would cost me five hundred dollars to print one thousand copies; but did not close a contract until I was sure my plan to raise this money would succeed, which was, to sell tickets for the unpublished book, on the promise that I would redeem these tickets in a specified time, by exchanging each ticket for a book worth the price of the ticket. A week's trial convinced me it would take just about three months to raise this money at the rate of my present sales.

My tickets were printed and read thus:

"The Bearer is Entitled to the first Volume of Mrs. Packard's Book, Entitled 'The Great Drama, or The Millennial Harbinger.' Price fifty cents. None are genuine without my signature."

E. P. W. Packard.

To cover all expenses, I found I must raise seven hundred dollars, by the sale of one thousand four hundred tickets, in three months. To sell these tickets for money was no easy task.

I must first inspire in my patron sufficient confidence in my veracity, ability, and perseverance, to induce him to pay out fifty cents for a ticket, simply upon the promise of a stranger, that it should be redeemed in three months by a book as yet unprinted -- and that the publication of this book must depend upon the sale of fourteen hundred tickets.

I sold these mostly in country villages, on the railroads. Upon arriving, my first business would be to secure a reliable agent, who would engage to receive my books when published, and deliver them to the ticket holders, who would call there for them. I would then seek for patrons, telling them that at such a time the boobs would be in the hands of this agent who would give them a book on the presentation of their ticket. The Post-master, or some prominent Bookseller were usually employed as my agents.

After I had canvassed one place I would go to another and pursue the same course there, and so on, until I had sold fourteen hundred tickets.

My board, car fare, and all other expenses, I paid from the money realized from the sale of my tickets and small books. Never in these days of struggle did I ask for charity, neither would I receive it, by way of free car rides, or a night's lodging, or food, or money. I almost invariably stopped at hotels instead of private boarding houses. I sometimes had offers of money, as a gift, instead of buying tickets, which was always indignantly refused, claiming that I was not an object of charity, but was doing business on a business basis, and was, therefore, very grateful for patronage, but not for gifts, as an object of charity.

I felt an invincible determination to demonstrate my self-supporting capacities by actual proof -- that of stubborn facts.

Encouraged by my sales, and sure of ultimate success, I returned to Chicago to contract for the printing of my book -- but to my surprise found there had been a great and sudden inflation in the price of paper and labor, since giving their former estimates, so that it would be impossible now to get it done for much less than seven hundred dollars instead of five hundred dollars.

Finding the book would now cost me seventy-five cents instead of fifty cents, I was in quite a sad dilemma not knowing how to meet it, since I had promised my patrons the book for fifty cents, and could not forfeit my word.

Upon inquiry, I found the next edition could be printed for about one-third the cost of this after the stereotyped plates were paid for. I therefore continued to sell my tickets for the same price, depending upon the profits of the second edition, compensate for the losses of the first. Thus, by selling two thousand tickets I was not only free from debt, but had my capital -- my stereotyped plates -- paid for.

Thus I redeemed every ticket and had my book paid for in three months, having raised a capital of seven hundred dollars by the sale of one thousand four hundred tickets.

Besides my tickets, I sold small books of my own, from ten to twenty-five cents in value, which about covered my traveling expenses. Fifteen months from this date I had sold twelve thousand books.

But selling these tickets and books was but a small part of the obstacles and difficulties to be overcome and surmounted in order to establish my business. Delay in commencing my book according to agreement, caused me much solicitude lest I should not meet my promise to my patrons. After three weeks delay I was therefore greatly relieved when the mail brought me my first proof-sheets at Bloomington.

Page 28:

But upon examining them I found them so very defective and in such bad taste and in short brevier type instead of long primer, as the agreement stipulated, that I sent a message back at once to stop their work, as I should not accept such work at all, as it was not according to agreement. As soon as possible I returned to Chicago and found the business entirely suspended. Upon inquiry, I found I had engaged an incompetent firm; they did not understand book-making, as their specialty was job and paper printing. Neither could I instruct them, as this was not my trade, although they volunteered to follow my directions.

I accordingly sought and found a publisher at the Tribune office, who engaged to do the work in three weeks, which was the time the tickets were to be redeemed. I engaged my stereotyper, engraver, and binder, and set them all at work and left the city to sell tickets. But imperfect proofs and delays would bring me often back to the city to find my work-men were waiting for some money as an assurance I should succeed, as they seemed to feel it unsafe to trust to my selling tickets for their pay. So in order to keep all these wheels running, I was often compelled to oil them with greenbacks or they would stop running altogether.

These journeys greatly increased my expenses of travel as well as of board, as my day board at Hotels in Chicago amounted to seventeen dollars and a half a week. Yet my book would not be done unless I thus urged it on, and as I had no partner I had every department of business to attend to myself, besides earning the money the business required.

But solicitude from another source and cause outweighed all others; for energy, courage and perseverance combined could not remove this obstruction out of my onward path; for I was constantly liable to have all my business plans thwarted by Mr. Packard's interference. As this danger is clearly elucidated by my interview with Mayor Sherman about this time, I will here narrate it, since it not only discloses one of the dangers and difficulties I had to encounter in prosecuting my enterprise, but it also serves as another exemplification of that marital power which is legally guaranteed to the husband, leaving the wife utterly helpless and legally defenseless.

I called upon him at his office in the court house, and was received with respectful, manly courtesy. After introducing myself as the Mrs. Packard whose case had recently acquired so much notoriety through the Chicago press, and after briefly recapitulating the main facts of the persecution, I said to him:

"Now, Mr. Sherman, as the Mayor of this city, I appeal to you for protection, while printing my book in your city. Will you protect me here?"

"Why, Mrs. Packard, what protection do you need? What dangers do you apprehend?

"Sir, I am a married woman, and my husband is my persecutor, therefore I have no legal protection. The husband is, you probably know, the wife's only protector in the law, therefore what I want now, Sir, is protection against my protector! "

"Is he in this city?"

"No, Sir; but his agents are, and he can delegate his power to them, and authorize them what to do."

"What do you fear he will do?"

"I fear he may intercept the publication of my book; for you probably know, Sir, he can come either himself, or by proxy, and with his Sheriff, can demand my manuscript of my printer, and neither the printer, nor you, Sir, have any legal power to defend it. He can demand it, and burn it, and I am helpless in legal self-defense. For, Sir, my identity was legally lost in his, when I married him, leaving me nothing and nobody in law; and besides, all I have is his in law, and, of course, no one can prosecute him for taking his own things. My manuscript is his, and entirely at his disposal. I have no right in law even to my own thoughts, either spoken or written -- he has even claimed the right to superintend my written thoughts, as well as post-office rights. I can not claim these rights -- they are mine only as he grants them as his gifts to me!"

"What does your printer say about it? "

"He says if the Sheriff comes to him for the book he shall tell him he must get the book where he can find it, I shall not find it for him." I then said to my printer, "supposing he should come with money, and offer to buy the manuscript, what then?" "I say, it will take more money than there is in Chicago to buy that manuscript of us," replied my printer.

'"I think that sounds like protection, Mrs. Packard. I think you have nothing to fear."

"No, Mr. Sherman, I have nothing to fear from the manliness of my printer, for this is my sole and only protection -- but as one man to whom I trusted even myself, has proved a traitor to his manliness, is there not a possibility another may? I should not object to a double guard, since the single guard of manliness has not even protected me from imprisonment!"

"Well, Mrs. Packard, you shall have my protection; and I can also assure you the protection of my counsel, also. If you get into trouble, apply to us, and we will give you all the help the laws will allow."

Page 29:

"I beg you to consider, Sir, the laws do not allow you to interfere in such a matter. Are you authorized to stop a man from doing a legal act?"

"No, Mrs. Packard, I am not. I see you are without any legal protection. Still I think you are safe in Chicago."

"I hope it may so prove, Sir. But one thing more I wish your advice about; how can I keep The money I get for my book from Mr. Packard, the legal owner of it? "

"Keep it about your person, so he can't get it."

"But, Sir; Mr. Packard has a right to my person in law, and can take it anywhere, and put it where he pleases; and if he can get my person, he can take what is on it."

"That's so -- yours is a sad case, truly; -- I must say, I never before knew that any one under our government was so utterly defenseless as you are. Your case ought to be known. Every soldier in our army ought to have one of your books, so as to have our laws changed."

Soldiers of our army! receive this tacit compliment from Mayor Sherman. You are henceforth to hold the reins of the American Government. And it is my candid opinion, they could not be in better or safer hands. And in your hands would I most confidently trust my sacred cause -- the cause of Married Woman -- for, so far as my observation extends, no class of American citizens are more manly than our soldiers. I am inclined to cherish the idea, that gallantry and patriotism are identified; at least, I find they are almost always associated in the same manly heart.

CHAPTER VIII.
Visit to my Father in Massachusetts. Mr. Packard Forbids my Seeing my Children.

When I had sold about half of my twelve thousand books, I resolved to visit my relatives in Massachusetts, who had not seen me for about twelve years.

I felt assured that my dear father, and brothers, and my kind step-mother, were all looking at the facts of my persecution from a wrong stand-point; and I determined to risk my exposure to Mr. Packard's persecuting power again, so far as to let my relatives see me once for themselves; hoping thus the scales might drop from their eyes, so far at least as to protect me from another kidnapping from Mr. Packard.

I arrived first at my brother Austin Ware's home in South Deerfield, who then lived about two miles from Mr. Severance, where were my three youngest children, and where Mr. Packard spent one day of each week.

I spent two days with my brother and his new wife, who both gave me a very kind and patient hearing; and the result was, their eyes were opened to see their error in believing me to be an insane person, and expressed their decided condemnation of the course Mr. Packard had pursued towards me. Brother became at once my gallant and manly protector, and the defender of my rights.

"Sister," said he, "you have a right to see your children, and you shall see them. I will send for them to-day."

He accordingly sent a team for them twice, but was twice refused by Mr. Packard, who had heard of my arrival.

Still, he assured me I should see them in due time. He carried me over to Sunderland, about four miles distant, to my father's house, promising me I should meet my dear children there; feeling confident that my father's request joined with his own, would induce Mr. Packard to let me once more see my own dear offspring.

As he expected, my father at once espoused my cause, and assured me I should see my children; "for," added he:

"Mr. Packard knows it will not do for him to refuse me,"

He then directed brother to go directly for them himself, and say to Mr. Packard:

"Elizabeth's father requests him to let the children have an interview with their mother at his house."

But, instead of the children, came a letter from brother, saying, that. Mr. Packard had refused, in the most decided terms, to let sister see her own children; or, to use his own language, he said:

"I came from Illinois to Massachusetts to protect the children from their mother, and I shall do it, in spite of you, or father Ware, or any one else! "

Brother adds, "the mystery of this dark case is now solved, in my mind, completely. Mr. Packard is a monomaniac on this subject; there is no more reason in his treatment of sister, than in a brute."

These facts of his refusal to let me see my children, were soon in circulation in the two adjacent villages of Sunderland and South Deerfield, and a strongly indignant feeling was manifested against Mr. Packard's defiant and unreasonable position; and he, becoming aware of the danger to his interests which a conflict with this tide of public sentiment might occasion, seemed forced, by this pressure of public opinion, to succumb; for, on the following Monday morning, (this was on Saturday, P. M.,) he brought all my three children to my father's house, with himself and Mrs. Severance, as their body-guard, and with both as my witnesses, I was allowed to talk with them an hour or two. He refused me an interview with them alone in my room.

Of course it was a great satisfaction to me to be allowed once more to look upon these dear objects of my tenderest affections, yet his refusal to allow me to see them alone, almost paralyzed the joyful emotions their presence had inspired; and when my Arthur left my embrace for his father's lap, in obedience to his authority, I felt the utter helplessness of my position to such a degree that the joy of meeting was almost superseded by the thought of another, and, perhaps, a final parting.

Page 30:

Since the common law of marriage deprives the married woman of her individual identity, she has therefore no chance, while her husband lives, to defend her inalienable rights from his usurpation.

Even her right of self-defense on the plane of argument is denied her, for when she reasons, then she is insane! and if her reasons are wielded potently, and with irresistible logic, she is then exposed to hopeless imprisonment, as the response of her opponent.

This is now her legalized penalty for using her own reason in defense of her identity! This is the modern mode of persecuting married women!

My husband has not only accepted of my identity as the law gives it to him, but he has also usurped all the minor gifts included in it. The gift from God, which I prize next to that of my personal identity, is my right of maternity -- my right to my own offspring -- which he claims is his exclusively, by separating me entirely from them, with no ray of hope from him or the law, that I shall ever be allowed to exercise a mother's care or control over them again.

Bereft of six lovely children by the will of my husband, and no one to dare defend this right for me -- for the law extends protection to such kidnappers -- indeed to me is a living death of hopeless bereavement!

Yes, any husband can kidnap all of his own children, by forcibly separating them from the mother who, bore them, and the laws defend the act!

The mother of the illegitimate child is protected by the law in her right to her own offspring, while the lawfully married wife is not. Thus the only shield maternity has under the common law, is in prostitution!!

Again my property is all shipwrecked, and legally claimed by this usurper. And as I did not hold it in my own name as the statute laws now allow, I am, on the principle of common law, legally robbed of every property right. The husband does not expose all his rights to usurpation when he marries; why should he make laws to demand this exposure to his wife and daughter? Are women in less need of protection than men, simply because they are weaker, and therefore more liable to usurpation? Nay, verily, the weakest demand the strongest protection, instead of none at all. When will man look upon woman as his partner, instead of dependent?

Oh, I do need the protection of law to shield my rights from my usurper! but I have none at all, so long as I am a married woman.

And Dr. McFarland assured me, too, that so long as I claim my right of opinion and conscience, no church will extend fellowship to me.

Therefore, my attempt to follow Christ by holding myself as a responsible moral agent, rather than an echo or a parasite, has cast me out of the protection of the law, and also out of the pale of the Christian church, if what the Doctor tells me is true.

Well, be it so! I am determined to ever deserve the love, respect, confidence, and protection of my husband. And I am equally determined to secure a rightful claim to the fellowship of all Christian churches, by living a life of practical godliness.

I remained at my father's house a few days only, knowing that even in Massachusetts the laws did not protect me from another similar outrage, if Mr. Packard could procure the certificate of two physicians that I was insane; for, with these alone, without any chance for self-defense, he could force me into some of the Private Asylums here, as he did into a State asylum in Illinois.

I knew that, as I was Mr. Packard's wife, neither my brother nor father could be my legal protectors in such an event, as they could command no influence in my defense, except that of public sentiment or mob-law.

CHAPTER IX.
My Successful Appeal to the Massachusetts Legislature for Protection.

I therefore felt forced to leave my father's house in self-defense, to seek some protection of the Legislature of Massachusetts, by petitioning them for a change in their laws on the mode of commitment into Insane Asylums.

As a preparatory step, I endeavored to get up an agitation on the subject, by printing and selling about six thousand books relative to the subject; and then, trusting to this enlightened public sentiment to back up the movement, I petitioned Massachusetts' Legislature to make the needed change in the laws.

Hon. S. E. Sewall, of Boston, drafted the petition, and I circulated it, and obtained between one and two hundred names of men of the first standing and influence in Boston, such as the Aldermen, the Common Council, the High Sheriff, and several other City Officers; besides, Judges, Lawyers, Editors, Bank Directors, Physicians and Merchants.

Mr. Sewall presented this petition to the Legislature, and they referred it to a committee, who convened seven special meetings on the subject.

I was invited to meet with them each time, and did so, as were also Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Denny, two ladies of Boston who had suffered a term of false imprisonment in a private institution at Sommersville, without any previous trial.

Page 31:

Hon. S. A. Sewall and Mr. Wendell Phillips both made a plea in its behalf before this committee, who kindly allowed me a hearing of several hours time in all, besides allowing me to present the two following bills of which they afterwards requested a copy in writing.

The three Superintendents, Dr. Walker, Dr. Jarvis, and Dr. Tyler, represented the opposition. And my reply to Dr. Walker constituted the preamble to my bills.

GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:

I feel it my duty to say one word in defense of the petitioners, in reply to Dr. Walker's statement, that:

"In my opinion, nineteen-twentieths of the petitioners did not know nor care what they petitioned for, and that they signed it out of compliment to the lady."

I differ from Dr. Walker in opinion on this point, for this reason. I obtained these names by my own individual appeals, except from most of the members of the "Common Council," who signed it during an evening session, by its being passed around for their names. I witnessed their signing, and saw them read it, carefully, before signing it. And I think they signed it intelligently, and from a desire for safer legislation. The others I know signed intelligently, and for this reason. And I could easily have got one thousand more names, had it been necessary, for, in selling my books, I have conversed with many thousand men on this subject, and among them all, have only found one man who defends the present mode of commitment -- that of leaving it all to the physicians.

I spent a day in the Custom House, and a day and a half in the Navy Yard, and these men, like all others, defend our movement.

I have sold one hundred and thirty-nine books in the Navy Yard within the last day and a half, by conversing personally with gentlemen in their counting-rooms on this subject, and they are carefully watching your decision on this question.

Now, from this stand-point of extensive observation, added to my own personal experience, I feel fully confident these two bills are needed to meet the public demand at this crisis.

BILL NO. 1.

No person shall be regarded or treated as an Insane person or a Monomaniac, simply for the expression of opinions, no matter now absurd these opinions may appear to others.

My Brief in Defense of the bill.

1st. This law is needed for the personal safety of Reformers. We are living in a Progressive Age. Everything is in a state of transformation, and as our laws now are, the Reformer, the Pioneer, the Originator of any new idea is liable to be treated as a Monomaniac with imprisonment.

2d. It is a Crime against human progress to, allow Reformers to be treated as Monomaniacs; for who will dare to be true to the inspirations of the divinity within them, if the Pioneers of truth are thus liable to lose their personal liberty for life by so doing?

3d. It is Treason against the principles of our Government to treat opinions as Insanity, and to imprison for it, as our present laws allow.

4th. There always are those in every age who are opposed to everything new, and if allowed, will persecute Reformers with the stigma of Insanity. This has been the fate of all Reformers, from the days of Christ -- the Great Reformer -- until the present age.

5th. Our Government, of all others, ought especially to guard, by legislation, the vital principle on which it is based, namely: individuality, which guarantees an individual right of opinion to all persons.

Therefore, gentlemen, Protect your Thinkers! by a law against the charge of Monomania, and posterity shall bless our Government, as a Model Government, and Massachusetts as the Pioneer State, in thus protecting individuality as the vital principle on which the highest development of humanity rests.

BILL No. 2.

No person shall be imprisoned and treated as an insane person except for irregularities of conduct, such as indicate that the individual is so lost to reason as to render him an unaccountable moral agent.

My Brief in Defense of the Bill.

Multitudes are now imprisoned without the least evidence that reason is dethroned, as indicated by this test. And I am a representative of this class of prisoners; for when Dr. McFarland was driven to give his reasons for regarding me as insane, on this basis, the only reason which he could name, after closely inspecting my conduct for three years, was that I once "fell down stairs!"

I do insist upon it, gentlemen, that no person should be imprisoned without a just cause; for personal liberty is the most blessed boon of our existence, and ought therefore to be reasonably guarded as an inalienable right. But it is not reasonably protected under our present legislation, while it allows the simple opinion of two doctors to imprison a person for life, without one proof in the conduct of the accused, that he is an unaccountable moral agent. We do not hang a person on the simple opinion that he is a murderer, but proof is required from the accused's own actions, that he is guilty of the charge which forfeits his life. So the charge which forfeits our personal liberty ought to be proved from the individual's own conduct, before imprisonment.

Page 32:

So long as insanity is treated as a crime, instead of a misfortune, as our present system practically does thus treat it, the protection of our individual liberty imperatively demands such an enactment. Many contend that every person is insane on some point. On this ground, all persons are liable to be legally imprisoned, under our present system; for intelligent physicians are everywhere to be found, who will not scruple to give a certificate that an individual is a Monomaniac on that point where he differs from him in opinion! This Monomania in many instances is not insanity, but individuality, which is the highest natural development of a human being.

Gentlemen, I know, and have felt, the horrors -- the untold soul agonies -- attendant on such a persecution. Therefore, as philanthropists, I beg of you to guard your own liberties, and those of your countrymen, by recommending the adoption of these two bills as an imperative necessity.

The above bills were presented to the Committee on the Commitment of the Insane, in Boston State-House, March 29, 1865.

The result was, the petition triumphed, by so changing the mode of commitment, that, instead of the husband being allowed to enter his wife at his simple request, added to the certificate of two physicians, he must now get ten of her nearest relatives to join with him in this request; and the person committed, instead of not being allowed to communicate by writing to any one outside of the Institution, except under the censorship of the Superintendent, can now send a letter to each of these ten relatives, and to any other two persons whom the person committed shall designate. This the Superintendent is required to do within two days from the time of commitment.

This Law is found in Chapter 268, Section 2, of the General Laws of Massachusetts.

I regard my personal liberty in Massachusetts now as not absolutely in the power of my husband; as my family friends must now co-operate in order to make my commitment legal. And since my family relatives are now fully satisfied of my sanity, after having seen me for themselves, I feel now comparatively safe, while in Massachusetts.

CHAPTER X.
My Father Becomes my Protector.

I therefore returned to my father's house in Sunderland, and finding both of my dear parents feeble, and in need of some one to care for them, and finding myself in need of a season of rest and quiet, I accepted their kind invitation to make their house my home for the present. At this point my father indicated his true position in relation to my interests, by his self-moved efforts in my behalf, in writing and sending the following letter to Mr. Packard.

"Sunderland, Sept. 2, 1865.

"REV. SIR: I think the time has fully come for you to give up to Elizabeth her clothes. Whatever reason might have existed to justify you in retaining them, has, in process of time, entirely vanished. There is not a shadow of excuse for retaining them It is my presumption there is not an individual in this town who would justify you in retaining them a single day.

Elizabeth is about to make a home at my house, and I must be her protector. She is very destitute of clothing, and greatly needs all those articles which are hers.

I hope to hear from you soon, before I shall be constrained to take another step. Yours, Respectfully,

REV. T. PACKARD. SAMUEL WARE."

The result of this letter was, that in about twenty-four hours after the letter was delivered, Mr. Packard brought the greater part of my wardrobe and delivered it into the hands of my father.

In a few weeks after this event, Mr. Packard's place in the pulpit in Sunderland was filled by a candidate for settlement, and he left the place.

The reasons why he thus left his ministerial charge in this place, cannot perhaps be more summarily given than by transcribing the following letter which my father requested me to write for him, in answer to Rev. Dr. Pomeroy's letter, inquiring of my father why Mr. Packard had left Sunderland.

Sunderland, Oct. 28, 1865.

DR. POMEROY, DEAR SIR: I am sorry to say that my dear father feels too weak to reply to your kind and affectionate letter of the twenty-third instant, and therefore I cheerfully consent to reply to it myself."

As to the subject of your letter, it is as you intimated. We have every reason to believe that my father's defense of me, has been the indirect cause of Mr. Packard's leaving Sunderland; although we knew nothing of the matter until he left, and a candidate filled his place.

Neither father, mother, nor I, have used any direct influence to undermine the confidence of this people in Mr. Packard.

But where this simple fact, that I have been imprisoned three years, is known to have become a demonstrated truth, by the decision of a jury, after a thorough legal investigation of five days' trial, it is found to be rather an unfortunate truth for the public sentiment of the present age to grapple with.

And Mr. Packard and his persecuting party may yet find I uttered no fictitious sentiment, when I remarked to Dr. McFarland in the Asylum that, "I shall yet live down this slander of Insanity, and also live down my persecutors!"

Page 33:

And Mr. Packard is affording me every facility for so doing, by his continuing strenuously to insist upon it, that I am now just as insane as when he incarcerated me in Jacksonville Insane Asylum. And he still insists upon it, that an Asylum Prison is the only suitable place for me in which to spend the residue of my earth-life.

But, fortunately for me, my friends judge differently upon seeing me for themselves. Especially fortunate is it for me, that my own dear father feels confident that his house is a more suitable home for me, notwithstanding the assertion of Mrs. Dickinson, the widow with whom Mr. Packard boards, that:

"It is such a pity that Mrs. Packard should come to Sunderland, where Mr. Packard preaches!"

Mr. Johnson replied, in answer to this remark, that:

"I think Mrs. Packard has a right to come to her father's house for protection, and also that her father has an equal right to extend protection to his only daughter, when thrown adrift and penniless upon the cold world without a place to shelter her defenseless head."

Mr. Packard has withdrawn all intercourse with us all since he was called upon by my father to return my wardrobe to me. "Would that Mr. Packard's eyes might be opened to see what he is doing, and repent, so that I might be allowed to extend to him The forgiveness my heart longs to bestow, upon this gospel condition.

Thankful for all the kindness and sympathy you have bestowed upon my father and mother, as well as myself, I subscribe myself your true friend,

E. P. W. PACKARD.

I remained six months a member of my father's family, and found this period one of the brightest oases of my existence. For during this period my dear father manifested a tenderness of feeling transcending anything he had ever before exhibited towards me.

His fatherly conduct, thus manifested, said to me, more forcibly than any words could have done:

"I am sorry I have been so deluded by Mr. Packard as to leave you to suffer so long, so intensely, so unjustly, without appearing in your defense, and rescuing you from your tormentors. But as it is, the only atonement I can possibly make shall be made! I shall shield you from all future harm, so far as a father's love and care can extend."

In speaking of my children, he once said:

"My Daughter, you ought to have the care of your child for you have been the best mother to them I ever knew, and were it in my power you should now have them all, and never be separated from them again. But, my Daughter, I am helpless as you are in this matter. The strong arm of law shields Mr. Packard in his course, and I cannot remove this obstacle in the way of your taking them under your custody. You must submit to the inevitable, and try to take all the comfort you can without them."

Another act of fatherly confidence in my sanity was that he changed his will for my benefit, and by this change, he not only gave me a much larger portion of his property, but also gave it to me directly, instead of giving it "in trust" to my brother, as he had by the will he had before made when under the delusion of Mr. Packard, that I was insane -- for, said he to this brother:

"Elizabeth is just as capable of taking care of property as you are or any other person, therefore I shall leave her portion to her independent of all supervision."

He also gave to the public a certificate of my sanity, for the purpose of counteracting the influence of those he had before given in defense of Mr. Packard, at his request, thus making restitution for this wrong he had innocently done his daughter as far as lay in his power thus to do. Although this certificate is given to my readers in the first volume, yet, I will here insert it again, not only as an evidence of his confidence in my sanity, but as proof of his repentance in having ever been induced to call it in question.

"This is to certify, that the certificates which have appeared in public in relation to my daughter's sanity, were given upon the conviction that Mr. Packard's representations respecting her condition were true, and were given wholly upon the authority of Mr. Packard's own statements. I do, therefore, hereby certify that it is now my opinion that Mr. Packard has had no cause for treating my daughter Elizabeth, as an insane person.

SAMUEL WARE.

South Deerfield, Aug. 2, 1866.
OLIVE WARE.
AUSTIN WARE.

When this was done he felt that he could die in peace. But not before.

At the expiration of this six months' sojourn with my father in Massachusetts -- he died. And as I looked upon his peaceful corpse, as he lay in his coffin dressed for the tomb, I could not but exclaim:

Peace to thy memory! Dear Father! Your work is done! Now well done! for you have not only repented of the wrongs you have so innocently done your daughter, but have also made restitution, so far as lay in your power so to do in this life. Blessed be thy memory! My Honored Father!

My own dear Mother had at this time been in her grave about twenty years. Had this most affectionate and devoted mother been alive during these days of my persecution, a mother's love would have surmounted and overcome every obstacle which human ingenuity could devise to effect my deliverance from the power of this cruel conspiracy.

Page 34:

But a wise Providence had otherwise ordered the events of this sad drama. For some purpose, hitherto unrevealed, this malign plot must have been executed just as it has been, and this dear mother could not be allowed to be where she might have intercepted its progress.

But there is one mystery attending this plot which no ingenuity or skill has yet been able to fathom. It is this:

A few weeks prior to my incarceration, a stranger stopped at Mr. Blessing's hotel for two days and one night. He claimed to be the "Brother of Mrs. Packard," that he had been sent by her mother to deliver her out of the hands of her cruel and unfeeling husband -- that he had just arrived in port at Boston, Mass., and had there been told to "Go to your sister at once! for she is in most imminent peril, and there is no power to rescue her from her impending doom." And he added:

"I have come to deliver her out of the hands of her husband, and I shall do so! even if I have to resort to the aid of this six-barrelled revolver to do it!" at the same time showing his pistol.

Crowds collected at the Hotel to hear his strange story and the revelations he had to make of Mr. Packard's private character. Among other witnesses was my son, Isaac, then about sixteen years of age. In reporting this interview to me he said:

"Mother, I never saw any one who could relate family incidents with more accuracy and in minute detail than he did, and he even narrated events which no one knew outside, of our family. Indeed, had he been in our family for ten years past, he could not have described our family scenes more accurately and promptly. In detailing father's treatment of you, he would often burst into tears and exclaim: "No one can know what that kind, patient woman has suffered from him -- her relentless tormentor."

The community set a guard about our house to defend Mr. Packard's life, thus threatened, for about one week, after the disappearance of this stranger from the place.

Who this stranger was -- by whom sent -- how he received his information about the secret incidents of our family -- and whither he went, is all unknown.

But to me, who can realize the intensity of my dear mother's love for her only daughter, it seems like a plot of desperation, similar to what the devoted love of a true mother might be driven to resort, rather than have the object of her tenderest love uncared for -- unpitied -- and unprotected.

CHAPTER XI.
Mr. Packard a Beggar.

Fidelity to the truth requires me to add one more melancholy fact, in order to make this narrative of events complete, and that is, Mr. Packard has made merchandise of this stigma of Insanity with which he has branded me, and used it as a lucrative source of gain to himself, in the following manner:

He has made most pathetic appeals to the sympathies of the public for their charities to be bestowed upon him, on the plea of his great misfortune in having an insane wife to support -- one who is incapable of taking care of herself or her six children -- and on this false premise he has based a most pathetic argument and appeal to their sympathies for pecuniary help, in the form of boxes of clothing for himself and his destitute and defenseless children!

These appeals have been most generously responded to from the American Home Missionary Society.

When I returned to my home from the Asylum, I counted twelve boxes of such clothing, some of which were very large, containing the spoils he had thus purloined from this benevolent society, by entirely false representations.

My family were not destitute. But on the contrary, were plentifully supplied with a superabundant amount of such Missionary gifts, which had been lavished upon us, at his request, before I was imprisoned. I had often said to him, that I and my children had already more than a supply for our wants until they were grown up.

Now, what could he do with twelve more such boxes!

My son, Isaac, then in Chicago, and twenty-one years of age, told me he had counted fifty new vests in one pile, and as many pants and coats, and overcoats, and almost everything else, of men's wearing apparel, in like ratio.

He said a pile of dress patterns had accumulated intended for my use from these boxes, to one yard in depth in one solid pile. And this was only one sample of all kinds of ladies' apparel which he had thus accumulated, by his cunningly-devised begging system.

Still, to this very date, he is pleading want and destitution as a basis for more charities of like kind.

He has even so moved the benevolent sympathies of the widow Dickinson with whom he boarded, as to make her feel that he was an honest claimant upon their charities in this line, on the ground of poverty and destitution. She accordingly started a subscription to procure him a suit of clothes, on the ground of his extreme destitution, and finally succeeded in begging a subscription of one hundred and thirteen dollars for his benefit, and presented it to him as a token of sympathy and regard.

Page 35:

Another fact, he has put his property out of his hands, so that he can say he has nothing. And should I sue him for my maintainance -sic-, I could get nothing.

His rich brother-in-law, George Hastings, did then support the three youngest children, mostly, and as Mr. Packard had so disposed of his wife and children, as to render them entirely independent of him for their support, scarcely any claimants were left upon his own purse, except his own personal wants.

And it is my honest opinion, that had the Sunderland people known of these facts in his financial matters, they would not have presented him with one hundred and thirteen dollars, as a token of their sympathy and esteem. Still, looking at the subject from their stand-point, I have no doubt they acted conscientiously in this matter.

I have never deemed it my duty to enlighten them on the subject, except as the truth was sought for from me, in a few individual isolated cases. I seldom associated with the people, and had sold none of my books among them. For, self-defense did not require me to seek the protection of enlightened public sentiment now that the laws protected my personal liberty while in Massachusetts.

But fidelity to the cause of humanity, especially the cause of "Married Woman," requires me to make public the facts of this notorious persecution, in order to have her true legal position known and fully apprehended.

And since my case is a practical illustration of what the law is on this subject -- showing how entirely destitute she is of any legal protection, except what the will and wishes of her husband secures her -- and also demonstrates the fact, that the common-law, everywhere, in relation to married woman, not only gravitates towards an absolute despotism, but even protects and sustains and defends a despotism of the most arbitrary and absolute kind -- therefore, in order to have her social position changed legally, the need of this change must first be seen and appreciated by the common people -- the law-makers of this Republic.

And this need or necessity for a revolution on this subject can be made to appear in no more direct manner, than by a practical case, such as my own furnishes.

As the need of a revolution of the law in relation to negro servitude was made to appear, by the practical exhibition of the Slave Code in "Uncle Tom's" experience, showing that all slaves were liable to suffer to the extent he did; so my experience, although like "Uncle Tom's," an extreme case, shows how all married women are liable to suffer to the same extent that I have.

Now justice to humanity claims that such liabilities should not exist in any Christian government. The laws should be so changed that such another outrage could not possibly take place under the sanction of the laws of a Christian government.

As Uncle Tom's case aroused the indignation of the people against the slave code, so my case, so far as it is known arouses the same feeling, of indignation against those laws which protect married servitude. Married woman needs legal emancipation from married servitude, as much as the slave needed legal emancipation from his servitude.

Again, all slaves did not suffer under negro slavery, neither do all married women suffer from this legalized servitude. Still, the principle of slavery is wrong, and the principle of emancipation is right, and the laws ought so to regard it. And this married servitude exposes the wife to as great suffering as negro servitude did.

It is my candid opinion, that no Southern slave ever suffered more spiritual agony than I have suffered; as I am more developed in my moral and spiritual nature than they are, therefore more capable of suffering. I think no slave mother ever endured more keen anguish by being deprived of her own offspring than I have in being legally separated from my own.

God grant! that married woman's emancipation may quickly follow in the wake of negro emancipation!

CHAPTER XII.
Why I Do Not Get a Divorce.

Because, in the first place, I do not want to be a divorced woman: but on the contrary, I wish to be a married woman, and have my husband for my protector; for I do not like this being divorced from my own home. I want a home to live in, and I prefer the one I have labored twenty-one years myself to procure, and furnished to my own taste and mind.

Neither do I like this being; divorced from my own children. I want to live with my dear children, whom I have borne and nursed, reared and educated, almost entirely by my own unwearied, indefatigable exertions; and I love them, with all the fondness of a. mother's undying love, and no place is home to me in this wide world without them.

And again, I have done nothing to deserve this exclusion from the rights and privileges of my own dear home; but on the contrary, my untiring fidelity to the best interests of my family for twenty-one years of healthful, constant service, having never been sick during this time so as to require a doctor's bill to be paid for me or my six children, and having done all the housework, sewing, nursing, and so forth, for my entire family for twenty-one years, with no hired help, except for only nine months, during all this long period of constant toil and labor. I say, this self-sacrificing devotion to the best interests of my family and home, deserve and claim a right to be protected in it, at least, so long as my good conduct continues, instead of being divorced from it, against my own will or consent.

Page 36:

In short, what I want is, protection in my home, instead of a divorce from it. I do not wish to drive Mr. Packard from his own home, and exclude him from all its rights and privileges -- neither do I want he should treat me in this manner, especially so long as he himself claims that I have always been a most kind, patient, devoted wife and mother. He even claims as his justification of his course, that I am so good a woman, and he loves me so well, that he wants to save me from fatal errors!

It is my opinions -- my religious opinions -- and those alone, he makes an occasion for treating me as he has. He frankly owned to me, that he was putting me into an Asylum so that my reputation for being an insane person might destroy the influence of my religious opinions; and I see in one letter which he wrote to my father, he mentions this as the chief evidence of my insanity. He writes:

"Her many excellences and past services I highly appreciate; but she says she has widely departed from, or progressed beyond, her former religious views and sentiments -- and I think it is too true!!"

Here is all the insanity he claims, or has attempted to prove.

Now comes the question: Is this a crime for which I ought to be divorced from all the comforts and privileges of my own dear home?

To do this, that is to get a divorce, would it not be becoming an accomplice in crime, by doing the very deed which he is so desirous of having done, namely: banishment from the family circle for fear of the contaminating influence of my new views? Has a married woman no rights at all? Can she not even think her own thoughts, and speak her own words, unless her thoughts and expressions harmonize with those of her husband?

I think it is high time the merits of this question should be practically tested on a proper basis, the basis of truth -- of facts. And the fact, that I have been not only practically divorced from my own home and children, but also incarcerated for three years in a prison, simply for my religious belief, by the arbitrary will of my husband, ought to raise the question as what are the married woman's rights, and what is her protection?

And it is to this practical issue I have ever striven to force this question. And this issue I felt might be reached more directly and promptly by the public mind, by laying the necessities of the case before the community, and by a direct appeal to them for personal protection, instead of getting a divorce for my protection. I know that by so doing, I have run a great risk of losing my liberty again. Still, I felt that the great cause of married woman's rights might be promoted by this agitation; and so far as my own feelings were concerned, I felt willing to suffer even another martyrdom in this cause, if my sisters in the bonds of marital power might be benefited thereby.

I want and seek protection as a married woman, not divorce, in order to escape the abuses of marital power -- that is, I want protection from the abuse of marital power, not a divorce from it. I can live in my home with my husband, if he will only let me do so; but he will not suffer it, unless I recant my religious belief. Cannot religious bigotry under such manifestations, receive some check under our government, which is professedly based on the very principle of religious tolerance to all?

Cannot there be laws enacted by which a married woman can stand on the same platform as a married man, that is, have an equal right, at least, to the protection of her inalienable rights? And is not this our petition for protection founded in justice and humanity?

Is it just to leave the weakest and most defenseless of these two parties wholly without the shelter of law to shield her, while the strongest and most independent has all the aid of the legal arm to strengthen his own?

Nay, verily, it is not right or manly for our man government thus to usurp the whole legal power of self-protection and defense, and leave confiding, trusting woman wholly at the mercy of this gigantic power. For perverted men will use this absolute power to abuse the defenseless, rather than protect them; and abuse of power inevitably leads to the contempt of its victim.

A man who can trample on all the inalienable rights of his wife, will by so doing come to despise her as an inevitable consequence of wrong doing. Woman, too, is a more spiritual being than a man, and is therefore a more sensitive being, and a more patient sufferer than a man; therefore she, more than any other being, needs protection, and she should find it in that government she has sacrificed so much to uphold and sustain.

Again, I do not believe in the divorce principle. I say it is a "Secession" principle. It undermines the very vital principle of our Union, and saps the very foundation of our social and civil obligations.

For example. Suppose the small, weak, and comparatively feeble States in our Union were not protected by the Government in any of their State rights, while the large, strong, and powerful ones had their State rights fully guaranteed and secured to them. Would not this state of the Union endanger the rights of the defenseless ones? and endanger the Union also? Could these defenseless States resort to any other means, of self-defense from the usurpation of the powerful States than that of secession? But secession is death to the Union -- death to the principles of love and harmony which ought to bind the parts in one sacred whole.

Page 37:

Now, I claim that the Marriage Union, as our laws now stand, rests on just this principle. The woman has no alternative of resort from any kind of abuse from her partner, but divorce or secession from the Marriage Union.

Now the weak States have rights as well as the strong ones, and it is the rights of the weak which the Government are especially bound to respect and defend, to prevent usurpation and its legitimate issue -- secession from the Union.

What we want of our Government is to prevent this usurpation, by protecting us equally with our partners, so that a divorce need not become a necessity.

By equality of rights, I do not mean that woman's rights and man's rights are one and the same. By no means; we do not want the man's rights, but simply our own, natural, womanly rights. There are man's rights and woman's rights. Both different, yet both equally inalienable. There must be a head in every firm; and the head in the Marriage Firm or Union is the man, as the Bible and nature both plainly teach.

We maintain that the senior partner, the man, has rights of the greatest importance, as regards the interests of the marriage firm, which should not only be respected and protected by our Government, but also enforced upon them as an obligation, if the senior is not self-moved to use his rights practically -- and one of these his rights, is a right to protect his own wife and children.

The junior partner also has rights of equal moment to the interests of the firm, and one of these is her right to be protected by her senior partner. Not protected in a prison, but in her own home, as mistress of her own house, and as a God appointed guardian of her infant children. The Government would then be protecting the Marriage Union, while it now practically ignores it.

To make this matter still plainer, suppose this government was under the control of the female instead of the male influence, and suppose our female government should enact laws which required the men when they entered the Marriage Union to alienate their right to hold their own property -- their right to hold their future earnings -- their right to their own homes -- their right to their own offspring, if they have any -- their right to their personal liberty -- and all these rights be passed over into the hands of their wives for safe keeping, and so long as they chose to be married men, all their claims on our womanly government for protection should be abrogated entirely by this marriage contract. Now, I ask, how many men would venture to get married under these laws? Would they not be tempted to ignore the marriage laws of our Woman Government altogether?

Now, gentlemen, we are sorry to own it, this is the very condition in which your Man Government places us. We, women, looking from this very stand-point of sad experience, are tempted to exclaim:

"Where is the manliness of our Man Government! "

Divorce, I say, then, is in itself an evil -- and is only employed as an evil to avoid a greater one, in many instances. Therefore, instead of being forced to choose the least of two evils, I would rather reject both evils, and choose a good thing -- that of being protected in my own dear home from unmerited, unreasonable abuse -- a restitution of my rights, instead of a continuance of this robbery, sanctioned by a divorce.

In short, we desire to live under such laws as will oblige our husbands to treat us with decent respect, so long as our good conduct merits it, and then will they be made to feel a decent regard for us as their companions and partners, whom the laws protect from their abuse.

CHAPTER XIII.
The Opinions which Caused this Family Rupture.

The question is often asked, "what are your religious opinions, Mrs. Packard, which have caused all this rupture in your once happy family?"

My first impulse prompts me to answer, pertly, it is no one's business what I think but my own, since it is to God alone I am accountable for my thoughts.

"Whether my thoughts are right or wrong, true or false, is no one's business but my own. It is my own God given right to superintend my own thoughts, and this right I shall never delegate to any other human being -- for God himself has authorized me to "judge ye not of your own selves what is right?"

Yes, I do, and shall judge for myself what is right for me to think, what is right for me to speak, and what is right for me to do -- and if I do wrong, I stand amenable to the laws of society and my country; for to human tribunals I submit all my actions, as just and proper matter for criticism and control.

But my thoughts, I shall never yield to any human tribunal or oligarchy, as a just and proper matter for arbitration or discipline. It is my opinion that the time has gone by for thoughts to be chained to any creeds or oligarchies; but on the contrary, these chains and restraints which have so long bound the human reason to human dictation, must be broken, for the reign of individual, spiritual freedom is about dawning upon our progressive world.

Page 38:

Yes, I insist upon it, that it is my own individual right to superintend my own thoughts; and I say farther, it is not my right to superintend the thoughts or conscience of any other developed being.

It is none of my business what Mr. Packard, my father or any other developed man or woman believe or think, for I do not hold myself responsible for their views. I believe they are as honest and sincere as myself in the views they cherish although so antagonistic to my own; and I have no wish or desire to harass or disturb them, by urging my views upon their notice.

Yea, further, I prefer to have them left entirely free and unshackled to believe just as their own developed reason dictates. And all I ask of them is, that they allow me the same privilege. My own dear father did kindly allow me this right of a developed moral agent, although we differed as essentially and materially in our views as Mr. Packard and I did. We, like two accountable moral agents, simply agree to differ, and all is peace and harmony.

My individuality has been naturally developed by a life of practical godliness, so that I now know what I do believe, as is not the case with that class in society who dare not individualize themselves. This class are mere echoes or parasites, instead of individuals. They just flow on with the tide of public sentiment, whether right or wrong; whereas the individualized ones can and do stem or resist this tide, when they think it is wrong, and in this way they meet with persecution. It is my misfortune to belong to this unfortunate class.

Therefore I am not afraid or ashamed to avow my honest opinions even in the face of a frowning world. Therefore, when duty to myself or others, or the cause of truth requires it, I willingly avow my own honest convictions. On this ground, I feel not only justified, but authorized, to give the question under consideration, a plain and candid answer, knowing that this narrative of the case would be incomplete without it.

Another thing is necessary as an introduction, and that is, I do not present my views for others to adopt or endorse as their own. They are simply my individual opinions, and it is a matter of indifference to me, whether they find an echo in any other individual's heart or not.

I do not arrogate to myself any popish right or power to enforce my opinions upon the notice of any human being but myself. While at the same time, I claim that I have just as good a right to my opinions as Scott, Clark, Edwards, Barnes, or Beecher, or any other human being has to his. And furthermore, these theologians have no more right to dictate to me what I must think and believe, than I have to dictate to them what they must think and believe. All have an equal right to their own thoughts.

And I know of no more compact form in which to give utterance to my opinions, than by inserting the following letter I wrote from my prison, to a lady friend in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and sent out on my "under ground railroad."

The only tidings I ever had from this letter, was a sight of it in one of the Chicago papers, following a long and minute report of my jury trial at Kankakee. I never knew how it found its way there; I only knew it was my own identical letter, since I still retain a true copy of the original among my Asylum papers.

The following is a copy of the original letter, as it now stands in my own hand-writing. The friend to whom it was written has requested me to omit those portions of the letter which refer directly to herself. In compliance with her wishes, I leave a blank for such omissions. In other respects it is a true copy.

The candid reader can judge for himself, whether the cherishing of such radical opinions is a crime of sufficient magnitude to justify all my wrongs and imprisonment! Is my Persecutor guiltless in this matter?

Jacksonville, Ill., Oct. 23, 1861.

MRS. FISHER. MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:

My love and sympathy for you is undiminished. Changes do not sever our hearts. I cannot but respect your self-reliant, independent, and therefore progressive efforts to become more and more assimilated to Christ's glorious image. I rejoice whenever I find one who dares to rely upon their own organization, in the investigation of truth. In other words, one who dares to be an independent thinker. * * *

Yes, you, Mrs. Fisher, in your individuality, are just what God made you to be. And I respect every one who respects himself enough not to try to pervert his organization, by striving to remodel it, and thus defile God's image in him.

To be natural, is our highest praise. To let God's image shine through our individuality, should be our highest aim. Alas, Mrs. Fisher, how few there are, who dare to be true to their God given nature!

That terrible dogma that our natures are depraved, has ruined its advocates, and led astray many a guileless, confiding soul. Why can we not accept of God's well done work as perfect, and instead of defiling, perverting it, let it stand in all its holy proportions, filling the place God designed it to occupy, and adorn the temple it was fitted for? I for one, Mrs. Fisher, am determined to be a woman, true to my nature. I regard my nature as holy, and every deviation from its instinctive tendency I regard as a perversion -- a sin. To live a natural, holy life, as Christ did, I regard as my highest honor, my chief glory.

Page 39:

I know this sentiment conflicts with our educated belief -- our Church creeds -- and the honestly cherished opinions of our relatives and friends. Still I believe a "thus saith the Lord" supports it. Could Christ take upon himself our nature, and yet know no sin, if our natures are necessarily sinful? Are not God's simple, common sense teachings, sufficient authority for our opinions?

Indeed, Mrs. Fisher, I have become so radical, as to call in question every opinion of my educated belief, which conflicts with the dictates of reason and common sense. I even believe that God has revealed to his creatures no practical truth, which conflicts with the common instincts of our common natures. In other words, I believe that God has adapted our natures to his teachings. Truth and nature harmonize. I believe that all truth has its source in God, and is eternal.

But some perceive truth before others, because some are less perverted in their natures than others, by their educational influences, so that the light of the sun of righteousness finds less to obstruct its beams in some than in others. Thus they become lights in the world, for the benefit of others less favored.

You preceded me in bursting the shackles of preconceived opinions and creeds, and have been longer basking in the liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free, and have therefore longer been caught of him in things pertaining to life and godliness. Would that I had had the moral courage sooner to have imitated you, and thus have broken the fetters which bound me to dogmas and creeds. Oh, Mrs. Fisher, how trammeled and crippled our consciences have been! Oh, that we might have an open Bible, and an unshackled conscience!

And these precious boons we shall have, for God, by His providence, is securing them to us. Yes, Mrs. Fisher, the persecutions through which we are now passing is securing to us spiritual freedom, liberty, a right, a determination to call no man master, to know no teacher but the Spirit, to follow no light or guide not sanctioned by the Word of God and our conscience, to know no "ism" or creed, but truthism, and no Pattern but Christ.

Henceforth, I am determined to use my own reason and conscience in my investigation of truth, and in the establishment of my own opinions and practice I shall give my own reason and conscience the preference to all others. * * *

I know, also, that I am a sincere seeker after the simple truth -- not willful, but conscientious in my conduct. And notwithstanding others deny this, I know their testimony is false. The Searcher of hearts knows that I am as honest with myself as I am with others. And, although like Paul I may appear foolish to others in so doing, yet my regard for truth transcends all other considerations.

God's good work of grace in me shall never be denied by me, let others defame it and stigmatize it as insanity, as they will. They, not I, are responsible for this sacrilegious act. God himself has made me dare to be honest and truthful, even in defiance of this heaven-daring charge, and God's work will stand in spite of all opposition. "He always wins, who sides with God."

Dear Mrs. Fisher, I am not now afraid or ashamed to utter my honest opinions. The worst that my enemies can do to defame my character, they have done, and I fear them no more. I am now free to be true and honest, for this persecution for opinion and conscience's sake, has so strengthened and confirmed me in the free exercise of these inalienable rights in future, that no opposition can overcome me. For I stand by faith in what is true and right. I feel that I am born into a new element -- freedom, spiritual freedom. And although the birth throes are agonizing, yet the joyous results compensate for all.

How mysterious are God's ways and plans! My persecutors verily thought they could compel me to yield these rights to human dictation, when they have only fortified them against human dictation. God saw that suffering for my opinions was necessary to confirm me in them. And the work is done, and well done, as all God's work always is. No fear of any human oligarchy will, henceforth, terrify me, or tempt me to succumb to it.

I am not now afraid of being called insane if I avow my belief that Christ died for all mankind, and that this atonement will be effectual in saving all mankind from endless torment -- that good will ultimately overcome all evil -- that God's benevolent purposes concerning his creatures will never be thwarted -- that no rebellious child of God's great family will ever transcend his ability to discipline into entire willing obedience to his will. Can I ever believe that God loves his children less than I do mine? * * * And has God less power to execute his kind plans than I have?

Yes, I do and will rejoice to utter with a trumpet tongue, the glorious truth that God is infinitely benevolent as well as infinitely wise and just.

Mrs. Fisher, what can have tempted us ever to doubt this glorious truth? And do we not practically deny it, when we endorse the revolting doctrine of endless punishment?

Page 40:

I cannot but feel that the Bible, literally interpreted, teaches the doctrine of endless punishment; yet, since the teachings of nature, and God's holy character and government, seem to contradict this interpretation, I conclude we must have misinterpreted its holy teachings. For example, Jonah uses the word everlasting with a limited meaning, when he says, "thine everlasting bars are about me." Although to his view his punishment was everlasting, yet the issue proved that in reality there was a limit to the time he was to be in the whale's belly.

So it may be in the case of the incorrigible; they may be compelled to suffer what to them is endless torment, because they see no hope for them in the future. Yet the issue will prove God's love to be infinite, in rescuing them from eternal perdition.

Again, Mrs. Fisher, my determination and aim is, to become a perfect person in Christ's estimation, although by so doing I may be numbered among the filth and off-scouring of all perverted humanity. What consequence is it to us to be judged of man's judgment, when the cause of our being thug condemned by them as insane, is the very character which entitles us to rank among the archangels in heaven?

Again, I am calling in question my right to unite myself to any Church of Christ militant on earth; fearing I shall be thereby entrammelled by some yoke of bondage -- that the liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free may thus be circumscribed. There is so much of the spirit of bigotry and intolerance in every denomination of Christians now on earth, that they do not allow us an open Bible and an unshackled conscience. Or, in other words, there are some to be found in almost every church, to whom we shall become stumbling blocks or rocks of offence, if we practically use the liberty which Christ offers us. Now what shall I do? I do want to obey Christ's direct command to come out from the world and be separate, while at the same time I feel that there is more Christian liberty and charity out of the Church than in it. I am now waiting and seeking the Spirit's aid in bringing this question to a practical test and issue.

And, Mrs. Fisher, I fully believe, from God's past care of me, that he will lead me to see the true and living way in which I ought to walk. I will not hide my light under a bushel, but put it upon a candlestick, that it may give light to others. I will also live out, practically, my honestly cherished opinions, believing "that they that do his commandments shall know of the doctrine."

I also fully believe that the more fully and exclusively I live out the teachings of the Holy Spirit, the more persecution I shall experience. For they that will live godly, in Christ's estimation, "shall suffer persecution."

Mrs. Fisher, I fully believe that Christ's coming cannot be distant. His coming will restore all things, which we have lost for his sake. Our cause will then find an eloquent pleader. Christ himself, and through our Advocate, the Judge, Himself will acknowledge us to be his true, loyal subjects, and we shall enter into the full possession of our promised inheritance.

With this glorious prospect in full view to the eye of faith, let us "gird up the loins of our mind." In other words, let us dare to pursue the course of the independent thinker, and let us run with patience the race set before us.

Let us carry uncomplainingly the mortifying cross which is laid upon us, so long as God suffers it to remain; remembering that it is enough for the servant that he be as his Master. For "as they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also." "Be of good cheer." "I have overcome the world." Blessed consolation!

Mrs. Fisher, the only response I expect to get from this letter, is your silent, heartfelt sympathy in my sorrows. No utterance is allowed for my alleviation. And the only way that I am allowed to administer consolation through the pen is by stratagem. I shall employ this means so far as lies in my power, so that when the day of revelation arrives, it may be said truthfully of me, "she hath done what she could."

Impossibilities are not required of us.

Please tell Theophilus, my oft repeated attempts to send him a motherly letter have been thwarted. And he, poor persecuted boy! cannot be allowed a mother's tender, heartfelt sympathy. Oh, my God, protect my precious boy! and carry him safely through this pitiless storm of cruel persecution. Do be to him a mother and a sister, and God shall bless you. Please deliver this message, charged to overflowing with a mother's undying love. Be true to Jesus. Ever believe me your true friend and sympathizing sister,

E. P. W. PACKARD.

CHAPTER XIV.
Progression the Law of our Being. -- "Seeing Eye to Eye."

On the distant hill-top stands the Observatory -- the observed of all observing -- Christ -- "the Model Man."

Each human heart pulsates in sympathy more or less strong, to gain that eminence. At various stand-points on the hillside, are seen the individual, the sects, the tribes, the nations of the earth, all, all moving onward, -- upward.

Page 41:

At the base stands the Conservative, the Presbyterian, the Calvinist, whom no entreaties, no prospective views, can induce to try the ascending slope. Friends urge -- enemies deride -- but all in vain. Immovable he stands, confident he sees, from his low stand-point, all there is to be seen of the vast landscape of eternal truth spread out before him.

Henry Ward Beecher leaps from their ranks and rises one step above his cotemporaries -sic-. He reports his views from his new stand-point to those below him. But, alas! The spring was unpropitious.

"Our confidence in your firmness and inflexibility of purpose is shaken."

Beecher has lost the confidence of some of his former friends: but in losing old friends he has found new and untried ones, who gladly extend to him the welcome hand. Upward they all move in company; and as they rise, new and more extended views of the surrounding country break upon their pleased and excited vision.

Again they report to the conservatives at the base

"Nay, verily, we will not heed thy tales of new truths. Our Bibles confidently say, there is nothing new under the sun."

"But come and see for yourselves."

"No, no. We are satisfied -- Trouble us not."

Onward and upward the ascending party, go, until they behold on the right side, the Methodist creed -- on the left, the Baptist creed in view. On they go in a winding course, and they see the Unitarian view. Onward they move to the Universalist stand-point, and they see the Universalist view. Onward they see the Christian view. Again, the Swedenborgian view, the Episcopalian, the Puseyite, and at length, the Catholic position. All and each presenting a distinctly different view of the same landscape below.

The further they ascend the more friends they find in the great human family, all equally intent to reach the Observatory above them all.

At length one man from the summit shouts out:

"You are all right!"

The Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Unitarian, the Universalist, the Christian, the Swedenborgian, the Episcopalian, the Puseyite, the Catholic, each and all, from your own stand-point have reported correctly.

He ascends to the top of the Observatory and takes the footprints of his Master -- he and Christ "see eye to eye," for they see from the same stand-point.

One by one the travelers after holiness or likeness to Christ arrive at his stand-point upon the pinnacle of the Observatory. All see now, as Christ sees: and all "see eye to eye." Their charity is now God-like. It embraces all races, all sects, all men: and as they ascended through distinct paths, each being true to himself, has safely arrived at his destined goal.

But no one can see just as another saw; for his angle of vision, his organization, differs from each and all others, and yet he is true to himself -- and true to God.

So, can we but start the conservative, we shall at length all "see eye to eye." But I fear some will compel us to pul -sic- them with a lasso up to a higher stand-point before we can convince them there is one! But let us try chafing them before hanging them; rub their feet -- give a start to the circulation, by tempting even a retaliatory passion, rather than let them become pillars of salt, or die of dyspepsia, for we cannot have an universal jubilee until the last tardy conservative has attained the pinnacle of the Observatory.

Oh, Conservative! For the sake of the world above you, if not for your own sake, be persuaded to try one advance movement. And let not the consummate age of righteousness be longer retarded by your obstinate, inflexible determination never to know any more than you do at present!

Again -- from the sunny side of this vast hill, enlightened by the sun of civilization, can be seen the cultivated farm, the verdant stream whose banks are studded with the mill, the factory -- and from the peaceful, quiet village stands out in bold relief the school-house, the academy, the college, the university -- and above all is seen the church-spire, pointing heavenward to the fount and source of all the blessings of cultivated life.

And from the shady side, which the sun of civilization has not yet reached, is seen the unbroken forest, where the wild man roams, hunting his forest prey. And from India's vast plains may be seen the heathen temple, the car of Juggernaut, the Mahommedan paradise, bounded by the Ganges, upon whose banks may be seen the devoted conscientious mother sacrificing the object dearer than her own life, to the crocodile and the flood, to propitiate the favor of her deity.

But as the sun of civilization moves onward in its westward course, leaving the sunny plains of civilization eclipsed by the principles of Calvinism, it is only to chase away the darkness of ignorance by which the conscience of the Pagan has been hitherto darkened and eclipsed.

Day of judgment! Day of wonders! Again -- on the side of this hill stand the different trees of God's great unbroken forest -- each perfect -- because true to the respective functions with which God has endowed it. And being true to itself, each perfects its own appropriate fruit -- the walnut, the chestnut, the butternut, the hazelnut -- all perfect -- yet all different; all unlike, yet all right. All good, that have life enough in the nut to sprout another like it; all bad, that have not vitality enough to rise again.

Page 42:

But, from whence comes the mouldy, rotten, shriveled nut?

From the gnarly, old, decayed, rotten and crumbling trees of Calvinism!

Let the woodman's axe level it, and prepare it for the flames.

But let the fair young twigs of nature's verdant soil remain, to fill the welcome vacuums with the fragrant foliage, and spreading boughs, and teeming fruits of the perfected Christianity of nature.

So, in God's great family of human trees -- the sects, tribes, races, nations of men -- each and all, have a shell, and a nut, peculiar to itself. For God has made us to differ.

How shall we perfect ourselves?

Shall the butternut try to be a walnut?

Shall the chestnut strive to be a hazelnut?

No. Be what God has made you to be -- a good butternut, a good chestnut.

Some like chestnuts best. Some like walnuts best. Be good in your sphere, and you will be sure to find some to admire and appreciate you.

But the mongrel all rejects. It is not a native-born plant; nature perfects her own fruit on a self-reliant base. It is bad cultivation that makes nature's prodigies.

God made man a democrat; society makes him an aristocrat. Let not the aristocracy of the Presbyterian Church boast of their being God's workmanship.

No! aristocracy is the fruit of Calvinism, not of Christianity. It is the true man, the true woman, which God makes. And those only are good men and good women who are natural -- who bring forth the fruits of righteousness. "He that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him," whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free.

Be a good slave, and try to wait as patiently as you can for your freedom, for it is certain God will free you before long if your government does not.

Be a good slaveholder, if God's providence has made you one; but don't trust to Providence to be responsible for your continuing to be one; for to be a good slaveholder now, you must and will emancipate your slaves forthwith: for God says you must do it, or he will do it for you.

Be a good Catholic, if God has made you a Catholic; and to be a good Catholic you must not believe that Protestants are all heretics, for they are not all heretics. It is only the bigoted Calvinist that is a heretic -- a tyrant -- a despot. It is the Calvinist alone who reflects your image; or rather, it is you who reflects his image.

Be generous to your impulses. Be a free, independent thinker, standing on the self-reliant base of a whole true man.

Be equally generous to others. Let them be as true to themselves as you are to yourself, and all will be harmony and peace.

It is the Christians, the practical Christians, who are alike -- not the creeds or sects. In every man behold a brother and a friend -- one endued with equal rights and privileges with yourselves.

Remember, there is a well in every rock. Moses did not well to be impatient to see the waters of humanity gush on at the first drill stroke. The drill of perseverance does wonders in tunneling the rock.

Remember, too, that iron is melted by the furnace of affliction

Remember, too, that God thought that one Niagara was enough for one world. But not so with the verdant rill, the babbling brook, the heavy moving stream, the pond, the lake, the sea. Each has his own office to fill, and none can fill another's.

The foaming cataract is the world's wonder -- but the mountain spring is the world's blessing.

"One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism."

CHAPTER XV.
An Asylum Incident -- A Spiritual Conquest.

On the afternoon of October 16,1863, as I was preparing to copy my first volume for the press, Dr. McFarland came to my room to inspect the business.

I saw by the eye of my instinct, rather than by the eye of my natural vision, that he had not come alone, as usual, but brought that most unwelcome guest, the bad Dr. McFarland, or, the "old Adam," rather, with him.

I knew I must now be as wise as a serpent, in dealing with the serpent, or I should be bit by it! So I put on my "charming" powers to quiet his asperities and control his reason. And choosing, as I thought, the most unexceptionable manuscript, my "Dedication," I offered to read it to him, for him to offer his criticism upon, before copying it for the press.

I had read about two-thirds of it, with rather a palpitating heart, when he suddenly interrupted me by saying:

"I should like to remark here, that I don't like your calling this place a prison, so much; for it isn't so. And as I'm to superintend these manuscripts for the press, I'm not willing you should call it a prison. You may call it a place of confinement, if you choose, but not a prison. It is only a notion you have taken up, to call it a prison, by your choosing voluntarily to confine yourself to it, as if it were a prison. But you have no occasion for so doing. I am just as willing you should have your liberty, as I am to let Mrs. Chapman have hers. And she goes about just where she pleases; and so could you, if you chose to."

Page 43:

Here he paused for a reply. A silence ensued.

I saw he was in the possession of his "evil spirit," and I dared not to contradict him, or even to assert my rights of opinion, lest, by so doing, I tempt him to commit himself still more strongly on the wrong or Calvinistic side of truth; for I have found that opposition is apt to give the "old man" strength.

But at length, with the innocent fearlessness and composure of truth, I took part in the discussion, hitherto so unsatisfactory to me, by remarking:

"It is a prison to me, and I have based all my book upon this truth. I do not intend to exaggerate or overstep the bounds of truth in what I say, but I intend to clothe truth in its own drapery, and to call things by their true names, as I apprehend them. I profess to report no one's opinions but my own; and I do say, that Mrs. Chapman is as much a prisoner as Mrs. Packard is; and Mrs. Packard is no more a prisoner now than she was when she first came, when she used her parole of honor as Mrs. Chapman now does. When I took the patients to ride fourteen times, and took a dollar from your own hands, and went up town and expended it alone or according to my own judgment, I was as much the State's prisoner as I have been for the last eighteen months, though I have not stepped my foot out of this house, as my protest forbids my doing so. I am not your prisoner, nor the trustees' prisoner, but the State's or the Government's prisoner."

"But you will acknowledge, Mrs. Packard, that the penitentiary inmates are on a different plane as prisoners, from what you are?"

"As to our both being prisoners, we are on one and the same plane. The inmates in each institution are alike prisoners under keepers, who hold our personal liberty entirely under subjection to bolts, grates, bars, and keys. Those in each, whom their keepers can trust, are allowed their paroles of honor, extending from the liberty of the yard, to the furlough of a conditional absence upon mutual terms of agreement. But should either prisoners use their furloughs or paroles of honor as a means of escape from their place of involuntary confinement, each are alike sought as a fugitive from justice, and the laws uphold the keepers in pursuing the fugitive, and forcing his return to his place of "involuntary confinement," which expression, according to Webster, means a prison.

"In these respects we are alike, but in another respect we are unlike. The convicts are imprisoned in the penitentiary for doing wrong; the afflicted, persecuted, oppressed and innocent, are here imprisoned for doing right.

"The penitentiary is our government's place of punishing the guilty; insane asylums are our government's place of punishing the innocent -- for to me it is capital punishment to be thus hopelessly imprisoned.

"This general rule has its exceptions. Some innocent ones are punished there; some guilty ones are punished here. Insane Asylums are the "Inquisitions" of the American government. My imprisonment is as hopeless as is my sinning to escape from it.

"I report opinions from the stand-point of a patient -- a victim of this Inquisition; and not from the stand-point of a governmental officer, appointed as guardian of this institution. It is the government, not its officers, who are responsible for the basis on which our Inquisitions are placed.

"I, for one, should altogether prefer to be a penitentiary prisoner, to being an insane prisoner; for there my accountability is recognized, but here it is not, by the laws of the institution. It is in defiance of these laws, that you recognize it in me. And besides, my sense of justice would not be so outraged by a false imprisonment there, as here. And as to treatment, no criminals ought to be treated worse than the insane are treated here, and it would not hurt them to be treated even better!

"For to be lost to reason, is a greater misfortune than to be lost to virtue; and the contumely and scorn which the world attaches to the former are greater; just in proportion as the slander is more deadly to the moral influence of the injured party."

"You would not, in writing a dictionary, describe each as alike, would you?"

"I should say they are one and the same thing, as to being prisoners."

Another pause ensued:

"Shall I read on?"

"Yes."

I finished it, and he remarked:

"It is very good."

I responded to this opinion. On this point we agreed as strongly as we differed on the point under discussion!

The subject was not again alluded to.

I felt, after he left, that something was wrong. I could not put up with this interference, or dictation of the contents of my book.

But what could be done that would not make the matter worse?

I knew too well, that to beg of Dr. McFarland was not the way to succeed. For he is almost as hard to be entreated as he is to be driven. Neither is it right for me to beg for my liberty to write my thoughts. It would degrade my self respect to do so.

Page 44:

But to reprove him, and assert my rights, might so exasperate him as to rashly lead to the destruction of my labored manuscripts.

I cannot conscientiously submit to dictation -- I therefore will not!

So I must either suspend my project indefinitely, or seek a settlement of the thing on the basis of justice,

I concluded to dare to do right, and risk the consequences to the overruling providence of God. For I have always found this to be the only safe and expedient course. I claim that it is always expedient to do right, and always inexpedient to do wrong.

So after having sought the moral courage and wisdom needed, for the discharge of this responsible duty, I penciled the following note and sent it to Dr. McFarland, by my attendant, Miss Trion.

To the GOOD Dr. McFarland:

SIR: I deem it my painful duty to report to you, my now spiritual protector, the insulting conduct I received from one of your employees, in this institution, yesterday afternoon.

It was from a man, an old, and almost superannuated man; although I think he has sense enough left to be responsible for his own actions. He came, unbidden, to my room, and having seated himself, began to upbraid me about my book -- my pet -- my pride, and, if you believe me, he even threatened, in spite of your proffered protection, to intercept its appearance in print, unless I heeded his suggestions in relation to it!

Now, I appeal to you to say if it is not too bad to be thus trifled with. Ought not this old, bad man (whose name looks so much like your own that I don't like to write it!) to be discharged, and never again to be allowed to enter my presence?

Dr. McFarland if you don't discharge him I shall report you to the trustees; and, if that don't answer, I shall report you to the synod; and if that don't answer, I shall report you up higher. I shall tell no lies to God, for you, nor about you.

God is preparing to summon you to his tribunal, to settle matters with you, and I'm a sworn witness, to testify, on trust to my integrity, candor, truthfulness and loyalty. I shoot evil, whether found in friend or foe, as God's enemy. And I trust to God's providence, alone, for my protection, in fighting, these his spiritual battles.

Dr. McFarland, have not I a right to write my own thoughts, as well as to think them, under our constitution, even if I am a woman?

Has any man a right to interfere with this right?

Did not you say it was my book, not our book?

It is our country, our government, but it is my book.

And can I claim it as my own book unless I indorse its contents?

Can I indorse what, to me, are lies, and expect the blessing of God upon it?

Are not my reason and my conscience to be the sole agents in dictating my book?

My conscience is God's secretary within me, and I shall not insult its dictations, by a proffered compromise with falsehood or error. My opinions and my conscience are my personal capital, which I can, by no means, consent to barter away.

If I cannot be protected in these rights under your guardianship, I must defer the publication of my book until God raises up for me a protector, who will not dare to trample upon the sacred, inalienable rights of my God-given nature.

I ask you, kind sir, will you be the protector of the inalienable rights of my womanly nature? Or, must I suspend my contemplated project until God's providence prepares the way for my spiritual freedom to be so secured to me that I can write a book true to God, and also true to my own truthful nature?

God offers you the honor of being my protector in this act, and he longs to confer it upon you. So do I.

But there is one, and only one condition, on which it can be conferred upon you; and that is, to dare to trust your interests, and the interests of this institution, and the interests of the country, on the immovable principles of truth and justice.

I shall venture to take my stand on the immutable rock of eternal truth, regardless of the foaming billows which dash at its base, and here shall I wield the sword of truth, regardless of my own interests, and those of all others.

I stand or fall with God alone.

Your true friend,
E. P. W. PACKARD.

In about one hour after the above note was delivered, Dr. McFarland came to the door of my room, with a face radiant with smiles, and at the same time giving my hand a most perceptible grasp, inquired:

"Who is that 'old man' who has ventured to insult you so about that precious book? He shall not be tolerated here on any account. You tell me his name and he shall be discharged forthwith. The name of that 'old, bad, superannuated man,' you just give me, and I shall see to his insulting you any more!"

"The good, new, Dr. McFarland is always welcome to my room -- most welcome! But that old, bad man, I do not want to see any more."

"No, he shan't disturb you any more. Just give me his name, and I'll see to his discharge!"

"You are doing right, Dr. McFarland! You are treating the 'old man' as he deserves to be treated."

Page 45: