I could not be true to God, and also true to the mandates of a will in opposition to God. And whose will was to be my guide, my husband’s will, or God’s will? I deliberately chose to obey God rather than man, and in that choice I made shipwreck of all my earthly good things.
And one good thing I sorely disliked to lose, was my fair, untarnished reputation and influence. This has been submerged under the insane elements of this cruel persecution. But my character is not lost, thank God! nor is it tarnished by this persecution. For my character stands above the reach of slander to harm. Nothing can harm this treasure but my own actions, and these are all guided and controlled by Him, for whose cause I have suffered so much. Yes, to God’s grace alone, I can say it, that from the first to the last of all my persecutions, I have had the comforting consciousness of duty performed, and an humble confidence in the approval of Heaven. Strong only in the justice of my cause, and in faith in God, I have stoodalone, and defied the powers of darkness to cast me down to anydestruction, which extended beyond this life. And this desperate treason against manliness which has sought to overwhelm me, may yet be the occasion of the speedier triumph of my spiritual freedom, and that also of my sisters in like bondage with myself.
The laws of our government most significantly requires us, “to work out our own salvation with much fear and trembling,” lest the iron will which would hold us in subjection, should take from us all our earthly enjoyments, if we dare to be true to the God principle within us. So bitter has been my cup of spiritual suffering, while passing through this crucible of married servitude, that it seems like a miracle almost, that I have not been driven into insanity, or at least misanthropy by it. But a happy elasticity of temperament conspired with an inward consciousness of rectitude, and disinterestedness, has enabled me to despise these fiery darts of the adversary, as few women could.
And I cherish such a reverence for my nature, as God has made it, that I cannot be transformed into a “man-hater.” I thank God, I was made, and still continue to be, a “man-lover.” Indeed, my native respect for the manhood almost approaches to the feeling of reverence, when I consider that man is God’s representative to me—that he is endowed with the very same attributes and feelings towards woman that God has—a protector of the weak, not a subjector of them. It is the exceptions, not the masses of the man race, who have perverted or depraved their God-like natures into the subjectors of the dependent. The characteristic mark of this depraved class is a “woman-hater,” instead or a “woman-lover,” as God, by nature made him. This depraved class of men find their counterpart in those women, who have perverted their natures from “men-lovers,” into “men-haters.” And man, with a man-hating wife, may need laws to protect his rights, as much as a woman, with a woman-hater for her husband. Laws should take cognizance ofimproper actions, regardless of sex or position.
All we ask of our government is, to let us stand just where our actions would place us, without giving us either the right or power to harm any one, not even our own husbands. At least, give us the power to defend ourselves, legally, against our husband’s abuses, since you have licensed him with almost Almighty power to abuse us. And it will be taking from these women-haters no right to take from them the right to abuse us. It may, on the contrary, do them good, to be compelled to treat us with justice, just as you claim that it will do theslave-holder good, to compel him to treat his slave with justice. It is oppression and abuse alone we ask you to protect us against, and this we are confident you will do, as soon as you are convinced there is a need or necessity for so doing. And I will repeat, it is for this purpose that I have, in this pamphlet, delineated a subjected wife’s true, legal position, by thus presenting my own personal, individual, experience for your consideration.
In summing up this argument, based on this dark chapter of a married woman’s bitter experience of the evils growing out of the law of married servitude, I would close with a Petition to the Legislatures of all the States of this Union, that they would so revolutionize their statute laws, as to expunge them entirely from that most cruel and degrading kind of despotism, which identifies high, noble woman as its victim. Let the magnanimity of your holy, God-like natures, be reflected from your statute books, in the women protective laws which emanate from them. And may God grant that in each and all of these codes may soon be found such laws as guarantee to married woman arightto her own home, and arightto be the mistress of her own household, and arightto the guardianship of her own minor children.
In other words, let her be the legally acknowledged mistress of her own household, and a co-partner, at least, in the interests and destiny of her own offspring. Let the interests of the maternity beas muchrespected, at least, as those of the paternity; and thus surround the hallowed place of the wife’s and mother’s sphere of action, with a fortress so strong and invincible, that the single will of a perverted man cannot overthrow it. For home is woman’s proper sphere or orbit, where, in my opinion, God designed she should be the sovereign and supreme; and also designed that man should see that this sphere of woman’s sovereignty should be unmolested and shielded from any invasions, either foreign or internal. In other words, the husband is the God appointed agent to guard and protect woman in this her God appointed orbit. Just as the moon is sovereign and supreme in her minor orbit, being guarded and protected there by the sovereign power of the sun, revolving in his mighty orbit.
The appropriate sphere of woman being the home sphere, she should have a legal right here, secured to her by statute laws, so that in case the man who swore to protect his wife’s rights here, perjures himself by an usurpation of her inalienable rights, she can haveredress, and thus secure that protection in thelaw, which is denied her by her husband.
In short, woman needs legal protectionas a married woman. She has a right to be a married woman, therefore she has a right to be protectedas a married woman. If she cannot have protection as a married woman, it is not safe for her to marry; for my case demonstrates the fact, that the good conduct of the wife is no guarantee of protection to her; neither is the most promising developments of manhood, proof against depravity of nature, approximating very near to the point of “total depravity,” and then woe to that wife and mother, who has no protection except that of a totally depraved man!
But, some may argue, that woman is already recognized in several of the States as an individual property owner, and as one who can do business on a capital of her own, independent of her husband. Yes, we do most gratefully acknowledge this as the day star of hope to us, that the tide is even now set in the right direction. But allow me to say, this does not reach the main point we are aiming to establish, which is, that woman should be a legalpartnerin the family firm, not a mere appendage to it. This principle of separating the interests of the married pair is not wholesome nor salutary in its results. It tends towards an isolation of interests; whereas it is an identification of interests, which the marriage contract should form and cement. We want an equality of rights, so far as copartners are concerned. These property rights should be so identified as to command the mutual respect of partners, whose interests are one and the same. In short, the wife should be the junior partner, and law should recognize her as such, by protecting to her the rights of a junior partner, and her husband should be the legally constituted senior partner of the family firm. Then, and only till then, is she his companion on an equality, in legal standing, with her husband, and sharing with him the protection of that government, which she has done so much to sustain; which government is based on the great fundamental principle of God’s government, namely, an equality of rights to all accountable moral agents. Our government can never echo this heavenly principle, until it defends “equal rights,” independent of sex or color.
Rev. Samuel Ware’s Certificate to the Public.
“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 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.Attest,Olive Ware,Austin Ware.South Deerfield, Aug. 21, 1866.”
“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 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.
Attest,Olive Ware,Austin Ware.
South Deerfield, Aug. 21, 1866.”
The reader should be informed that the above certificate was given after I had been a member of my father’s family for six months, thus affording him ample opportunity to judge of my real condition, by his own personal observation, since Mr. Packard, and his co-conspirator, Dr. McFarland, the Superintendent of the Asylum, both insist upon it, that I am now in just the same condition in reference to my sanity, that I was when I was kidnapped and forced into my prison. Therefore, when my own dear father’s eyes were fully opened to see the deception that had been employed to secure his influence in support of this cruel conspiracy, he felt conscience bound to give the above certificate in vindication of the truth. Another evidence of my Father’s entire confidence in my sanity is found in the fact that about this time he re-wrote his will, and so changed it that, instead of now giving me my patrimony “in trust” as before, he has bestowed it upon me, his only daughter, in precisely the same manner, and upon equal terms every way with my two only brothers.
Gentlemen of Illinois General Assembly:
Thankful for the privilege granted me, I will simply state that I desire to explain my bill rather than defend it, since I am satisfied it needs no defense to secure its passage by this gallant body of gentlemen.
I desire to make this public statement of some of the facts of my personal experience, relative to my incarceration in Jacksonville Insane Asylum, that you, the law-makers of this State, may see from the standpoint of my own individual wrongs, the legal liabilities to which all married women and infants have been exposed for the last sixteen years, to false imprisonments in Jacksonville Insane Asylum, under the act passed in 1851, viz.:
“Married women and infants who, in the judgment of the Medical Superintendent,” (meaning the Superintendent of Illinois State Hospital for the Insane,) “are evidently insane or distracted, may be entered or detained in the hospital, on the request of the husband of the woman or the guardian of the infant,withoutthe evidence of insanity required in other cases.”
This act was nominally repealed in 1865; but, practically, is still existing, in retaining those who have been previously entered without evidence of insanity, and in receiving others, regardless of the law of ’65, which demands a fair trial of all before commitment. In short, the present law is not in all cases enforced, but this unjust law is still in practical force in many instances.
Therefore, your petitioners, men of the first legal character and standing in Chicago, in asking for the repeal of this unjust law, not only ask for the enforcement of the new law by a penalty, but also that a jury trial may be forthwith extended to the unfortunate victims of this unjust law, who are now confined in Jacksonville Insane Asylum.
In detailing the practical working of this law in my case, I must rely upon your good sense to pardon the egotistical character of the following statement.
I am a native of Massachusetts, the only daughter of an orthodox clergyman of the Congregational denomination, and the wife of a Congregational clergyman, who was preaching to a Presbyterian Church in Manteno, Kankakee Co., Ill., when this legal persecution commenced.
I have been educated a Calvinist, after the strictest sect, but as my reasoning faculties have been developed by a thorough, scientific education, I have been led, by the simple exercise of my own reason and common sense, to endorse theological views, in conflict with my educated belief and the creed of the church with which I am connected. In short, from my present standpoint, I cannot but believe that the doctrine of total depravity, (which is the great backbone of the Calvinistic system,) conflicts with the dictates of reason, common sense, and the Bible.
And, gentlemen, the only crime I have committed is to dare to be true to these, my honest convictions, and to give utterance to these views in a Bible class in Manteno, at the special request of the teacher of that class, and with the full and free consent of my husband.
But the popular endorsement of these new views by the class and the community generally, led my husband and his Calvinistic Church to fear, lest their Church creed would suffer serious detriment by this license of private judgment and free inquiry, and as these liberal views emanated from his own family, and he, (for reasons best known to himself,) declining to meet me on the open arena of argument and free discussion, chose, rather, to use this marital power which your laws license him to use, and as this unjust law permits, and got me imprisoned at Jacksonville Insane Asylum, without evidence of insanity, and without any trial, hoping, as he told me, that by this means he could destroy my moral influence, and thereby defend the cause of Christ; as he felt bound to do!
It was under these circumstances I was legally kidnapped, as your laws allow, and imprisoned three years at Jacksonville, simply for claiming a right to my own thoughts. The first intimation I had of this legal exposure, was by two men entering my room, on the 18th of June, 1860, and kidnapping me. Two of his Church-members, attended by Sheriff Burgess of Kankakee, took me up in their arms and carried me to the wagon, and thence to the cars, in spite of my lady-like protests, and regardless of all my entreaties for some sort of trial before imprisonment.
My husband replied, “I am doing as the laws of Illinois allow me to do—you have no protection in law but myself, and I amprotecting you now; it is for your good I am doing this; I want to save your soul; you don’t believe in total depravity; I want to make you right.”
“Husband,” said I, “have not I a right to my opinion?”
“Yes, you have a right to your opinions if you think right.”
“But does not the constitution defend the right of religious tolerance to all American citizens?”
“Yes, to all citizens it does defend this right, but you are not a citizen; while a married woman, you are a legal nonentity, without even a soul in law. In short, you are dead as to any legal existence, while a married woman, and therefore have no legal protection as a married woman.”
Thus I learned my first lesson in that chapter of “common law,” which denies to married woman a legal right to their own individuality or identity.
Here I was taken from my little family of six children, while my babe was only eighteen months old, while in the faithful discharge of all my duties as wife and mother, having done all my own work for twenty-one years, besides educating our own children, and nearly fitting our oldest son for college; in perfect health and sound mind, and forced into an imprisonment of an indefinite length, without the mere form of a trial, and without any chance at self-defense.
True, my husband did even more than this “unjust law” demands, for he did get the certificates of two orthodox physicians that I was insane—like Henry Ward Beecher, and Horace Greeley, and Spurgeon, and three-fourths of the religious community; and, besides, he obtained the names of forty others, mostly his own Church members, who thus co-conspired to sustain their minister in this mode of defending the cause of Christ against the contagious influence of dangerous heresies and fatal errors.
The influence of the community outside of the Church was thrown into the opposite scale entirely; but their influence was overpowered by the majesty of the law, added to the dignity of the pulpit. I was conveyed by Sheriff Burgess, Deacon Dole and Mr. Packard to your State Hospital, in defiance of the indignant community who had assembled at the depot in large crowds to defend me. Dr. Simmington, the Methodist minister at Manteno, remarked to me, “Mrs. Packard, you will not be there long,” and plainly intimated that, in his opinion, no man was fit for his position who would retain such an inmate as myself.
Dr. McFarland, of course, was obliged to receive me on this superabundant testimony that I was an insane person, although he apologized to me afterwards for receiving me at all, and for four months he treated me himself, and caused me to be treated, with all the respect of a hotel boarder. He even trusted me with the entire charge of a carriage load of insane patients, and the care of my own team, fourteen times; sometimes I would be absent nearly a half day on some pleasant excursion to the fair-grounds or cemetery, and he never expressed the least solicitude for our safe return. Indeed, he trusted me almost in every situation he would trust the matron.
But, at the expiration of this time, with no change whatever in my deportment, I forfeited all his good-will and favors, by presenting him a written reproof for his abuse of his patients, which was afterwards printed, wherein I told him I should expose him when I got out, unless he treated his patients with more justice.
He then removed me from the best ward to the worst, where were confined the most dangerous class of patients, and instructed his attendants to treat me just as they did the maniacs, and be sure to keep me a close prisoner, and on no account to allow me to leave the ward, and compel me to sleep in a dormitory with from three to six crazy patients, where my life was exposed, both night as well as day, with no room of my own to flee to for safety from their insane flights and dangerous attacks.
I have been dragged around this ward by the hair of my head by the maniacs; I have received blows from them that almost killed me. My seat at the table was by the side of Mrs. Triplet, the most dangerous and violent patient in the whole ward, who almost invariably threatened to kill me every time I went to the table. I have had to dodge the knives and forks and tumblers and chairs which have been hurled in promiscuous profusion about my head, to avoid some fatal blow. I have begged and besought Dr. McFarland to remove me to some place of safety, where my life would not be so exposed, only to see him turn, speechless, away from me! I have endured the scent and filth of a ward, from which my delicate, sensitive nature revolts in loathsome disgust, until I had had time to clean the whole ward with my own hands, before it could be a decent place for human beings to inhabit.
From this eighth ward I was not removed until I was discharged, two years and eight months from the day I was consigned to it. I did not set my foot upon the ground in the mean time, although, for the last part of my imprisonment there, Dr. McFarland exchangedsome of the noisiest and most boisterous patients for a more quiet class.
I have been threatened with the screen-room, and this threat has been accompanied with the flourish of a butcher knife over my head, for simply passing a piece of johnny-cake through a crack under my door to a hungry patient, who was locked in her room to suffer starvation as her discipline for her insanity.
I have heard a fond and tender mother begging and pleading, for one whole night and part of a day, for one drink of cold water, but all in vain! simply because she had annoyed her attendant, by crying to see her darling babe and dear little ones at home. I finally persuaded the matron, Mrs. Waldo, to interpose, and give her a drink of water.
There was but one of all the employees at that Asylum whom the Dr. could influence to treat me, personally, like an insane person. This was Mrs. De La Hay. Besides threatening me with the screen-room, as I have stated, she threatened to jacket me for speaking at the table.
One day, after she had been treating her patients with great injustice and cruelty, I addressed Mrs. McKonkey, who sat next to me at the table, and in an undertone remarked, “I am thankful there is a recording angel present, noting what is going on in these wards;” when Mrs. De La Hay, overhearing my remark, exclaimed in a very angry tone, “Mrs. Packard, stop your voice! if, you speak another word at the table I shall put a straight jacket on you!”
Mrs. Lovel, one of the patients, replied, “Mrs. De La Hay, did you ever have a straight jacket on yourself?”
“No, my position protects me! but I would as soon put one on Mrs. Packard as any other patient, ‘recording angel’ or no ‘recording angel,’ and Dr. McFarland will protect me in doing so, too!”
The indignant feeling of the house soon became so demonstrative, in view of the treatment I was receiving, that the Dr. seemed compelled to discharge Mrs. De La Hay to defend his own character from the charge of abusing me, and Mrs. De La Hay soon after became insane, and a tenant of Jacksonville poor-house.
He cut me off from all written communication with the outside world, except under the strictest censorship, and made it a dischargeable offence of his employees to permit me to have any means of communication with the outside world. He has refused Mrs. Judge Thomas and other friends, whom he knew desired to comfort me with human sympathy and some choice viands, admission into my presence, and has put them off with the inquiry, “why do you wishto single out Mrs. Packard from the other patients, to administer to her comfort?” and when asked by his guests, who often mistook me for the matron, “why he kept so intelligent a lady in an Insane Asylum?” he would reply, “you must not take any notice of what a patient says!” And the reply he would make to my indignant friends at the hospital, who ventured sometimes to inquire “why are you treating Mrs. Packard in this manner?” has invariably been, “it is all for her good!”
Time will not allow me to detail my sufferings and persecutions at that hospital; I will only add, may the Lord forgive Dr. McFarland for the injustice I have suffered at his hands! And God grant that the legislature of 1867 may have the moral courage to effectually remove the liabilities to a repetition of wrongs like my own!
Various attempts were made by my Manteno friends to rescue me, but all in vain. My legal non-existence rendered it difficult to extend legal aid to a nonentity, except it come through the identity of my only legal protector, and so long as it was possible to cut me off from any direct application for deliverance, he could ward off the habeas corpus investigation they wished to institute, and as long as the Doctor claimed I was insane, so long this unjust law consigned me to legal imprisonment. My relatives and other friends applied to lawyers, judges and the Governor in my behalf, but all in vain, as these officers were only authorized to administer existing laws; they could neither repeal them nor act contrary to them. On the 18th of June, 1863, I was finally removed from my asylum prison, by order of the Trustees, as the result of a personal interview which Dr. McFarland kindly consented to grant me, and put again into the custody of my husband, who consigned me to a prison in my own house, claiming, as his excuse, that I was just as insane as when I was entered just three years previously, for I had neither recanted nor yielded my right to my identity: therefore, in the judgment of your superintendent, I am hopelessly insane, and am doomed, by his certificates, to a life-long imprisonment in the Insane Asylum at Northampton, Mass., and my husband was just on the point of starting with me for a consignment in that living tomb, when he was arrested by a writ of habeas corpus, issued by judge Starr, ofKankakeeCity, and used by my Manteno friends in defence of my personal liberty. I was now where I could make direct application, by passing a letter clandestinely through a crack in my window.
The trial lasted five days, and resulted in a complete vindication of my sanity, although his witnesses swore that it was evidence ofinsanity for a person to wish to leave a Presbyterian church and join a Methodist! A full account of this trial is found in this “Three Years Imprisonment for Religious Belief.” It was reported by one of my lawyers, and is an impartial record of the whole case.
During the trial, Mr. Packard “fled his country” in the night, to avoid the danger of a mob retribution. He took with him all our personal property, even my own wardrobe and children, and rented our home, so that I found myself, at the close of court, homeless, penniless and childless.
And this, gentlemen, is legal usurpation, also, on the slavish principle of common law—the legal nonentity of the wife, the man and wife being one, and the one, the man! Gentlemen, we married women need emancipation; and will you not be the pioneer State in our Union, in woman’s emancipation? and thus use my martyrdom for the identity of a married woman, to herald this most glorious of all reforms—married woman’s legal emancipation, from that of a slave in law, to that of a partner and companion of her husband, in law, as she now is in society?
And, lest there be a misunderstanding on this subject, permit me here to explain what kind of slavery I refer to. This slavish position which the principles of common law assigns the married woman, is a relic of barbarism, which the progress of civilization will, doubtless, ere long, annihilate. In the dark ages, married woman was a slave to her husband, both socially and legally, but, as civilization has progressed, she has outgrown her social position—that of a slave—and is now regarded in society as the companion and partner of her husband. But the law has not progressed with civilization, so that married woman is still a slave, legally, while she is his companion, socially.
Man, we know, is woman’s natural protector, and, in most instances, is all the protection a married woman needs. Still, as the laws are made for the exceptional cases, where man is not a law unto himself, what can be the harm in emancipating woman from this slavish position, so that she can receive governmental protection of her right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as well as the marital protection? So, in case where the marital fails, she can have legal protection, while married as well as when single. Then when your darling daughter is called to exchange the paternal protection for the marital, she will not be obliged to alienate her right to governmental protection by this exchange of her natural protectors, but she, the tenderest and the best, can then claim of her government,while a married woman, the same protection of her rights as a woman, which your sons now claim as men.
The need of this radical change in married woman’s legal position, is more fully elucidated in this book, which contains a detailed account of my persecutions in Illinois, when your State hospital was used, in my case, as inquisition. My object in bringing these facts to your notice is to secure legislative action, where these facts show the need of action.
In conclusion, gentlemen of this Assembly, may I be allowed to read a few extracts from Dr. McFarland’s published letters on this subject, showing, from his own words, his ground of self-defense.
The Doctor says: “All Mrs. Packard’s wrongs, persecutions and sufferings, of every description, are utterly the creation of a diseased imagination.”
Now, I ask, is this so? Can facts be transmuted into fiction by the simple assertion of one man? And is it a mere creation of a diseased imagination that has torn me from my helpless babe and deprived my darling children of a fond mother’s tender care? Is it the mere creation of a diseased imagination to find that good conduct, not even the best, is any guarantee of protection to a wife and mother under Illinois laws?
Neither Dr. McFarland nor Mr. Packard himself, has ever denied one of the facts in the statement I have made; but as their only justification, they claim that I am insane—and the only proof of insanity they have ever brought in support of this opinion is, “her views of things,” as the Doctor expresses himself, or, my private, individual opinions.
Now I wish to ask the gentlemen of this Assembly, if, for my using my right of opinion, or my right of private judgment, the public sentiment of this age is going to justify Illinois in keeping me a prisoner three years, under the subterfuge of insanity, based wholly upon my “views of things?”
Just consider, for one moment, the principle. Here my personal liberty, for life, hangs suspended wholly on the opinion of this one man, whom policy or interest might tempt to say I was insane when I was not; for this law expressly states that the class I represent may be imprisoned without evidence of insanity, and without trial!
Just make the case your own, gentlemen: would it be easy for you to realize that it was a mere creation of your imagination to have two men take you by force from your business and family, without evidence of insanity and without trial, and your kidnappers claimas their only justification, that you are insane on some point in your religious belief, simply because Dr. McFarland says you are, and then lock you up for life, on his single testimony, without proof?
Now we, married women and infants, have had our personal liberty, for sixteen years, suspended on this one man’s opinion; and possibly he may be found to be a fallible man, and capable of corruption, if we may be allowed to judge of this great man from the standpoint of his own words and actions.
Now, if the Doctor was required to prove his patients insane, from their own conduct, there would be a shadow of justice attached to his individual judgment; but while this law allows him to call them insane, and treat them as insane, without evidence of insanity, where is the justice of such a decision?
You do not hang a person without proof from the accused’s own actions that he is guilty of the charge which forfeits his life. So the personal liberty of married women should not be sacrificed without proof that they are insane, from their own conduct.
When Dr. McFarland has brought forward one proof from my own conduct, by one insane act of my own, in support of his position, I will then say he has cause for calling me an insane person; but until that time arrives, I claim he is begging the question entirely, in calling me an insane person, without one evidence to sustain his charge.
Gentlemen, it is not merely for my own self-defence from this unpleasant charge, that I lay this argument before you, but it is that you may see, from my standpoint, how exceedingly frail is the thread on which our reputation for sanity is suspended, and how very liable married women and infants are to be thus falsely imprisoned in Jacksonville Insane Asylum.
If my testimony might be allowed to add weight to this suspicion or presumption, I would state that, to my certain knowledge, there were married women there when I left, more than three years since, who were not insane then at all, and they are still retained there, as hopelessly insane patients, on the simple strength of the above ground of evidence; and it is my womanly sympathy for this class of prisoners that has moved me to come, alone, from Massachusetts, in the depth of winter, to see if I could not possibly induce this legislature to compassionate their case: for it is under your laws, gentlemen, I have suffered, and they are still suffering, and it is to this legislature of 1867 that we apply for a legal remedy; and we confidently trust you will vindicate the honor of your State in the actionyou take upon this subject. We trust you will not only have the manliness and moral courage to repeal this unjust law, forthwith, but also extend, promptly, a just trial to its wronged and injured victims.
Again, Dr. McFarland writes: “Mr. Packard is suffering from a cause which only gather his church and the public about him, in the bonds of a generous sympathy.”
I reply to this assertion by stating a few simple facts. Mr. Packard’s church and people in Manteno, Illinois, withdrew from him their confidence and support, while I was incarcerated, instead of gathering about him, because public sentiment would not tolerate him, as a minister, with this stigma upon him; and it was the fear of lynch law which drove him from this State during the court, to seek shelter and employment in Massachusetts, his native State. There he succeeded in securing a place as stated supply, by ignoring the decision of your court, and by misrepresenting the west to be in such a semi-barbarous state that it was impossible to get a just decision at any legal tribunal in this uncivilized region, where, he tells them, “a large portion of community were more intent on giving Presbyterianism a blow, than in investigating the question of Mrs. Packard’s insanity!”
He occupied his new field in Sunderland, Mass., fifteen months, when I returned to my father’s house in Sunderland, on a visit, and the result was, my personal presence, together with the facts in the case, upset him, so that neither Sunderland nor any other society in New England can be induced to employ him in defiance of enlightened public sentiment. Indeed, the public sentiment of New England has so blighted and withered his ministerial influence, that the remark of a lawyer in Worcester, Mass., made a few months since, reflects his true social position there, at present. Said he, “there is not a man in New England, neither do I think there is one man in the United States, who would dare to stand the open defender of Mr. Packard in the course he has taken, and in view of the facts as they are now known to exist.”
Now I would like to ask Dr. McFarland, where are to be found these “bonds of generous sympathy” to which he refers? in the region of the west, or in the east?
Here, where the Doctor’s assertion is found to be plainly contradicted by facts, can his simple assertions be relied upon as infallible testimony and infallible authority?
Again, another extract, and I am done.
Dr. McFarland writes, “I have no question but that Mrs.Packard’s committal here was as justifiable as in the majority of those now here.”
Now if this statement of your superintendent is true, viz.: that I am a fair specimen of the majority of his patients, then the Doctor himself must admit that the majority of inmates there are capable of assuming a self-reliant position, and, instead of being supported there as State paupers, as I was during my imprisonment of three years, ought they not to be liberated, and supporting themselves and their families as I am now doing?
Mr. Packard has become an object of charity since he cast me penniless upon the world, while I have, without charity, not only supported myself, but have already become voluntarily responsible for his support, and the support and education of my children, from the avails of my own hard labor, since my discharge from my prison; while at the same time, he will not allow me to live in the house with my dear children, lest my heresies contaminate them!
Now, Gentlemen, is it not better that I be thus employed, selling my books for their support, rather than be held as your State’s prisoner and State’s pauper simply because my “views of things” do not happen to coincide with your Superintendent’s views of things?
It is true, and, gentlemen, your Superintendent’s own statement verifies it, that I am not the only one who has been so unjustly imprisoned there, and in the name and behalf of those now there, I beg of this body that you extend to such a fair trial or a discharge. Really, the claims of humanity and the honor of your State both demand that my case stimulate the Illinois legislature of 1867 to provide legal safeguards against false commitments like my own.
Permit me here to add, that although I have come from Massachusetts to Illinois at my own expense, without money and without price, for the express purpose of bringing these claims of oppressed humanity to your notice, I do not demand nor ask for any remuneration for my false imprisonment in your State institution, nor for any personal redress of those legal wrongs which have deprived me of my reputation, my home, my property, my children, my liberty; but I do ask that the legal liabilities to such like outrages may be effectually removed by this legislature, and that the justice of a trial by jury may be forthwith extended to those now in that asylum, who have been consigned to an indefinite term of imprisonment, without any trial.
Gentlemen of this assembly, in view of the facts now before you, please allow me the additional privilege of adding a few suggestions.You see it has become a demonstrated fact that I, a minister’s wife, of Illinois, have been three years imprisoned in your State, by your laws, simply because I could not tell a lie—that is, I could not be false to my own honest convictions; and since I simply claim the right to be an individual instead of a parasite, or an echo of others’ views, I am branded by your laws as hopelessly insane!
Is it not time for you to legislate on this subject, by enacting laws which shall make it a crime to treat an Illinois citizen as an insane person simply for the utterance of opinions, no matter how absurd those opinions may be to others? Opinions cannot harm the truth, nor the individual, especially if they are absurd or insane opinions.
But for irregularities of conduct, such as my persecutors have been guilty of, the law ought to be made to investigate. Imprisonment for religious belief! What is it but treason against the vital principle of this American Government, viz.: religions toleration?
Would that I could have claimed protection under the banner of my country’s flag, while a citizen of Illinois. But no; this unjust statute law has consigned me to the reign of despotism. And so are all my married sisters in Illinois liable to this consignment, so long as this barbarous law is in force.
And O! the horrors of such a consignment! Only think of putting your own delicate, sensitive daughter through the scenes I have been put through. Do you think she would have come out unharmed? God only knows. But this I do know: that it is one principle of ethics, that a person is very apt to become what they are taken to be. You may take the sanest person in the world, and tell them they are insane, and treat them as your Superintendent treats them there—it is the most trying ordeal a person can pass through and not really become insane.
And most reverently does Mrs. Packard attribute it to God’s grace alone, for carrying her safely through this most awful ordeal, unharmed, and—I am almost tempted to add—God himself could not have done this thing without the strictest conformity on my part, to His own laws of nature, in connection with a well-balanced organization. As it is, to God’s grace alone. I say it, I am a monument for the age—a standing miracle, almost, of the power of faith to shield one from insanity, by having come out unharmed, through a series of trials, such as would crush into a level with the beasts, I may say, any one, who did not freely use this antidote.
Here let me make one practical suggestion. Is that kind of treatment which causes insanity the best adapted to cure insanity?
O, my brothers! my gallant brothers! will you not protect us from such liabilities? Will you not have the manliness to grant to us, married women, the legal right to stand just where our own actions will place us, regardless of our views of things, or our private opinions? that is, may we not have the privilege of being legally protected, as you are, in our rights of opinion and conscience, so long as our good conduct deserves such protection?
We have an individuality of our own, which is sacred to ourselves; will you not protect our personal liberty, while in the lawful, lady-like exercise of it? for personal liberty is a boon of inestimable value to ourselves as well as you, and by guarding our liberty against false commitment there, you may have fortified the personal liberty of some of Illinois’ best and sanest class of citizens, whose interests are now vitally imperiled by this unjust law.
Yes, gentlemen, I, their representative, now stand legally exposed to be kidnapped again, and hid for life in some lunatic Asylum; and since no laws defend me, this may yet be done. Should public sentiment—the only law of self-defence I have—endorse the statements of this terrible conspiracy against the personal liberty and stainless character of an innocent woman, I may yet again be entombed, to die a martyr for the Christian principle of the identity of a married woman. Three long years of false imprisonment does not satisfy this lust for power to oppress the helpless. No; nothing but a life-long entombment can satisfy the selfhood of my only legal protector.
O! I do want laws to protect me, and, as an American citizen, I not only ask, but I demand that my personal liberty shall depend upon the decision of a jury—not upon the verdict of public sentiment, or forged certificates, either.
My gallant brothers, be true to my cause, if false to me. Be true to woman! defend her as your weak, confiding sister, and Heaven shall reward you; for God is on her side, “and he always wins who sides with God.”
Fear not; fear nothing so much as the sin of simply not doing your duty. Maintain your death grapple in defence of the heaven-born principles of liberty and justice to all human kind, especially to woman. Emancipate her! for above this cross hangs suspended a crown, of which even our martyred Lincoln’s crown of negro emancipation is but a mere type and shadow in brilliancy. And God grant that this immortal crown of unfading honor may be the rightful heritage—the well-earned reward of Illinois’ gallant sons, as embodied in their legislators.
And all we have to ask for Dr. McFarland is, that you not only allow, but require this great man to stand just where his own actions will place him, regardless of his position, or the opinion of his enemies or his friends.
Gentlemen, permit me also to say, that when you have once liberated the sane inmates of that hospital and effectually fortified the rights of the sane citizens of Illinois against false commitments there, you will have taken the first progressive step in the right direction, in relation to this great humanitarian reform. And here I will say, that from what I do know of the practical workings of the internal machinery of that institution, as seen from behind the curtain, from the standpoint of a patient, and from what I know of the personal and private character of Illinois Statesmen, I predict it will not be the last.
And, notwithstanding the temporary disfigurement of Illinois’ proud escutcheon by this foul stain of religious persecution, which, I regret to say, it now has upon it, may God grant that the present statesmen of Illinois may yet so fully vindicate its honor, as that the van of this great humanitarian reform may yet be heralded to the world in the action of Illinois representatives, as embodied in this legislature of 1867.
I hold myself in readiness, gentlemen, to answer any questions, or perform any service in behalf of this cause you may desire of me; and, as an incentive to your acting efficiently in this matter, I will state that several legislatures in New England are watching eagerly the result of my application to you, this winter, and they have engaged me to report to them the result.
I desire, therefore, an opportunity to vindicate your character before these legislatures, on the basis of your own actions, for, after you know of the existence of this barbarous law, and its direct application to me, one of its wronged and injured victims, as you now do, I shall no longer be able to plead your ignorance of the existence of such a law, as your vindication from the charge of barbarism, and you must know that the intelligence of the whole civilized world cannot but call a State barbarous in its legislation, so long as this black and cruel law has an existence, even in continuing to hold its victims in its despotic grasp.
I know, gentlemen, that since 1865, I can plead that you have nominally repealed it, but so long as this law of ’65 is without a penalty to enforce it, it is only a half law, or in other words, it is merely legislative advice—it is not a statute law, and so long as youdo retain its injured victims in their false imprisonment, you have not repealed it.
Now, gentlemen, much as I would like to gratify the wishes of a member of your House, in erasing the record of this law from my book, on the ground of its having been already repealed, I cannot conscientiously do it so long as that institution continues to receive inmates without any trial by jury, or retains those who have never had any such trial.
No, gentlemen; this law and its application to me, cannot be obliterated, for it has already become a page of Illinois’ history, which must stand to all coming time, as a living witness against the legislation of Illinois in the nineteenth century. There is one way, and only one, by which you can redeem your State from this foul blot of religious persecution which now desecrates your nationality in the estimation of the whole civilized world, and that is by such practical repentance as this bill demands. This done, I can then, and only till then, vindicate the character of Illinois statesmen, on the ground of their own honorable acts.
In an appendix to this book, you will then find not only Mrs. Packard’s appeal to Illinois’ legislature of 1867, but also the noble manly response of its legislators, as echoed by their own honorable acts. But, should you, for any reason, choose to turn a deaf ear to this appeal in defense of your injured citizens, I shall not rest until I have made this same appeal to the people of this State, and asked from them the justice I am denied from their representatives. And should I be denied there, I shall go to work single-handed and alone, in liberating this oppressed class, by the habeas corpus act, before I shall feel that my skirts are washed from the guilt of hiding these public sins against humanity, which I know to have existence in the State of Illinois.
And can you blame me for this manifestation of my heart sympathy for my imprisoned sisters? Can a sensitive woman feel a less degree of sympathy for her own sex, when she knows, as I do from my own bitter experience, the injustice they are daily and hourly now receiving in that dismal prison?
And O! if you or your darling daughter were in their places, would you feel like reproaching me as a fanatic, for thus volunteering in your defence? No; you would not. But I should reproach myself, and so must a just God reproach me, should I dare to do less; for there is a vow recorded in the archives of high Heaven, that Mrs. Packard will do all in her power to do, for the deliverance of thesevictims of injustice, if God will but grant her deliverance. I am delivered! my vow stands recorded there! Shall this vow be a witness against me, or shall it not?
Gentlemen of this Assembly, I shall try to redeem that pledge, and so far as you are concerned, my work is now done. Yours remains to be done. God grant you may dare to do right! that you may have the moral courage to dare to settle this great question, just upon its own intrinsic merits, independent of the sanity or the insanity of its defender.
Very respectfully submitted to the General Assembly of Illinois, now in Session, by—
Mrs. E. P. W. PACKARD.
Springfield, Illinois, February 12th, 1867.
The result of this appeal was the passage of the “Personal Liberty Bill,” entitled “An Act for the Protection of Personal Liberty.”
AN ACT in relation to Insane persons and the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane.
Section 1.Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That the circuit judges of thisStateare hereby vested with power to act under and execute the provisions of the act passed on the 12th of February, 1853, entitled “An act to amend an act entitled ‘an act to establish the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane,’” in force March 1st, 1847, in so far as those provisions confer power upon judges of county courts; and no trial shall be had of the question of sanity or insanity before any judge or court, without the presence or in the absence of the person alleged to be insane. And jurors shall be freeholders and heads of families.
Sec. 2.Whenever application is made to a circuit or county judge, under the provisions of this act and the act to which this is an amendment, for proceedings to inquire into and ascertain the insanity or sanity of any person alleged to be insane, the judge shall order the clerk of the court of which he is judge to issue a writ, requiring the person alleged to be insane to be brought before him, at the time and place appointed for the hearing of the matter, which writ may be directed to the sheriff or any constable of the county, or the person having the custody or charge of the person alleged to be insane, and shall be executed and returned, and the person alleged to be insane brought before the said judge before any jury is sworn to inquire into the truth of the matters alleged in the petition on which said writ was issued.
Sec. 3.Persons with reference to whom proceedings may be instituted for the purpose of deciding the question of sanity or insanity, shall have the right to process for witnesses, and to have witnesses examined before the jury; they shall also have the right to employ counsel or any friend to appear in their behalf, so that a fair trial may be had in the premises; and no resident of the State shall hereafter be admitted into the hospital for the insane, except upon the order of a court or judge, or of the production of a warrant issuedaccording to the provisions of the act to which this is an amendment.
Sec. 4.The accounts of said institution shall be so kept and reported to the general assembly, as to show the kind, quantity and cost of any articles purchased for use; and upon quarterly settlements with the auditor, a list of the accounts paid shall be filed, and also the original vouchers, as now required.
Sec. 5.All former laws conflicting with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed, and this act shall take effect on its passage.
Approved February 16, 1865.
Two years practice under this law developed its inability to remove the evils it was designed to remedy. This law, having no penalty to enforce it, was found to be violated in many instances, as it was ascertained to be a fact that Dr. McFarland was constantly receiving patients under the old law of 1851, which this law had nominally repealed. Therefore, a petition was sent to the legislature of 1867, signed by I. N. Arnold, J. Young Scammon, and thirty-six other men of the first legal standing in Chicago, asking for the practical repeal of the old law of 1851, by the enforcement of the new law of 1865.
The old law of 1851 is as follows, viz.: “Married women and infants who, in the judgment of the medical superintendent, (meaning the Superintendent of the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane,) are evidently insane or distracted, may be entered or detained in the hospital on the request of the husband of the woman, or the guardian of the infant,withoutthe evidence of insanity required in other cases.”
The legislature was led to see that by the practical enforcement of this unjust law, the personal liberty of married women and infants was still imperiled, and also that the law of 1865 did not relieve the wronged and injured victims of this unjust law, now imprisoned at Jacksonville Insane Asylum. Therefore, the legislature of 1867 passed the following “Act for the protection of Personal Liberty.”
AN ACT for the Protection of Personal Liberty.
Section 1.Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That no superintendent, medical director, agent or other person, having the management, supervision or control of the Insane Hospital at Jacksonville, or of anyhospital or asylum for insane and distracted persons in this State, shall receive, detain or keep in custody at such asylum or hospital any person who has not been declared insane or distracted by a verdict of a jury and the order of a court, as provided by an act of the general assembly of this State, approved February 16, 1865.
Sec. 2.Any person having charge of, or the management or control of any hospital for the insane, or of any asylum for the insane in this State, who shall receive, keep or detain any person in such asylum or hospital, against the wishes of such person, without the record or proper certificate of the trial required by the said act of 1865, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and liable to indictment, and on conviction be fined not more than one thousand dollars, nor less than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not exceeding one year, nor less than three months, or both, in the discretion of the court before which such conviction is had:provided, that one half of such fine shall be paid to the informant, and the balance shall go to the benefit of the hospital or asylum in which said person was detained.
Sec. 3.Any person now confined in any insane hospital or asylum, and all persons now confined in the hospital for the insane at Jacksonville, who have not been tried and found insane or distracted by the verdict of a jury, as provided in and contemplated by said act of the general assembly of 1865, shall be permitted to have such trial. All such persons shall be informed by the trustees of said hospital or asylum, in their discretion, of the provisions of this act and of the said act of 1865, and on their request, such persons shall be entitled to such trial within a reasonable time thereafter:provided, that such trial may be had in the county where such person is confined or detained, unless such person, his or her friends, shall, within thirty days after any such person may demand a trial under the provisions of said act of 1865, provide for the transportation of such person to, and demand trial in the county where such insane person resided previous to said detention, in which case such trial shall take place in said last mentioned county.
Sec. 4.All persons confined as aforesaid, if not found insane or distracted by a trial and the verdict of a jury as above, and in the said act of 1865 provided, within two months after the passage of this act, shall be set at liberty and discharged.
Sec. 5.It shall be the duty of the State’s attorneys for the several counties to prosecute any suit arising under the provisions of this act.
Sec. 6.This act shall be deemed a public act, and take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Approved March 5th, 1867.
The public will see that, under the humane provisions of this act, all the inmates of every insane asylum in the State of Illinois, whether public or private, who have been incarcerated without the verdict of a jury that they are insane, are now entitled to a jury trial, and unless this trial is granted them within sixty days from the 5th of March, 1867, they are discharged, and can never be incarcerated again without the verdict of a jury that they are insane. No person can be detained there after sixty days, who has not been declared insane by a jury.
It is thus that the barbarities of the law of 1851 are wiped out by this act of legislative justice. Now, all married women and infants who have been imprisoned “without evidence of insanity,” as this unjust law allows, and who are still living victims of this cruel law, will now be liberated from their false imprisonment, unless they have become insane by the inhumanity of their confinement. And if it is found by the testimony that they were sane when they were imprisoned, and that they have become insane by being kept there, is it humane to perpetuate the cause of their insanity, under the pretext that their cure demands it? Or, in other words, is that kind of treatment which caused their insanity the best adapted to cure their insanity?
This great question, who shall be retained as fit subjects for the insane asylum, is now to depend, in all cases, upon the decision of a jury; and each case must be legally investigated, as the law of 1865 directs.
ANOTHER ACT OF LEGISLATIVE JUSTICE—APPOINTMENT OF AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE.
Resolved, the Senate concurring, That a joint committee of three from this House and two from the Senate be appointed to visit the hospital for the insane, after the adjournment, of the legislature, at such times as they may deem necessary, with power to send for persons and papers, and to examine witnesses on oath; that said committee be instructed thoroughly to examine and inquire into the financial and sanitary management of said institution; to ascertain whetherany of the inmates are improperly detained in the hospital, or unjustly placed there, and whether the inmates are humanely and kindly treated, and to confer with the trustees of said hospital in regard to the speedy correction of any abuses found to exist, and to report to the Governor, from time to time, at their discretion.
And be it further resolved, That said committee be instructed to examine the financial and general management of the other State institutions.
Adopted by the House of Representatives,
F. CORWIN,Speaker.
Concurred in by the Senate,
WM. BROSS,Speaker.
The following gentlemen compose the committee: Hon. E. Baldwin, Farm Ridge, LaSalle county; Hon. T. B. Wakeman, Howard, McHenry county; Hon. John B. Ricks, Taylorville, Christian county, on the part of the House of Representatives. Hon. Allen C. Fuller, Belvidere, Boone county; Hon. A. J. Hunter, Paris, Edgar county, on the part of the Senate.
Footnote:[1]See Appendix, p.138.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation has been corrected without note.
Other than the corrections noted by hover information, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.