A Mother’s Day Declaration

Julia Ward Howe lived in an era when a nation was tearing itself apart in civil war. She was a poet and writer – perhaps most well known for her penning of the great hymn ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’. However she was also a ferocious advocate for other causes – including the equal rights of woman.

Yet something that struck me about this passionate woman was her advocacy for peace. She personally witnessed the worst effects of the war when she volunteered with her husband in the hospitals that treated wounded soldiers. The death and disease, which killed and maimed soldiers, would have a lasting effect upon her.

She helped widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides of the war, and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. A deep thinker Julia Howe also saw the economic devastation of the Civil War, the economic crises that followed the war, the restructuring of the economies of both North and South and realized that there must be an alternative to war.

Her passion and desire was for women to come together across national lines and to lead efforts to find peaceful resolutions to conflicts. Her proposal was to adopt an international ‘Mother’s Day of Peace’. This is fact was one of the early forerunners to our current Mother’s Day.

In 1870 Julia Howe wrote a declaration for peace which when read even today stirs one’s soul with the zeal of her words. I thought the declaration would interest those with a heart for peaceful resolutions to the world’s problems.

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly, We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says ‘Disarm! Disarm!’ The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonour, nor violence indicate possession.

As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day this Sunday!