Lucretia Mott Quotes
We too often bind ourselves by authorities rather than by the truth.
Mott, Lucretia. Lucretia Mott: Her Complete Speeches and Sermons. Edited by Dana Greene, Edwin Mellen Press, 1980.
This was an observation and statement that made many conservatives unhappy with a figure who was usually their hero. However, Mises observed correctly, that any reactionary is supporting and defending what he/she perceives is the best of the past. But by definition the ideas are of the past and are the intellectual product of others. Therefore the ideas she espouses are never hers. The reactionary is intellectual dependent on the past. In contrast, liberals, progressives and radicals MIGHT be intellectually independent. A few are, but most echo their ideas. But the reactionary can never be intellectually independent.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848 she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which Mott co-wrote the Declaration of Sentiments.
