DOC#1 "In these plebian {lower class) days, they could not be successful in politics, family traditions and education prohibited idleness; and agitation allowed the only chance
for personal and social
self-fulfillment... What they did question, and what they did rue {regret) was the transfer of leadership to the wrong groups in society, and their appeal for reform was a strident{forceful) call for their own class to
exert its former social dominance. Leadership of humanitarian reform may have been influenced by
revivalism or by British precedent, but its true origin lay in the drastic dislocation of Northern society."
David Donald, Lincoln
Reconsidered
1. What is Donald's viewpoint on the motives of women reformers?