Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their
 sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870.

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by 
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking 
with 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 of those of another 
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From 
the bosom of the 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 our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. 
As men have often 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the 
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each 
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
 but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a 
general congress of women without limit of nationality may 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.

Julia Ward Howe
, Boston 
1870

Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, poet, and the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".