Читать книгу The Life & Work of Susan B. Anthony - Ida Husted Harper - Страница 10

Table of Contents

Conditions leading to a public career; her home the center of reformers; temperance festival; first meeting with the Fosters, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Bloomer, Lucy Stone, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Horace Greeley; women silenced in men's temperance meeting at Albany, hold one of their own; advice from Greeley and Mrs. Stanton; first Woman's State Temperance Convention; men's State Temperance Convention in Syracuse rejects women delegates; Rev. Samuel J. May and Rev. Luther Lee stand by the women; Miss Anthony as temperance agent; her appeal to women; attends her first Woman's Rights Convention at Syracuse; criticises decollete dress; letters and speeches of Stanton, Mayo, Stone, Brown, Nichols, Rose, Gage, Gerrit Smith, etc.; Bible controversy; vicious comment of Syracuse Star, N.Y. Herald, Rev. Byron Sunderland, etc.; platform of Human Rights.

Ill the conditions were such as to make it most natural for Miss Anthony, when she reached the age of maturity, to adopt a public career and go actively into reform work, and especially to enter upon that contest to secure equal rights for those of her own sex, which she was to wage unceasingly for half a century. Her father's mother and sister were "high seat" Quakers, the latter a famous preacher. Her mother's cousin, Betsey Dunnell White, of Stafford's Hill, was noted as the only woman in that locality who could "talk politics," and the men used to come from far and near to get her opinion on the political situation. She was brought up in a society which recognizes the equality of the sexes and encourages women in public speaking. In her own home the father believed in giving sons and daughters the same advantages, and in preparing the latter as well as the former for self-support. The daughters were taught business principles, and invested with responsibility at an early age. Two of them married, and the third was of a quiet and retiring disposition; but in Susan he saw ability of a high order and that same courage, persistence and aggressiveness which entered into his own character, enabling him to make his way in the business world and rally from his losses and defeats. He encouraged her desire to go into the reforms which were demanding attention, gave her financial backing when necessary, moral support upon all occasions, and was ever her most interested friend and faithful ally. She received also the sympathy and assistance of her mother, who, no matter how heavy the domestic burdens, or how precarious her own health, was never willing that she should take any time from her public work to give to the duties of home, although she frequently insisted upon doing so.

During Miss Anthony's stay at Canajoharie she went often to Albany and there made the intimate acquaintance of Abigail Mott and her sister Lydia, whose names are now a blessed memory with the leaders of the abolition movement that still remain. Their modest home was a rallying center for the reformers of the day, and here Miss Anthony met many of the noted men and women with whom she was to become so closely associated in the future. She reached home in 1849 to find a hot-bed of discussion and fermentation. The first rift had been made in the old common law, which for centuries had held women in its iron grasp, by the passage, in April, 1848, of the Property Bill allowing a married woman to hold real estate in her own name in New York. Previous to this time all the property which a woman owned at marriage and all she might receive by gift or inheritance passed into the possession of the husband; the rents and profits belonged to him, and he could sell it during his lifetime or dispose of it by will at his death except her life interest in one-third of the real estate. The more thoughtful among women were beginning to ask why other unjust laws should not also be repealed, and the whole question of the rights of woman was thus opened.

In 1848, Spiritualism may be said to have had its birth, and the remarkable manifestations of the Fox sisters brought numbers of people to Rochester, where they had-removed as soon as they began to be widely known. This form of religious belief soon acquired a large following, causing much controversy and great excitement.

The Society of Friends had divided on the slavery issue and Miss Anthony found her family attending the Unitarian church, which soon afterwards called William Henry Channing to its pulpit. Both he and Samuel J. May, the father of Unitarianism in Syracuse, became her steadfast friends and never-failing support in all the great work which was developed in later years.

In July, 1848, the first Woman's Rights Convention had been held in Seneca Falls and adjourned to meet in Rochester August 2. Miss Anthony's father, mother and sister Mary had attended and signed the declaration demanding equal rights for women, and she found them enthusiastic upon this subject and also over Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other prominent women who had taken part. Her cousin, Sarah Anthony Burtis, had acted as secretary of the convention.

In 1849 Mrs. Mott published her admirable Discourse on Woman in answer to a lyceum lecture by Richard H. Dana ridiculing the idea of civil and political rights for women. In 1847 Frederick Douglass had brought his family to Rochester and established his paper, the North Star. As soon as Miss Anthony reached home she was taken by her father to call on Douglass, and this was the beginning of another friendship which was to last a lifetime.

The year 1849 saw the whole country in a state of great unrest and excitement. Eighty thousand men had gone to California in search of gold. Telegraphs and railroads were being rapidly constructed, thus bringing widely separated localities into close communication. The unsettled condition of Europe and the famine in Ireland had turned toward America that tremendous tide of immigration which this year had risen to 300,000. The admission of Texas into the Union had precipitated the full force of the slavery question. Old parties were disintegrating and sectional lines becoming closely drawn. New territories were knocking at the door of the Union and the whole nation was in a ferment as to whether they should be slave or free. Threats of secession were heard in both the North and the South. A spirit of compromise finally prevailed and deferred the crisis for a decade, but the agitation and unrest continued to increase. The Abolitionists were still a handful of radicals, repudiated alike by the Free Soil Whigs and Free Soil Democrats. Slavery, as an institution, had not yet become a political issue, but only its extension into the territories.

Such, in brief, was the situation at the beginning of 1850. It was a period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It is not surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited woman who had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow limits of a school-room and rebel at giving her time and strength to the teaching of children, when all her mind and heart were drawn toward the great issues then filling the press and the platform and even finding their way into the pulpit. Miss Anthony's whole soul soon became absorbed in the thought, "What service can I render humanity; what can I do to help right the wrongs of society?" At this time the one and only field of public work into which women had dared venture, except in a few isolated cases, was that of temperance. Miss Anthony had brought her credentials from the Daughters' Union at Canajoharie and presented them at once to the society in Rochester; they were gladly accepted and she soon became a leader. In these days John B. Gough was delivering his magnificent lectures throughout the country, and Philip S. White, of South Carolina, was winning fame as a temperance orator.

The year 1850 was for her one of transition. A new world opened out before her. The Anthony homestead was a favorite meeting place for liberal-spirited men and women. On Sunday especially, when the father could be at home, the house was filled and fifteen or twenty people used to gather around the hospitable board. Susan always superintended these Sunday dinners, and was divided between her anxiety to sustain her reputation as a superior cook and her desire not to lose a word of the conversation in the parlor. Garrison, Pillsbury, Phillips, Channing and other great reformers visited at this home, and many a Sunday the big wagon would be sent to the city for Frederick Douglass and his family to come out and spend the day. Here were gathered many times the Posts, Hallowells, DeGarmos, Willises, Burtises, Kedzies, Fishes, Curtises, Stebbins, Asa Anthonys, all Quakers who had left the society on account of their anti-slavery principles and were leaders in the abolition and woman's rights movements. Every one of these Sunday meetings was equal to a convention. The leading events of the day were discussed in no uncertain tones. All were Garrisonians and believed in "immediate and unconditional emancipation." In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and all the resources of the federal government were employed for its enforcement. Its provisions exasperated the Abolitionists to the highest degree. The house of Isaac and Amy Post was the rendezvous for runaway slaves, and each of these families that gathered on Sunday at the Anthony farm could have told where might be found at least one station on the "underground railroad."

Miss Anthony read with deep interest the reports of the woman's rights convention held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1850, which were published in the New York Tribune.1 She sympathized fully with the demand for equal rights for women, but was not yet quite convinced that these included the suffrage. This, no doubt, was largely because Quaker men did not vote, thinking it wrong to support a government which believed in war. Even so progressive and public-spirited a man as Daniel Anthony, much as he was interested in all national affairs, never voted until 1860, when he became convinced it was only by force of arms that the question of slavery could be settled.

In 1851, the License Law having been arbitrarily repealed a few years before, there was practically no regulation of the liquor business, nor was there any such public sentiment against intemperance as exists at the present day. Drunkenness was not looked upon as an especial disgrace and there had been little agitation of the question. The wife of a drunkard was completely at his mercy. He had the entire custody of the children, full control of anything she might earn, and the law did not recognize drunkenness as a cause for divorce. Although woman was the greatest sufferer, she had not yet learned that she had even the poor right of protest. Oppressed by the weight of the injustice and tyranny of ages, she knew nothing except to suffer in silence; and so degraded was she by generations of slavish submission, that she possessed not even the moral courage to stand by those of her own sex who dared rebel and demand a new dispensation.

The old Washingtonian Society of the first half of the nineteenth century, composed entirely of men, because reformed drunkards only could belong to it, was succeeded by the Sons of Temperance, and these had permitted the organization of subordinate lodges called Daughters of Temperance, which, as subsequent events will show, were entitled to no official recognition. It was in one of these, the only organized bodies of women known at this time,2 that Miss Anthony first displayed that executive ability which was destined to make her famous. During 1851 she was very active in temperance work and organized a number of societies in surrounding towns. She instituted in Rochester a series of suppers and festivals to raise the funds which she at once saw were necessary before any efficient work could be done. An old invitation to one of these, dated February 21, 1851, and signed by Susan B. Anthony, chairman, reads: "The entertainment is intended to be of such a character as will meet the approbation of the wise and good; Supper, Songs, Toasts, Sentiments and short speeches will be the order of-the evening; $1 will admit a gentleman and a lady" A newpaper account says:

The five long tables were loaded with a rich variety of provisions, tastefully decorated and arranged. Mayor Samuel Richardson presided at the supper table. After the repast was over, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Directress of the Festival and President of the Association, introduced these highly creditable sentiments, which were greatly applauded by the assemblage:

"The Women of Rochester—Powerful to fashion the customs of society, may they not fail to exercise that power for the speedy and total banishment of all that intoxicates from our domestic and social circles, and thus speed on the day when no young man, be he ever so genteelly dressed or of ever so noble, origin, who pollutes his lips with the touch of the drunkard's cup, shall presume to seek the favor of any of our precious daughters.

"Our Cause—May each succeeding day add to its glory and every hour give fresh impetus to its progress...."

Many other toasts were proposed which space forbids quoting, but the following by one of the gentlemen deserves a place:

The Daughters—Our characters they elevate,

Our manners they refine;

Without them we'd degenerate

To the level of the swine.

It is curious how willing men have been, through all the centuries, to admit that only the influence of women saves them from being brutes and how anxious to confine that influence to the narrowest possible limits.

In the winter of 1851 Miss Anthony attended an anti-slavery meeting in Rochester, conducted by Stephen and Abby Kelly Foster. This was her first acquaintance with Mrs. Foster, who had been the most persecuted of all the women taking part in the anti-slavery struggle. She had been ridiculed, denounced and mobbed for years; and, for listening to her on Sunday, men and women had been expelled from church. Her strong and heroic spirit struck an answering spark in Miss Anthony's breast. She accompanied the Fosters for a week on their tour of meetings in adjoining counties, and was urged by them to go actively into this reform.

The following May she went to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary in Syracuse. This convention had been driven out of New York by Rynders' mob in 1850 and did not dare go back. On the way home she stopped at Seneca Falls, the guest of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, to hear again Wm. Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson, the distinguished Abolitionist from England, who had stirred her nature to its depths. Here was fulfilled her long-cherished desire of seeing Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their meeting is best described in that lady's own words: "Walking home with the speakers, who were my guests, we met Mrs. Bloomer with Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to greet us. There she stood with her good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray delaine, hat and all the same color relieved with pale-blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly from the beginning." Both Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Bloomer on this occasion wore what is known as the Bloomer costume. In the summer Miss Anthony went to Seneca Falls to a meeting of those interested in founding the People's College. Horace Greeley, Lucy Stone and herself were entertained by Mrs. Stanton. The three women were determined it should be opened to girls as well as boys. Mr. Greeley begged them not to agitate the question, assuring them that he would have the constitution and by-laws so framed as to admit women on the same terms as men, and he did as he promised, making a spirited fight. Before the college was fairly started, however, it was merged into Cornell University.

This was Miss Anthony's first meeting with Lucy Stone and may be called the commencement of her life-long friendship with Mrs. Stanton. These women who sat at the dinner-table that day were destined to be recorded in history for all time as the three central figures in the great movement for equal rights. There certainly was nothing formidable in the appearance of the trio: Miss Anthony a quiet, dignified Quaker girl; Mrs. Stanton a plump, jolly, youthful matron, scarcely five feet high; and Lucy Stone a petite, soft-voiced young woman who seemed better fitted for caresses than for the hard buffetings of the world.

Miss Anthony's public life may be said to have fairly begun in 1852. The Sons of Temperance had announced a mass meeting of all the divisions in the state, to be held at Albany, and had invited the Daughters to send delegates. The Rochester union appointed Susan B. Anthony. Her credentials, with those of the other women delegates, were accepted and seats given them in the convention, but when Miss Anthony rose to speak to a motion she was informed by the presiding officer that "the sisters were not invited there to speak but to listen and learn." She and three or four other ladies at once left the hall. The rest of the women had not the courage to follow, but called them "bold, meddlesome disturbers," and remained to bask in the approving smiles of the Sons. They sought advice of Lydia Mott, who said the proper thing was to hold a meeting of their own; so they secured the lecture-room of the Hudson street Presbyterian church, and then went to the office of the Evening Journal, edited by Thurlow Weed, to talk the situation over with him. He told them they had done exactly right, and in his paper that evening he announced their meeting and related their treatment by the men.

The night was cold and snowy. The little room was dark, the stove smoked and the pipe fell down during the exercises, but the women were sustained by their indignation and sense of justice and would not allow themselves to be discouraged. Rev. Samuel J. May, who was in the city attending the "Jerry Rescue" trials, seeing the notice of their meeting, came to offer his assistance, accompanied by David Wright, husband of Martha C. Wright and brother-in-law of Lucretia Mott. These two, with a reporter, were the only men present at this little assemblage of women who had decided that they could do something better for the cause of temperance than being seen and not heard.

Mr. May opened the meeting with prayer, and then showed them how to organize. Mary C. Vaughn, of Oswego, was made president; Miss Anthony, secretary; Lydia Mott, chairman of the business committee. Mrs. Vaughn gave an address. A letter had been received from Mrs. Stanton so radical that most of the ladies objected to having it read, but Miss Anthony took the responsibility. She read, also, letters from Clarina Howard Nichols and Amelia Bloomer, which had been intended for the Sons' meeting. Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler, who happened to be lecturing in Albany, spoke briefly, and Mr. May paid high tribute to the valuable work of women in temperance and anti-slavery, declaring their influence as indispensable to the state and the church as to the home. Miss Anthony then said their treatment showed that the time had come for women to have an organization of their own; and the final outcome was the appointment of a committee, with herself as chairman, to call a Woman's State Temperance Convention.

She at once wrote to all parts of the State urging the unions to send delegates, and received many encouraging replies. Horace Greeley wrote as follows:

I heartily approve the call of the Woman's Temperance Convention, and hope it may result in good. To this end I would venture to suggest:

1st. Hold an informal and private meeting before you attempt to meet in public. There select your officers, your business committees, etc., so that there shall be no jarring when you assemble in public.

2d. Have your addresses and resolves carefully prepared beforehand. Make them very short and pointed. Have them in type so that they may appear promptly and simultaneously in the daily papers. If you will send us a copy of them the night before we will endeavor to print them with our proceedings of the meeting received by telegraph.

3d. Be sure that your strongest thinkers speak and that the weaker forbear, and that extraneous matters, so far as possible, are let alone.

It will be seen that by adopting these shrewd political methods there would not be much left for the convention proper to do except listen to the speeches, but it would be hard to compress into smaller space more sensible advice. Mrs. Nichols wrote her: "It is most invigorating to watch the development of a woman in the work for humanity: first, anxious for the cause and depressed with a sense of her own inability; next, partial success of timid efforts creating a hope; next, a faith; and then the fruition of complete self-devotion. Such will be your history." From Mrs. Stanton came cheering words: "I will gladly do all in my power to help you. Come and stay with me and I will write the best lecture I can for you. I have no doubt a little practice will make you an admirable speaker. Dress loosely, take a great deal of exercise, be particular about your diet and sleep enough. The body has great influence upon the mind. In your meetings, if attacked, be cool and good-natured, for if you are simple and truth-loving no sophistry can confound you. As for my own address, if I am to be president it ought perhaps to be sent out with the stamp of the convention, but as anything from my pen is necessarily radical no one may wish to share with me the odium of what I may choose to say. If so, I am ready to stand alone. I never write to please any one. If I do please I am happy, but to proclaim my highest convictions of truth is always my sole object."

After weeks of hard work, writing countless letters, taking numerous trips to various towns, and making almost without assistance all the necessary arrangements, the convention assembled in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, April 20, 1852. The morning audience was composed entirely of women, 500 being in attendance. Miss Anthony opened the meeting, read the call, which had been widely circulated, and in a clear, forcible manner set forth the object of the convention. The call urged the women to "meet together for devising such associated action as shall be necessary for the protection of their interests and of society at large, too long invaded and destroyed by legalized intemperance." It was signed by Daniel Anthony, William R. Hallowell and a number of well-known men and women, many of whom were present and took part in the discussions. Letters were read from distinguished persons and strong resolutions adopted, among them one thanking the New York Tribune for the kindness with which it had uniformly sustained women in their efforts for temperance. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was elected president; Mrs. Gerrit Smith, Mrs. E.C. Delavan, Antoinette L. Brown and nine others, vice-presidents; Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer, secretaries. In accepting the presidency, Mrs. Stanton made a powerful speech, certain parts of which acted as a bombshell not only at this meeting, but in press, pulpit and society. The two points which aroused most antagonism were:

1st. Let no woman remain in the relation of wife with a confirmed drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children.... Let us petition our State government so to modify the laws affecting marriage and the custody of children, that the drunkard shall have no claims on wife or child.

2d. Inasmuch as charity begins at home, let us withdraw our mite from all associations for sending the Gospel to the heathen across the ocean, for the education of young men for the ministry, for the building up of a theological aristocracy and gorgeous temples to the unknown God, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffering around us. Let us feed and clothe the hungry and naked, gather children into schools and provide reading-rooms and decent homes for young men and women thrown alone upon the world. Good schools and homes, where the young could ever be surrounded by an atmosphere of purity and virtue, would do much more to prevent immorality and crime in our cities than all the churches in the land could ever possibly do toward the regeneration of the multitude sunk in poverty, ignorance and vice.

The effect of such declarations on the conservatism of half a century ago hardly can be pictured. At this time the principal outlet for women's activities was through foreign missionary work, and even in this they were allowed no official responsibility. None of the many charitable organizations which are now almost wholly in the hands of women were in existence. In scarcely one State was drunkenness recognized as cause for divorce, and yet when Mrs. Stanton made these demands, the women throughout the country joined with the men in denouncing them. Only a few of the broader and more progressive, who were ahead of their age, sustained her. Among these were Miss Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage and Martha C. Wright.

After six enthusiastic sessions and the forming of a strong organization, the convention adjourned. Thus the first Woman's State Temperance Society ever formed was due almost entirely to Susan B. Anthony, because of her courage in demanding independent action and her successful efforts in calling the convention which inaugurated it. The executive committee met in May and appointed her State agent, "with full power and authority to organize auxiliary societies, collect moneys, issue certificates of membership and do all things which she may judge necessary and expedient to promote the purposes for which our society has been organized."

The Men's State Temperance Society had issued an official call for a convention to be held at Syracuse in June, containing these words: "Temperance societies of every name are invited to send delegates." Acting upon this invitation, the executive committee of the Woman's State Temperance Society appointed Gerrit Smith, Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer as delegates. Mr. Smith was not able to attend and, after their experience at Albany, there were serious doubts in the minds of the women whether they would be received. They were much encouraged, however, by the receipt of a letter from Rev. Samuel J. May, written June 14, saying: "The local committee are now in session. I have just read your letter to them, and every member has expressed himself in favor of receiving the delegates of the Woman's State Temperance Society, just as the delegates of any other society, and allowing them to take their own course, speak or not speak, as they choose."

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer went to Syracuse, and on the morning of the convention received a call from Mr. May. He came to inform them that their arrival had caused great excitement among the clergy, who comprised a large portion of the delegates and threatened to withdraw if the women were admitted. Their action had alarmed the other delegates, who feared a disturbance in the convention, and they had requested Mr. May, as probably having the most influence, to call upon the ladies and urge them not to ask for recognition. When they told him they should go to the meeting and present their credentials, he expressed great satisfaction and said that was just the decision he had hoped they would make. They quietly entered the hall and took seats with other ladies at one side of the platform. Immediately Rev. Mandeville, of Albany, turned his chair around with back to the audience and, facing them, attempted to stare them out of countenance. William H. Burleigh, secretary, read the annual report, which closed, "We hail the formation of the Woman's State Temperance Society as a valuable auxiliary." This precipitated the discussion. Rev. Mandeville sprung to his feet and moved to strike out the last sentence. His speech was filled with such venom and vulgarity as the foulest-mouthed politician would hesitate to utter. He denounced the Woman's State Temperance Society and all women publicly engaged in temperance work, declared the women delegates to be "a hybrid species, half man and half woman, belonging to neither sex," and announced finally that if this sentence were not struck out he would dissolve his connection with the society.

A heated debate followed. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered an amendment recognizing "the right of women to work in their proper sphere—the domestic circle." Rev. May, of the Unitarian church, Rev. Luther Lee, of the Wesleyan Methodist, Hon. A.N. Cole, a leading Whig politician, and several others, defended the rights of the women in the most eloquent manner, but were howled down. Miss Anthony made only one attempt to speak and that was to remind them that over 100,000 of the signers to a petition for a Maine Law, the previous winter, were women, but her voice was drowned by Rev. Fowler, of Utica, shouting, "Order! Order!" Herman Camp, of Trumansburg, the president, ruled that she was not a delegate and had no right to speak. Amid great confusion the question was put to vote and the decision of the chair sustained. As no delegates had yet been accredited, everybody in the house was allowed to vote, but the secretary, J.T. Hazen, announced that he did not count the votes of the women!

Rev. Luther Lee at once offered his church to the ladies for an evening meeting. They had a crowded house, fine speeches and good music, while the convention was practically deserted, not over fifty being present. After a masterly speech by Mr. May and stirring remarks from Mr. Lee, Mrs. Bloomer and others, Miss Anthony made the address of the evening, which she had prepared for the men's convention, a strong plea for the right of women to work and speak for temperance. Soon afterwards she wrote her father: "I feel there is a great work to be done which none but women can do. How I wish I could be daily associated with those whose ideas are in advance of my own, it would enable me to develop so much faster;" and then, notwithstanding all her rebuffs, she signed herself, "Yours cheerily."

The anti-slavery convention this year was held in Rochester, and Miss Anthony had as a guest her dear friend, Lydia Mott, and again met Garrison, Phillips, May, the Fosters, Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright and others of that glorious band who together had received the baptism of fire. Although intensely interested in the anti-slavery question she did not dare think she had the ability to take up that work, but she did resolve to give all her time and energy to the temperance cause. The summer of 1852 was spent in traveling throughout the State with Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Attilia Albro and Miss Emily Clark. They canvassed thirty counties, organizing societies and securing 28,000 signatures to a petition for the Maine Law. Miss Anthony sent out a strong appeal, saying:

Women, and mothers in particular, should feel it their right and duty to extend their influence beyond the circumference of the home circle, and to say what circumstances shall surround children when they go forth from under the watchful guardianship of the mother's love; for certain it is that, if the customs and laws of society remain corrupt as they now are, the best and wisest of the mother's teachings will soon be counteracted....

Woman has so long been accustomed to non-intervention with law-making, so long considered it man's business to regulate the liquor traffic, that it is with much cautiousness she receives the new doctrine which we preach; the doctrine that it is her right and duty to speak out against the traffic and all men and institutions that in any way sanction, sustain or countenance it; and, since she can not vote, to duly instruct her husband, son, father or brother how she would have him vote, and, if he longer continue to mis-represent her, take the right to march to the ballot-box and deposit a vote indicative of her highest ideas of practical temperance.

It will be seen by this that already she had taken her stand on the right of woman to the franchise.

While at Elmira she happened into a teachers' convention and heard Charles Anthony, of the Albany academy, a distant relative, make an address on "The Divine Ordinance of Corporal Punishment." It was a severe and cruel justification of the unlimited use of the rod, but, although more than three-fourths of the teachers present were women, not a word was uttered in protest. Throughout the proceedings not a woman's voice was heard, none was appointed on committees or voted on any question, and they were as completely ignored as so many outsiders. Miss Anthony made up her mind that here also was a work to be done, and that henceforth she would attend the State teachers' conventions every year and demand for women all the privileges now monopolized by men.

On September 8, 1852, she went to her first Woman's Rights Convention, which was held at Syracuse. She had read with avidity the accounts of the Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana and Pennsylvania conventions, but this was her first opportunity of attending one. At the preliminary meeting, held the night before, she was made a member of the nominating committee with Paulina Wright Davis, of Providence, R.I., chairman. Mrs. Davis had come with the determination of putting in as president her dear friend Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a fashionable literary woman of Boston. Both attended the meeting and the convention in short-sleeved, low-necked white dresses, one with a pink, the other with a blue embroidered wool delaine sack with wide, flowing sleeves, which left both neck and arms exposed. At the committee meeting next morning, Quaker James Mott nominated Mrs. Smith for president, but Quaker Susan B. Anthony spoke out boldly and said that nobody who dressed as she did could represent the earnest, solid, hard-working women of the country for whom they were making the demand for equal rights. Mr. Mott said they must not expect all women to dress as plainly as the Friends; but she held her ground, and as all the committee agreed with her, though no one else had had the courage to speak, Mrs. Smith's name was voted down. This is but one instance of hundreds where Miss Anthony alone dared say what others only dared think, and thus through all the years made herself the target for criticism, blame and abuse. Others escaped through their cowardice; she suffered through her bravery.

Lucretia Mott was made president, and the Syracuse Standard said: "It was a singular spectacle to see this Quaker matron presiding over a convention with an ease, grace and dignity that might be envied by the most experienced legislator in the country."3 Susan B. Anthony and Martha C. Wright were the secretaries. Delegates were present from Canada and eight different States. Letters were received from Angelina Grimké Weld, William Henry Channing and others; Horace Greeley sent much good advice; Garrison wrote: "You have as noble an object in view, aye and as Christian a one too, as ever was advocated beneath the sun. Heaven bless all your proceedings." Rev. A.D. Mayo said in a long letter:

I have never questioned what I believed to be the central principle of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe that every mature soul is responsible directly to God, not only for its faith and opinions, but for its details of life. The assertion that woman is responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any theory of "woman's rights," but as a believer in that religion which knows neither male nor female in its imperative demand upon the individual conscience.

George W. Johnson, of Buffalo, chairman of the State committee of the Liberty party, sent $10 and these vigorous sentiments: "Woman has, equally with man, the inalienable right to education, suffrage, office, property, professions, titles and honors—to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. False to our sex, as well as her own, and false to herself and her God, is the woman who approves, or who submits without resistance or protest, to the social and political wrongs imposed upon her in common with her sex throughout the world." Mrs. Stanton's letter, read with hearty approval by Miss Anthony, raised the usual breeze in the convention. She suggested three points:

Should not all women, living in States where they have the right to hold property, refuse to pay taxes so long as they are unrepresented in the government?... Man has pre-empted the most profitable branches of industry, and we demand a place at his side; to this end we need the same advantages of education, and we therefore claim that the best colleges of the country be opened to us.... In her present ignorance, woman's religion, instead of making her noble and free, by the wrong application of great principles of right and justice, has made her bondage but more certain and lasting, her degradation more helpless and complete.

In the course of her argument Lucy Stone said:

The claims we make at these conventions are self-evident truths. The second resolution affirms the right of human beings to their persons and earnings. Is not that self-evident? Yet the common law, which regulates the relation of husband and wife, and is modified only in a few instances by the statutes, gives the "custody" of the wife's person to the husband, so that he has a right to her even against herself. It gives him her earnings, no matter with what weariness they have been acquired, or how greatly she may need them for herself or her children. It gives him a right to her personal property, which he may will entirely away from her, also the use of her real estate, and in some of the States married women, insane persons and idiots are ranked together as not fit to make a will; so that she is left with only one right, which she enjoys in common with the pauper, the right of maintenance. Indeed, when she has taken the sacred marriage vows, her legal existence ceases. And what is our position politically? The foreigner, the negro, the drunkard, all are entrusted with the ballot, all placed by men politically higher than their own mothers, wives, sisters and daughters! The woman who, seeing this, dares not maintain her rights is the one to hang her head and blush. We ask only for justice and equal rights—the right to vote, the right to our own earnings, equality before the law; these are the Gibraltar of our cause.

Rev. Antoinette Brown, the first woman ever ordained to preach, declared:

Man can not represent woman. They differ in their nature and relations. The law is wholly masculine; it is created and executed by man. The framers of all legal compacts are restricted to the masculine standpoint of observation, to the thoughts, feelings and biases of man. The law then can give us no representation as women, and therefore no impartial justice, even if the law-makers were honestly intent upon this, for we can be represented only by our peers.... When woman is tried for crime, her jury, her judges, her advocates, all are men; and yet there may have been temptations and various palliating circumstances connected with her peculiar nature as woman, such as man can not appreciate. Common justice demands that a part of the law-makers and law-executors should be of her own sex. In questions of marriage and divorce, affecting interests dearer than life, both parties in the compact are entitled to an equal voice.

Mrs. Nichols said in discussing the laws:

If a wife is compelled to get a divorce on account of the infidelity of the husband, she forfeits all right to the property which they have earned together, while the husband, who is the offender, still retains the sole possession and control of the estate. She, the innocent party, goes out childless and portionless by decree of law, and he, the criminal, retains the home and children by favor of the game law. A drunkard takes his wife's clothing to pay his rum bills, and the court declares that the action is legal because the wife belongs to the husband.

Hon. Gerrit Smith here made his first appearance upon the woman suffrage platform, although he had written many letters expressing sympathy and encouragement, and made a grand argument for woman's equality. He closed by saying: "All rights are held by a precarious tenure if this one right to the ballot be denied. When women are the constituents of men who make and administer the laws they will pay due consideration to woman's interests, and not before. The right of suffrage is the great right that guarantees all others." Here also was the first public appearance of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the youngest woman taking part in the convention, who read an excellent paper urging that daughters should be educated with sons, taught self-reliance and permitted some independent means of self-support. A fine address also was made by Paulina Wright Davis, who had managed and presided over the two conventions held in 1850 and 1851 at Worcester, Mass.4

The queen of the platform at this time was Ernestine L. Rose, a Jewess who had fled from Poland to escape religious persecution. She was beautiful and cultured, of liberal views and great oratorical powers. Her lectures on "The Science of Government" had attracted wide attention. Naturally, she took a prominent part in the early woman's rights meetings. On this occasion she presented and eloquently advocated the following resolution:

We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of justice; for it is in accordance with the principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it; that as she is amenable to the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their enactment and to all the protective advantages they can bestow; that as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life, she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. Any difference, therefore, in political, civil and social rights, on account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.

During the debate Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, made a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called him to order. As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked him off with cries of "Sit down! Shut up!" His idea of woman's modesty was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home. Miss Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young ministers who had been educated through the efforts of women, and she had always noticed those were the ones most anxious for women to keep silence in the churches. This finished Mr. Hatch.

A young teacher by the name of Brigham also attempted to define the spheres of Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton5 and the other great advocates of woman's freedom and declared: "Women ought to be keepers at home and mind domestic concerns; he had no doubt the true object of this meeting was not so much to acquire any real or supposed rights as to make the speakers and actors conspicuous; he wished to urge upon them to claim nothing masculine for women, for even in animals the spheres were different. He had no objections to woman's voice being heard, but let her seek out the breathing-holes of perdition to do her work." Mr. Brigham was badly worsted in the argument which followed, and at the next session he sent in a protest, declaring he had not had "justice." He evidently did not see the satire of this complaint, since he himself had been loudest in his refusal to do justice to woman.

A heated discussion was called out by a resolution offered by Rev. Antoinette L. Brown declaring that "the Bible recognizes the rights, privileges and duties of woman as a public teacher, as in every way equal with those of man; that it enjoins upon her no subjection that is not enjoined upon him; and that it truly and practically recognizes neither male nor female in Christ Jesus." Mrs. Rose closed the discussion by saying:

I can not object to any one's interpreting the Bible as he or she thinks best; but I do object that such interpretation go forth as the doctrine of this convention, because it is a mere interpretation and not even the authority of the Book; it is the view of Miss Brown only, which is as good as that of any other minister, but that is all. For my part I reject both interpretations. Here we claim human rights and freedom, based upon the laws of humanity, and we require no written authority from Moses or Paul, because those laws and our claim are prior even to these two great men.

Miss Brown's resolution was not adopted. Susan B. Anthony spoke briefly but earnestly in behalf of the People's College and also of the Woman's State Temperance Society, for which she asked their endorsement. She then read the resolutions sent by Mrs. Stanton, all but one of which were adopted. The Syracuse Journal commented: "Miss Anthony has a capital voice and deserves to be made clerk of the Assembly." The Syracuse Standard said of this convention: "It was attended by not less than 2,000 persons. The discussions were characterized by a degree of ability that would do credit to any deliberative body." The Journal said: "No person can deny that there was a greater amount of talent in the woman's rights convention than has characterized any public gathering in this city during the last ten years, if ever before. The appearance of all the ladies was modest and unassuming, though prompt, energetic and confident. Business was brought forward, calmly deliberated upon and discussed with unanimity and in a spirit becoming true women, which would add an unknown dignity to the transactions of public associations of the 'lords.'" The Syracuse Star, however, took a different view:

The women of the Tomfoolery Convention, now being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind and Christian (?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, O.C. Burleigh and S.S. Foster. These men are all woman's righters and preachers of such damnable doctrines and accursed heresies as would make demons of the pit shudder to hear. We have selected a few appropriate passages from God's Bible for the consideration of the infuriated gang at the convention.

The New York Herald, under the elder Bennett, which from the beginning of the demand had been the inveterate foe of equal rights for women, contained the following editorial, September 12, 1852:

The farce at Syracuse has been played out. We publish today the last act, in which it will be seen that the authority of the Bible, as a perfect rule of faith and practice for human beings, was voted down, and what are called the laws of nature set up instead of the Christian code. We have also a practical exhibition of the consequences that flow from woman leaving her true sphere, where she wields all her influence, and coming into public to discuss morals and politics with men. The scene in which Rev. Mr. Hatch violated the decorum of his cloth and was coarsely offensive to such ladies present as had not lost that modest "feminine element" on which he dwelt so forcibly, is the natural result of the conduct of the women themselves who, in the first place, invited discussion about sexes, and, in the second place, so broadly defined the difference between the male and the female as to be suggestive of anything but purity to the audience. The women of the convention have no right to complain, but for the sake of his clerical character, if no other motive influenced him, he ought not have followed so bad an example. His speech was sound and his argument conclusive, but his form of words was not in the best taste. The female orators were the aggressors, but to use his own language he ought not to have measured swords with a woman, especially when he regarded her ideas and expressions as bordering upon the obscene. But all this is the natural result of woman placing herself in a false position. As Rev. Mr. Hatch observed, if she ran with horses she must expect to be betted upon. The whole tendency of these conventions is by no means to increase the influence of woman, to elevate her condition or to command the respect of the other sex....

How did woman first become subject to man, as she now is all over the world? By her nature, her sex, just as the negro is and always will be to the end of time, inferior to the white race and, therefore, doomed to subjection; but she is happier than she would be in any other condition, just because it is the law of her nature....

What do the leaders of the woman's rights convention want? They want to vote and to hustle with the rowdies at the polls. They want to be members of Congress, and in the heat of debate subject themselves to coarse jests and indecent language like that of Rev. Mr. Hatch. They want to fill all other posts which men are ambitious to occupy, to be lawyers, doctors, captains of vessels and generals in the field. How funny it would sound in the newspapers that Lucy Stone, pleading a cause, took suddenly ill in the pains of parturition and perhaps gave birth to a fine bouncing boy in court! Or that Rev. Antoinette Brown was arrested in the pulpit in the middle of her sermon from the same cause, and presented a "pledge" to her husband and the congregation; or that Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, while attending a gentleman patient for a fit of the gout or fistula in ano found it necessary to send for a doctor, there and then, and to be delivered of a man or woman child—perhaps twins.6 A similar event might happen on the floor of Congress, in a storm at sea or in the raging tempest of battle, and then what is to become of the woman legislator?

For months after this convention the discussions and controversies were kept up through press and pulpit. The clergymen in Syracuse and surrounding towns rang the changes on the cry of "infidel" as the surest way of neutralizing its influence. Rev. Byron Sunderland, a Congregational minister of Syracuse and afterwards chaplain of the United States Senate, preached a sermon on the "Bloomer Convention." Rev. Ashley, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Syracuse, also preached a sermon against equality for woman, which was put into pamphlet form and scattered throughout the State. It called forth many protests, some from the women of his own church. The clergymen selected the Star, the most disreputable paper in the city, for the publication of their articles. Rev. Sunderland was ably answered by Matilda Joslyn Gage over the signature of "M." and replied in the Star: "If the author should turn out to be a man, I should have no objection to point out his inaccuracies through your columns, but if the writer is a lady, why, really, I don't know what I shall do. If I thought she would consent to a personal interview, I should like to see her." Some man, signing himself "A Reader," having criticised him in a perfectly respectful manner for making the above distinction, the reverend gentleman replied to him through the Star: "His impertinence is quite characteristic. He probably knows as much about the Bible as a wild ass' colt, and is requested at this time to keep a proper distance. When a body is trying to find out and pay attention to a lady, it is not good manners for 'A Reader' to be thrust in between us." In all the speeches and articles in favor of woman's rights there was not one which was not modest, temperate and dignified. Almost without exception those in opposition were vulgar, intemperate and abusive.

No more brilliant galaxy of men and women ever assembled than at this Syracuse convention, and the great question of the rights of woman was discussed from every conceivable standpoint. Hundreds equally able have been held during the last half century, and these extensive quotations have been made simply to show that fifty years ago the whole broad platform of human rights was as clearly defined by the leading thinkers, and in as logical, comprehensive and dignified a manner, as it is today. There was as much opposition among the masses of both men and women against all that they advocated as exists today against their demand for the ballot, perhaps more; yet the close of the century finds practically all granted except the ballot; the full right to speak in public; nearly the same educational and industrial opportunities; in many States almost equal legal rights, and not one State now wholly under the English common law, which everywhere prevailed at that time. The prejudice against all these innovations is rapidly disappearing but it still lingers in regard to the yielding of the suffrage, except in the four States where this also has been given. In not one instance have these concessions been made in response to the "voice of the people," but only because of the continued agitation and unceasing efforts of a few of the more advanced and progressive thinkers of each generation.

1. The Tribune, at this time, was the only paper in New York, and, with few exceptions, the only large newspaper in the country, which treated the question of woman's rights in any but a contemptuous, abusive manner.

2. They may have been preceded by the Moral Reform Societies for the Rescue of Fallen Women, which originated in New York City, and by a few Female Anti-Slavery Societies.

3. At the first Woman's Rights Convention in 1848, Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton were so opposed to having a woman for chairman that they came near leaving the hall. Four years later Mrs. Mott is herself the presiding officer.

4. Several of the speakers had weak, piping voices which did not reach beyond a few of the front seats and, after one of these had finished, Miss Anthony said: "Mrs. President, I move that hereafter the papers shall be given to some one to read who can be heard. It is an imposition on an audience to have to sit quietly through a long speech of which they can not hear a word. We do not stand up here to be seen, but to be heard." Then there was a protest. Mrs. Davis said she wished it understood that "ladies did not come there to screech; they came to behave like ladies and to speak like ladies." Miss Anthony held her ground, declaring that the question of being ladylike had nothing to do with it; the business of any one who read a paper was to be heard. Mr. May, always the peacemaker, said Miss Anthony was right; there was not a woman that had spoken in the convention who if she had been in her own home would not have adjusted her voice to the occasion. "If your boy were across the street you would not go to the door, put your head down and say in a little, weak voice, 'Jim, come home;' but you would fix your eye on him and shout, 'Jim, come home!' If the ladies, instead of looking down and talking to those on the front seats, would address their remarks to the farthermost persons in the house, all between would hear."

5. Mrs. Mott was the mother of six and Mrs. Stanton of seven children. Both were devoted mothers and noteworthy housekeepers.

6. No one of these ladies was married.