Читать книгу The Life & Work of Susan B. Anthony - Ida Husted Harper - Страница 16

Table of Contents

Scheme for Free Church; letter from Geo. Wm. Curtis on Woman's Rights; Miss Anthony's letters on pecuniary independence, denial of human rights, woman's individuality; criticism of Curtis; six weeks' legislative work in Albany; convention in New York under difficulties; extract from Tribune; Memorial to Legislatures; lecturing at New York watering places; journey on boat to Poughkeepsie; anecdote of waiter at hotel; incident of Quaker meeting in Easton; married women too busy to help in fall canvass; letter of Rev. Thomas K. Beecher; incident at Gerrit Smith's—the Solitude of Self; John Brown meeting; letters regarding it from Pillsbury and Mrs. Stanton; Hovey Legacy; correspondence with Judge Ormond, of Alabama; "We are your enemies!"

Among Miss Anthony's many schemes for regenerating the world was one to have a Free church in Rochester, after the manner of Theodore Parker's in Boston, similar to an ethical society, where no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome, contributing what they chose. This was in her mind for years, and at the beginning of 1859 she engaged Corinthian Hall for Sunday evenings, her good friend, William A. Reynolds, as usual making her a reduced rate; and here Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Parker Pillsbury each preached for a month. She tried to engage Mrs. Stanton for a year and also Aaron M. Powell, but the financial support was too uncertain and the project had to be abandoned. All her life, however, Miss Anthony cherished the hope of seeing this Free church established and sustained. She arranged a series of lectures for this winter. George William Curtis accepted her invitation in this characteristic letter:

I think of no title for your course, but why have any? Why not say simply, "A Course of Independent Lectures?" To call them woman's rights would damn them in advance, so strong is prejudice. The only one I have at all suited to your purpose is "Fair Play for Women."1 I hate the words "woman's rights," nor do they properly describe my treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of humanity. My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal humanity of women and an assertion that they have rights not as women but as human beings. In respect to terms, I leave it with you. I usually receive $50, but you will understand that I should prefer to pay the expenses myself rather than that you or any one interested should expend a penny; so if you can not justly give me anything, I shall be content.

Yours very faithfully,

George William Curtis

Miss Anthony always came out of these lecture courses in debt, but she would call upon her friends or borrow from sister or father enough to make up the deficit, and replace the loan out of her scanty earnings. She persisted in having them to educate the public on the progressive questions of the day. At this time the long, severe mental and physical strain of years began to be felt in her one weak spot, and the old trouble with her back asserted itself. From every quarter came urgent appeals for her assistance. At first she answered: "If New York calls a constitutional convention for next spring, this will be a capital winter to strike heavy blows for freedom and equality such as we shall not have for a long time to come. I am ready just as soon as the armies can be marshaled and equipped." But later she wrote:

It is being forced upon me that nature orders me to stay quietly at home this winter and it may be that it is to enable me to get a greater literary culture than I possibly could, amidst the hurry and bustle of continual meetings. Somehow I can not philosophize away a shrinking from going into active work. I can not get up a particle of enthusiasm or faith in the success, either financial or spiritual, of another series of conventions. For the past five years I have gone through this routine and something within me keeps praying to be spared from more of it. There has been such a surfeit of lecturing, the people are tired of it. Then I never was so poor in purse and I fear to end another campaign with a heavy debt to still further encroach upon my small savings. I can not bear to make myself dependent upon relatives for the food I eat and the clothes I wear; I never have done it and hope I may never have to. Perhaps I may feel a renewed faith in myself and my work but the past years have brought me so much isolation and spiritual loneliness, although in the midst of crowds, that I confess to a longing to stay for awhile among my own people.

The commands of the physician were imperative that she should avoid all fatigue and nervous excitement, but her pen was not idle, and the time which she hoped to devote to the reading of many books was occupied in sending out letters, petitions, appeals and the various documents necessary to keep the work going. In answer to an invitation from the Friends of Human Progress she wrote:

To be esteemed worthy to speak for woman, for the slave, for humanity, is ever grateful to me, and I regret that I can not be with you at your annual gathering to get for myself a fresh baptism, a new and deeper faith. I would exhort all women to be discontented with their present condition and to assert their individuality of thought, word and action by the energetic doing of noble deeds. Idle wishes, vain repinings, loud-sounding declamations never can bring freedom to any human soul. What woman most needs is a true appreciation of her womanhood, a self-respect which shall scorn to eat the bread of dependence. Whoever consents to live by "the sweat of the brow" of another human being inevitably humiliates and degrades herself.... No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence. As a right over a man's subsistence is a power over his moral being, so a right over a woman's subsistence enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral nature.

To her brother Daniel R., in Kansas, who was somewhat skeptical on the woman question, she sent this strong letter:

Even the smallest human right denied, is large. The fact that the ruling class withhold this right is prima facie evidence that they deem it of importance for good or for evil. In either case, therefore, the human being is outraged. It, perchance, may matter but little whether Kansas be governed by a constitution made by her bona fide settlers or by people of another State or by Congress; but for Kansas to be denied the right to make her own constitution and laws is an outrage not to be tolerated. So the constitution and laws of a State and nation may be just as considerate of woman's needs and wants as if framed by herself, yet for man to deny her the right to a voice in making and administering them, is paralleled only by the Lecompton usurpation. For any human being or class of human beings, whether black, white, male or female, tamely to submit to the denial of their right to self-government shows that the instinct of liberty has been blotted out.

You blunder on this question of woman's rights just where thousands of others do. You believe woman unlike man in her nature; that conditions of life which any man of spirit would sooner die than accept are not only endurable to woman but are needful to her fullest enjoyment. Make her position in church, State, marriage, your own; everywhere your equality ignored, everywhere made to feel another empowered by law and time-honored custom to prescribe the privileges to be enjoyed and the duties to be discharged by you; and then if you can imagine yourself to be content and happy, judge your mother and sisters and all women to be.

It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand and immutable truth, "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

She wrote Lydia Mott: "The new encyclopedia is just out and I notice in regard to Antoinette Brown Blackwell that it gives a full description of her work up to the time of her marriage, then says: 'She married Samuel Blackwell and lives near New York.' Not a word of the splendid work she has done on the platform and in the pulpit since. Thus does every married woman sink her individuality." This brought from Lydia a spirited answer:

For my part, when you speak of the individuality of one who is truly married being inevitably lost, I think you mistake. If there ever was any individuality it will remain. I don't believe it is necessary for development that the individual must always force itself upon us. We naturally fall into the habits and frequently the train of thought of those we love and I like the expression "we" rather than "I." I never feel that my interests and actions can be independent of the dear ones with whom I am surrounded. Even the one who seems to be most absorbed may, in reality, possess the strongest soul. This standing alone is not natural and therefore can not be right. I am sure one of these days you will view this matter from a different standpoint.

Miss Anthony so far yielded as to reply: "Institutions, among them marriage, are justly chargeable with many social and individual ills but, after all, the whole man or woman will rise above them. I am sure my 'true woman' never will be crushed or dwarfed by them. Woman must take to her soul a purpose and then make circumstances conform to this purpose, instead of forever singing the refrain, 'if and if and if!'" But later when one woman failed to keep a lecture engagement because her husband wanted her to go somewhere with him, and another because her husband was not willing she should leave home, she again poured out her sorrows to her friend:

There is not one woman left who may be relied on, all have "first to please their husband," after which there is but little time or energy left to spend in any other direction. I am not complaining or despairing, but facts are stern realities. The twain become one flesh, the woman, "we"; henceforth she has no separate work, and how soon the last standing monuments (yourself and myself, Lydia), will lay down the individual "shovel and de hoe" and with proper zeal and spirit grasp those of some masculine hand, the mercies and the spirits only know. I declare to you that I distrust the power of any woman, even of myself, to withstand the mighty matrimonial maelstrom!

But how did I get into this dissertation? If to you it seems morbid, pardon the pen-wandering. In the depths of my soul there is a continual denial of the self-annihilating spiritual or legal union of two human beings. Such union, in the very nature of things, must bring an end to the free action of one or the other, and it matters not to the individual whose freedom has thus departed whether it be the gentle rule of love or the iron hand of law which blotted out from the immortal being the individual soul-stamp of the Good Father. How I do wish those who know something of the real social needs of our age would rescue this greatest, deepest, highest question from the present unphilosophical, unspiritual discussers.

As might be expected, the legacy of $5,000 brought not only a flood of requests from all parts of the country, but some division of opinion among those who had it in control. Miss Anthony would use all of it in the work of propaganda, lectures, conventions, tracts and newspaper articles. Lucy Stone wished to use part in suits to prove the unconstitutionality of the law which taxes women and refuses them representation. Antoinette Blackwell wanted a portion to establish a church where she could spread the doctrine of woman's rights along with the gospel. Most of the women lecturers and some of the men wished to be engaged immediately at a fixed salary. Miss Anthony writes for advice to Phillips, who replies: "Go ahead with your New York plan as sketched to me. I am willing to risk spending $1,000 on it. Never apologize as if you troubled me; it is my business as much as yours, and I am only sorry to be of so little help." Brief records in the little diary say:

Sister Mary and I passed New Year's Day, 1859, most quietly and happily in the dear farm-home. Mother is in the East with sister Hannah, and father dined in the city with sister Guelma, who sent us a plate of her excellent turkey.... In the afternoon Mary and I drove to Frederick Douglass' and had a nice visit; stayed to tea and listened to a part of his new lecture on "Self-Made Men."... Father and Mary gone to their work in the city, and I am writing on my lecture "The True Woman." Ground out four commercial-note pages in five mortal hours, but they are strong.... Ten degrees below zero. Mother home; no writing today; all talk about the eastern folks.... Antoinette Blackwell preached here yesterday, and we have had a good visit together today. Just helped two fugitive slaves, perhaps genuine and perhaps not.... Went to the city to hear A.A. Willit's lecture on "A Plea for Home." Gives woman a place only in domestic life—sad failure.... Twenty letters written and mailed today. Took tea with the Hallowells. Am glad to learn that the money forwarded to the Anti-Slavery Bazar and lost was sent by a man instead of a woman.... Heard Bayard Taylor on "Life in Lapland." Hundreds could not gain admittance. Curtis lectured on "Fair Play for Women"; great success, but I feel that he has not yet been tried by fire. Afterwards visited with Curtis and Taylor, and Mr. Curtis said: "Rather than have a radical thinker like Mrs. Rose at your suffrage conventions, you would better give them up. With such speakers as Beecher, Phillips, Theodore Parker, Chapin, Tilton and myself advocating woman's cause, it can not fail."

Respectfully yours,

E. H. Chapin.

Miss Anthony did not hesitate to criticise even Mr. Curtis, writing him in reference to his great lecture, "Democracy and Education": "When all the different classes of industrial claimants for a voice in the government were enumerated, there was not one which could be interpreted to represent womanhood. Hence only the few who know that with George William Curtis, the words 'man,' 'people,' 'citizens,' are not, as with the vast majority of lecturers, mere glittering generalities, can understand that his grand principles of democracy are intended to be applied to woman equally with man. I listen for the unthinking masses and pray that every earnest, manly spirit shall help make women free." In reply Mr. Curtis closed a long and cordial letter by saying: "Believe me that I have thought of the point you make but the greater statement must inevitably include the less." She scribbled a comment on the back of this for her own satisfaction: "Men still the greater, women the less."

The last of January Miss Anthony went to Albany to attend the anti-slavery convention and remained six weeks during the legislative session to work in the interest of the women's petitions and the Personal Liberty Bill. This was a season of great enjoyment for her, notwithstanding much tramping about in the rain and snow and many discouraging experiences with the Legislature. She writes a friend: "Well, I am a member of the lobby but lacking the two most essential requisites, for I neither accept money nor have I any to pay out. Dr. Cheever speaks tonight in the Assembly chamber on 'The Guilt of the Slave Traffic and of the Legislation by which it is Supported.' I have been going about all day to collect enough to defray his expenses."

Phillips, Garrison, Pillsbury and all the host were at the convention. They dined in Lydia Mott's simple little home and had a merry time. Between the meetings the party visited the Legislature, Geological Hall, Palmer's studio and other places of interest and managed to get a bit of holiday recreation. Miss Anthony stayed with her friend Miss Mott, visited Rev. Mayo, called often on Thurlow Weed, went to Troy to hear Beecher lecture on "The Burdens of Society," to Hudson to hear Phillips on "Toussaint L'Ouverture" and, whenever she could spare a day from her work with the Legislature, held woman's rights meetings in neighboring towns; thus every hour was filled to overflowing.

In March she finished her lecture, "The True Woman," and plunged into the preparations for the approaching woman's rights convention. She also indulged the love for gardening which her busy life so seldom permitted and, judging from her diary, must have given the hired men more attention than they ever received before or afterwards:

Uncovered the strawberry and raspberry beds.... Worked with Simon building frames for the grape vines in the peach orchards.... Set out eighteen English black currants, twenty-two English gooseberries and Muscadine grape vines, also Lawton blackberries.... Worked in the garden all day, then went to the city to hear Dr. Cheever; few there, but grand lecture. How he unmasked the church hypocrites!... Wrote reports of the lecture for Standard and Liberator, and helped father plan the new kitchen.... Finished setting out the apple trees and the 600 blackberry bushes, then took the 6 o'clock train for Seneca Falls. Hot and dusty, and I am very, very tired.

She spoke in various towns all the way to New York where she arrived in time to attend the Anti-Slavery Anniversary and make final arrangements for the convention in Mozart Hall, May 12. She had written asking Lucretia Mott to preside, who answered, "I am sure there needs not a better presiding officer than thyself," but agreed to come. When the hour arrived the hall was so packed that it was impossible for Mrs. Mott to reach the platform and Miss Anthony was obliged to open the meeting. This convention, like several which preceded it, was greatly disturbed by noise and interruptions from the audience, until finally it was turned over to Wendell Phillips who "knew better than any one else how to play with and lash a mob and thrust what he wished to say into their long ears." At the end of his speech Miss Anthony immediately adjourned the convention, to prevent violent demonstrations. The Tribune said:

The woman's rights meeting last night was well calculated to advance the cause that the reformers met to plead. The speakers were comparatively so temperate, while sundry voters were so intemperate in demonstrating their folly, rudeness, ignorance and indecency, that almost any cause which the one pleaded and the other objected to would be likely to find favor with order-loving people. The presence of a single policeman might have preserved perfect order, saved the reputation of our city before crowds of strangers and given hundreds an opportunity to hear. Of course it being a meeting that women were to address, as "women have no rights in public which men are bound to maintain," there was no policeman present.

The disturbances at these conventions were not so much because the mob objected to the doctrine of woman's rights as that they were addressed by the leading anti-slavery speakers and therefore had to bear the odium attached to that hated cause.

A strong memorial, asking for equal social, civil and political rights for women and based on the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence, was prepared by a committee consisting of Miss Anthony, Mr. Phillips and seven others, to be presented to every legislature in the Union. By the time the legislatures met in 1860, political affairs had reached a crisis and the country was in a state of unrest and excitement which made it impossible to secure consideration for this or any other question outside the vital issues that were pressing, although it was presented in several States.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton wrote an eloquent appeal to be circulated with the petitions to rouse public sentiment. Armed with this the former began correspondence with speakers in reference to a summer and fall campaign of the state. The diary shows that she actually found time to attend a picnic, but as she was called upon for a speech while there the day was not wholly wasted. There are also references to "moonlight rides," and one entry records: "Mr. —— walked home with me; marvelously attentive. What a pity such powers of intellect should lack the moral spine!"

Out of the Francis Jackson fund Mr. Phillips sent Miss Anthony $1,500 for her extensive campaign. She engaged speakers to come into New York in different months, and July 13 opened the series with Antoinette Blackwell at Niagara Falls. From here they made the round of the watering places, Avon, Clifton, Trenton Falls, Sharon, Saratoga, Ballston Spa and Lake George, where persons of wealth and prominence were gathered from all parts of the Union. In some places they spoke in a grove to thousands of people; at others in hotel parlors, and everywhere met a friendly spirit and respectful treatment.

Miss Anthony did not forget to go to Poughkeepsie this summer, and stir up the teachers at their annual meeting. Antoinette Blackwell says of this trip: "I shall always recollect our journey on the boat with two or three dozen teachers, and your walking the deck with one and another, talking about women and their rights, in school and out of school, in the most matter-of-fact way, although it was plainly evident that most of them would sooner have listened to a discussion on the rights of the Hottentots." The teacher who was her chief support at these conventions was Helen Philleo.2 There were very few of them in those days who had the courage to help fight this battle for their own interests. At the last session she announced a woman's rights meeting and many remained to attend it.

After the summer resorts were closed the meetings were continued in the principal towns. Mrs. Blackwell thus describes an incident in the Fort William Henry hotel: "I remember a rich scene at the breakfast table. Aaron Powell was with us and the colored waiter pointedly offered him the bill of fare. Miss Anthony glanced at it and began to give her order, not to Powell in ladylike modesty, but promptly and energetically to the waiter. He turned a grandiloquent, deaf ear; Powell fidgeted and studied his newspaper; she persisted, determined that no man should come between her and her own order for coffee, cornbread and beefsteak. 'What do I understand is the full order, sir, for your party?' demanded the waiter, doggedly and suggestively. Powell tried to repeat her wishes, but stumbled and stammered and grew red in the face. I put in a working oar to cover the undercurrent of laughter, while she, coolly unconscious of everything except that there was no occasion for a 'middleman,' since she was entirely competent to look after her own breakfast, repeated her order, and the waiter, looking intensely disgusted, concluded to bring something, right or wrong."

While at Easton among her old friends Miss Anthony attended Quaker meeting and the spirit moved her to speak very forcibly, as she relates in a letter: "A young Quaker preacher from Virginia, who happened to be there, said: 'Christ was no agitator, but a peacemaker; George Fox was no agitator; the Friends at the South follow these examples and are never disturbed by fanaticism.' This was more than I could bear; I sprung to my feet and quoted: 'I came into the world not to bring peace but a sword.... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites that devour widow's houses!' Read the New Testament, and say if Christ was not an agitator. Who is this among us crying 'peace, peace, when there is no peace?'—and sat down." It is a matter of regret that she did not tell what became of the gentleman from Virginia.

Miss Anthony writes to Mary Hallowell, during these days: "I am more tired than ever before and know that I am draining the millpond too low each day to be filled quite up during the night, but I am having fine audiences of thinking men and women. Oh, if we could but make our meetings ring like those of the anti-slavery people, wouldn't the world hear us? But to do that we must have souls baptized into the work and consecrated to it."

Mrs. Blackwell's domestic affairs will not permit any further lecturing and Miss Anthony says in a letter to her: "O, dear, dear, how I do wish you could have kept on with me. I can't tell you how utterly awful is the suspense these other women keep me in: first, they can't, then they can, then they won't unless things are so and so; and when I think everything is settled, it all has to be gone over again. The fact is I am not fit to deal with anybody who is not terribly in earnest." To this she replies: "Dear child, I'm sorry I can not help you, but pity a poor married woman and forgive. The ordeal that I have been going through, four sewingwomen each giving about two days, no end of little garments to alter and to make, with a husband whose clothes as well as himself have been neglected for three months, the garden to be covered up from the frost, shrubs to transplant, winter provisions to lay in and only one good-natured, stupid servant to help with all. This, Susan, is 'woman's sphere.'"

As Miss Anthony never approved of a woman's neglecting her household for any purpose, she urged no more but sought elsewhere for assistance. There was not one unmarried woman except herself in all the corps of available speakers and, while some of them could make a trip of a few weeks, not one could be depended on for steady work. In October she secured Mrs. Tracy Cutler for awhile, and later Frances D. Gage, J. Elizabeth Jones and Lucy N. Coleman, but was obliged to hold many meetings alone. These were continued at intervals through the fall of 1859 and the winter and spring of 1860, and numerous pages of foolscap are still in existence containing a carefully kept account of the expenses. Each meeting was made partly to pay for itself, the lecturers received $12 a week, Miss Anthony herself taking only this sum, and it may be believed that no more extended and effective propaganda work ever was accomplished with the same amount of money. While this was being done, she also assisted Clarina Howard Nichols and Susan E. Wattles to plan an important campaign in Kansas with money furnished from the Jackson fund.

She received the following characteristic letter from Rev. Thomas K. Beecher when she asked for the use of his church in Elmira: "I will answer for myself and afterwards append the decision of the trustees. Anybody with good moral character and clean feet is welcome to use our meeting house, if they like, but were I you I should prefer Holden's Hall. But, lastly, I should shrink from holding such a meeting. I fear that you will come to pain of disappointment when your enthusiasm is chilled and bruised against the stone walls of Elmira apathy. More people will attend at Holden's Hall than at church. So speaks in brief, yours with hearty respect."

Mrs. Blackwell writes her teasingly about what she calls her obtuseness, going straight ahead with her work, never knowing when she was snubbed or defeated, giving the undiluted doctrine to people without ever perceiving their frantic efforts to escape, and ignoring all the humorous features of the campaigns. Miss Anthony retorts: "You might give some of the funny things at your own expense, but tell just as many as you please at mine. You see I have always gone with such a blind rush that I never had time to see the ridiculous, and blessed for me and my work and my happiness that I did not." Another invariable habit was never to notice complaints written to her. She always answered the business points but entirely ignored complainings, charges against other people and all extraneous matters.

She relates a significant incident which occurred during this summer campaign when she and Antoinette Blackwell spent a Sunday at Gerrit Smith's. He had established at Peterboro and was maintaining at his own expense a Free church. Mrs. Blackwell, under the influence of Theodore Parker, Chapin and other liberal thinkers, had become very broad in her doctrines, and was greatly pleased at an opportunity to preach for Mr. Smith, thinking to find perfect appreciation and sympathy. After church Miss Anthony went to her room and found her weeping bitterly, but she begged to be left to herself. When more composed she sent for her and told how in the midst of her sermon, when she felt herself surpassing anything she ever had done, she heard a gentle snore, and looking down beheld Mr. Smith sound asleep! She was terribly disappointed and now had made up her mind there was but one thing for the human soul, and that was to live absolutely within itself. There is no friend, no relative, who can enter into the depths of another individuality. A husband and wife may be very happy together; in all the little occurrences which really make up the sum of everyday life, they may be perfectly congenial; but there will be times when each will feel the other separated by an immeasurable distance. Henceforth she would enjoy what solace there was in her religious faith for herself but would expect no other soul to share it with her. "This was to me a wonderful revelation," said Miss Anthony, "and I realized, as never before, that in our most sacred hours we dwell indeed in a world of solitude."

On December 2, 1859, occurred that terrible tragedy in the country's history, the execution of John Brown for the raid on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The nation was shaken as by a great earthquake. Its dreadful import was realized perhaps by none so strikingly as by that little band of Abolitionists who never had wavered in their belief that slavery must ultimately disrupt the Union. When the country was paralyzed with horror and uncertainty, they alone dared call public meetings of mourning and indignation. It was natural that in Rochester they should turn to Susan B. Anthony for leadership. Without a moment's hesitation for fear of consequences she engaged Corinthian Hall and set about arranging a meeting for the evening of that day. Parker Pillsbury wrote:

Can you not make this gathering one of a popular character? What I mean is will not some sturdy Republican or Gerrit Smith man preside, another act as secretary and several make addresses? Only we must not lose the control. I do not believe that any observance of the day will be instituted outside our ranks. I am without tidings from the "seat of war" since Tuesday evening; and do not know what we shall hear next. My voice is against any attempt at rescue. It would inevitably, I fear, lead to bloodshed which could not compensate nor be compensated. If the people dare murder their victim, as they are determined to do, and in the name of law, he dares and is prepared to die and the moral effect of the execution will be without a parallel since the scenes on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, and the halter that day sanctified shall be the cord to draw millions to salvation.

Faithfully and eternally yours,

Parker Pillsbury,

Liberator Office,

Boston.

Miss Anthony found that beyond the little band of Abolitionists not a person dared give her any assistance. Her diary says: "Not one man of prominence in religion or politics will publicly identify himself with the John Brown meeting." She went from door to door selling tickets and collecting money. Samuel D. Porter, a prominent member of the Liberty party, assisted her, as did that circle of staunch Quaker friends who never failed her in any undertaking; Frederick Douglass had been obliged to flee to England. An admission fee of fifty cents kept out the rabble, and not more than 300 were present. The masses of the people, even those in full sympathy, were afraid to attend. Rev. Abram Pryn, a Free church minister, made a fine address, and Parker Pillsbury spoke as never before. Mr. Porter said: "This was the only occasion that ever matched Pillsbury's adjectives." Miss Anthony presided and there was no disturbance. The surplus receipts were sent to John Brown's family.

Mrs. Stanton wrote shortly afterwards, urging her to come to Seneca Falls: "Indeed it would do me great good to see some reformers just now. The death of my father, the worse than death of my dear cousin Gerrit,3 the martyrdom of that great and glorious John Brown, all conspire to make me regret more than ever my dwarfed and perverted womanhood. In times like these every soul should do the work of a fullgrown man. When I pass the gate of the celestials and good Peter asks me where I wish to sit, I will say: 'Anywhere so that I am neither a negro nor a woman. Confer on me, great angel, the glory of white manhood, so that henceforth I may feel unlimited freedom.'"

In this year of 1859, Charles F. Hovey, a wealthy merchant of Boston, a radical in religion and a noted reformer and philanthropist, left $50,000 to be expended in securing equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery, and other reforms, at the discretion of Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison and the other executors. As slavery was abolished four years later, a considerable portion of this was used for the cause of woman.

Early in December the anti-slavery committee insisted that Miss Anthony should resume the management of their conventions, as they wished to hold a series throughout the large cities of the State and had been unable to find any one who could so successfully conduct them. Abby Kelly Foster, though often critical and censorious, wrote her regarding one of her speeches: "It is a timely, noble, clear-sighted and fearless vindication of our platform. I want to say how delighted both Stephen and myself are to see that you, though much younger than some others in the anti-slavery school, have been able to appreciate so entirely the genius of our enterprise." The distinguished George B. Cheever, of the Church of the Puritans in New York, one of the few orthodox clergymen who stood with the Abolitionists in those early days, wrote Miss Anthony: "May God be with you and guide and bless you in your efforts. That is the strength we all need and must have if we accomplish anything good and permanent in this terrible conflict."

A single instance will show how closely the question of woman's rights was connected with that of anti-slavery in the popular mind. When Miss Anthony and Mrs. Blackwell were at Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George, they spoke one evening in the hotel parlors. There were a number of southerners present and many of them were delighted with the meeting, whose doctrines were entirely new to them, and made liberal contributions. The next day the speakers left in the stage with one of these, Judge John J. Ormond and his two daughters, of Tuscaloosa, Ala. He told Miss Anthony he had been instrumental in securing many laws favorable to women in that state and it would be a pleasure to him to see that their memorial was presented to the Alabama Legislature. When she reached home she sent it to him with the following letter:

Enclosed is a copy of our woman's rights memorial. Will you give me a full report of the action taken upon it?... I hope you and your daughters arrived home safe. Say to the elder I shall be most happy to hear from her when she shall have fairly inaugurated some noble life work. I trust each will take to her soul a strong purpose and that on her tombstone shall be engraved her own name and her own noble deeds instead of merely the daughter of Judge Ormond, or the relict of some Honorable or D. D. When true womanhood shall be attained it will be spoken of and remembered for itself alone. My kindest regards to them, accompanied with the most earnest desire that they shall make truth and freedom the polar star of their lives.

To this Judge Ormond made cordial reply, October 17, 1859:

DEAR MADAM: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d inst., with the papers enclosed. The petition to the Legislature will be presented by the senator from this county and I will apprise you of the action had upon it. My daughters are obliged to you for the interest you take in them. To a certain extent I agree with you as to the duties of woman. I am greatly in favor of her elevation to her proper sphere as the equal of man as to her civil rights, the security of her person, the right to her property and, where there is a separation after marriage, her equal right with the father to the custody and education of the children. All this as a legislator I have endeavored to accomplish, making large innovations upon the ancient common law. If I differ from you as to her political rights, it is because I think that, from political as well as moral considerations, she is unfit for, indeed incapacitated from, the performance of most of the duties which are now performed by men as members of the body politic; but there are many avocations and professions now exclusively occupied by men which women are as well, perhaps better fitted to fill. I hope these will soon be thrown open to an active competition of both sexes.

Then came the raid on Harper's Ferry and all its terrible consequences, and in December Judge Ormond wrote again:

MADAM: In redemption of my promise to tell you the fate of the woman's rights petition to our Legislature, I have the honor to inform you that it was virtually rejected, being laid on the table. I interested a distinguished member of our Senate in its presentation and, in addition, wrote a letter which under ordinary circumstances would have insured its respectful consideration. But after your petition was forwarded came the treasonable and murderous invasion of John Brown. The atrocity of this act, countenanced as it manifestly was by a great party at the North, has extinguished our last spark of fraternal feeling. Whilst we are all living under a Constitution which secures to us our right to our slaves, the results of which are in truth more beneficial to the whole North, and especially to the New England States, than to us, you are secretly plotting murderous inroads into our peaceful country and endeavoring to incite our slaves to cut the throats of our wives and children. Can you believe that this state of things can last? We now look upon you as our worst enemies and are ready to separate from you. Measures are in progress as far as practicable to establish non-intercourse with you and to proscribe all articles of northern manufacture or origin, including New England teachers. We can live without you; it remains to be seen how you will get along without us. You will probably find that fanaticism is not an element of national wealth or conducive to the happiness or comfort of the people.

In conclusion, let me assure you this is written more in sorrow than in anger. I am not a politician and have always been a strenuous friend of the Union. I am now in favor of a separation, unless you immediately retrace your steps and give the necessary guarantees by the passage of appropriate laws that you will faithfully abide by the compromises of the Constitution, by which alone the slaveholding States can with honor or safety remain in the Union. But that this will be done, I have very little hope, as "madness seems to rule the hour;" and as you have thus constituted yourselves our enemies, you must not be surprised at finding that we are yours.

1. A critic said of this: "It is the most faultless presentation of the question to which I have listened. Mr. Curtis takes the broadest view of the subject, his logic in its sweep is convincing as demonstration itself. His satire is cutting, but not bitter; his wit keen as a Damascus blade. He came out bravely for the suffrage." For forty years the advocates of equal rights have been using this lecture as one of their strongest documents.

2. By an odd coincidence, while this chapter was being written a letter came to Miss Anthony from Dean M. Jenkins, of Detroit, which said: "Enclosed please find my check to help on the good work to which you have devoted your life. You see I have almost pardoned you for saying, 'I have never quite forgiven you for marrying Helen Philleo and taking her away from the suffrage work.' In place of one worker you now have four. Mrs. Jenkins made a convert of me. Our daughter, Mrs. Spalding, is as earnest a worker for the suffrage cause as her mother, and our son is a defender of his mother's principles...."

3. He had become temporarily insane on account of the persecution he suffered in connection with the John Brown raid.