Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 51

Table of Contents

Reconstruction period; Anti-Slavery Society declines coalition with Woman's Rights Society; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton issue strong call for the reassembling in New York of Woman's Rights forces; Robert Purvis and Anna Dickinson approve; convention meets in Dr. Cheever's church; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton present ringing Address to Congress; Miss Anthony's speech for union of the two organizations; Equal Rights Association formed; controversy of Phillips, Tilton, Anthony, Stanton in Standard office; Standard's offer of space rejected; Miss Anthony's speech at Equal Rights meeting in Albany; abusive article from N.Y. World; mass meetings held and petitions circulated to have women included in Fourteenth Amendment; Republicans refuse to recognize their claims; Democrats favor them to defeat the negroes; Miss Anthony complains of Standard's treatment; words from friends and foes.

The reconstruction period of our government was no less trying a time than the four years of warfare which preceded it. The Union had been preserved but the disorganization of the Southern States was complete. Lincoln, whose cool judgment, restraining wisdom and remarkable genius for understanding and persuading men never had been more needed, was dead by the hand of an assassin. In his place was a man, rash, headlong, aggressive, stubborn, distrusted by the party which had placed him in power. This chief executive had to deal not only with the great, perplexing questions which always follow upon the close of a war, but with these rendered still more difficult by the great mass of bewildered and helpless negroes, ignorant of how to care for themselves, with no further claims upon their former owners, and yet destined to live among them. The immense Republican majority in Congress found itself opposed by a President, southern in birth and sympathy and an uncompromising believer in State Rights.

The southern legislatures, while accepting the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery, passed various laws whose effect could not be other than to keep the negro in a condition of "involuntary servitude." To the South these measures seemed to be demanded by ordinary prudence to retain at least temporary control of a race unfitted for a wise use of liberty; to the North they appeared a determination to evade the provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, and Congress decided upon more radical measures. One wing of the old Abolitionists, under the leadership of Phillips, had steadfastly insisted that there could be no real freedom without the ballot. Several attempts had been made to secure congressional action for the enfranchisement of the negro, which the majority of Republicans had now come to see was essential for his protection, and these resulted finally in the submission of the Fourteenth Amendment. Charles Sumner stated that he covered nineteen pages of foolscap in his effort so to formulate it as to omit the word "male" and, at the same time, secure the ballot for the negro.

When Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton sounded the alarm, the old leaders in the movement for woman's rights came at once to their aid, but they were soon to meet with an unexpected and serious disappointment. In January Miss Anthony went to the anti-slavery meeting at Boston, full of the new idea of consolidating the old Anti-Slavery and the Woman's Rights Societies under one name, that of the Equal Rights Association. She was warmly supported by Tilton, Lucy Stone, Powell and others, but to their amazement they found Mr. Phillips very cool and discouraging. He said this could be done only by amending the constitution of the Anti-Slavery Society, which required three months' notice. Still they did not dream of his opposing the proposition and so deputized Mr. Powell to give the formal notice, in order that it might be acted upon at the coming May Anniversary. On the way back the New York delegation discussed this new plan enthusiastically, and Miss Anthony wrote home that there was a strong wish in the society to widen its object so as to include universal suffrage, believing this to be the case. The necessary steps at once were taken for calling a national woman's rights meeting to convene in New York the same week as the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, and the following call was issued setting forth its principal objects:

Those who tell us the republican idea is a failure, do not see the deep gulf between our broad theory and our partial legislation; do not see that our government for the last century has been but a repetition of the old experiments of class and caste. Hence the failure is not in the principle, but in the lack of virtue on our part to apply it. The question now is, have we the wisdom and conscience, from the present upheavings of our political system to reconstruct a government on the one enduring basis which never yet has been tried—Equal Rights to All?

From the proposed class legislation in Congress, it is evident we have not yet learned wisdom from the experience of the past; for, while our representatives at Washington are discussing the right of suffrage for the black man as the only protection to life, liberty and happiness, they deny that "necessity of citizenship" to woman, by proposing to introduce the word "male" into the Federal Constitution. In securing suffrage but to another shade of manhood, while disfranchising 15,000,000 women, we come not one line nearer the republican idea. Can a ballot in the hand of woman and dignity on her brow, more unsex her than do a scepter and a crown? Shall an American Congress pay less honor to the daughter of a President than a British Parliament to the daughter of a King? Should not our petitions command as respectful a hearing in a republican Senate as a speech of Victoria in the House of Lords? Do we not claim that here all men and women are nobles—all heirs apparent to the throne? The fact that this backward legislation has roused so little thought or protest from the women of the country but proves what some of our ablest thinkers already have declared, that the greatest barrier to a government of equality is the aristocracy of its women; for while woman holds an ideal position above man and the work of life, poorly imitating the pomp, heraldry and distinction of an effete European civilization, we as a nation never can realize the divine idea of equality.

To build a true republic, the church and the home must undergo the same upheavings we now see in the state; for while our egotism, selfishness, luxury and ease are baptized in the name of Him whose life was a sacrifice, while at the family altar we are taught to worship wealth, power and position, rather than humanity, it is vain to talk of a republican government. The fair fruits of liberty, equality and fraternity must be blighted in the bud till cherished in the heart of woman. At this hour the nation needs the highest thought and inspiration of a true womanhood infused into every vein and artery of its life; and woman needs a broader, deeper education such as a pure religion and lofty patriotism alone can give. From the baptism of this second Revolution should she not rise up with new strength and dignity, clothed in all those "rights, privileges and immunities" which shall best enable her to fulfill her highest duties to humanity, her country, her family and herself?

On behalf of the National Woman's Rights Central Committee,

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, President; SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary.

Letters both encouraging and discouraging were received. Robert Purvis, one of the most elegant and scholarly colored men our country has known, whose father was a Scotchman and mother a West Indian with no slave blood, sent this noble response: "....I can not agree that this or any hour is 'especially the negro's.' I am an anti-slavery man because I hate tyranny and in my nature revolt against oppression, whatever its form or character. As an Abolitionist, therefore, I am for the equal rights movement, and as one of the confessedly oppressed race, how could I be otherwise? With what grace could I ask the women of this country to labor for my enfranchisement, and at the same time be unwilling to put forth a hand to remove the tyranny, in some respects greater, to which they are subjected? Again wishing you a successful meeting, I am very gratefully yours. Robert Purvis."

Anna Dickinson, who had come upon the scene of action since the last woman's rights convention five years before, wrote Miss Anthony that she should be present but was not sure that she was yet ready to speak: "I'm a great deal of a Quaker—I don't like to take up any work till I feel called to it. My personal interest is perhaps stronger in that of which thee writes me than in any other, but my hands are so full just now. I see what I shall do in the future, and I hope the near future. Wait for me a little—forbear, and I honestly believe I'll do thee some good and faithful service; I don't mean wait for me, but be patient with me. I write this out of my large love for and confidence in thee. I will talk to thee more of it by end of the month when I see thee in Boston and put my mite in thy hands; till then believe me, dear friend, affectionately and truly thine."

At the business meeting of the anti-slavery convention the proposition was made by the National Woman's Rights Committee that, as all there was left for the society to do was to secure suffrage for the negro, and as the woman's society also was working for universal suffrage, they should merge the two into one, and in that way the same conventions, appeals, petitions, etc., would answer for both. To this Mr. Phillips vigorously objected because the necessary three months' notice had not been given! As Mr. Powell had been delegated the previous January to give this, there could be no other conclusion than that he had refrained from doing so. There was considerable discussion on the question but, as president of the Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Phillips' influence was supreme and the coalition was declined.

The Woman's Rights Convention met in Dr. Cheever's church, May 10, 1866, with a large audience present. It was their first meeting since before the war, and while it had many elements of gladness, yet it was not unmixed with sorrow. Mr. Garrison was absent, the first rift had been made in the love and gratitude in which for many years Mr. Phillips had been held, and a vague feeling of distrust and alarm was beginning to creep over the women, lest, after all these years of patient work, they were again to be sacrificed.

Miss Anthony presented a ringing set of resolutions, and splendid addresses were given by Mrs. Stanton, Theodore Tilton and Henry Ward Beecher. Mr. Phillips then made a long and eloquent speech which was rapturously received by the audience, but which filled the leaders with sadness, because of the skillful evasion of the disputed question which they never had expected from this staunch friend. Miss Anthony read an address to Congress1 which was adopted with unanimous approval. At the close of the convention a business session was held, at which she offered a resolution declaring that, since by the act of emancipation and the Civil Rights Bill, the negro and woman now had the same civil and political status, alike needing only the ballot, therefore the time had come for an organization which should demand universal suffrage; and that hereafter their society should be known as the American Equal Rights Association. She supported this by an able speech in which she said:

For twenty years we have pressed the claims of woman to the right of representation in the government. Each successive year after 1848, conventions were held in different States, until the beginning of the war. Up to this hour we have looked only to State action for the recognition of our rights; but now, by the results of the war, the whole question of suffrage reverts back to the United States Constitution. The duty of Congress at this moment is to declare what shall be the basis of representation in a republican form of government. There is, there can be, but one true basis, viz.: that taxation and representation must be inseparable; hence our demand must now go beyond woman—it must extend to the farthest limit of the principle of the "consent of the governed," as the only authorized or just government. We therefore wish to broaden our woman's rights platform and make it in name what it ever has been in spirit, a human rights platform. As women we can no longer claim for ourselves what we do not for others, nor can we work in two separate movements to get the ballot for the two disfranchised classes, negroes and women, since to do so must be at double cost of time, energy and money.... Therefore, that we may henceforth concentrate all our forces for the practical application of our one grand, distinctive, national idea—universal suffrage—I hope we will unanimously adopt the resolution before us, thus resolving ourselves into the American Equal Eights Association.

Notwithstanding the rebuff they had received from the Anti-Slavery Society, this resolution was unanimously adopted and the Woman's Rights Society which had existed practically for sixteen years was merged into the American Equal Rights Association to work for universal suffrage. A constitution was adopted and officers chosen.2 Mrs. Stanton thus describes the last moments of the convention: "As Lucretia Mott uttered her few parting words of benediction, the fading sunlight through the stained windows falling upon her pure face, a celestial glory seemed about her, a sweet and peaceful influence pervaded every heart, and all responded to Theodore Tilton when he said this closing meeting was one of the most beautiful, delightful and memorable which any of its participants ever enjoyed."

A short time thereafter Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton were in the Standard office discussing the work. Mr. Phillips argued that the time was ripe for striking the word "white" out of the New York constitution, at its coming convention, but not for striking out "male." Mr. Tilton supported him, in direct contradiction to all he had so warmly advocated only a few weeks before, and said what the women should do was to canvass the State with speeches and petitions for the enfranchisement of the negro, leaving that of the women to come afterward, presumably twenty years later, when there would be another revision of the constitution. Mrs. Stanton, entirely overcome by the eloquence of these two gifted men, acquiesced in all they said; but Miss Anthony, who never could be swerved from her standard by any sophistry or blandishments, was highly indignant and declared that she would sooner cut off her right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for woman. After Phillips had left, she overheard Tilton say to Mrs. Stanton, "What does ail Susan? She acts like one possessed." Mrs. Stanton replied, "I can not imagine; I never before saw her so unreasonable and absolutely rude."

She was obliged to leave immediately to keep an engagement, but as soon as she was at liberty went straight to Mrs. Stanton's home, and found her walking up and down the long parlors, wringing her hands. She threw her arms around Miss Anthony, exclaiming: "I never was so glad to see you. Do tell me what is the matter with me? I feel as if I had been scourged from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet!" They sat down together and went over the whole conversation, and she then saw and felt most keenly the insult and degradation concealed in the proposition of the two men, and agreed with Miss Anthony that she would sacrifice her life before she would accept it.

This incident illustrates one marked difference in these two women, each so strong in her own characteristics. Mrs. Stanton in the presence of brilliant intellect and elegant culture at times would seem to be entirely psychologized, even though the arguments used were in direct conflict with her own instincts and judgment. On the contrary, no eloquence, no persuasiveness of manner, no magnetic power could induce Miss Anthony for one moment to abandon her convictions of truth and justice. Mrs. Stanton's disposition was one of extreme suavity which loved to please, while Miss Anthony's nature was rugged, unflinching and stern in upholding the right without regard to expediency.

On May 31 both the Anti-Slavery Society and the Equal Rights Association held large meetings in Boston. The latter, in conformity with its new name, announced that "any member of the audience, man or woman, was entitled to speak on the topics under debate and would be made welcome." This had been the rule always in the old woman's rights conventions, but it was reaffirmed now in order to show the broad and catholic spirit of the new organization. At this Boston meeting Anna Dickinson made her first speech for the rights of woman. It was one of those bursts of inspiration which no pen can reproduce, and was received by the audience with cheer upon cheer. She gave $100 to the cause, assuring them of her services henceforth, and Miss Anthony wrote of her, "She is sound to the heart's core."

The great work of rolling up petitions, not only to Congress but to the New York Constitutional Convention, was then commenced. The executive board of the Standard offered to lease to the Equal Rights Association office-room and a certain amount of space in the paper. These, however, were put at such a price and placed under such restrictions as it was thought unwise to accept. All the matter submitted would be subject to "editorial revision," even though the association paid for the space, and as Mr. Pillsbury had resigned the editorship and Mr. Powell had taken it, they decided they could not trust the "editorial revision." The women had done so vast an amount of gratuitous work for the Standard in past years, that they felt themselves entitled to more liberal treatment. The editor had written, only a short time before, of the excellent service Miss Anthony had rendered in straightening out the accounts. She also had secured numerous subscribers, sending in as many as thirty at a time from some of her meetings.

For the purpose of arousing public interest in the approaching New York Constitutional Convention, an equal rights meeting was held at Albany, in Tweddle Hall, November 21. To make this a success Miss Anthony spent many weeks of hard work. The diary notes that, among other things, she directed and sent out 1200 complimentary tickets.3 At this Albany convention political differences began to appear. Mrs. Stanton complimented the Democrats for the assistance they had rendered; Frederick Douglass objected to their receiving any credit, branding their advocacy as a trick of the enemy, and there were frequent sharp encounters. Miss Anthony made an extended speech, of which there is but this newspaper report:

She referred to the assertion of Horace Greeley, that while women had the abstract right to suffrage the great majority of them did not wish it. So they told us when we said the negro ought to be free; he did not wish it; he was contented and happy. As we replied relative to the negro, so do we regarding women. If they do not desire the right to vote, it is an evidence of the depth to which they have been degraded by its deprivation. A woman clerk, in the New York Mercantile Library, told her that during the war the salaries of the male clerks all had been raised, but not those of the women, and a man's, who held an inferior position, had been increased to $300 more than her own. The clerk said that if she had been a voter she did not believe such injustice would have been perpetrated. In Rochester the salaries of the male teachers in the public schools were raised $100 per annum while the small salaries of the women were still further reduced. In Auburn $200 additional compensation was voted to the male teachers and $25 to the women, who thereupon held a meeting and passed an ironical resolution thanking the board for their liberal allowance. The board then required them to sign a paper saying they did not intend an insult, and those who did not make such recantation were discharged. The speaker then referred to the power of the ballot. No politician dared oppose the eight-hour agitation, because the workingman held the franchise. Give the workingwoman a vote and she, too, can protect herself.

A form of petition was approved asking that women might be members of the coming Constitutional Convention and vote on the new constitution. Respectful reports were made by the New York papers with the exception of the World, which said in a long and abusive article:

Altogether the ablest, most dignified and best-balanced man in the body is Frederick Douglass, and there is a deep feeling for him for United States senator in spite of the drift of the convention, which is evidently in favor of Susan B. Anthony; notwithstanding which Elizabeth Cady Stanton is likewise a candidate with considerable strength, favoring as she does the Copperheads, the Democratic party and other dead and buried remains of alleged disloyalty. Susan is lean, cadaverous and intellectual, with the proportions of a file and the voice of a hurdy-gurdy. She is the favorite of the convention. Mrs. Stanton is of intellectual stock, impressive in manner and disposed to henpeck the convention which of course calls out resistance and much cackling.... Susan has a controlling advantage over her in the fact that she is unencumbered with a husband. As male members of Congress rarely have wives in Washington, so female members will be expected to be without husbands at the capital....

Parker Pillsbury, one of the notabilities of the body, is a good-looking white man naturally, but has a cowed and sneakish expression stealing over him, as though he regretted he had not been born a nigger or one of these females.... Lucy Stone, the president of the convention, is what the law terms a "spinster." She is a sad old girl, presides with timidity and hesitation, is wheezy and nasal in her pronunciation and wholly without dignity or command.... Mummified and fossilated females, void of domestic duties, habits and natural affections; crack-brained, rheumatic, dyspeptic, henpecked men, vainly striving to achieve the liberty of opening their heads in presence of their wives; self-educated, oily-faced, insolent, gabbling negroes, and Theodore Tilton, make up the less than a hundred members of this caravan, called, by themselves, the American Equal Rights Association.

On December 6 and 7 a mass meeting was held in Cooper Institute, Miss Anthony presiding. There were the usual effective speeches and large and appreciative audiences present at every session. From New York the speakers went at once to Rochester and held a two days' convention there. The forces then divided and, under the management of Miss Anthony, held meetings in a large number of the towns of western and central New York, to arouse public sentiment in favor of giving women a representation at the Constitutional Convention.

Meanwhile the petitions asking Congress to include women in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment were rapidly pushed, and as soon as ten or twelve thousand names were secured they were sent at once to Washington, as the resolution was then under discussion. And here came the revelation which had been for some time foreshadowed—the Republicans refused to champion this cause! From the founding of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, women had been always its most loyal supporters, bearing their share of the odium and persecution of early days. When the Republican party was formed, the leading women of the country had allied themselves with it and given faithful service during the long, dark years which followed. All the Abolitionists and prominent Republicans had upheld the principle of equal rights to all, and now, when the test came, they refused to recognize the claims of woman! Some of the senators and representatives declined to present the petitions sent from their own districts; others offered them merely as petitions for "universal suffrage," carefully omitting the word "woman" and trusting that it would be inferred they meant suffrage for the negro men.

Even Charles Sumner, who so many times had acknowledged his indebtedness to Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and the other women who were now asking for their rights, presented a petition from Massachusetts, headed by Lydia Maria Child, with the declaration that he did it under protest and that it was "most inopportune." Mrs. Child was the first and one of the ablest editors of the Anti-Slavery Standard, and had battled long and earnestly for the freedom of the slave at the cost of her literary popularity; but now when she asked that she might receive the rights of citizenship at least at the same time they were conferred upon the freedman, her plea was declared "most inopportune."

The Democrats in Congress, who never had favored or assisted in any way the so-called woman's rights doctrines, seized upon this opportunity to harass the Republicans and defeat negro suffrage. They not only presented the women's petitions but made long and eloquent speeches in their favor, using with telling force against the Republicans their own oft-repeated arguments for equal rights to all. In the midst of this agitation, the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill being under discussion, Edgar Cowan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, moved to strike out the word "male," and thus precipitated a debate which occupied three entire days in the Senate. Among the Republicans Benjamin F. Wade and B. Gratz Brown made splendid arguments for woman suffrage and announced their votes in favor of the measure. Senator Wilson, from Massachusetts, declared himself ready at any and all times to vote for a separate bill enfranchising women, but opposed to connecting it with negro suffrage. The vote in the Senate to strike the word "male" from the proposed bill resulted: yeas, 9; nays, 47; in the House, yeas, 49; nays, 74—68 not voting. A number of members in both Houses who believed in woman suffrage voted "no" because they preferred to sacrifice the women rather than the negroes.4

The Republican press was equally hostile to the proposition to enfranchise women. Mr. Greeley, who in times past had been so staunch a supporter of woman's rights, now said in the New York Tribune:

A CRY FROM THE FEMALES,—.... Our heart warms with pity towards these unfortunate creatures. We fancy that we can see them, deserted of men, and bereft of those rich enjoyments and exalted privileges which belong to women, languishing their unhappy lives away in a mournful singleness, from which they can escape by no art in the construction of waterfalls or the employment of cotton-padding. Talk of a true woman needing the ballot as an accessory of power, when she rules the world by a glance of her eye! There was sound philosophy in the remark of an Eastern monarch, that his wife was sovereign of the empire, because she ruled his little ones and his little ones ruled him. The sure panacea for such ills as the Massachusetts petitioners complain of, is a wicker-work cradle and a dimple-cheeked baby.

The New York Post, which under Mr. Bryant's editorship had favored the enfranchisement of women, also took ground against it now, and this was the attitude of Republican papers in all parts of the country. The Democratic press was opposed, except when it could make capital against the Republicans by espousing it.

In November Miss Anthony went to a great anti-slavery meeting in Philadelphia. Between the two sessions, Lucretia Mott invited about twenty of the leading men and women to lunch with her. At her request Miss Anthony acted as spokesman and, in behalf of the women, begged Mr. Phillips to reconsider his position and make the woman's and the negro's cause identical, but here, in the presence of the women who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in all his hard-fought battles of the last twenty years, he again refused, declaring that their time had not yet come. Miss Anthony sent the most impassioned appeals to the Joint Committee of Fifteen, with Thaddeus Stevens as chairman, which had charge of the congressional policy on reconstruction, urging that if they could not report favorably on the petitions, at least they would not interpose any new barrier against woman's right to the ballot; but, although Mr. Stevens had ever been friendly to the claims of women, he refused to recognize them now. Everywhere they were met by the cry, "This is the negro's hour!"

It was a long time before the women could believe that the Republicans and Abolitionists, who had advocated their cause for years, would forsake them at this critical moment. The letters written during this period showed the agony of spirit they endured as they beheld one after another repudiating their demands and setting them aside in favor of the negro. Not only did the men thus abandon the cause of equal rights but, by their specious arguments, they persuaded many of the women that it was their duty to sacrifice their own claims and devote themselves to securing suffrage for the colored men. This indignant letter from Mrs. Stanton to one of the "old guard," who at first declined to circulate petitions, will serve as an example of many which were sent to the women:

I have just read your letter, and it would have been a wet blanket to Susan and me were we not sure that we are right. With three bills before Congress to exclude us from all hope of representation in the future, I thank God that two women of the nation felt the insult and decided to rouse the rest to use the only right we have in the government—the right of petition. If the petition goes with our names alone, ours be the glory, and the disgrace to all the rest! We have sent out 1,000 franked by Representative James Brooks, of the New York Express, and if they come back to us empty, Susan and I will sign all of them, that every Democratic member may have one to shame those hypocritical Republicans. When your granddaughters hear that against such insults you made no protest, they will blush for their ancestry.

This letter from Lucretia Mott shows that some men remained true to the woman's cause: "My husband and myself cordially hail this movement. The negro's hour came with his emancipation from cruel bondage. He now has advocates not a few for his right to the ballot. Intelligent as these are, they must see that this right can not be consistently withheld from women. We pledge $50 toward the necessary funds." At this time Miss Anthony in a strong and earnest letter showed the injustice of the Standard's behavior:

How I do wish the good old Standard would preach the whole gospel of the whole loaf of republicanism; but I am sorry to say the present indications are that it will extend even less favor to us than ever before. I gather this from Mr. Powell's announcement to me last week that henceforth, if I were not going to give my personal efforts to the Standard, he should not publish notices of our meetings except at "full advertising rates." I was not a little startled but answered: "Of course I shall say the Standard is the truest and best paper for negro suffrage; but I can not say that it is so for woman suffrage." He said he saw this and hereafter we must pay for all notices.

Now, I do complain of this and with just cause, so long as $2,000 of the sainted Hovey's money are sunk annually in the struggle to keep the Standard afloat, while Mr. Hovey's will expressly says: "In case chattel slavery should be abolished before the expenditure of the full amount, the residue shall be applied toward securing woman's rights," etc. Mr. Pillsbury told the Hovey Committee last winter, after abolition was proclaimed, that he could not in conscience accept his salary from them as editor of the Standard for another year unless it should advocate woman's claims equally with those of the negro.

In her diary she writes: "Even Charles Sumner bends to the spirit of compromise and presents a constitutional amendment which concedes the right to disfranchise law-abiding, tax-paying citizens." Robert Purvis again expressed his cordial sympathy: "I am heartily with you in the view 'that the reconstruction of the Union is a work of greater importance than the restoration of the rebel States;' and that it should be in accordance with the true republican idea of the personal rights of all our citizens, without regard to sex or color. If the settlement of this question upon the comprehensive basis of equal rights and impartial justice to all should require the postponement of the enfranchisement of the colored man, I am willing for the delay, though it should take a decade of years to 'fight it out on that line.'" Mr. Purvis frequently said in the debates of those days that he would rather his son never should be enfranchised than that his daughter never should be, as she bore the double disability of sex and color and, by every principle of justice, should be the first to be protected.

As the struggle for the enfranchisement of the negro grew more intense, and the entire burden of it fell upon the Republican party, its members became more and more insistent that the women should not jeopardize the claims of the colored man by pressing their own. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and a few others of the stronger and more independent women declared they would not suffer in silence the injustice and insult of having this great body of ignorant men granted the political rights which were denied intelligent women; nor would they submit without protest to having a million ballots added to the mass which already were sure to be cast against the enfranchisement of women if ever the question came to a popular vote. As a result of their stand for justice, they found themselves utterly deserted by all the great leaders with whom they had labored so earnestly and harmoniously for many years—Garrison, Phillips, Greeley, Curtis, Tilton, Higginson, Douglass, Gerrit Smith. Of all the old Abolitionists only four—Samuel J. May, Robert Purvis, Parker Pillsbury and Stephen S. Foster—remained loyal to their standard. There was not one of the men repudiating them who did not believe thoroughly in the principle of woman's full right to the ballot. The women simply were sacrificed to political expediency; set aside without a moment's hesitation in obedience to the party shibboleth. "This is the negro's hour!"

1. See Appendix for this address.

2. 'WHEREAS, by the war, society is once more resolved into its original elements, and in the reconstruction of our government we again stand face to face with the broad question of natural rights, all associations based on special claims for special classes are too narrow and partial for the hour; therefore, from the baptism of a second Revolution, purified and exalted by suffering, seeing with a holier vision that the peace, prosperity and perpetuity of the republic rest on Equal Rights to All, we, today assembled in our Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, bury the woman in the citizen, and our organization in that of the American Equal Rights Association. President, Lucretia Mott; vice-presidents, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Tilton, Frederick Douglass, Josephine S. Griffing, Frances D. Gage, Robert Purvis, Martha C. Wright, Rebecca W. Mott; corresponding secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline M. Severance, Mattie Griffith; treasurer, Ludlow Patton; recording secretary, Henry B. Blackwell.

3. Mr. Beecher was invited to one of the preliminary meetings held during the summer and thus replied: "I can not come to Syracuse, much as I should like to, for I am, from the middle of August, a victim of ophthalmic catarrh, often called hay-fever or hay cold, which unfits me for any serious duty except that of sneezing and crying. That which the prophet longed for—that his eyes might become a fountain of tears—I have, unlonged for, and I am persuaded that Jeremiah would never have asked for it a second time, if he had but once tried it. The visit to Gerrit Smith's is tempting but at this, like many another good thing, I look and pass on."

4. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.