Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 54

Table of Contents

First National Convention in Washington; colored men object to Woman Suffrage; first hearing before Congressional Committee; descriptive letter from Grace Greenwood; Miss Anthony arraigns Republicans at Chicago; Mrs. Livermore's tribute to Miss Anthony; speech at N.Y. Press Club on woman's "proposing;" Fifteenth Amendment submitted; criticism by The Revolution; Train withdraws from paper; Woman's Bureau; letters from Mrs. Livermore, Anna Dickinson, Gail Hamilton; stormy session of Equal Rights Association; Miss Anthony's speech against Amendment XV; William Winter defends her; discussion of "free love" resolution; Equal Rights platform too broad; founding of National Woman Suffrage Association; forming of American Woman Suffrage Association; Miss Anthony secures testimonial for Mrs. Rose; conventions at Saratoga and Newport; Miss Anthony protests against paying taxes; Mr. and Mrs. Minor claim woman's right to vote under Fourteenth Amendment; Miss Anthony speaks at Dayton, O., on laws for married women; Mrs. Hooker's description of her; Miss Anthony's speech at Hartford Convention; anecdote of Beecher; Mrs. Hooker's account; letters from Dr. Kate Jackson and Sarah Pugh; division in suffrage ranks.

Notwithstanding the protests and petitions of the women, the Fourteenth Amendment had been formally declared ratified July 28, 1868, the word "male" being thereby three times branded on the Constitution. In the resolutions of Senator Pomeroy and Mr. Julian, however, they found new hope and fresh courage. They had learned that the Federal Constitution could be so amended as to enfranchise a million men who but yesterday were plantation slaves. Here, then, was the power which must be invoked for the enfranchisement of women. From the office of The Revolution went out thousands of petitions to the women of the country to be circulated in the interests of an amendment to regulate the suffrage without making distinctions of sex. It was decided that a convention should be held in Washington in order to meet the legislators on their own ground. A suffrage association had been formed in that city with Josephine S. Griffing, founder of the Freedmen's Bureau, president; Hamilton Willcox, secretary. This was the first ever held in the capital, and it brought many new and valuable workers into the field. Clara Barton here made her first appearance at a woman suffrage meeting, and was a true and consistent advocate of the principle from that day forward.

The venerable Lucretia Mott presided, and Senator Pomeroy opened the convention with an eloquent speech, January 19, 1869. A feature of this occasion was the appearance of several young colored orators, speaking in opposition to suffrage for women and denouncing them for jeopardizing the black man's claim to the ballot by insisting upon their own. One of them, George Downing, standing by the side of Lucretia Mott, declared that God intended the male should dominate the female everywhere! Another was a son of Robert Purvis, who was earnestly and publicly rebuked by his father. Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, also condemned the women for their temerity and severely criticised the resolutions, which demanded the same political rights for women as for negro men.

Miss Anthony called on Senator Harlan, of Iowa, chairman of the District committee, who readily granted the women a hearing which took place January 26, when she and Mrs. Stanton gave their arguments. This was the first congressional hearing ever granted to present the question of woman suffrage. An appeal was sent to Congress praying that women should be recognized in the next amendment. In her letter to the Philadelphia Press, Grace Greenwood thus described the leading spirits of the convention:

Near Lucretia Mott sat her sister, Martha Wright, a woman of strong, constant character and rare intellectual culture; Mrs. Cady Stanton, of impressive and beautiful appearance, in the rich prime of an active, generous and healthful life; Miss Susan B. Anthony, looking all she is, a keen, energetic, uncompromising, unconquerable, passionately earnest woman; Clara Barton, whose name is dear to soldiers and blessed in thousands of homes to which the soldiers shall return no more—a brave, benignant-looking woman....

Miss Anthony followed in a strain not only cheerful, but exultant—reviewing the advance of the cause from its first despised beginning to its present position, where, she alleged, it commanded the attention of the world. She spoke in her usual pungent, vehement style, hitting the nail on the head every time, and driving it in up to the head. Indeed, it seems to me, that while Lucretia Mott may be said to be the soul of this movement, and Mrs. Stanton the mind, the "swift, keen intelligence," Miss Anthony, alert, aggressive and indefatigable, is its nervous energy—its propulsive force....

To see the three chief figures of this great movement sitting upon a stage in joint council, like the three Fates of a new dispensation—dignity and the ever-acceptable grace of scholarly earnestness, intelligence and beneficence making them prominent—is assurance that the women of our country, bereft of defenders or injured by false ones, have advocates equal to the great demands of their cause.

Immediately after this convention, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, by invitation of a number of State suffrage committees, made a tour of Chicago, Springfield, Bloomington, Galena, St. Louis, Madison, Milwaukee and Toledo, speaking to large audiences. At St. Louis they were met by a delegation of ladies and escorted to the Southern Hotel, and then invited by the president of the State association, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, to visit various points of interest in the city. At Springfield, Ill., the lieutenant-governor presided over their convention, and Governor Palmer and many members of the legislature were in the audience. With the Chicago delegation, Mrs. Livermore, Judge Waite, Judge Bradwell, Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Legal News, and others, they addressed the legislature. At Chicago, in Crosby Music Hall, the meeting was decidedly aggressive. Miss Anthony's resolutions stirred up the politicians, but she defended them bravely, according to report:

She stood outside of any party which threw itself across the path of complete suffrage to woman, and therefore she stood outside of the Republican party, where all her male relatives and friends were to be found. Republican leaders had told them to wait; that the movement was inopportune; but all the time had continued to put up bars and barriers against its future success. No woman should belong at present to either party; she should simply stand for suffrage.... She protested against any Republicans saying that Mrs. Stanton or herself had laid a straw in the way of the negro. Because they insisted that the rights of women ought to have equal prominence with the rights of black men, it was assumed that they opposed the enfranchisement of the negro. She repelled the assumption. She arraigned the entire Republican party because they refused to see that all women, black and white, were as much in political servitude as the black men.

At this meeting Robert Laird Collyer (not the distinguished Robert Collyer) made a long address against the enfranchisement of women, mixing up purity, propriety and pedestals in the usual incoherent fashion. He was so completely annihilated by Anna Dickinson that no further defense of the measure was necessary. Suffrage societies were organized in Chicago, Milwaukee and Toledo. In her account of this convention, Mrs. Livermore wrote of Miss Anthony:

She is entirely unlike Mrs. Stanton, notwithstanding the twain have been fast friends and diligent co-laborers for a quarter of a century.... Miss Anthony is a woman whom no one can know thoroughly without respect. Entirely honest, fearfully in earnest, energetic, self-sacrificing, kind-hearted, scorning difficulties of whatever magnitude, and rigidly sensible, she is the warm friend of the poor, oppressed, homeless and friendless of her own sex. Her labors in their behalf are tireless and judicious. You think her plain until she smiles, and then the worn face lights up so pleasantly and benignly that you forget to criticise and your heart warms towards her. Knowing her great goodness, and how she has devoted her life to hard, unpaid work for the negro slave and for woman, we can never read jibes and jeers at her expense without a twinge of pain. Let the press laugh at her as it may, she is a mighty power among both men and women, and those who really love as well as respect her are a host.

In this winter of 1869 the Press Club of New York made the startling innovation of giving a dinner to which ladies were invited. Among the guests were Phoebe and Alice Gary, Mary L. Booth, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Olive Logan, Mary Kyle Dallas and Miss Anthony. J. W. Simonton, of the Associated Press, was toast-master. Not having had the slightest intimation that she was expected to speak, Miss Anthony was called upon to respond to the question, "Why don't the women propose?" Without a moment's hesitation she arose and said: "Under present conditions, it would require a good deal of assurance for a woman to say to a man, 'Please, sir, will you support me for the rest of my life?' When all avocations are open to woman and she has an opportunity to acquire a competence, she will then be in a position where it will not be humiliating for her to ask the man she loves to share her prosperity. Instead of requesting him to provide food, raiment and shelter for her, she can invite him into her home, contribute her share to the partnership and not be an utter dependent. There will be also another advantage in this arrangement—if he prove unworthy she can ask him to walk out." It will be seen by this original and daring reply that Miss Anthony could not attend a dinner party even without creating a sensation.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth establishing the citizenship of the negro, did not prove sufficient to protect him in his right of suffrage and, although Sumner and other Republican leaders contended that another amendment was not necessary for this, the majority of the party did not share this opinion and it became evident that one would have to be added.1 Those proposed by Pomeroy and Julian securing universal suffrage were brushed aside without debate, and the following was submitted by Congress to the State legislatures, February 27, 1869:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment XIV had settled the status of citizenship. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Now came the next measure to protect the citizen's right to vote, which proposed to guard against any discrimination on account of race, of color, of previous condition, but by the omission of the one word "sex," all women still were left disfranchised. At this time the leading Republicans believed in universal suffrage. Garrison, Phillips, Greeley, Sumner, Tilton, Wilson, Wade, Stevens, Brown, Julian and many others had publicly declared their belief in the right of woman to the ballot, but now driven by party necessity, they repudiated their principles, and deferred the day of her freedom for generations. Yet it was not forgotten still carefully to include her in the basis of representation, fully to make her amenable to the laws, and strictly to hold her to her share of taxation. In reference to this The Revolution said:

The proposed amendment for "manhood suffrage" not only rouses woman's prejudices against the negro, but on the other hand his contempt and hostility toward her.... Just as the Democratic cry of a "white man's government" created the antagonism between the Irishman and the negro, which culminated in the New York riots of 1863, so the Republican cry of "manhood suffrage" creates an antagonism between black men and all women, which will culminate in fearful outrages on womanhood, especially in the Southern States. While we fully appreciate the philosophy that every extension of rights prepares the way for greater freedom to new classes and hastens the day of liberty to all, we at the same time see that the immediate effect of class enfranchisement is greater tyranny and abuse of those who have no voice in the government. Had Irishmen been disfranchised in this country, they would have made common cause with the negro in fighting for his rights, but when exalted above him, they proved his worst enemies. The negro will be the victim for generations to come, of the prejudice engendered by making this a white man's government. While the enfranchisement of each new class of white men was a step toward his ultimate freedom, it increased his degradation in the transition period, and he touched the depths when all men but himself were crowned with citizenship.

Just so with woman, while the enfranchisement of all men hastens the day for justice to her, it makes her degradation more complete in the transition state. It is to escape the added tyranny, persecutions, insults, horrors which will surely be visited upon her in the establishment of an aristocracy of sex in this republic, that we raise our indignant protest against this wholesale desecration of woman in the pending amendment, and earnestly pray the rulers of this nation to consider the degradation of disfranchisement. Our Republican leaders see that it is a protection and defense for the black man, giving him new dignity and self-respect, and making his rights more sacred in the eyes of his enemies. It is mockery to tell woman she is excluded from all political privileges on the ground of respect; since the laws and constitutions for her, in common with all disfranchised classes, harmonize with the degradation of the position.

In their protest against this discrimination and their insistence that the word "sex" should be included in the Fifteenth Amendment, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton stood practically alone. Most of the other women allowed themselves to be persuaded by the politicians that it was their duty to step aside and wait till the negro was invested with this highest attribute of citizenship.

In the first issue of The Revolution for 1869 appeared this letter from George Francis Train, who had just been released from the Dublin jail and had returned to America:

....I knew the load I had to carry in the woman question, but you did not know the load you had to carry in Train. When the poor man's horse fell and broke his leg, the crowd sympathized. "How much you pity?" asked the Frenchman; "I pity man $20." I saw that the theoretical breeching had broken in Kansas, and with voice, with pen, with time and, what none of your old friends did, with purse, I threw myself into the battle.

With your remarkable industry and extraordinary executive ability you have astonished all by your success. You remember I begged you never to stop to defend me but to push on to victory. Now both parties are neck and neck to see who shall lead the army of in-coming negro voters. Woman already begins to creep. Soon she will walk and legislate. No sneers, no low jokes, no obscene remarks are now bandied about. The iceberg of prejudice is moving down the Gulf Stream of a wider liberty and will melt away with the bigotry of ages. The ball is rolling down the hill. You no longer need my services. The Revolution is a power. Would it not be more so without Train? Had you not better omit my name in 1869? Would it not bring you more subscribers, and better assist the noble cause of reform? Although the Garrisonians have so ungenerously attacked me, perhaps they will do as much for you as I have. If so, tell them, confidentially, the thousands I have devoted to the cause, and guarantee the haters of Train that his name shall not appear in The Revolution after January 1. I can not better show my unselfishness than by asking you to forget my honest exertions for equal rights and equal pay for women, and to shut me out of The Revolution in future, in order to bring in again "the apostates."

Although Mr. Train continued to supply funds and to send an occasional letter for a few months longer, his active connection with the paper ceased after its first year. In the issue of May 1 it contained the following editorial comment:

Our readers will find Mr. Train's valedictory in another column. Feeling that he has been a source of grief to our numerous friends and, through their constant complaints, an annoyance to us, he magnanimously retires. He has always said that as soon as we were safely launched on the tempestuous sea of journalism, he should leave us "to row our own boat." Our partnership dissolves today. Now we shall look for a harvest of new subscribers, as many have written and said to us again and again, if you will only drop Train, we will send you patrons by the hundred. We hope the fact that Train has dropped us will not vitiate these promises. Our generous friend starts for California on May 7, in the first train over the Pacific road. He takes with him the sincere thanks of those who know what he has done in the cause of woman, and of those who appreciate what a power The Revolution has already been in rousing public thought to the importance of her speedy enfranchisement.

The heading of the financial department and the column of Wall street gossip, which had given so much offense, were removed, and the paper became purely an advocate of the rights of humanity in general and women in particular. Up to this time the editorial rooms had been in the fourth story of the New York World building, and the paper was printed on the fifth floor of another several blocks away, with no elevator in either. Miss Anthony made the trip from one to the other and climbed the seven flights of stairs half a dozen times a day for sixteen months. In 1869, Mrs. Elizabeth B. Phelps, a wealthy and practical philanthropist of New York City, purchased a large and elegant house on East Twenty-third street, near the Academy of Design, which she dedicated as the "Woman's Bureau." She proposed to rent the rooms wholly for women's clubs and societies and for enterprises conducted by women. The first floor was taken by The Revolution. The handsome and spacious parlors above were to be used for receptions, readings, concerts, etc., and it was Mrs. Phelps' intention to make the Bureau a center, not only for the women of New York, but for all those who might visit the city.

Notwithstanding all that had passed, Miss Anthony did not abate her labors for the Equal Rights Association and she worked unceasingly for the success of the approaching May Anniversary in New York, securing, among other advantages, half fare on all the railroads for delegates. Hundreds of letters were sent out from The Revolution office to distinguished people in all parts of the country and cordial answers were received, showing that the hostility against the paper and its editors was principally confined to a very small area. A private letter from Mrs. Stanton says: "We have written every one of the old friends, ignoring the past and urging them to come. We do so much desire to sink all petty considerations in the one united effort to secure woman suffrage. Though many unkind acts and words have been administered to us, which we have returned with sarcasm and ridicule, there are really only kind feelings in our souls for all the noble men and women who have fought for freedom during the last thirty years."

Under date of April 4, Mary A. Livermore wrote Miss Anthony, asking if she could secure a pass for her over the Erie road, and saying: "I have written to the New England friends to let bygones be bygones and come to the May meeting. It seems to me personal feelings should be laid aside and women should all pull together." After telling of the excellent prospects of her own suffrage paper, the Agitator, just started in Chicago, she continues: "It seems as if everybody who does not like The Revolution is bound to take the Agitator, which is very well, since they are detachments of the same corps. We must keep up a good understanding and work together. If you want to let people know there is no rivalry between us, you can announce that I am to send your paper fortnightly letters from the West detailing the progress of affairs here."

A cheery letter from Anna Dickinson says: "Work has run in easy grooves this winter—not that the travel has not often been exhausting and the roads wearisome; but that every one in this western world is ablaze with the grand question. Thank God, and hurrah! I feel in both moods. I hope you and that adorable cherub, E.C.S., are well, and that everything is flourishing as it should flourish with two such saints. As for me, the finger of care touches lightly; furthermore I am in a doubly delectable condition by reason of having my face set towards home, and beyond home is a vista of my Susan's countenance. Please, my dear, can't you meet this sinner at Cortlandt street, and then the sinner and the saint will have all the afternoon together somewhere, and that seems almost too good to be true?"

This was the beginning of a correspondence with Gail Hamilton, who wrote: "I regret to say that I can neither honor nor shame your anniversary with my presence. I have been out on a sixteen-months' cruise, fighting single handed for equal rights, and am now hauled up in dock for repairs. But you, I am sure, will be glad to know that, though much battered and tempest-tossed, I came into port with all sail set and every rag of bunting waving victory. This is a private note to you, and as you are but a landsman yourself, you will never know if my ropes are not knotted sailor-fashion."

The third aniversary of the Equal Rights Association opened at Steinway Hall, May 12, 1869, Mrs. Stanton presiding, and proved to be the most stormy and unsatisfactory meeting ever held. The usual brilliant galaxy of speakers was present, besides a number of prominent men and women who were just beginning to be heard on the woman suffrage platform. Among these were Olive Logan, Phoebe Couzins, Madam D'Hericourt, a French physician and writer, Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford, Rev. O.B. Frothingham, Hon. Henry Wilson, Rev. Gilbert Haven and others. There were also more delegates from the West, headed by Mrs. Livermore, than had been present at any previous meeting. The usual number of fine addresses were made and all promised fair, but Stephen S. Foster soon disturbed the harmony by suggesting that it was time for Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to withdraw from the association, as they had repudiated its principles and the Massachusetts society could no longer co-operate with them. This called forth indignant speeches from all parts of the house, and he was soon silenced.2

Frederick Douglass and several other men attempted to force the adoption of a resolution that "we gratefully welcome' the pending Fifteenth Amendment prohibiting disfranchisement on account of race and earnestly solicit the State legislatures to pass it without delay." Miss Anthony declared indignantly that she protested against this amendment because it did not mean equal rights; it put 2,000,000 colored men in the position of tyrants over 2,000,000 colored women, who until now had been at least the equals of the men at their side. She continued:

The question of precedence has no place on an equal rights platform. The only reason it ever forced itself here was because certain persons insisted that woman must stand back and wait until another class should be enfranchised. In answer we say: "If you will not give the whole loaf of justice to the entire people, if you are determined to extend the suffrage piece by piece, then give it first to women, to the most intelligent and capable of them at least. I remember a long discussion with Tilton and Phillips on this very question, when we were about to carry our petitions to the New York Constitutional Convention. Mr. Tilton said that we should urge the amendment to strike out the word 'white,'" and added: "The question of striking out the word 'male' we, as an equal rights association, shall of course present as an intellectual theory, but not as a practical thing to be accomplished at this convention." Mr. Phillips also emphasized this point; but I repudiated this downright insolence, when for fifteen years I had canvassed the entire State, county by county, with petition in hand asking for woman suffrage! To think that those two men, among the most progressive of the nation, should dare look me in the face and speak of this great principle for which I had toiled, as a mere intellectual theory!

If Mr. Douglass had noticed who applauded when he said "black men first and white women afterwards," he would have seen that it was only the men. When he tells us that the case of black men is so perilous, I tell him that even outraged as they are by the hateful prejudice against color, he himself would not today exchange his sex and color with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Mr. Douglass—"Will you allow me a question?"

Miss Anthony—"Yes, anything for a fight today."

Mr. Douglass—"I want to inquire whether granting to woman the right of suffrage will change anything in respect to the nature of our sexes."

Miss Anthony—"It will change the nature of one thing very much, and that is the dependent condition of woman. It will place her where she can earn her own bread, so that she may go out into the world an equal competitor in the struggle for life; so that she shall not be compelled to take such positions as men choose to accord and then accept such pay as men please to give.... It is not a question of precedence between women and black men; the business of this association is to demand for every man, black or white, and every woman, black or white, that they shall be enfranchised and admitted into the body politic with equal rights and privileges."

As everybody in the hall was allowed to vote there was no difficulty in securing the desired endorsement of an amendment to enfranchise negro men and make them the political superiors of all women. There never had been a convention so dominated by men. Although the audience refused to listen to most of them and drowned their voices by expressions of disapproval and calls for the women speakers, they practically wrested the control of the meeting from the hands of the women and managed it to suit themselves.

This was Mrs. Livermore's first appearance at one of these anniversaries and she created a commotion by introducing this resolution: "While we recognize the disabilities which legal marriage imposes upon woman as wife and mother, and while we pledge ourselves to seek their removal by putting her on equal terms with man, we abhorrently repudiate 'free loveism' as horrible and mischievous to society, and disown any sympathy with it." It was the first time the subject had been brought before a woman's rights convention and its introduction was indignantly resented by the "old guard." Lucy Stone exclaimed: "I feel it is a mortal shame to give any foundation for the implication that we favor 'free loveism.' I am ashamed that the question should be raised here. There should be nothing at all said about it. Do not let us, for the sake of our own self-respect, allow it to be hinted that we helped to forge a shadow of a chain which comes in the name of 'free love.' I am unwilling that it should be suggested that this great, sacred cause of ours means anything but what we have said it does. If any one says to us, 'Oh, I know what you mean, you mean free love by this agitation,' let the lie stick in his throat."

Mrs. Rose followed with a strong protest, saying: "I think it strange that the question of 'free love' should have been brought upon this platform. I object to Mrs. Livermore's resolution, not on account of its principles, but on account of its pleading guilty. When a man tries to convince me that he is not a thief, then I take care of my coppers. If we pass this resolution that we are not 'free lovers,' people will say, 'It is true that you are, for you try to hide it.' Lucretia Mott's name has been mentioned as a friend of 'free love,' but I hurl back the lie into the faces of those who uttered it. We have been thirty years in this city before the public, and it is an insult to all the women who have labored in this cause; it is an insult to the thousands and tens of thousands of men and women who have listened to us in our conventions, to say at this late hour, 'We are not free lovers.'"

The charge of "free love" was vigorously repudiated by Miss Anthony also, who closed the discussion by asserting: "This howl comes from the men who know that when women get their rights they will be able to live honestly and not be compelled to sell themselves for bread, either in or out of marriage. There are very few women in the world who would enter into this relationship with drunkards and libertines provided they could get their subsistence in any other way. We can not be frightened from our purpose, the public mind can not long be prejudiced by this 'free love' cry of our enemies." Olive Logan poured oil upon the troubled waters in a graceful speech, and the subject was dropped.

At each recurring anniversary the conviction had been growing that the term "equal rights" was too comprehensive, permitting entirely too much latitude as to speakers and subjects. Ever themselves having been repressed and silenced, when at last women made a platform on which they had a right to stand, they declared first of all for "free speech." They would not refuse to any human being what so long had been denied to them and, as a result, fanatics, visionaries and advocates of all reforms flocked to this platform, delighted to find such audiences. According to the tenets of the association, all speakers must have equal rights on their platform and there was no escape. Sometimes it was nothing more harmful than a man with a map to explain how the national debt could be paid without money, or a woman with a system of celestial kites by which she proposed to communicate with the other world. Occasionally the advocates of various political theories would secure possession, consuming the time and diverting attention from the main issue. At the convention just closed, the hobby-riders were present in greater force than ever before and it seemed imperative that some means should be adopted to shut them out thereafter. It was proposed to change the name to Woman Suffrage Association, which would bar all discussion of a miscellaneous character. There was a strong objection to this, however, because such action required three months' notice.

At the close of the convention a reception was held at the Woman's Bureau, Saturday evening, May 15, 1869, and attended by women from nineteen States who had come as representatives to the Equal Rights Association.3 At their earnest request, it was decided to form a new organization to be called the National Woman Suffrage Association, whose especial object should be a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, securing the ballot to the women of the nation on equal terms with men. A convention of officially appointed delegates was at that time impracticable, as there were but few local suffrage societies and still fewer State organizations. It was thought that although it might not be formed by delegates elected for this specific object, it would be sufficient for working purposes until the next spring when, the required three months' notice having been given, a permanent organization might be effected. Accordingly, a constitution was adopted and officers elected.4 The following week at Cooper Institute Anna Dickinson made her great speech for the rights of women, entitled "Nothing Unreasonable," to inaugurate the new National Woman Suffrage Association, and before an immense audience she pleaded for woman with the same beauty and eloquence as in days past she had pictured the wrongs of the slave and urged his emancipation.

The association was organized May 15, and on the 17th Mrs. Livermore wrote Miss Anthony from Boston: "I hope you are rested somewhat. I am very sorry for you, that you are carrying such heavy burdens. If you and I lived in the same city, I would relieve you of some of them, for I believe we might work together, with perhaps an occasional collision. Now I want you to answer these two questions: 1st.—Did you do anything in the way of organizing at the Saturday evening reunion, and if so, what? That Equal Rights Association is an awful humbug. I would not have come on to the anniversary, nor would any of us, if we had known what it was. We supposed we were coming to a woman suffrage convention. 2d.—If Mrs. Stanton will not go West to a series of meetings this fall and winter, would you dare undertake it with me alone? We must have strong people of established reputations. 'Only the Stanton, the Anthony, and the Livermore,' that is what the Chicago Tribune says...." Later, while still in Boston, she wrote again:

You are mistaken in thinking I exhorted the formation of a national suffrage association the Saturday night after the New York convention; I only advised talking it up. All agreed that it ought to be formed but that a preliminary call should be issued first. I am for a national organization with Mrs. Stanton, president, and with you as one of the executive committee, but I want it arrived at compatibly with parliamentary rules.... And now having asserted myself, let me say that I sympathize more with your energy and earnestness which lead you to override forms and rules than I do with the awfully proper and correct spirit that waits till everybody consents before it does anything. I have no doubt but we all shall join the National Association, each State by its elected members, when we hold our great Western Woman Suffrage Convention in Chicago next fall. Mrs. Stanton and you must both be present; we probably shall all vote together then to go into the National Association. Remember you are to make that series of conventions with me. I am depending on you.

The next November, in answer to a circular signed by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Caroline M. Severance, T.W. Higginson and George H. Vibbert, a call was issued resulting in a convention at Cleveland, O., to form another national suffrage association on the following basis of representation: "The delegates appointed by existing State organizations shall be admitted, provided their number does not exceed, in each case, that of the congressional delegation of the State. Should it fall short of that number, additional delegates may be admitted from local organizations, or from no organization whatever, provided the applicants be actual residents of the State they claim to represent." The American Suffrage Association was thus formed, with twenty-one States represented; Henry Ward Beecher, president; Henry B. Blackwell, Amanda Way, recording secretaries; Lucy Stone, chairman executive committee.

In the midst of her exacting duties and many annoyances, Miss Anthony found time to write numerous letters and obtain a testimonial for Ernestine L. Rose, who was about to return with her husband to England, after having given many years of valuable service to the women of America. She secured a handsome sum of money and a number of presents for her, and Mrs. Rose went on board ship laden with flowers and very happy and grateful. Miss Anthony wrote to Lucretia Mott: "Was it not a little funny that this unsentimental personage should have suggested the thing and stirred so many to do the sentimental, and yet could not even take the time to go to the wharf and say good-by? I spent Sunday evening with her and it is a great comfort to me that I helped others contribute to her pleasure." On the back of this letter, which was sent to her sister, Martha Wright, Mrs. Mott penned: "Think of the complaints made of Susan when she does so much and puts others up to doing, and always keeps herself in the background."

In the summer of 1869, under the auspices of the National Association, large and successful conventions were held at Saratoga and Newport in the height of the season. Of the former The Revolution said: "That a woman suffrage convention should have been allowed to organize in the parlors of Congress Hall, that those parlors should have been filled to their utmost capacity by the habitual guests of the place, that such men as ex-President Fillmore, Thurlow Weed, George Opdyke and any number of clergymen from different parts of the country, should have been interested lookers-on, are significant facts which may well carry dismay to the enemies of the cause. That the whole convention was conducted by women in a dignified, orderly and business-like manner, is a strong intimation that in spite of all which has been said to the contrary, women are capable of learning how to manage public affairs."

The following comment was made by Mrs. Stanton on the Newport convention: "So, obeying orders, we sailed across the Sound one bright moonlight night with a gay party of the 'disfranchised,' and found ourselves quartered on the enemy the next morning as the sun rose in all its resplendent glory. Although trunk after trunk—not of gossamers, laces and flowers, but of suffrage ammunition, speeches, petitions, resolutions, tracts, and folios of The Revolution—had been slowly carried up the winding stairs of the Atlantic, the brave men and fair women, who had tripped the light fantastic toe until the midnight hour, slept heedlessly on, wholly unaware that twelve apartments were already filled with the strong-minded invaders.... The audience throughout the convention was large, fashionable and as enthusiastic as the state of the weather would permit."

The Fourth of July was celebrated by the association in a beautiful grove in Westchester county, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Judge E.D. Culver and others making addresses. Weekly meetings of as many of its members as were in New York were held at the Woman's Bureau, a large number of practical questions relating to women were brought forward, and there was constant agitation and discussion. A note from the tax collector called forth this indignant answer from Miss Anthony:

I have your polite note informing me that as publisher of The Revolution, I am indebted to the United States in the sum of $14.10 for the tax on monthly sales of that journal. Enclosed you will find the amount, but you will please understand that I pay it under protest. The Revolution, you are aware, is a journal the main object of which is to apply to these degenerate times the great principle for which our ancestors fought, that taxation and representation should go together. I am not represented in the United States government, and yet it taxes me; and it taxes me, too, for publishing a paper the chief purpose of which is to rebuke the glaring inconsistency between its professions and its practices. Under the circumstances, the federal government ought to be ashamed to exact this tax of me....

On September 10 Miss Anthony attended the Great Western Woman Suffrage Convention at Chicago, where she spoke several times and was cordially received. She was the guest of Mrs. Kate N. Doggett, founder of the Fortnightly Club. From here she went to the St. Louis convention, October 6 and 7, which was especially distinguished because of the resolutions presented by Francis Minor, a prominent lawyer of that city, with an argument to prove that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, women already had a legal right to vote. These were supported by his wife, Virginia L. Minor, in a strong speech. They were the first thus to interpret this amendment. Ten thousand extra copies of The Revolution containing the resolutions and this speech were published, laid on the desk of every member of Congress, sent to the leading newspapers and circulated throughout the country. For a number of years the National Suffrage Association held to this construction of the amendment, until it was decided to the contrary by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Conventions were held in Cincinnati and Dayton, O. At the latter Miss Anthony gave a scathing review of the laws affecting married women, the control which they allowed the husband over the wife, children and property, making, however, no attack upon men but only upon laws. Each of the other speakers, all of whom were married, in turn took up the cudgel, and proceeded to tell how good her own husband was, and to say that if Miss Anthony only had a good husband she never would have made that speech, but each admitted that the men were better than the laws. In her closing remarks Miss Anthony used their own testimony against them and created great merriment in the audience. Whenever she commented on existing conditions or on general principles, individual men and women were sure to rush into the fray, making a personal application and waxing highly indignant. The Dayton Herald said of her evening address: "She made a clear, logical and lawyerlike argument, in sprightly language, that women being persons are citizens, and as citizens, voters. We think that none who examine her authorities and line of discussion can avoid her conclusions, and we are certain that many of the ablest jurists of the land have the honor (logically and legally) to coincide in her argument."

In 1869 Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker came actively into the suffrage work and proved a valuable ally. She had been much prejudiced against Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton by newspaper reports and by the misrepresentations of some of her acquaintances, and in order to overcome this feeling Paulina Wright Davis arranged that the three should visit her for several days at her home in Providence, R.I., saying in her invitation: "I once had a prejudice against Susan B. Anthony but am ashamed of it. I investigated carefully every charge made against her, and I now know her to be honest, honorable, generous and above all petty spites and jealousies." Mrs. Hooker was so delightfully disappointed in the two ladies that she became at once and forever their staunchest friend and advocate. To Caroline M. Severance she wrote:

I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week, and I have taken the testimony of those who have known her intimately for twenty years, and all are united in this resume of her character: She is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart. In unselfishness and benevolence she has scarcely an equal, and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power, which is something immense. Sometimes she fails in judgment, according to the standard of others, but in right intentions never, nor in faithfulness to her friends. I confess that after studying her carefully for days, and under the shadow of ——'s letters against her, and after attending a two-days' convention in Newport engineered by her in her own fashion, I am obliged to accept the most favorable interpretation of her which prevails generally, rather than that of Boston. Mrs. Stanton, too, is a magnificent woman, and the truest, womanliest one of us all. I have spent three days in her company, in the most intense, heart-searching debate I ever undertook in my life. I have handled what seemed to me to be her errors without gloves, and the result is that I love her as well as I do Miss Anthony. I hand in my allegiance to both as the leaders and representatives of the great movement.

Mrs. Hooker set about arranging a mass convention at her home in Hartford, Conn., and upon Miss Anthony's expressing some doubt as to being present, she wrote: "Here I am at work on a convention intended chiefly to honor Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, and behold the Quakeress says maybe she can not come! I won't have the meeting if you are going to flunk. It has been a real consolation to me in this wearisome business to think you would for once be relieved from all responsibility and come as orator and guest. Don't fail me."

The convention, which closed October 29, was a great success and a State society was formed with a distinguished list of officers. The Hartford Post gave considerable space to Miss Anthony's address, saying:

Miss Anthony is a resolute, substantial woman of forty or fifty, exhibiting no signs of age or weariness. Her hair is dark, her head well formed, her face has an expression of masculine strength. If she were a man you would guess that she was a schoolmaster, or a quiet clergyman, or perhaps a business man and deacon. She pays no special attention to feminine graces, but is not ungraceful or unwomanly. In speaking her manner is self-possessed without ranting or unpleasant demonstrations, her tones slightly monotonous. Long experience has taught her a candid, kindly, sensible way of presenting her views, which wins the good will of her hearers whether they accept them or not. She said in part:

"How different is this from the assemblages that used to greet us who twenty years ago commenced to agitate the enfranchisement of woman. We begin to see the time, which we shall gladly welcome, when we shall not be needed at the front of the battle. Of late years, the country has been occupied in discussing the claim of man to hold property in his fellow-man, and has decided the question in the negative. Still another form of slavery remains to be disposed of; the old idea yet prevails that woman is owned and possessed by man, to be clothed and fed and cared for by his generosity. All the wrongs, arrogances and antagonisms of modern society grow out of this false condition of the relations between man and woman. The present agitation rises from a demand of the soul of woman for the right to own and possess herself. It is said that as a rule man does sufficiently provide for woman, and that she ought to remain content. The great facts of the world are at war with this assumption.

"For example, I see in the New York Herald 1,200 advertisements of people wanting work. Upon examination, 500 of them come from women and 300 more are from boarding-house keepers; and we may therefore say that eight of the twelve hundred advertisements are from women compelled to rely upon their own energies to gain their food and clothing. Every morning from 6 to 7 o'clock you may see on the Bowery and other great north and south avenues of New York, troops of young girls and women, with careworn or crime-stained faces, carrying their poor lunch half-concealed beneath a scanty shawl. If the facts were in accordance with the common theory, we should not see these myriads of women thus thrust out to get their living. Society must either provide great establishments maintained by taxation to care for women, or else the doors of all trades and callings must be thrown wide open to them.... This woman's movement promises an entire change of the conditions of wages and support. The status of woman can not be materially changed while the subsistence question remains as at present."

Miss Anthony was entertained at the home of Governor Jewell, afterwards Postmaster-General. One morning she went over to Mrs. Hooker's and found all her guests at the breakfast table, Henry Ward Beecher, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Mrs. Severance, Mrs. Davis and others. She received a hearty welcome and Mrs. Hooker insisted she should sit down and have a cup of tea or coffee. Mr. Beecher joined in the entreaty, saying: "Now, Miss Anthony, you know you have to make a big speech today. When I want to be very effective and make people cry, I drink a cup of tea before speaking; when I want to be very clever and make them laugh, I drink coffee; but when I want them to cry half the time and laugh the other half, I take a cup of each."

In a letter to Miss Anthony after she returned home Mrs. Hooker said: "I am astonished at the praise I receive for my part in the convention, and humbled too, for I realize how worthy of all these pleasant and commendatory words you and others have been all these years, and what have you received—or rather what have you not received? Thank God, that is all over now and you are to have blue sky and clear sailing. It must be through suffering we enter the gates of peace." But the peace was a long way off and the hardest struggle was yet to come! A little later Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend:

I can't tell you how my heart swells—but there is present within me one undercurrent of feeling that will come to the surface ever and anon, viz., the wonderful dignity, strength and purity of the early workers in this reform. I can't wait for history to do them justice; I want to make history today, and so far as in me lies I will do it. I have come in at the death and get a large share of the glory, and lo, here are these, a great company, who have been in the field for thirty years, and a whole generation has passed them by unrecognized. Every one here says, "Our noble friend Susan has carried the day right over the heads of all of us." Said one of our editors, Charles Dudley Warner, a man of finest taste and culture, when he had been praising the dignity and power of the whole platform: "Susan Anthony is my favorite. She was the only woman there who never once thought of herself. You could see in her every motion and in her very silence that the cause was all she cared for, self was utterly forgotten."

He had indeed struck the key note to Miss Anthony's strongest characteristic, utter forgetfulness of self, total self-abnegation, self-sacrifice without a consciousness that it was such. Mrs. Hooker's statement that she "had come in at the death" shows the strong faith of most of these early workers that it would be only a brief time until the rights they claimed would be recognized and granted; but she herself has labored faithfully yet another thirty years without breaking down the Chinese Wall of opposition.

One object of Mrs. Hooker in calling this Hartford convention was to see if she could not bring together what were now becoming known as "the New York and Boston wings of the suffrage party," but she comments: "We have decided to give up our attempts at reconciliation; we have neither time nor strength to spare, and if we had, they would probably fail."

In December Miss Anthony went to the Dansville Sanitarium for a few days and after her return, Dr. Kate Jackson, so widely known and loved, wrote her: "Since your visit here, through which I obtained somewhat of an insight into your struggles and labors, I have been in special sympathy with you. I do admire the liberal and comprehensive spirit which you and Mrs. Stanton show in allowing both sides of a question to be fairly discussed in your paper, and in giving any woman who does good work for her race in any field the credit for it, even though she may not exactly agree with you on all points. The spirit of exclusiveness is not calculated to push any reform among the masses.... Our house and hearts are always open to you. I want to send you something more than good wishes and so enclose a little New Year's gift to you, with my love and earnest prayers for your success."

The lovely Quaker, Sarah Pugh, wrote from Philadelphia:

Dear Susan: Not "Dear Madam," or "Respected Friend," according to our stately fashion, for my heart yearns too warmly toward thee and thy work for such formality. Would it were in my power to help thee more in thy onward way, for it must be onward even though opponents fill it with stumbling-blocks. Lucretia Mott is firm in her adherence to New York—not but that she can work, if the way offers, in all organizations which labor for the same end. My opinion of The Revolution may be expressed in what was said of another paper: "It fights no sham battles with enemies already defeated. It is true, good men and women not a few stumble at it, object to it and in some cases antagonize it, but nobody despises it. An affectation of contempt is not contempt."

Scores of similar letters were received from the early workers in the cause. It is unnecessary to enter further into a discussion of this division in the ranks of the advocates of woman suffrage. The conscientious historian must perform some unpleasant duties, hence it could not be passed without notice. The mass of correspondence on this question has been carefully sifted and that which would give pain to others, even though it would magnify the subject of this work, has been rigorously excluded. Most of the writers and those whom they criticised have ended their labors and passed from the scene of action. No good can be accomplished, either to the individuals or to the reform, by inflicting these personalities upon future generations. Among earnest, forceful, aggressive leaders of any great movement, there must arise controversies because of these strong characteristics, but the chief interest of mankind lies not in the individuals but in the results which they were able to accomplish. A comparison of the position of woman today with that which she occupied at the beginning of the agitation in her behalf, fifty years ago, offers more eloquent testimony to the efforts of those heroic pioneers than could be put into words by the most gifted pen.

1. It is claimed, on good authority, that Anna Dickinson was the first to suggest that such an amendment would be required, as early as 1866, in a consultation with Theodore Tilton and Frederick Douglass at the National Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia, as the only sure method of protecting the freedmen. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.

2. In reference to this unwarranted attack, the noted writer, William Winter, said in the New York Tribune:

"Noble, virtuous, honorable women are a country's greatest wealth, and when, from petty envy or jealousy, any one attempts with private innuendoes or public assaults to blacken a fair name which has long stood before the nation representing a principle, it is an injury not only to the individual but to the moral sense of the nation, and all true people are interested in maintaining its integrity and power. Susan B. Anthony has stood before this nation twenty years, earnestly devoted to every good work. As a teacher in the schools of New York for fifteen years, she bears from superintendents the highest testimonials to her faithfulness and ability. Her noble labors in the temperance cause are known throughout the State, and in association with the true men and women who fought the anti-slavery battle, she was equally faithful and earnest, finishing her work by getting up a petition for the black man's freedom of 400,000 names—the largest ever presented in Congress. For woman's enfranchisement her labors have been unremitting and unwearied for the last eighteen years. She is a frank, generous, self-sacrificing woman, of a kind, tender nature, firm principle, great executive ability, and in every relation of life true as the needle to the pole. Her motto has ever been, 'Let the weal and the woe of humanity be everything to me; their praise and their blame of no effect.'"

3. Maine 3, Vermont 1, New Hampshire 1, Massachusetts 5, Rhode Island 2, Connecticut 1, New Jersey 7, Pennsylvania 3, Illinois 3, Ohio 3, Wisconsin 1, Minnesota 1, Missouri 3, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, California 5, District of Columbia 3, Washington Territory 1-46. The remainder of the one hundred members who joined the association that evening resided in different parts of the State of New York.

4. President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vice-presidents, Elizabeth B. Phelps, N.Y.; Anna Dickinson, Penn.; Kate N. Doggett, Ill.; Madame Anneke, Wis.; Lucy Elmes, Conn.; Mattie Griffith Brown, Mass.; Mrs. Nicholas Smith, Kan.; Lucy A. Snow, Maine; Elizabeth B. Schenck, Cal.; Josephine S. Griffing, D.C.; Paulina Wright Davis, R.I.; Mary Foote Henderson, Phoebe W. Cousins, Mo. Corresponding secretaries, Laura Curtis Bullard, Ida Greeley, Adelaide Hallock. Recording secretaries, Abby Burton Crosby, Sarah E. Fuller. Treasurer, Elizabeth Smith Miller. Executive committee, Ernestine L. Rose, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Mathilda F. Wendt, Mary F. Gilbert, Susan B. Anthony. Advisory counsel, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N.Y.; Mrs. Francis Minor, Mo.; Adeline Thomson, Penn,; Mrs. M.B. Longley, Ohio; Mrs. J.P. Root, Kan.; Lilie Peckham, Wis.