SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
The reports of the conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.Y.,
in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most
important part in the new movement--Susan B. Anthony, who, for her
courage and executive ability, was facetiously called by William Henry
Channing, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in
the academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of
the Mohawk.
"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions
startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and
presumption of the demand. But, on returning home to spend her vacation,
she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sister,
having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable
and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was
already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, was an
active member of an organization called "The Daughters of Temperance,"
and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel
of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response in her mind, and, from that
time, her best efforts have been given to the enfranchisement of women.
As, from this time, my friend is closely connected with my narrative
and will frequently appear therein, a sketch of her seems appropriate.
Lord Bacon has well said: "He that hath wife and children hath given
hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises
either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest
merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless
men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the
public."
This bit of Baconian philosophy, as alike applicable to women, was the
subject, not long since, of a conversation with a remarkably gifted
Englishwoman. She was absorbed in many public interests and had
conscientiously resolved never to marry, lest the cares necessarily
involved in matrimony should make inroads upon her time and thought, to
the detriment of the public good. "Unless," said she, "some women
dedicate themselves to the public service, society is robbed of needed
guardians for the special wants of the weak and unfortunate. There
should be, in the secular world, certain orders corresponding in a
measure to the grand sisterhoods of the Catholic Church, to the members
of which, as freely as to men, all offices, civic and ecclesiastical,
should be open." That this ideal will be realized may be inferred from
the fact that exceptional women have, in all ages, been leaders in great
projects of charity and reform, and that now many stand waiting only the
sanction of their century, ready for wide altruistic labors.
The world has ever had its vestal virgins, its holy women, mothers of
ideas rather than of men; its Marys, as well as its Marthas, who, rather
than be busy housewives, preferred to sit at the feet of divine wisdom,
and ponder the mysteries of the unknown. All hail to Maria Mitchell,
Harriet Hosmer, Charlotte Cushman, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Louisa Alcott,
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Frances Willard, and Clara Barton! All honor to
the noble women who have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual and
moral needs of mankind!
Susan B. Anthony was of sturdy New England stock, and it was at the foot
of Old Greylock, South Adams, Mass., that she gave forth her first
rebellious cry. There the baby steps were taken, and at the village
school the first stitches were learned, and the A B C duly mastered.
When five winters had passed over Susan's head, there came a time of
great domestic commotion, and, in her small way, the child seized the
idea that permanence is not the rule of life. The family moved to
Battenville, N.Y., where Mr. Anthony became one of the wealthiest men in
Washington County. Susan can still recall the stately coldness of the
great house--how large the bare rooms, with their yellow-painted floors,
seemed, in contrast with her own diminutiveness, and the outlook of the
schoolroom where for so many years, with her brothers and sisters, she
pursued her studies under private tutors.
Mr. Anthony was a stern Hicksite Quaker. In Susan's early life he
objected on principle to all forms of frivolous amusement, such as
music, dancing, or novel reading, while games and even pictures were
regarded as meaningless luxuries. Such puritanical convictions might
have easily degenerated into mere cant; but underlying all was a broad
and firm basis of wholesome respect for individual freedom and a brave
adherence to truth. He was a man of good business capacity, and a
thorough manager of his wide and lucrative interests. He saw that
compensation and not chance ruled in the commercial world, and he
believed in the same just, though often severe, law in the sphere of
morals. Such a man was not apt to walk humbly in the path mapped out by
his religious sect. He early offended by choosing a Baptist for a wife.
For this first offense he was "disowned," and, according to Quaker
usage, could only be received into fellowship again by declaring himself
"sorry" for his crime in full meeting. He was full of devout
thankfulness for the good woman by his side, and destined to be thankful
to the very end for this companion, so calm, so just, so far-seeing. He
rose in meeting, and said he was "sorry" that the rules of the society
were such that, in marrying the woman he loved, he had committed
offense! He admitted that he was "sorry" for something, so was taken
back into the body of the faithful! But his faith had begun to weaken in
many minor points of discipline. His coat soon became a cause of offense
and called forth another reproof from those buttoned up in conforming
garments. The petty forms of Quakerism began to lose their weight with
him altogether, and he was finally disowned for allowing the village
youth to be taught dancing in an upper room of his dwelling. He was
applied to for this favor on the ground that young men were under great
temptation to drink if the lessons were given in the hotel; and, being a
rigid temperance man, he readily consented, though his principles, in
regard to dancing, would not allow his own sons and daughters to join in
the amusement. But the society could accept no such discrimination in
what it deemed sin, nor such compromise with worldly frivolity, and so
Mr. Anthony was seen no more in meeting. But, in later years, in
Rochester he was an attentive listener to Rev. William Henry Channing.
The effect of all this on Susan is the question of interest. No doubt
she early weighed the comparative moral effects of coats cut with capes
and those cut without, of purely Quaker conjugal love and that
deteriorated with Baptist affection. Susan had an earnest soul and a
conscience tending to morbidity; but a strong, well-balanced body and
simple family life soothed her too active moral nature and gave the
world, instead of a religious fanatic, a sincere, concentrated worker.
Every household art was taught her by her mother, and so great was her
ability that the duty demanding especial care was always given into her
hands. But ever, amid school and household tasks, her day-dream was
that, in time, she might be a "high-seat" Quaker. Each Sunday, up to the
time of the third disobedience, Mr. Anthony went to the Quaker meeting
house, some thirteen miles from home, his wife and children usually
accompanying him, though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded
from all business discussions. Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright
days of summer; but, on one occasion in December, decidedly unpleasant
for the seven-year-old Susan. When the blinds were drawn, at the close
of the religious meeting, and non-members retired, Susan sat still. Soon
she saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the "high
seat." Approaching her, the Quakeress said softly, "Thee is not a
member--thee must go out." "No; my mother told me not to go out in the
cold," was the child's firm response. "Yes, but thee must go out--thee
is not a member." "But my father is a member." "Thee is not a member,"
and Susan felt as if the spirit was moving her and soon found herself in
outer coldness. Fingers and toes becoming numb, and a bright fire in a
cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel
resolved to seek secular shelter. But alas! she was confronted by a huge
dog, and just escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket. We may be
sure there was much talk, that night, at the home fireside, and the good
Baptist wife declared that no child of hers should attend meeting again
till made a member. Thereafter, by request of her father, Susan became a
member of the Quaker church.
Later, definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony's heart. Hers is,
indeed, a sincerely religious nature. To be a simple, earnest Quaker was
the aspiration of her girlhood; but she shrank from adopting the formal
language and plain dress. Dark hours of conflict were spent over all
this, and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of
unworthiness. Poor little Susan! As we look back with the knowledge of
our later life, we translate the heart-burnings as unconscious protests
against labeling your free soul, against testing your reasoning
conviction of to-morrow by any shibboleth of to-day's belief. We hail
this child-intuition as a prophecy of the uncompromising truthfulness of
the mature woman. Susan Anthony was taught simply that she must enter
into the holy of holies of her own self, meet herself, and be true to
the revelation. She first found words to express her convictions in
listening to Rev. William Henry Channing, whose teaching had a lasting
spiritual influence upon her. To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic. As to
the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon she does
not profess to know anything. Every energy of her soul is centered upon
the needs of this world. To her, work is worship. She has not stood
aside, shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty, but has moved on
with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus, in
darkest hours, has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final
perfection of all things. Her belief is not orthodox, but it is
religious. In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic; in the era of
the Reformation, a Calvinist; in King Charles' time, a Puritan; but in
this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a
Reformer.
For the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young
womanhood had given preparation. Her father, though a man of wealth,
made it a matter of conscience to train his girls, as well as his boys,
to self-support. Accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher, and
made her first essay during a summer vacation in a school her father had
established for the children of his employés. Her success was so marked,
not only in imparting knowledge, but also as a disciplinarian, that she
followed this career steadily for fifteen years, with the exception of
some months given in Philadelphia to her own training. Of the many
school rebellions which she overcame, one rises before me, prominent in
its ludicrous aspect. This was in the district school at Center Falls,
in the year 1839. Bad reports were current there of male teachers driven
out by a certain strapping lad. Rumor next told of a Quaker maiden
coming to teach--a Quaker maiden of peace principles. The anticipated
day and Susan arrived. She looked very meek to the barbarian of fifteen,
so he soon began his antics. He was called to the platform, told to lay
aside his jacket, and, thereupon, with much astonishment received from
the mild Quaker maiden, with a birch rod applied calmly but with
precision, an exposition of the _argumentum ad hominem_ based on the _a
posteriori_ method of reasoning. Thus Susan departed from her
principles, but not from the school.
But, before long, conflicts in the outside world disturbed our young
teacher. The multiplication table and spelling book no longer enchained
her thoughts; larger questions began to fill her mind. About the year
1850 Susan B. Anthony hid her ferule away. Temperance, anti-slavery,
woman suffrage,--three pregnant questions,--presented themselves,
demanding her consideration. Higher, ever higher, rose their appeals,
until she resolved to dedicate her energy and thought to the burning
needs of the hour. Owing to early experience of the disabilities of her
sex, the first demand for equal rights for women found echo in Susan's
heart. And, though she was in the beginning startled to hear that women
had actually met in convention, and by speeches and resolutions had
declared themselves man's peer in political rights, and had urged
radical changes in State constitutions and the whole system of American
jurisprudence; yet the most casual review convinced her that these
claims were but the logical outgrowth of the fundamental theories of our
republic.
At this stage of her development I met my future friend and coadjutor
for the first time. How well I remember the day! George Thompson and
William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in
Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These gentlemen were my
guests. Walking home, after the adjournment, we met Mrs. Bloomer and
Miss Anthony on the corner of the street, waiting to greet us. There she
stood, with her good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray
delaine, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons,
the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why
I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know. She
accuses me of that neglect, and has never forgiven me, as she wished to
see and hear all she could of our noble friends. I suppose my mind was
full of what I had heard, or my coming dinner, or the probable behavior
of three mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises
while I was at the meeting.
That I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical
experiments these young savages might try the reader will admit, when
informed of some of their performances. Henry imagined himself possessed
of rare powers of invention (an ancestral weakness for generations), and
so made a life preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on his
brother, who was about eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of
expectant boys, the baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the
Seneca, stripped, the string of corks tied under his arms, and set
afloat in the river, the philosopher and his satellites, in a rowboat,
watching the experiment. The baby, accustomed to a morning bath in a
large tub, splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was
as blue as indigo and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious
mother. The next day the same victimized infant was seen, by a passing
friend, seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without
alarming anyone, the friend hurried up to the housetop and rescued the
child. Another time the three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy,
and locked up the fourth, Theodore, in the smoke-house. Fortunately, he
sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was set free in safety, whereupon
the three were imprisoned in a garret with two barred windows. They
summarily kicked out the bars, and, sliding down on the lightning rod,
betook themselves to the barn for liberty. The youngest boy, Gerrit,
then only five years old, skinned his hands in the descent. This is a
fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of
motherhood.
It was 'mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote
addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational, and woman's rights
conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions,
agricultural reports, and constitutional arguments; for we made it a
matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every
question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. To this end we
took turns on the domestic watchtowers, directing amusements, settling
disputes, protecting the weak against the strong, and trying to secure
equal rights to all in the home as well as the nation. I can recall many
a stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter. It is
pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his victims,
and only once came near fatally shooting himself with a pistol. The ball
went through his hand; happily a brass button prevented it from
penetrating his heart.
It is often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been
my good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for
her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have. On
the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she
fired them. Perhaps all this is, in a measure, true. With the cares of a
large family I might, in time, like too many women, have become wholly
absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been
continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description
of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in
which woman had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily
roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand into the midst of
their assembly.
Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I
knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam was to be set by
the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau,
stuffed with facts, was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John
Smith and Hon. Richard Roe had said: false interpretations of Bible
texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of
some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some disgraceful
trial; injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and
puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers,
or a petition to the legislature; indite letters to the faithful, here
and there; stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Massachusetts;
call on _The Lily, The Una, The Liberator, The Standard_ to remember our
wrongs as well as those of the slave. We never met without issuing a
pronunciamento on some question. In thought and sympathy we were one,
and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In
writing we did better work than either could alone. While she is slow
and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better
writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I
the philosophy and rhetoric, and, together, we have made arguments that
have stood unshaken through the storms of long years; arguments that no
one has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of
our two brains.
So entirely one are we that, in all our associations, ever side by side
on the same platform, not one feeling of envy or jealousy has ever
shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each other
when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but in our
friendship of years there has never been the break of one hour. To the
world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other. Like
husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have no differences
in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to survey the state and
nation, the future field of our labors. We read, with critical eyes, the
proceedings of Congress and legislatures, of general assemblies and
synods, of conferences and conventions, and discovered that, in all
alike, the existence of woman was entirely ignored.
Night after night, by an old-fashioned fireplace, we plotted and planned
the coming agitation; how, when, and where each entering wedge could be
driven, by which women might be recognized and their rights secured.
Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and
teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near that
women delegates had suddenly appeared, demanding admission in men's
conventions; that their rights had been hotly contested session after
session, by liberal men on the one side, the clergy and learned
professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women
with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over
and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the
bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly
exposed. Every right achieved, to enter a college, to study a
profession, to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform
measure was contended for inch by inch.
Many of those enjoying all these blessings now complacently say, "If
these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more
judiciously, in a more ladylike manner, in more choice language, with a
more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so
rudely." I give, in these pages, enough of the characteristics of these
women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry,
and position to show that no power could have met the prejudice and
bigotry of that period more successfully than they did who so bravely
and persistently fought and conquered them.
Miss Anthony first carried her flag of rebellion into the State
conventions of teachers, and there fought, almost single-handed, the
battle for equality. At the close of the first decade she had compelled
conservatism to yield its ground so far as to permit women to
participate in all debates, deliver essays, vote, and hold honored
positions as officers. She labored as sincerely in the temperance
movement, until convinced that woman's moral power amounted to little as
a civil agent, until backed by ballot and coined into State law. She
still never loses an occasion to defend co-education and prohibition,
and solves every difficulty with the refrain, "woman suffrage," as
persistent as the "never more" of Poe's raven.