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.[39]

[Autograph: B.F. Wade]

[Autograph: With the respects of B. Gratz Brown]

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.

[Illustration: Lucretia Mott]

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!"

[Footnote 36: See Appendix for this address.]

[Footnote 37: '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.]

[Footnote 38: 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."]

[Footnote 39: See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II; p. 103.]

CHAPTER XVII.

CAMPAIGNS IN NEW YORK AND KANSAS.

1867.

The first three months of 1867 were spent by Miss Anthony and a corps

of speakers in a series of conventions throughout the State of New York

in order to secure for women a representation in the Constitutional

Convention. The history of these was that of many which had preceded

them, large crowds and much enthusiasm in some places, small audiences

and chilling receptions at others. The press comments were generally

fair, but occasionally there was a weak attempt at wit or satire. For

instance, the editor of the Buffalo Commercial thus replied through his

columns to a polite note from Miss Anthony enclosing an advertisement

of the convention and requesting that the blank space left be filled

with the names of places where tickets usually were sold, the bill to

be sent to her:

By reference to the notice which we publish elsewhere, it will be

seen that we have complied with the request of Susan, except in

giving the names of places where tickets are to be had. "The bars

of the principal hotels" suggested itself; but then it occurred to

us that perhaps some of our strong-minded female fellow-citizens

might not like to go to these places for cards of admission. Then

we thought of inserting "for freight or passage apply to the

captain on board;" but we did not know whether Susan or Elizabeth

was captain, and a row might have resulted, in which case the

former would probably become "black-eyed Susan." We finally

concluded not to meddle with the matter but to let Susan and

Elizabeth do as the man insisted upon doing who enacted the part of

the king in the play, and who profanely declared that as he _was_

king, he would die just where he d---- pleased. The girls can sell

tickets just where "they've a mind ter." We may not be able to give

the proposed meeting "frequent editorial notice;" still the

probabilities are that we shall allude to it if we live and do

well, and we shan't charge Susan a cent for our services. We would

not have it said, nor would we have you, "O Susan, Susan, lovely

dear," imagine that we are ag'in "the one true basis of a genuine

republic."

And yet, after all this, the freedom-loving General Rufus Saxton had

the courage to preside at the meeting and introduce the speakers. He

subsequently wrote: "I pray that God will bless your noble work and

that, sooner than you think, woman shall be admitted to her proper

place, where God intended she should be, and to exclude her from which

must, like any other great wrong, bring misery and sorrow." The Troy

Times said:

The last time we heard Miss Anthony speak was in 1861, shortly

after the election of Lincoln when, it will be remembered, she was

mobbed from city to city. Since then time and the various

undertakings in which she has engaged have apparently had no effect

upon her, unless to render her more eloquent and more sanguine of

the ultimate righting of all wrongs, and to inspire additional

enthusiasm for a cause to which she has clung with a perseverance

deserving admiration. She is very choice in the selection of words

and phrases, speaks in an earnest, attractive monotone, and really

made one of the most eloquent and sensible speeches for female

suffrage to which we ever listened.

At Fairfield, Herkimer Co., Miss Anthony spoke in the presence of a

large number of students from the academy and, at the close of her

address, there were vigorous calls for the wife of the principal, who

was known to be opposed to any phase of so-called woman's rights. She

finally responded and, in the course of her remarks, said that when she

was a teacher she used to believe that women should receive the same

salary as men, but since she had married and realized the

responsibilities of a man of family, she had been converted to the

belief that men should receive more than women. Miss Anthony at once

retorted: "It would seem then, that so long as you were earning your

own living you wanted a good salary, but so soon as you give your

services to a husband, you want him to receive the value of both your

work and his own, regardless of those women who still have to support

themselves and very often a family." The fact that the lady was her

hostess did not save her from this merited rebuke, which was heartily

appreciated and enjoyed by the students.

In these tours the burden of the preliminary arrangements always was

assumed by Miss Anthony. When Mrs. Stanton and she reached a place

where a meeting was to be held, the former would go at once to bed,

while the latter rushed to the newspaper offices to look after the

advertising, then to the hall to see that all was in readiness, and

usually conducted the afternoon session alone. In the evening Mrs.

Stanton would appear, rested and radiant, and read a carefully written

address, while Miss Anthony, exhausted and having had no time to

prepare a speech, would make a few impromptu remarks as best she could.

Then the papers would comment on the difference between the beautiful

and amiable Mrs. Stanton and the aggressive and jaded Miss Anthony, and

attribute it to the fact that one was a wife and the other a

spinster.[40]

At Albany Miss Anthony arranged with Charles J. Folger, chairman of the

Senate Judiciary Committee, for an address by Mrs. Stanton, which was

given January 13, 1867, before the joint committees, in the Assembly

chamber, crowded with men and women. She based her claim on the

assumption that when a new constitution is demanded, the State is

resolved into its original elements and all the people have a right to

a voice in its reconstruction, supporting her position by an imposing

array of legal authorities. Of the discussion by the legislators, which

followed the address, Mr. Pillsbury wrote to the Hallowells: "Their

arguments against universal suffrage Susan could have extinguished with

her thimble."

While Miss Anthony was in Albany she learned that a member from New

York City had presented a bill to license houses of ill-repute, and she

protested to Judge Folger. He told her that this was a subject which

could not be publicly discussed, especially by women. She replied that

if there were any attempt to pass the bill she would arouse the women

and it should be discussed from one end of the State to the other. The

bill never was taken up.

In answer to an invitation to be present at Albany, Mr. Beecher sent

his regrets as follows:

I should certainly come and contribute my share of influence if I

were not tied hand and foot. I am to preside and speak on Wednesday

night in my own church; on Thursday I preside and introduce a

lecturer at the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn; on Friday, at Cooper

Institute, I have a speech to make for the starving people of the

South; and on Saturday, at the same place, a speech for the

Cretans. These are but the punctuations of my main business, which,

just now, is to write a novel for Bonner, at which I am working

every forenoon. I have also a matter of two sermons every week to

prepare. I write these details, because our friend Studwell

intimates to me that you feel I do not care to be identified with

this movement in such a way as to take the unpopularity of the

women chiefly engaged in it. I should be unwilling to have you

think so. I have never belonged even to an anti-slavery society,

Christian or heathen. I am willing to take my stand with anybody on

great issues or objects, but in regard to the organizations and

instruments by which to attain the end, I have always let others

work their way and I mine. I think there is a touch of wildness in

my blood (some of my ancestors must have nursed an Indian breast)

which is impatient of the harness and so I have always worked on my

own hook. I am surprised to see how rapidly the thoughts of

intelligent men and women are ameliorating on this question. It

needs only that women should have a conscience educated to this

duty of suffrage, and it will be yielded.

Early in March the Legislature of Kansas submitted two amendments, one

enfranchising the negroes and one the women. State Senator Samuel N.

Wood wrote Miss Anthony that an equal rights convention had been called

to meet in Topeka, April 2, and urged her to send out the strongest

speakers to canvass the State in behalf of the woman suffrage

amendment. This was the first time the enfranchisement of women ever

had been presented for a popular vote and its advocates were most

anxious that it should be carried. Neither Miss Anthony nor Mrs.

Stanton could go to Kansas at this time, so they appealed to Lucy

Stone, begging her to make the campaign. Since her marriage, twelve

years before, she had been practically out of public work, insisting

that she had lost her power for speaking. Miss Anthony assured her that

if she would take the platform it would come back to her, and Mr.

Blackwell joined in the entreaty. He gave up his business position to

accompany his wife and they made a thorough canvass of that State

during April and May. Mr. Phillips was unwilling that any money from

the Jackson fund should be used for this purpose, as he did not want

the question agitated at this time, but as Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone

constituted a majority of the committee, they appropriated $1,500 for

it. Even thus early in the contest the Republican managers began to

show their hand. Lucy Stone wrote from Atchison May 9:

I should be glad to be with you tomorrow at the equal rights

convention in New York and to know this minute whether Phillips has

consented to take the high ground which sound policy, as well as

justice and statesmanship require. Just now there is a plot here to

get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and canvass only

for the word "white." A call has been signed by the chairman of the

Republican State Central Committee, for a meeting at Topeka on the

15th, to pledge the party to that single issue. As soon as we saw

it and the change of tone in some of the papers, we sent letters to

all those whom we had found true, urging them to be at Topeka and

vote for both words. Till this action of the Republicans is

settled, we can affirm nothing. Everywhere we go, we have the

largest and most enthusiastic meetings and any one of our audiences

would give a majority for women; but the negroes are all against

us. _These men ought not to be allowed to vote before we do_

because they will be so much more dead weight to lift.

Again she wrote of the situation in Kansas:

The Tribune and Independent alone, if they would urge universal

suffrage as they do negro suffrage, could carry this whole nation

upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to

hold and not use!.... They must take it up. I shall see them the

very first thing when I get home. At your meeting next Monday

evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used

for the Standard and anti-slavery purposes since slavery was

abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which

by the express terms of the will were to receive _all_ of the fund

when slavery should be ended. I trust you will not fail to rebuke

the cowardly use of the terms "universal," "impartial" and "equal,"

applied to hide a dark skin and an unpopular client.... I hope not

a man will be asked to speak at the convention. If they volunteer,

very well, but I have been for the last time on my knees to

Phillips, Higginson or any of them. If they help now, they should

ask us and not we them.

On May 9 and 10 the Equal Rights Association held its first anniversary

in New York, at the Church of the Puritans. Cordial and encouraging

letters were received from Lydia Maria Child, Anna Dickinson, Clara

Barton, Mary A. Livermore and many other distinguished women. While

there were the usual number of able speeches, the strongest discussion

was on the following resolution, offered by Miss Anthony: "The proposal

to reconstruct our government on the basis of manhood suffrage, which

emanated from the Republican party and has received the recent sanction

of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is but a continuation of the old

system of class and caste legislation, always cruel and proscriptive in

itself and ending, in all ages, in national degradation and

revolution." Henry Ward Beecher spoke eloquently in its favor, saying

in part:

[Autograph:

Yours truly,

L. Maria Child.]

I am not a farmer, but I know that spring comes but once in the

year. When the furrow is open is the time to put in your seed, if

you would gather a harvest in its season. Now, when the red-hot

plowshare of war has opened a furrow in this nation, is the time to

put in the seed. If any say to me, "Why will you agitate the woman

question when it is the hour for the black man?" I answer, it is

the hour for every man and every woman, black or white. The bees go

out in the morning to gather the honey from the morning-glories.

They take it when they are open, for by 10 o'clock they are shut,

never to open again. When the public mind is open, if you have

anything to say, say it. If you have any radical principles to

urge, any higher wisdom to make known, don't wait until quiet times

come, until the public mind shuts up altogether.

We are in the favored hour; and if you have great principles to

make known, this is the time to advocate them. I therefore say

whatever truth is to be known for the next fifty years in this

nation, let it be spoken now--let it be enforced now. The truth

that I have to urge is not that women have the right of

suffrage--not that Chinamen or Irishmen have that right--not that

native born Yankees have it--but that suffrage is the inherent

right of mankind.... I do not put back for a single day the black

man's enfranchisement. I ask not that he should wait. I demand that

this work should be done, not upon the ground that it is

politically expedient now to enfranchise black men; but I propose

that you take expediency out of the way, and put a principle which

is more enduring in the place of it--manhood and womanhood suffrage

for all. That is the question. You may just as well meet it now as

at any other time. You will never have so favorable an occasion, so

sympathetic a heart, never a public reason so willing to be

convinced as today.... I believe it is just as easy to carry the

enfranchisement of all as of any one class, and easier than to

carry it class after class.

[Autograph:

and believe me

very truly yours,

H. W. Beecher]

The resolution was adopted unanimously, as was also a memorial to

Congress, written by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, asking most

earnestly that the negro should be enfranchised, but just as earnestly

that the suffrage should be conferred on woman at the same time. The

leading thought was expressed in these beautiful words:

We believe that humanity is one in all those intellectual, moral

and spiritual attributes out of which grow human responsibilities.

The Scripture declaration is, "So God created man in his own image,

male and female created he them," and all divine legislation

throughout the realm of nature recognizes the perfect equality of

the two conditions; for male and female are but different

conditions. Neither color nor sex is ever discharged from obedience

to law, natural or moral, written or unwritten. The commandments

thou shalt not steal, or kill, or commit adultery, recognize no

sex; and hence we believe that all human legislation which is at

variance with the divine code, is essentially unrighteous and

unjust....

Women and colored men are loyal, liberty-loving citizens, and we

can not believe that sex or complexion should be any ground for

civil or political degradation. Against such outrage on the very

name of a republic we do and ever must protest; and is not our

protest against this tyranny of "taxation without representation"

as just as that thundered from Bunker Hill, when our Revolutionary

fathers fired the shot which shook the world?... We respectfully

and earnestly pray that, in restoring the foundations of our

nationality, all discriminations on account of sex or race may be

removed; and that our government may be republican in fact as well

as form; A GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE; FOR THE

PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE.

This was the last convention ever held in the old historic Church of

the Puritans. It soon passed into other hands, and where once sparkled

and scintillated flashes of repartee and gems of oratory, now glitter

and shine the magnificent jewels in the great establishment of Tiffany.

After this May Anniversary Miss Anthony prepared to go before the New

York Constitutional Convention with speeches and petitions for the

recognition of women in the new constitution. The necessary

arrangements involved an immense amount of labor, and her diary says:

"My trips from Albany to New York and back are like the flying of the

shuttle in the loom of the weaver." At this hearing, June 27, 1867,

after Mrs. Stanton had finished her address she announced that they

would answer any questions, whereupon Mr. Greeley said in his drawling

monotone: "Miss Anthony, you know the ballot and the bullet go

together. If you vote, are you ready to fight?" Instantly she retorted:

"Yes, Mr. Greeley, just as you fought in the late war--at the point of

a goose-quill!" After the merriment had subsided, he continued: "When

should this inalienable right of suffrage commence for young men and

foreigners? Have we the right to say when it shall begin?" Miss Anthony

replied: "My right as a human being is as good as that of any other

human being. If you have a right to vote at twenty-one, then I have.

All we ask is that you shall take down the bars and let the women and

the negroes in, then we will settle all these matters." The Tribune

report said this was received with "loud and prolonged applause."

Miss Anthony continued with great vivacity: "Can you show me any class

possessed of the franchise which is shut out of schools or degraded in

the labor market, or any class but women and negroes denied any

privilege they show themselves possessed of capacity to attain? Since

you refuse to grant woman's demand, tell her the reason why. Men sell

their votes; but did any one ever hear of their selling their right to

vote? We demand that you shall recognize woman's capacity to vote." The

newspaper account ended: "She closed by demanding the right to vote for

women as an inalienable one, and predicted that from its exercise would

follow the happiest results to man, to woman, to the country, to the

world at large; and took her seat amidst warm expressions of approval."

In writing to her mother of this occasion she said:

[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton]

We had to rush up by Wednesday night's boat, without any

preparation, and passed the ordeal last night, members asking

questions and stating objections. At the close the cheerful face

and cordial hand of our good Mr. Reynolds were presented to me. Mr.

Ely also came up to be introduced, saying he knew my father and

brother well, but had never had the pleasure of my acquaintance.

Ah, when my "wild heresies" become "fashionable orthodoxies," won't

my acquaintance be a pleasure to other Rochester people, too?

George William Curtis was delighted--said the impression made upon

the members was vastly beyond anything he had imagined possible. It

is always a great comfort to feel that we have not distressed our

_cultured friends_.

Mrs. Stanton is going to slip out to Johnstown to spend Sunday with

her mother. How I wish I could slip out to Rochester to sit a few

hours in my mother's delightful east chamber, but I must hie me

back to New York by tonight's boat instead.

In a letter from George William Curtis, he declared: "You may count

upon me not to be silent when, whether by my action or another's, this

question comes before the convention." Petitions were presented by

various members, signed by 28,000 men and women, asking that the

constitution be so amended as to secure the right of suffrage to the

women of New York. One of these was headed by Margaret Livingston Cady,

mother of Mrs. Stanton, one by Gerrit Smith, one by Henry Ward Beecher,

and all contained many influential names. Mr. Greeley was chairman of

the committee on suffrage and, as Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton knew he

would seize upon this occasion to repeat his hackneyed remark, "The

best women I know do not want to vote," they wrote Mrs. Greeley to roll

up a big petition in Westchester. So she got out her old chaise and,

with her daughter Ida, drove over the county, collecting signatures.

After all the others had been presented, Mr. Curtis arose and said:

"Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hand a petition signed by Mrs. Horace

Greeley and 300 other women of Westchester asking that the word 'male'

be stricken from the constitution." As Mr. Greeley was about to make an

adverse report, his anger and embarrassment, as well as the amusement

of the audience, may be imagined.[41]

A magnificent argument in behalf of the petitions was made by Mr.

Curtis, and the discussion lasted several days; but the committee

handed in an adverse report, which was sustained by a large majority of

the convention. When this result was announced, Anna Dickinson wrote

Miss Anthony:

My blood boiled, my nerves thrilled, as I read from day to day the

reports of the convention debate. Reasons urged for the

enfranchisement of paupers, of idiots, of the ignorant, the

degraded, the infamous--none for women! The exquisite care with

which men guard their own rights in the most vulnerable of their

sex--the silence, the scorn, the ridicule with which they pass by

or allude to our claims--great God! it is too much for endurance

and patience. Daily I pray for a tongue of flame and inspired lips

to awaken the sleeping, arouse the careless, shake to trembling and

overthrow the insolence of opposition.... After men and women have

alike borne the burden and heat of battle, to mark the absolute

silence with which these men regard the rights of half the race,

while they squabble and wrangle, debate and contend, for exact

justice to the poorest and meanest man--to mark this spectacle is

to be filled with alternate pity and disgust.

Naturally the women felt highly indignant at the treatment they had

received, especially from the Republican party, which was so deeply

indebted for their services and from which they had every reason to

expect recognition and support, and they did not hesitate freely to

express themselves. Soon after their defeat at Albany Mr. Curtis wrote:

"I beg you and your friends to understand that the _real_ support of

this measure, the support from conviction, comes from men who believe

in Republican principles, and not from the Democracy as such." While a

close analysis might prove the truth of this assertion, the women were

not able to find comfort in the fact. As a party, the Republicans were

opposed to their claims, and with the immense majority of its members

completely under the domination of party, the result could be nothing

but defeat. Not only was this the case, but the leaders, who dictated

its policy and directed its action, although avowed believers in the

political rights of women, did not hesitate to sacrifice them for the

success of the party.

Lucy Stone and her husband had returned from Kansas the last of May,

reporting a good prospect for carrying the woman suffrage amendment;

but the Republicans there soon became frightened lest the one

enfranchising the negro should be lost and, in order to lighten their

ship, decided to throw the women overboard. Although the proposition

had been submitted by a Republican legislature and signed by a

Republican governor, the Republican State Committee resolved to remain

"neutral," and then sent out speakers who, with the sanction of the

committee, bitterly assailed this amendment and those advocating it.

Prominent among these were P.B. Plumb, I.S. Kalloch, Judge T.C. Sears

and C.V. Eskridge. The Democratic State Convention vigorously denounced

the amendment. The State Temperance Society endorsed it, and this

aroused the active enmity of the Germans. Eastern politicians warned

those of Kansas not to imperil the negro's chance by taking up the

woman question. Mr. Greeley, who at the beginning of the campaign

warmly espoused woman suffrage in Kansas,[42] soured by his experience

in the New York Constitutional Convention, withdrew the support of the

Tribune and threw his influence against the amendment. Even the

Independent, under the editorship of Tilton, was so dominated by party

that, notwithstanding the appeals of the women, it had not one word of

endorsement. There was scarcely a Republican home in that State which

did not take one or the other of these papers, looking upon its

utterances as inspired, and their influence was so great that their

support alone could have carried the amendment.

Such was the situation when Miss Anthony started with Mrs. Stanton for

Kansas, hoping to turn the tide. She learned, however, to her great

disappointment, that no more money was available from the Jackson or

the Hovey fund. The proposed campaign would call for so large an amount

that any other woman would have given up in despair. Even the stock of

literature had been exhausted and there was nothing left in the way of

tracts or pamphlets. Undaunted, she set forth under a blazing July sun

and tramped up and down Broadway soliciting advertisements for the

fly-leaves of the new literature she meant to have printed.[43] She

then visited various friends who were interested in the woman's cause,

and received such sums as they could spare, but their number was not

large and the demands were numerous. She also sent out many appealing

letters, like this to her friend Mrs. Wright:

Mrs. Stanton and I start for Kansas Wednesday evening, stopping at

Rochester just to look at my mother and my dear sister, sick so

long, and I devoting scarce an hour to her the whole year. How will

the gods make up my record on home affections?

You see our little trust fund--$1,800--of Jackson money is wrenched

from us. The Hovey Committee gave us our last dollar in May, to

balance last year's work, and I am responsible for stereotyping and

printing the tracts, for the New York office expenses, and for Mrs.

Stanton and myself in Kansas, in all not less than $2,000. Not one

of the friends wants the Kansas work to go undone, and to do it,

both tracts and lecturers must be sent out. We need money as never

before. I have to take from my lean hundreds, that never dreamed of

reaching thousands, to pay our travelling expenses. It takes $50

each for bare railroad tickets. We are advertised to speak every

day--Sundays not excepted--from September 2, one week from today,

to November 6. What an awful undertaking it looks to me, for I know

Kansas possibilities in fare, lodging and travelling. I never was

so nearly driven to desperation--so much waiting to be done, and

not a penny but in hope and trust. Oh, if somebody else could go

and I stay here, I could raise the money; but there is no one and I

must go. We must not lose Kansas now, at least not from lack of

work done according to our best ability.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton left New York August 28, 1867. It was

necessary then to change cars several times to reach Atchison, their

first appointment, and the trains being late they missed connections

and were finally stranded at Macon City over Sunday. They found that

while Mr. Wood had made out a very elaborate plan for their meetings

and had posters printed for each place, these still remained piled up

in the printing office. After making a two weeks' tour of the principal

towns with Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony saw that an entire new program

was necessary, that the meetings must be better advertised and there

must be a central distributing point for tracts, etc., so she stationed

herself at Lawrence. Senators Pomeroy and Ross gave the full use of

their "franking" privilege and the former contributed $50 besides.

The Republicans called a mass meeting at Lawrence, September 5, of

citizens from all parts of the State, "for consultation concerning the

best method for _defeating_ the proposition to strike the word 'male'

from the Constitution of Kansas, and for arranging a canvass of the

State in opposition to this amendment." A newspaper account said:

On motion of Judge G. W. Smith, Messrs. T. C. Sears, Rev. S. E.

McBurney and C. V. Eskridge were appointed a committee on

resolutions, and reported the following, which were unanimously

adopted:

_Resolved_, That we recognize the doctrine of manhood suffrage as a

principle of the Republican party, supported by reason, experience

and justice.

_Resolved_, That we are unqualifiedly opposed to the dogma of

"Female Suffrage," and while we do not recognize it as a party

question, the attempt of certain persons within the State, and from

without it, to enforce it upon the people of the State, demands the

unqualified opposition of every citizen who respects the laws of

society and the well-being and good name of our young commonwealth.

On motion, the executive committee were instructed to open a

campaign based upon the foregoing resolutions; and an Anti-Female

Suffrage Committee appointed of one member from each county.

At the beginning of the campaign, Republican leaders and newspapers

were in favor of woman suffrage, but when it was feared that its

advocacy would hazard the chances of negro suffrage, they repudiated

the amendment. While it was by no means certain that all women when

enfranchised would vote the Republican ticket, there was no doubt

whatever that the negroes would, and so it was party expediency to

sacrifice the women. Notwithstanding the opposition of both Republican

and Democratic politicians, the woman suffrage advocates had large and

friendly audiences and the amendment would have been carried beyond a

doubt, if it had had the continued sanction of Republican leaders. In

October, stung by the reproaches of the women, a number of influential

Republicans from different parts of the country[44] sent out an appeal

which was published in the newspapers of Kansas, but this was wholly

offset by the active opposition of the State Committee.

The hardships of a campaign in the early days of Kansas scarcely can be

described. Much of the travelling had to be done in wagons, fording

streams, crossing the treeless prairies, losing the faintly outlined

road in the darkness of night, sleeping in cabins, drinking poor water

and subsisting on bacon, soda-raised bread, canned meats and

vegetables, dried fruits and coffee without cream or milk, sweetened

with sorghum. The nights offered the greatest trial, owing to a species

of insect supposed to breed in the cotton wood trees. In one of her

letters home Miss Anthony says: "It is now 10 A. M. and Mrs. Stanton is

trying to sleep, as we have not slept a wink for several nights, but

even in broad daylight our tormentors are so active that it is

impossible. We find them in our bonnets, and this morning I think we

picked a thousand out of the ruffles of our dresses. I can assure you

that my avoirdupois is being rapidly reduced. It is a nightly battle

with the infernals.... Twenty-five years hence it will be delightful to

live in this beautiful State, but now, alas, its women especially see

hard times, and there is no poetry in their lives." She was not given

to complaining but again she writes:

It is enough to exhaust the patience of Job, the slip-shod way in

which telegraph, express and postoffices are managed here. It is

almost impossible to arrange for halls or to get literature

delivered at the point where it is sent. We speak in school houses,

barns, sawmills, log cabins with boards for seats and lanterns hung

around for lights, but people come twenty miles to hear us. The

opposition follow close upon our track, but they make converts for

us. The fact is that most of them are notoriously wanting in right

action toward women. Their objections are as low and scurrilous as

they used to be in the East fifteen or twenty years ago. There is a

perfect greed for our tracts, and the friends say they do more

missionary work than we ourselves. If our suffrage advocates only

would go into the new settlements at the very beginning, they could

mould public sentiment, but they wait until the comforts of life

are attainable and then find the ground occupied by the enemy.

Of course they were guests in some beautiful homes, free from all

discomforts, but these were the exceptions. A striking instance of the

first reception usually accorded the two ladies is given by Mrs.

Starrett, in her Kansas chapter in the History of Woman Suffrage:

All were prepared beforehand to do Mrs. Stanton homage for her

talents and fame, but many persons who had formed their ideas of

Miss Anthony from the unfriendly remarks in opposition papers had

conceived a prejudice against her. Perhaps I can not better

illustrate how she everywhere overcame and dispelled this prejudice

than by relating my own experience. A convention was called at

Lawrence, and the friends of woman suffrage were asked to entertain

strangers who might come from abroad. Ex-Governor Robinson asked me

to entertain Mrs. Stanton. We had all things in readiness when I

received a note stating that she had found relatives in town with

whom she would stop, and Miss Anthony would come instead. I hastily

put on bonnet and shawl, saying, "I won't have her and I am going

to tell Governor Robinson so."

At the gate I met a dignified Quaker-looking lady with a small

satchel and a black and white shawl on her arm. Offering her hand

she said, "I am Miss Anthony, and I have been sent to you for

entertainment during the convention."... Half disarmed by her

genial manner and frank, kindly face, I led the way into the house

and said I would have her stay to tea and then we would see what

farther arrangements could be made. While I was looking after

things she gained the affections of the babies; and seeing the door

of my sister's sick-room open, she went in and in a short time had

so won the heart and soothed instead of exciting the nervous

sufferer, entertaining her with accounts of the outside world, that

by the time tea was over I was ready to do anything if Miss Anthony

would only stay with us. And stay she did for over six weeks, and

we parted from her as from a beloved and helpful friend. I found

afterwards that in the same way she made the most ardent friends

wherever she became personally known.

The physical discomforts could have been borne without a murmur, but it

was the treachery of friends, both East and West, which brought the

discouragement and heart-sickness. One of the active opponents who

canvassed the State was Charles Langston, the negro orator, whose

brother John M. had met with much kindness from Miss Anthony and her

family before the war. When one considers how these women had spent the

best part of their lives in working for the freedom of the negro, their

humiliation can be imagined at seeing educated colored men laboring

with might and main to prevent white women from obtaining the same

privileges which they were asking for themselves. It was a bitter dose

and one which women have been compelled to take in every State where a

campaign for woman suffrage has been made.

The Hutchinsons--John, his son Henry and lovely daughter Viola--were

giving a series of concerts, travelling in a handsome carriage drawn by

a span of white horses. As they had one vacant seat, they were carrying

Rev. Olympia Brown, a talented Universalist minister from

Massachusetts, who had been canvassing the State for several months,

and she spoke for suffrage while they sang for both the negro and

woman. Hon. Charles Robinson, the first Free State governor of Kansas,

volunteered to take Mrs. Stanton in his carriage and pay all expenses.

Their hard trip killed a pair of mules and a pair of Indian ponies.

Miss Anthony directed affairs from her post at Lawrence and made

herculean efforts to raise money for the campaign, which thus far was

dependent on the collections at the meetings. There was scarcely a hope

of victory.

On the 7th of October came a telegram from George Francis Train, who

was then at Omaha, largely interested in the Union Pacific railroad. He

had been invited by the secretary and other members of the St. Louis

Suffrage Association to go to Kansas and help in the woman's campaign.

Accordingly he telegraphed that if the committee wanted him he was

ready, would pay his own expenses and win every Democratic vote. Miss

Anthony never had seen Mr. Train; she merely knew of him as very

wealthy and eccentric. The Republicans not only had forsaken the women

but were waging open war upon them. The sole hope of carrying the

amendment was by adding enough Democratic votes to those of Republicans

who would not obey their party orders to vote against it. Every member

of the woman suffrage committee who could be communicated with--Rev.

and Mrs. Starrett, Rev. John S. Brown and daughter Sarah, Judge

Thatcher and others--said that Mr. Train was an eloquent speaker and

advised that he be invited, so the following telegram was sent: "Come

to Kansas and stump the State for equal rights and woman suffrage. The

people want you, the women want you. S. N. Wood, M. W. Reynolds,

Charles Robinson, Mrs. J. H. Lane, E. Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony."

Mr. Train accepted and Miss Anthony at once began laying out a route

for him and telegraphed: "Begin at Leavenworth Monday, October 21. Yes,

with your help we shall triumph. All shall be ready for you." If she

had had any political experience, she would have made his appointments

along the railroad, whose employes were largely Irish, with whom he was

very popular on account of his Fenian affiliations; but in her

ignorance, she arranged for most of the meetings in small towns off the

railroads, where the inhabitants were chiefly Republicans.

Mark W. Reynolds, editor of the Democratic paper at Lawrence, agreed to

accompany him; but when the time arrived, although Mr. Reynolds had

joined in the telegram of invitation, he took to the woods, going on a

buffalo hunt without any excuse or explanation. Mr. Train made his

first speech at Leavenworth, Mayor John A. Halderman presiding, Colonel

D. R. Anthony, Rev. William Starrett and other Republicans on the

platform. Laing's Hall was packed with Irishmen and when he first

mentioned woman suffrage all of them hissed, but after he pointed out

the absurdity of letting the negroes vote and shutting out their own

mothers and wives, the tide turned and they cheered for the women. The

next meeting was at Lawrence, and here Mr. Train objected decidedly to

the route marked out, saying it was too rough a trip for any man, and

as Mr. Reynolds had deserted him he was for giving up the tour. Not so

Miss Anthony; she said: "Your offer and his were accepted in good

faith. The engagements have been made and hand-bills sent to every

post-office within fifty miles of the towns where meetings are to be

held. The next announcement is for Olathe tomorrow night. I shall take

Mr. Reynolds' place. At one o'clock I shall send a carriage to your

hotel. You can do as you please about going. If you decline I shall go

there and to all the other meetings alone." He replied: "Miss Anthony,

you know how to make a man feel ashamed."

The next day when the carriage came to the Starretts, for Miss Anthony,

Mr. Train was in it and, with her heart in her throat, she took her

seat beside him. The situation was entirely unforeseen and decidedly

embarrassing, but she never turned back, never allowed any earthly

obstacle to stand in her way. There was a crowded house at Olathe and

when the meeting closed two young men announced that they had been sent

to take Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Train to Paola, and they would have to

leave at 4 A. M. Miss Anthony was the guest of Rev. and Mrs. J. C.

Beach. Next morning they started on time in a pouring rain, stopping at

a little wayside inn for breakfast at six. The meeting was at eleven,

in the Methodist church.

After it was over the county superintendent of schools, Mr. Bannister,

took them to Ottawa in a lumber wagon. The steady rain had put the

roads in a fearful condition and by the time they reached the river

bottoms it was very dark and pouring in torrents. The driver lost his

way and brought them up against a brush fence. Mr. Train jumped out of

the vehicle, took off his coat so that his white shirtsleeves would

show and thus guided the team back to the road; then he and the county

superintendent took turns walking in front of the horses. The river

finally was crossed and they reached Ottawa at 9 o'clock. Mr. Train was

very fastidious and, no matter how late the hour, never would appear in

public before he had changed his gray travelling suit for full dress

costume with white vest and lavender kid gloves, declaring that he

would not insult any audience by shabby clothes. This evening he made

no exception and so, while he went to the hotel, Miss Anthony, wet,

hungry and exhausted, made her way straight to the hall to see what had

become of their audience.

She found that it had been taken in charge by General Blunt, one of the

Republican campaign orators, and as she entered, he was making a

violent attack on woman suffrage. Her arrival was not noticed and she

concluded to sit quietly down in a corner and let matters take their

course. A stairway led from some lower region up to the platform and,

just as the speaker was declaring, "This man Train is an infernal

traitor and a vile copperhead," Mr. Train appeared at the top of the

stairs. The audience broke into a roar, and in a few moments he had the

general under a scathing fire.

From Ottawa they travelled, still in a lumber wagon, to Mound City and

then to Fort Scott, where they had an immense audience. After the

meeting Train went to the newspaper office and wrote out his speech,

which filled two pages of the Monitor, and Miss Anthony and the friends

spent all of Sunday in wrapping and mailing these papers. From here

they drove to Humboldt in a mail wagon, stopping for dinner at a little

"half-way house," a cabin with no floor. Miss Anthony retains a lively

recollection of this place, for the hostess brought a platter of fried

pork, swimming in grease, and in her haste emptied the contents the

whole length of her light gray travelling dress. They found many people

ill, and Mr. Train always prescribed not a drop of green tea, not a

mouthful of pork, though that was the only meat they could get, plenty

of fruit, though there was none to be had in Kansas, and a thorough

bath every morning, although there was not enough water to wash the

dishes. During this trip he stopped at hotels, but Miss Anthony usually

was invited to stay with families who were either her personal friends

or warm advocates of the cause she represented.

So on they went, to Leroy, Burlington, Emporia, Junction City. It was 9

o'clock when they reached the last and, as usual, Miss Anthony had to

make her speech without change of dress, and a half hour later Mr.

Train stepped on the platform, refreshed and resplendent. His first

words were: "When Miss Anthony gets back to New York she is going to

start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is to be The Revolution; its

motto, 'Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and

nothing less.' This paper is to be a weekly, price $2 per year; its

editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor,

Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody subscribe for it!" Miss Anthony was

dumbfounded. During the long journey that day, he had asked her why the

equal rights people did not have a paper and she had replied that it

was not for lack of brains but want of money. "Will not Greeley and

Beecher and Phillips and Tilton advance the money?" "No, they say this

is the negro's hour and no time to advocate woman suffrage." "Well,"

said he, "I will give you the money." She had not taken him seriously

and was amazed when he made this public statement, announcing name,

price, editors, motto and everything complete.

[Autograph: Sincerely, Geo. Francis Train]

They spoke at Topeka and Wyandotte and reached Leavenworth the Sunday

previous to election. Mr. Train spent the evening at Colonel Anthony's,

entertaining them in his inimitable manner till midnight, and after he

left the colonel declared that "he knew more about more things than any

man living." Governor Robinson and Mrs. Stanton were to close the

campaign in this city the day before election, and the meeting had been

thoroughly advertised, but at the last moment they telegraphed that

they would be unable to arrive till evening, so it was decided that Mr.

Train should remain at Leavenworth to speak in the afternoon, and Miss

Anthony should keep the engagement at Atchison, announcing Mr. Train

for the evening. This she did, but at night, when a great crowd had

assembled, a telegram brought word that the cars were off the track and

he could not reach that city. There was nothing for her to do but make

a short speech and adjourn the meeting.

Mr. Train had promised Miss Anthony that he really would advance the

money to start a paper and, in addition, had proposed to defray all the

expenses of Mrs. Stanton and herself if they would join him in a

lecture tour of the principal cities on the way eastward. It was

essential, therefore, for her to have a talk with him before she could

make a definite statement to Mrs. Stanton, and her only chance for this

was to cross the Missouri river and wait for the belated train from

Leavenworth. She found the ferryboats had stopped running for the

night, but George Martin, chairman of the suffrage committee of

Atchison, offered to take her across in a skiff. Undaunted, she seated

herself therein and in the dense darkness was safely landed on the

opposite shore. Here she boarded the cars and went to St. Joseph where

she met Mr. Train, made the necessary arrangements and returned to

Leavenworth by the first train.

On election day the Hutchinsons, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, in open

carriages, visited all the polling-places in Leavenworth, where the two

ladies spoke and the Hutchinsons sang. Both amendments were

overwhelmingly defeated, that for negro suffrage receiving 10,843

votes, and that for woman suffrage 9,070, out of a total of about

30,000. These 9,000 votes were the first ever cast in the United States

for the enfranchisement of women. How many of them were Republican and

how many Democratic, and how much influence Mr. Train may have had one

way or another, never can be known; but it is a significant fact that

Douglas county, the most radical Republican district, gave the largest

vote against woman suffrage, and Leavenworth, the strongest Democratic

county, gave the largest majority in its favor.

The Commercial, the Democratic paper of this city, said:

When we consider the many obstacles thrown in the way of the

advocates of this measure, the indifference with which the masses

look upon anything new in government and their indisposition to

change, the degree of success of these advocates is not only

remarkable, but one of which they have a just right to feel proud.

To these two ladies, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

to their indomitable will and courage, to their eloquence and

energy, is due much of the merit of the work performed in the

State.... While in the recent election these ladies were not

successful to the full extent of their wishes, they have the

consciousness of knowing that their work has been commensurate with

the combined efforts of party organization, congressmen, senators,

press and ministers to enfranchise the negro, and that the people

of Kansas are not more averse to giving the franchise to woman than

to the black man.

During the campaign the usual order was for Miss Anthony to speak the

first half hour, making a clear, concise, strong argument for suffrage

as the right of an American citizen, pleading for the negro as well as

for the women, and urging men to vote for both amendments. She then was

followed by Mr. Train, who insisted that it would be one of the

grossest outrages to give suffrage to the black man and not to the

white woman, and pleaded earnestly that the women of Kansas should be

enfranchised. In this he was sincere, as he believed thoroughly that

women ought to have the ballot. He was an inimitable mimic and was

unsparing in his ridicule of those Republicans who had battled so

valiantly for equal rights but now demanded that American women should

stand back quietly and approvingly and see the negro fully invested

with the powers denied to themselves. He had a remarkable memory, an

unequalled quickness of repartee, a peculiar gift of improvising

epigrams and, while erratic, was a brilliant and entertaining speaker.

He was at this time about thirty-five, nearly six feet tall, a handsome

brunette, with curling hair and flashing dark eyes, the picture of

vigorous health. He was exquisitely neat in person and irreproachable

in habits, and had a fine courtliness of bearing toward women which

suggested the old-school gentleman. Miss Anthony often said that all

the severe criticisms made upon him for years had not been able to

impair the respect with which he inspired her during that most trying

campaign. Mrs. Stanton, essentially an aristocrat and severe in her

judgment of men and manners, spoke most highly of Mr. Train in her

Reminiscences.

Some of the friends in Kansas were opposed to the contemplated lecture

tour, and letters were received from the East urging that it be

abandoned. Mrs. Stanton was accustomed to defer to Miss Anthony in such

matters.[45] The latter felt that they had been deserted by their old

friends and supporters and the breach was too wide to be soon healed.

Here was a man of wealth and high personal character, who offered to

arrange a lecture tour of the principal cities of the country, pay all

expenses and at the end of the journey furnish capital for a paper. It

seemed to her she could best serve the cause she placed above all else

by accepting the offer, and she did so.

As time was limited, Miss Anthony had to make arrangements for hall,

etc., by telegraph, which cost Mr. Train $100. The series commenced in

Omaha, November 19, and continued in Chicago, Springfield. St. Louis,

Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse,

Albany, Springfield (Mass.), Worcester, Boston and Hartford, ending

with a great meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, December 14. Mr. Train

engaged the most elegant suites of rooms in the best hotels for the

ladies, secured the finest halls, and this was remembered as the only

luxurious suffrage tour they ever had made. There was a railway wreck

between Louisville and Cincinnati, and he chartered a special train in

order that they might keep their engagement at the latter place. This

trip cost him $3,000.

Where heretofore the Democratic papers had been abusive and some, at

least, of the Republican papers complimentary, the tone was now

completely reversed. Because they had affiliated with Mr. Train, the

former had nothing but praise, and for the same reason the latter were

unsparing in their denunciations, and were bitterly indignant at the

women for accepting from Mr. Train and other Democrats the help which

they themselves had positively refused. They insisted that the

Democrats only used woman suffrage as a club to beat negro suffrage,

which doubtless was true of many, but Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton

claimed the right to accept proffered aid without looking behind it for

the motive. The opposition, however, did not arise alone from the press

and the politicians. From the leading advocates of suffrage came a

vehement protest against any partnership with George Francis Train. The

old associates wrote scores of letters expressing their personal

allegiance, but refusing to attend the meetings and repudiating the

connection of Mr. Train with the woman suffrage movement. Miss Anthony

was made to realize to the fullest extent the feeling which had been

aroused, but the last entry in the diary says: "The year goes out, and

never did one depart that had been so filled with earnest and effective

work; 9,000 votes for woman in Kansas, and a newspaper started! The

Revolution is going to be work, work and more work. The old out and the

new in!"

[Footnote 40: Helen Skin Starrett, in her Kansas reminiscences, says:

"Miss Anthony always looked after Mrs. Stanton's interests and comfort

in the most cheerful and kindly manner. I remember one evening in

Lawrence when the hall was crowded with an eager and expectant

audience. Miss Anthony was there early, looking after everything,

seats, lights, ushers, doorkeepers. Presently Governor Robinson said to

her, 'Where's Mrs. Stanton? It's time to commence.' 'She's at

Mrs.----'s waiting for some of you men to go for her with a carriage,'

was the reply. The hint was quickly acted upon and Mrs. Stanton, fresh,

smiling and unfatigued, was presented to the audience."]

[Footnote 41: His intense feeling on the matter is thus described in

the History of Woman Suffrage:

"A few weeks after this he met Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony at one of

Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. As he approached, both arose

and with extended hands exclaimed most cordially, 'Good evening, Mr.

Greeley.' But his hands hung limp by his side, as he said in measured

tones: 'You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the

State of New York. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was

presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions, and I saw the

reporters prick up their ears.' Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he asked, 'You

are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my

wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley, on her petition?' 'Because,'

she replied, 'I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of

Horace Greeley who protested against her husband's report.' 'Well,'

said he, 'I understand the animus of that whole proceeding, and I have

given positive instructions that no word of praise shall ever again be

awarded you in the Tribune, and that if your name is ever necessarily

mentioned, it shall be as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton!' And so it has been to

this day."]

[Footnote 42: Womanhood suffrage is now a progressive cause beyond fear

of cavil. It has won a fair field where once it was looked upon as an

airy nothing, and it has gained champions and converts without number.

The young State of Kansas is fitly the vanguard of this cause, and the

signs of the agitation therein hardly allow a doubt that the

citizenship of women will be ere long recognized in its laws. Fourteen

out of twenty of its newspapers are in favor of making woman a

voter.... The vitality of the Kansas movement is indisputable, and

whether defeated or successful in the present contest, it will still

hold strongly fortified ground.--New York Tribune, May 29, 1867.]

[Footnote 43: From the Howe Sewing Machine Co., she got $150; from the

Samuel Browning Washing Machine Co., $100; from Dr. Dio Lewis'

Gymnasium, $100, and from Madame Demorest's Fine Millinery and

Patterns, a considerable sum; besides a donation of $100 from Mr. and

Mrs. E. D. Draper, of Massachusetts, and $150 from Sarah B. Shaw,

mother of Mrs. George Wm. Curtis; and in this way raised partly enough

to print 50,000 tracts.]

[Footnote 44: Charles Robinson, S. N. Wood, Samuel C. Pomeroy, E. G.

Ross, Sidney Clark, S. G. Crawford, _Kansas;_ James W. Nye, _Nevada;_

William Loughridge, _Iowa;_ Robert Collyer, _Illinois;_ George W.

Julian, H. D. Washburn, _Indiana;_ R. E. Trowbridge, John F. Driggs,

_Michigan;_ Benjamin F. Wade, _Ohio;_ J. W. Broomall, William D.

Kelley, _Pennsylvania;_ Henry Ward Beecher, Gerrit Smith, George

William Curtis, _New York;_ Dudley S. Gregory, George Polk, John G.

Foster, James L. Hayes, Z. H. Pangborn, _New Jersey;_ Wm. Lloyd

Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel E. Sewall, Oakes Ames,

_Massachusetts;_ William Sprague, T. W. Higginson, _Rhode Island;_

Calvin E. Stowe, _Connecticut_.]

[Footnote 45: "I take my beloved Susan's judgment against the world, I

have always found that when we see eye to eye we are sure to be right,

and when we pull together we are strong. After we discuss any point and

fully agree, our faith in our united judgment is immovable, and no

amount of ridicule and opposition has the slightest influence, come

from what quarter it may."]

CHAPTER XVIII.

ESTABLISHING THE REVOLUTION.

1868.

The first entry in the diary of 1868, January 1, reads: "All the old

friends, with scarce an exception, are sure we are wrong. Only time can

tell, but I believe we are right and hence bound to succeed."

Immediately after the meeting at Steinway Hall, Mr. Train had brought

with him to call on Miss Anthony, David M. Melliss, financial editor of

the New York World, and they entered into an agreement by which the two

men were to supply the funds for publishing a paper until it was on a

paying basis. It was to be conducted by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton

in the interests of women, and Mr. Train and Mr. Melliss were to use

such space as they desired for expressing their financial and other

opinions. The first number was issued January 8, a handsome quarto of

sixteen pages.

Ten thousand copies were printed and, under the congressional frank of

Representative James Brooks, of New York, were sent to all parts of the

country. The advent of this element in the newspaper world created a

sensation such as scarcely ever has been equalled by any publication.

From hundreds of clippings a few characteristic examples are selected.

The New York Sunday Times said:

THE LADIES MILITANT.--It is out at last. If the women as a body

have not succeeded in getting up a revolution, Susan B. Anthony, as

their representative, has. Her Revolution was issued last Thursday

as a sort of New Year's gift to what she considered a yearning

public, and it is said to be "charged to the muzzle with literary

nitre-glycerine." If Mrs. Stanton would attend a little more to her

domestic duties and a little less to those of the great public,

perhaps she would exalt her sex quite as much as she does by

Quixotically fighting windmills in their gratuitous behalf, and she

might possibly set a notable example of domestic felicity. No

married woman can convert herself into a feminine Knight of the

Rueful Visage and ride about the country attempting to redress

imaginary wrongs without leaving her own household in a neglected

condition that must be an eloquent witness against her. As for the

spinsters, we have always said that every woman has a natural and

inalienable right to a good husband and a pretty baby. When, by

proper "agitation," she has secured this right, she best honors

herself and her sex by leaving public affairs behind her, and

endeavoring to show how happy she can make the little world of

which she has just become the brilliant center.

The New York Independent, the great organ of the Congregationalists,

had this breezy editorial:

The Revolution is the martial name of a bristling and defiant new

weekly journal, the first number of which has just been laid on our

table. When we mention that it is edited by Mr. Parker Pillsbury

and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, all the world will immediately

know what to expect from it. Those two writers can never be accused

of having nothing to say, or of backwardness in saying it. Each has

separately long maintained a striking individuality of tongue and

pen. Working together, they will produce a canvas of the Rembrandt

school--Mrs. Stanton painting the high lights and Mr. Pillsbury the

deep darks. In fact, the new journal's real editors are Hope and

Despair. Beaumont and Fletcher were intellectually something alike;

but Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Pillsbury are totally different. The lady

is a gay Greek, come forth from Athens; the gentleman is a sombre

Hebrew, bound back to Jerusalem. We know of no two more striking,

original, and piquant writers. What keen criticisms, what

knife-blade repartees, what lacerating sarcasms we shall expect

from the one! What solemn, reverberating, sanguinary damnations we

shall hear from the other!

Conspicuous among the new journal's contributors is that great

traveller, hotel-builder, epigrammatist and kite-flyer, Mr. George

Francis Train. So The Revolution, from the start, will arouse,

thrill, edify, amuse, vex and nonplus its friends. But it will

compel attention; it will conquer a hearing. Its business

management is in the good hands of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who has

long been known as one of the most indefatigable, honest,

obstinate, faithful, cross-grained and noble-minded of the famous

women of America. It only remains to add that, as "the price of

liberty is eternal vigilance," so the price of The Revolution is

two dollars a year.

The Cincinnati Enquirer in a complimentary notice said: "Mrs. Elizabeth

Cady Stanton's Revolution grows with each additional number more spicy,

readable and revolutionary. It hits right and left, from the shoulder

and overhand, at every body and thing that opposes the granting of

suffrage to females as well as males. The Revolution is mourning over

no lost cause, but is aggressive, bold and determined to win one dear

to its heart." New York's society paper, the Home Journal, commented:

"The Revolution is plucky, keen and wide awake, and although some of

its ways are not at all to our taste, we are glad to recognize in it

the inspiration of the noblest aims, and the sagacity and talent to

accomplish what it desires. It is on the right track, whether it has

taken the right train or not;" while the Chicago Workingman's Advocate

declared: "We have no doubt it will prove an able ally of the labor

reform movement." The Boston Commonwealth observed approvingly: "It is

edited by Mrs. E.C. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, whose names are

guarantees of ability and character. Their effusions are able,

pertinent and courageous."

To quote from Mrs. Stanton: "Radical and defiant in tone, it awoke

friends and foes alike to action. Some denounced it, some ridiculed it,

but all read it. It needed just such clarion notes, sounded forth long

and loud each week, to rouse the friends of the movement from the

apathy into which they had fallen after the war." Miss Anthony went to

Washington to introduce the paper and returned with a list of

distinguished subscribers, including President Johnson himself! The

following from Mrs. Stanton will show how criticising letters usually

were answered:

I know that you would feel that we were right if I could talk with

you. If George Francis Train had done for the negro all that he has

done for woman the last three months, the Abolitionists would

enshrine him as a saint. The attacks on Susan and me by a few

persons have been petty and narrow, but we are right and this nine

days' wonder will soon settle itself. Of course, people turn up the

whites of their eyes, but time will bring them all down again. We

have reason to congratulate ourselves that we have shocked more

friends of the cause into life than we ever dreamed we had--persons

who never gave a cent or said a word for our movement are the most

concerned lest Susan and I should injure it. Mr. Train has some

extravagances and idiosyncrasies, but he is willing to devote his

energies to our cause when no other man is, and we should be

foolish not to accept his aid. To think of Boston women holding a

festival to aid the Anti-Slavery Standard, while their own

petitions are ignored in the Senate of the United States! Women

have been degraded so long they have lost all self-respect. If we

love the black man as well as ourselves we shall fulfill the Bible

injunction. The anti-slavery requirement to love him better is a

little too much for human nature.

A few members of the executive board of the Equal Rights Association

made a strong attempt to prevent the editors of The Revolution from

occupying the room at No. 37 Park Row, used for their headquarters.

Miss Anthony soon showed, however, that she had made herself personally

responsible for the rent, that while she was overwhelmed with the work

of the Kansas campaign letters were continually sent her asking if she

could not somehow get the money to pay it, and that as soon as she

returned, she borrowed $100 on her own note and paid it in full. So she

held possession and the committee, after voting itself out at one

session, voted itself back at the next, and finally abandoned the room.

On the very day the first copy of The Revolution appeared, Mr. Train

announced that he was going to England immediately. Miss Anthony says

in her diary: "My heart sank within me; only our first number issued

and our strongest helper and inspirer to leave us! This is but another

discipline to teach us that we must stand on our own feet." Mr. Train

gave her $600 and assured her that he had arranged with Mr. Melliss to

supply all necessary funds during his short absence, but she felt

herself invested with a heavy responsibility. A few days later Mrs.

Stanton said in a letter to a friend:

Our paper has a monied basis of $50,000 and men who understand

business to push it. Train is engaging writers and getting

subscribers in Europe. It will improve in every way when we are

thoroughly started. Just now we are fighting for our life among

reformers; they pitch into us without mercy. We are trying to make

the Democrats take up our question, for that is the only way to

move the Republicans. Subscribers come in rapidly, beyond our most

sanguine expectations. The press in the main is cordial, but looks

askance at a political paper edited by a woman. If we had started a

"Lily" or a "Rosebud" and remained in the region of sentiment, we

should have been eulogized to the skies, but here is something

dangerous.

Instead of Mr. Train's securing writers and subscribers in Europe, he

was arrested for complicity with the Fenians the moment he made his

first speech, and spent the year in a Dublin jail. He wrote that the

finding of fifty copies of The Revolution in his possession was an

additional reason for his arrest, as the officials did not stop to read

a word, the name was sufficient. While Mr. Train continued his

contributions to the paper during his residence in jail, he was not

able to meet his financial obligations to it. Mr. Melliss made heroic

efforts to pay in his quota, but the days were full of anxiety for

everybody connected with The Revolution. Miss Anthony was used to such

care. She had been the financial burden-bearer of every reform with

which she had been connected, but to this crushing weight was added

such a persecution as she never had experienced before, even in the

days of pro-slavery mobs. Then the attacks had been made by open and

avowed enemies, and she had had a host of staunch supporters to share

them and give her courage; now her persecutors were in ambush and were

those who had been her nearest and dearest friends; and now she was

alone except for Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Pillsbury. Even they were labored

with, and besought to renounce one who seemed to have complete mastery

over them and was leading them to destruction, but nothing could shake

their allegiance. The excuse for this persecution was that the Equal

Rights Association was injured by the publication of The Revolution.

That there should be a paper published in the interest of the rights of

women had been the dream of the advocates for many years. Antoinette

Blackwell had written Miss Anthony several years before: "I wish we had

the contemplated paper for Mrs. Stanton's especial benefit. I am afraid

it will be too late for her when we get it fairly established, which

does not promise to be very soon. Lucy believes her own talents lie in

other directions, and gives no approval to the plan for herself." Lucy

Stone had written: "We must have a paper and dear, brave, sensible Mrs.

Stanton must be the editor." And at another time: "I feel very proud of

Mrs. Stanton, she is so strong and noble. When we have a new paper she

must be the editor."

Mrs. Stanton, with her house and her large family, had no desire for

this position. Miss Anthony herself was not a writer, and many times of

late years had agitated the question of raising money to have Lucy

Stone and her husband at the head of a paper, they having now signified

their willingness to hold such a place. The founding of The Revolution

was totally unexpected and its editors accepted it only because of the

great need of a medium through which the cause of woman might be

thoroughly advocated. There was not the slightest desire to enter into

rivalry with anybody or to antagonize the Republicans. If the latter

had been willing to furnish the money to start a paper, or had allowed

space in their own publications, the favor would have been most gladly

accepted. Had the members of the Equal Rights Association raised a fund

to establish an organ, so much the better, but although the subject had

been talked of for years, the capital had not been forthcoming. There

was no attempt to make the association responsible for the opinions of

The Revolution, as this letter from Mrs. Stanton indicates:

Susan and I, though members of the Equal Rights Association, do

many things outside that body for which no one is responsible. The

idea of starting a paper under its auspices, or as an organ for it,

never entered our minds. We went to Kansas as individuals; personal

friends outside that association gave us money to go and

contributed the funds to start a paper. We object to that

resolution of censure, first, because we were outside its province;

second, because it was an outrage to repudiate Susan and me, who

have labored without cessation for twenty years and had just

returned from a hard three months' campaign. For any one to

question our devotion to this cause is to us amazing. The treatment

of us by Abolitionists also is enough to try the souls of better

saints than we. The secret of all this furor is Republican spite.

They want to stave off our question until after the presidential

campaign. They can keep all the women still but Susan and me. They

can't control us, therefore the united effort of Republicans,

Abolitionists and certain women to crush us and our paper.

In showing how the women were sacrificed, The Revolution said:

Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips,

with one consent, bid the women of the nation stand aside and

behold the salvation of the negro. Wendell Phillips says, "One idea

for a generation," to come up in the order of their importance.

First negro suffrage, then temperance, then the eight-hour

movement, then woman suffrage. Three generations hence, woman

suffrage will be in order! What an insult to the women who have

labored thirty years for the emancipation of the slave, now when he

is their political equal, to propose to lift him above their heads.

Gerrit Smith, forgetting that our great American idea is

"individual rights," on which Abolitionists have ever based their

strongest arguments for emancipation, says: "This is the time to

settle the rights of races; unless we do justice to the negro we

shall bring down on ourselves another bloody revolution, another

four years' war, but we have nothing to fear from woman, she will

not avenge herself!" Woman not avenge herself? Look at your asylums

for the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the insane, and there behold the

results of this wholesale desecration of the mothers of the race!

Woman not avenge herself? Go into the streets of your cities at the

midnight hour, and there behold those whom God meant to be queens

in the moral universe giving your sons their first lessons in

infamy and vice. No, you can not wrong the humblest of God's

creatures without making discord and confusion in the whole social

system.

In regard to the bitter persecution waged upon the two women, Ellen

Wright Garrison said in a letter to Miss Anthony: "This sitting in

judgment upon those whose views differ from our own, pouring vials of

wrath on their heads and calling in the outside and prejudiced public

to help condemn, is unwise and un-Christian." Her mother, Martha

Wright, who at first was inclined to blame, wrote in the spring of

1868: "As regards the paper, its vigorous pages are what we need. I

regret the idiosyncrasies of Mr. Train, as they give occasion to the

sons and daughters of the Philistines to rejoice, and the children of

the uncircumcised only wanted a good excuse to triumph. Shall you be at

the May meeting? I will not be there under any circumstances without

you and Susan and our good friend Parker; so whatever may become of Mr.

Train or of the paper, count me now and ever as your true and

unswerving friend."

The following graphic description, by the correspondent, Nellie

Hutchinson, was published in the Cincinnati Commercial:

There's a peculiarly resplendent sign at the head of the third

flight of stairs, and obeying its directions I march into the north

corridor and enter The Revolution office. Nothing so very terrible

after all. The first face that salutes my vision is a youthful

one--fresh, smiling, bright-eyed, auburn-crowned. It belongs to one

of the employes of the establishment, and its owner conducts me to

a comfortable sofa, then trips lightly through a little door

opposite to inform Miss Anthony of my presence.

I glance about me. What editorial bliss is this! Actually a neat

carpet on the floor, a substantial round table covered by a pretty

cloth, engravings and photographs hung thickly over the clear white

walls. Here is Lucretia Mott's saintly face, beautiful with eternal

youth; there Mary Wollstonecraft looking into futurity with earnest

eyes. In an arched recess are shelves containing books and piles of

pamphlets, speeches and essays of Stuart Mill, Wendell Phillips,

Higginson, Curtis. Two screens extend across the front of the room,

inclosing a little space around the two large windows which give

light, air and glimpses of City Hall park. Glancing around the

corner we see editor Pillsbury seated at his desk by the further

window. Opposite is another desk covered with brown wrappers and

mailing books. Close against the screen stands yet another, at

which sits the bookkeeper, an energetic young woman who ably

manages all the business affairs of The Revolution. There's an

atmosphere of womanly purity and delicacy about the place;

everything is refreshingly neat and clean, and suggestive of

reform.

Ah! here comes Susan--the determined--the invincible, the Susan who

is possibly destined to be Vice-President or Secretary of State

some of these days! What a delicious thought! I tremble as she

steps rapidly toward me and I perceive in her hand a most

statesmanlike roll of MSS. The eyes scan me coolly and

interrogatively but the pleasant voice gives me a yet pleasanter

greeting. There's something very attractive, even fascinating in

that voice--a faint echo of the alto vibration--the tone of power.

Her smile is very sweet and genial, and lights up the pale, worn

face rarely. She talks awhile in her kindly, incisive way. "We're

not foolishly or blindly aggressive," says she, tersely; "we don't

lead a fight against the true and noble institutions of the world.

We only seek to substitute for various barbarian ideas, those of a

higher civilization--to develop a race of earnest, thoughtful,

conscientious women." And I thought as I remembered various

newspaper attacks, that here was not much to object to. The world

is the better for thee, Susan.

She rises; "Come, let me introduce you to Mrs. Stanton." And we

walk into the inner sanctum, a tiny bit of a room, nicely carpeted,

one-windowed and furnished with two desks, two chairs, a little

table--and the senior editor, Mrs. Stanton. The short, substantial

figure, with its handsome black dress and silver crown of curls, is

sufficiently interesting. The fresh, girlish complexion, the

laughing blue eyes and jolly voice are yet more so. Beside her

stands her sixteen-year-old daughter, who is as plump, as jolly, as

laughing-eyed as her mother. We study Cady Stanton's handsome face

as she talks on rapidly and facetiously. Nothing little or mean in

that face; no line of distrust or irony; neither are there wrinkles

of care--life has been pleasant to this woman.

[Illustration:

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

AT THE AGE OF 48.]

We hear a bustle in the outer room--rapid voices and laughing

questions--then the door is suddenly thrown open and in steps a

young Aurora, habited in a fur-trimmed cloak, with a jaunty black

velvet cap and snowy feather set upon her dark clustering curls.

What sprite is this, whose eyes flash and sparkle with a thousand

happy thoughts, whose dimples and rosy lips and white teeth make so

charming a picture? "My dear Anna," says Susan, starting up, and

there's a shower of kisses. Then follows an introduction to Anna

Dickinson. As we clasp hands for a moment, I look into the great

gray eyes that have flashed with indignation and grown moist with

pity before thousands of audiences. They are radiant with mirth

now, beaming as a child's, and with graceful abandon she throws

herself into a chair and begins a ripple of gay talk. The two

pretty assistants come in and look at her with loving eyes; we all

cluster around while she wittily recounts her recent lecturing

experience. As the little lady keeps up her merry talk, I think

over these three representative women. The white-haired, comely

matron sitting there hand-in-hand with her daughter, intellectual,

large-hearted, high-souled--a mother of men; the grave, energetic

old maid--an executive power; the glorious girl, who, without a

thought of self, demands in eloquent tones justice and liberty for

all, and prophesies like an oracle of old.

May we not hope that America's coming woman will combine these

salient qualities, and with all the powers of mind, soul and heart

vivified and developed in a liberal atmosphere, prove herself the

noblest creature in the world? And so I leave them there--the

pleasant group--faithful in their work, happy in their hopes.

On May 14, 1868, the American Equal Rights Association held its second

anniversary in Cooper Institute. Mrs. Stanton, who had a wholesome

dread of anything disagreeable, was determined not to go, but Miss

Anthony declared that to stay away would be showing the "white feather"

and that, as their enemies had been many weeks working up a sentiment

against them, their presence would prove they had nothing to fear. When

the convention assembled, Lucretia Mott, the president, being absent on

account of the recent death of her husband, Colonel Higginson said to

Miss Anthony: "Now we want everything pleasant and peaceable here, do

we not?" "Certainly," she replied. "Well then, we must have Lucy Stone

open this meeting." "Why so," asked Miss Anthony, "when Mrs. Stanton is

first vice-president? It would be not only an insult to her but a

direct violation of parliamentary usage. I shall never consent to it."

Finding that, nevertheless, there was a scheme to carry out this plan,

she put Mrs. Stanton on the alert and, as the officers filed on the

platform, gave her a gentle push to the front, whereupon she opened the

convention with the utmost suavity.

It was here that these pioneers of the movement for woman suffrage had

the humiliation of hearing Frederick Douglass announce that it was

women's duty to take a back seat and wait till the negro was

enfranchised before they put in their claim. Rev. Olympia Brown and

Lucy Stone both declared the Republican party false to its principles

unless it protected women as well as colored men in their right to

vote, and in his report on the Kansas campaign, Mr. Blackwell, after

speaking of the splendid work of Lucy Stone, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton

and Miss Brown, said: "Their eloquence and determination gave great

promise of success; but, in an inopportune moment, Horace Greeley and

others saw fit in the Constitutional Convention to report adversely to

woman suffrage in New York, which influenced the sentiment in the

younger western State and its enterprise was crushed. Even the

Republicans in Kansas set their faces against the extension of suffrage

to women."

Throughout the entire convention there was much resentment on the part

of the women at the manner in which they had been abandoned in favor of

the negro. During the same week, at the anti-slavery meeting in

Steinway Hall, Anna Dickinson, in the midst of an impassioned speech,

declared: "The position of the black woman today is no better than

before her emancipation from slavery. She has simply changed masters

from a white owner to a black husband in many cases." She demanded

freedom and franchise for woman as for man, irrespective of color; and,

while giving Mr. Phillips credit for his years of service in the cause

of woman, took occasion to enter her protest against the tenor of a

portion of his morning address--in effect, that woman's rights must be

set aside until the rights of the black man were fully secured.

As there was so much cavilling and faultfinding on the part of many of

the Equal Rights Association at every forward and radical step taken by

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, they formed an independent committee of

themselves, Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit Smith, Mrs.

Horace Greeley and Abby Hopper Gibbons, daughter of Isaac T. Hopper,

the noted Abolitionist, and wife of a prominent banker. These ladies

sent a memorial to the Republican National Convention, which met in

Chicago and nominated General Grant, but it never saw the light after

reaching there. Snubbed on every hand by the Republicans, they

determined to appeal to the Democrats. On June 27 Miss Anthony and Mrs.

Stanton attended a mass convention addressed by Governor Seymour,

calling out the following editorial from the New York Sun:

The fact that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony

were the only ladies admitted upon the platform at Cooper

Institute, may be regarded as not only committing them to Governor

Seymour's views, but as committing the approaching Democratic

convention, in whose behalf he spoke, to the doctrine of woman

suffrage. Therefore, whether Miss Anthony is received as a delegate

to the July convention, it is clear that female suffrage must be

incorporated among the planks of the national Democratic platform;

and if Governor Seymour, who is a remarkably fine-looking man, is

nominated, he will receive the undivided support of the women of

the North, which will more than compensate for the loss of the

negro vote of the South.

At the meeting of the Equal Rights Committee, held in New York, a

half-sarcastic resolution was offered by Theodore Tilton and adopted by

the committee declaring that as "Miss Susan B. Anthony, through various

published writings in The Revolution, had given the world to understand

that the hope of the woman's rights cause rests more largely with the

Democratic party than with any other portion of the people; therefore

she be requested to attend the approaching National Democratic

Convention in New York for the purpose of fulfilling this cheerful hope

by securing in the Democratic platform a recognition of woman's right

to the elective franchise."

Miss Anthony ignored the sarcasm, and with Mrs. Stanton at once

prepared a memorial.[46] The convention met and dedicated Tammany Hall

on July 4, 1868. This was the first time since the war that the

southern Democrats had joined with the northern in national convention

and, conservative as they naturally were and separated as they had been

from all the woman's rights agitation which had kept the North stirred

up for the past decade, one can imagine their amazement when Miss

Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and a few other ladies walked into the great hall

and occupied reserved seats at the left of the platform. Their memorial

was sent to the president, Horatio Seymour, and by him handed to the

secretary, who read it amid jeers and laughter. It was then referred to

the resolution committee where it slept the sleep of death. The special

correspondent of the Chicago Republican thus describes the scene when

the memorial was presented:

Susan B. Anthony appeared to the convention like Minerva, goddess

of wisdom. Her advent was with thunders, not of applause, but of

the scorn of a degenerate masculinity. The great Horatio said, with

infinite condescension, that he held in his hand a memorial of the

women of the United States. The name of Miss Anthony was greeted

with a yell such as a Milton might imagine to rise from a conclave

of the damned. "She asked to plead the cause of her sex; to demand

the enfranchisement of the women of America--the only class of

citizens not represented in the government, the only class without

a vote, and their only disability, the insurmountable one of sex."

As these last significant words, with more than significant accent

and modulation, came from the lips of the knightly, the courtly

Horatio, a bestial roar of laughter, swelling now into an almost

Niagara chorus, now subsiding into comparative silence, and again

without further provocation rising into infernal sublimity, shook

the roof of Tammany. Sex--the sex of women--was the subject of this

infernal scorn; and the great Democratic gathering, with yells and

shrieks and demoniac, deafening howls, consigned the memorial of

Susan B. Anthony to the committee on resolutions.

The World, the Herald, the Democratic press generally, spoke of this

incident in satirical and half-contemptuous tones, and the few papers

which treated it seriously declared in effect that, if they had to take

the "nigger," they might as well add woman to the unpalatable dose. A

petition from the Workingmen's Association to this same convention,

demanding a "greenback plank" in the platform, was received with great

respect and the plank put in as requested--offering the very strongest

object lesson of the superiority of an enfranchised over a

disfranchised class. It was not that the convention had more respect

for the workingman, per se, but they feared his vote and so adopted the

greenback plank in order to placate him, and then nominated for

President the most ultra of gold bond-paying advocates.

The Revolution took up with great earnestness the cause of

workingwomen, investigated their condition and published many articles

in regard to it. A meeting was called at the office of The Revolution

and a Workingwoman's Association formed, with officers chosen from the

various occupations represented, which ranged from typesetters to

ragpickers. In September the National Labor Union Congress was held in

Germania Hall, New York, and Miss Anthony was selected to represent

this association. Mr. J. C. C. Whaley, a master workman from the great

iron mills of Philadelphia, presided and she was cordially received. A

committee on female labor was formed with her as chairman, and reported

a strong set of resolutions, urging the organization of women's trades

unions, demanding an eight-hour law and equal pay in all positions, and

pledging support to secure the ballot for women.

After an extended discussion the words "to secure the ballot" were

stricken out, and a resolution adopted that "by accepting Miss Anthony

as a delegate, the Labor Congress did not commit itself to her position

on female suffrage." Here was this great body of men, honestly anxious

to do something to ameliorate the condition of workingwomen, and yet

denying to them the ballot, the strongest weapon which the workingman

possessed for his own protection; unable to see that by placing it in

the hands of women, they would not only give to them immense power but

would double the strength of all labor organizations.

Miss Anthony gave a large amount of time to the cause of workingwomen,

taught them how to organize among themselves, stirred up the newspapers

to speak in their behalf, and interested in them many prominent women

and also "Sorosis," that famous club, which had just been formed. In

addressing women typesetters she said: "The four things indispensable

to a compositor are quickness of movement, good spelling, correct

punctuation and brains enough to take in the idea of the article to be

set up. Therefore, let no young woman think of learning the trade

unless she possesses these requisites. Without them there will be only

hard work and small pay. Make up your minds to take the 'lean' with the

'fat,' and be early and late at the case precisely as men are. I do not

demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value.

Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you

are in their service as workers, not as women."

The diary says in October, "Blue days these." Mr. Train was still in

the Dublin jail. Mr. Melliss was doing his part manfully, subscribers

were constantly coming in, but no paper can be sustained by its

subscription-list. Miss Anthony wrote hundreds of letters in its

interests, and walked many a weary mile and had many an unpleasant

experience soliciting advertisements, but the Republicans were hostile

and the Democrats had no use for The Revolution. Invariably the more

liberal-minded men would say: "We advertise in the Tribune and

Independent, and your paper will reach few homes where one or the other

is not taken;" which was true. All the business and financial

management devolved upon Miss Anthony, and she was untrained in this

department. She labored all the day and late into the night over these

details, longing to be in the field and pushing the cause by means of

the platform, as she had been accustomed to do, and yet feeling that

through the paper she could reach a larger audience. Her diary shows

that, notwithstanding past differences, she still visited at Phillips',

Garrison's, Greeley's and very often at Tilton's. In August she tells

of attending the funeral of the baby in the family of the last, the

departure from the usual customs, the house filled with sunshine, the

mother dressed in white, and the inspired words of Mr. Beecher.

She is invited to Flushing, Oswego and various places to address

teachers' institutes and occasionally to give a lyceum lecture and,

regardless of all fatigue, goes wherever a few dollars may be gathered.

Mrs. Stanton finishes her new home at Tenafly, N. J., and Miss Anthony

enjoys slipping over there for a quiet Sunday. Mrs. Stanton did most of

her editorial work at home and Mr. Pillsbury stayed in the office.

The last battle for 1868 was made in what was known as the Hester

Vaughan case. When Anna Dickinson lectured in New York before the

Workingwoman's Association she told the story of Hester Vaughan: A

respectable English girl, twenty years old, married and came to

Philadelphia only to find that the husband had another wife. She then

secured employment at housework and was seduced by a man who deserted

her as soon as he knew she was to become a mother. She wandered about

the streets and finally, in the dead of winter, after being alone and

in labor three days, her child was born in a garret and she lay on the

floor twenty-four hours without fire or food. When discovered the child

was dead and the mother had nearly perished. Circumstances indicated

that she might have killed the child. Four days after its birth, she

was taken to prison, where she was kept for five months, then tried,

found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. She had now been in jail ten

months.

The Revolution and the Workingwoman's Association, headed by Miss

Anthony, took up the case, not so much because of the individual as to

call attention to the wrongs constantly perpetrated against woman. They

created such a public sentiment that a great meeting was held in Cooper

Institute, where Horace Greeley presided and a number of well-known men

and women took part, including Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Rose, Dr. Lozier and

Eleanor Kirk.[47] Speaking briefly but to the point Miss Anthony

submitted resolutions demanding that women should be tried by a jury of

their peers, have a voice in making the laws and electing the officers

who execute them; and declaring for the abolition of capital

punishment. These were adopted with enthusiasm and the meeting, by

unanimous vote, asked the governor of Pennsylvania for an unconditional

pardon for the girl, while over $300 were subscribed for her benefit.

Through Miss Anthony arrangements were made for Mrs. Stanton and

Elizabeth Smith Miller to carry to Governor Geary a memorial from the

Workingwoman's Association in behalf of Hester Vaughan. During their

interview the governor declared emphatically that justice never would

be done in such cases until women were in the jury-box. These efforts,

supplemented by others afterwards made in Philadelphia, resulted in his

granting the pardon, and the girl was assisted back to her home in

England.

Although The Revolution suffered the anxieties inseparable from the

launching of a new paper, it found much reason for encouragement. A

number of prominent men and newspapers, during the year, had come out

boldly in favor of woman suffrage and there seemed to be a considerable

public sentiment drifting in that direction; but there were signs even

more hopeful than these. Immediately upon the assembling of Congress,

in December, 1868, Senator S. C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, presented a

resolution as an amendment to the Federal Constitution providing that

"the basis of suffrage in the United States shall be that of

citizenship; and all native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the

same rights and privileges of the elective franchise; but each State

shall determine by law the age," etc.

[Autograph:

Very Cordially

& Truly

S.C. Pomeroy]

A few days later George W. Julian, of Indiana, offered a similar

amendment in the House of Representatives, as follows: "The right of

suffrage in the United States shall be based upon citizenship, and

shall be regulated by Congress; and all citizens of the United States,

whether native or naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally, without

any distinction or discrimination whatever founded on sex."

[Autograph: Geo W. Julian]

The last of December Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Mr.

Julian introduced bills to enfranchise women in the District of

Columbia, the latter including also the women in the Territories. A

review of the situation in The Revolution of December 31, said:

In our political opinions, we have been grossly misunderstood and

misrepresented. There never was a time, even in the re-election of

Lincoln, when to differ from the leading party was considered more

inane and treasonable. Because we made a higher demand than either

Republicans or Abolitionists, they in self-defense revenged

themselves by calling us Democrats; just as the church at the time

of its apathy on the slavery question revenged the goadings of

Abolitionists by calling them "infidels." If claiming the right of

suffrage for every citizen, male and female, black and white, a

platform far above that occupied by Republicans or Abolitionists

today, is to be a Democrat, then we glory in the name, but we have

not so understood the policy of modern Democracy. Though The

Revolution and its founders may have been open to criticism in many

respects, all admit that we have galvanized the people into life

and slumbering friends to action on this question.

[Footnote 46: On the Sunday before, the two ladies were invited to

breakfast at the home of Mr. Melliss, with the president of the

National Labor Union and a number of prominent men from Wall street, to

talk over their prospects in the convention.]

[Footnote 47: Dr. Clemence Lozier and Mrs. Eleanor Kirk went to

Moyamensing prison to see the unfortunate girl. In passing the

different cells they noticed many women prisoners and one of the ladies

asked the inspector if he could give any idea of the cause of the

downfall of these women. "Yes," he replied, "faith in men."]

CHAPTER XIX.

AMENDMENT XV--FOUNDING OF NATIONAL SOCIETY.

1869.

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.

[Autograph:

Yours affectionately

Grace Greenwood]

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.[48]

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.