But she had the comfort of knowing that many remained where they had been sent, some buying homes and planting vines about the roof-tree. To behold this, she had wrought heroically in the past for emancipation. She was busy with her hands, busier with her brain, and her spiritual nature was like a spring of sweet waters, overflowing in bounteous blessing on all around. Of the great painter Leonardo da Vinci, his biographer says: "He always saw four things he wanted to do at once." Our friend always saw many more. Her mind was teeming not only with ideals as beautiful as those of the great artist, but with practical plans to educate the ignorant, and lift them to self-support and self-protection. Her being was instinct with constructive and spiritual force.

It would be hard to find any sphere of woman's activity in which she had not been leader. Believing that "the manifest intention of nature is the perfection of man," she faithfully did her part. In the laborious and the menial she served the colored poor, while she neglected no opportunity to open their spiritual vision. She fed, warmed, and clothed them; ministered to the sick; attended the dying; procured their coffins; spoke the comforting words, and sung the hymns at their funerals. She instructed them in their Sunday meetings, and gained release for those in prison for petty offences, or for those unjustly accused. Soldiers often appealed to her to assist and aid them. Her work at the jails was very wearing, for the poor creatures, not unfrequently the mother of an infant left at home, arrested for an imaginary offense, or for stealing bread to avert starvation, would plead so hard for her to get them released, and had such full faith that she could, that it was a constant tax upon her sympathy and strength, as was all her work connected with them.

Josephine Griffing had to deal too much with the realities of life and death to make many records of her work, save those required in the routine of her office. These were mostly kept by her daughter Emma, her official assistant. But the substance of what was done in these years may be found in the archives of the Government. On the calendar of both Houses of Congress, in the Congressional Globe, in the War Office, in the Freedman's Bureau, in the offices of District Government and District Courts, and perhaps in the prisons, the future historian may find abundant records of the patient and humane labors of this merciful, vigilant, and untiring woman. Whether he finds them in her name is not so certain!

Mrs. Griffing not only devoted to these people the six days of the week allotted to labor, but her Sundays were given to public ministrations as well as private visits to the distant and aged, unable to come to the Relief rooms during the week. But for a real picture of the condition of these people, nothing can be more graphic or full of feeling, than her own account in a letter to Lucretia Mott,[29] intended as an appeal to the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. It, with others, had early responded, and with its contributions in part, she had established the soup-houses before noted. Her account is also in connection with the Bureau, of historical interest. During this long struggle her evenings were spent in writing letters to the North, framing bills, petitions, and appeals to amend the laws of the District. As she was interested in all the reforms of the day, she was frequently called upon for active service in conventions and political gatherings.

Of the public men whom she consulted, two at least, I know, made everybody and everything yield when she appeared; these were Secretary Stanton and Chas. Sumner—so interested were they in the objects of her devotion, and so sure that Mrs. Griffing would not take their time without sufficient reason. Benj. F. Wade and Henry Wilson would not yield the palm in their respect to her, and Senator Howard, of Michigan, was also one of her most friendly helpers. Stevens, Julian, Dawes, Ashley—all the friends in Congress—could tell of her great achievements, and their unbounded confidence in her, as the following letters show:

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 11, 1865.

To the Commissioner of the Freedman's Bureau:

SIR:—I take pleasure in giving my influence to this application for a place at the head of freedmen's affairs in the District of Columbia for Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, believing her to be eminently qualified to develop the resources of the freed people in this District, most of whom are women and children—secure the national interest, and give satisfaction to the country. Mrs. Griffing has given successful public and private efforts in behalf of the colored race for many years, and has devoted the entire time of the last year to an investigation of the condition and best method of giving relief to the multitudes of freed people in and around the National Capital. Finding many thousands of women with families without employment or the means of self-support, she has conferred with the President and Governors of the Northwestern States upon the practicability of encouraging their emigration. To meet the destitution of these people in this city during the past winter, Mrs. Griffing has disbursed from the Government about $25,000 in wood and blankets and rations, and $5,000 in clothing and money from the public charity. I believe the appointment of Mrs. J. S. Griffing to a chief clerkship or general agency for the District in this Bureau will be creditable to the Government and satisfactory to the freed people.

Z. CHANDLER.

I fully concur with my colleague. Mrs. Griffing is both worthy and capable, and I trust her services will be secured.

J. M. HOWARD.

If I had this appointment to make, I would make Mrs. Griffing Commissioner.

J. M. ASHLEY.

I know Mrs. Griffing to be capable and humane, and very devoted to the colored race. I hope that her services may be secured.

CHARLES SUMNER.

I most cheerfully join in this recommendation.

H. WILSON, J. N. GRIMES.

I fully concur in the above, and hope that Mrs. Griffing will receive a conspicuous place in the Freedman's Bureau. She is the best qualified of any person within my knowledge; her whole heart is in the work.

B. F. WADE, SOLOMON FOOT, IRA HARRIS, E. D. MORGAN, W. P. FESSENDEN.

I most fully concur.

J. V. DRIGGS, T. W. FERRY.

I fully concur in all that is said within in behalf of Mrs. Griffing, and earnestly commend her to the favor sought.

GEO. W. JULIAN.

WASHINGTON, July 9, 1869.

Mrs. Griffing has for several years devoted herself with great industry, intelligence, and success to the freed people in the District of Columbia, and in this service she has accomplished more good than any other one individual within my acquaintance. When the War Department was in my charge, she rendered very efficient aid of a humane character to relieve the wants and sufferings of destitute freed people, and was untiring in her benevolent exertions. Property for distribution was often placed in her hands, or under her directions, and she was uniformly trustworthy and skillful in its management and administration. In my judgment, she is entitled to the most full confidence and trust.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

JEFFERSON, OHIO, Nov. 12, 1869.

MY DEAR MRS. GRIFFING:—On my return from Washington I found your kind letter of the 28th, ult. I regret much that I did not meet with you at Washington. I know your merits. I know that no person in America has done so much for the cause of humanity for the last four years as you have. Your disinterested labors have saved hundreds of poor human beings not only the greatest destitution and misery, but from actual starvation and death. I also know that in doing this you have not only devoted your whole time, but all the property you have. And I know, too, that your labors are just as necessary now as they ever have been. Others know all this as well as I do. Secretary Stanton can vouch for it all, and I can not doubt that Congress will not only pay you for what you have done, but give you a position where this necessary work may be done by you effectually. This is the very thing that ought to be done at once. Since the Bureau has been abolished it will be impossible to get along with the great influx of imbecility and destitution which gathers and centers in Washington every winter, without some one being appointed to see to it, and certainly everybody knows that there is no one so competent for this work as yourself. To this end I will do whatever I can, but you know that I am now out of place, and have no influence at Court, but whatever I can do to effect so desirable an object will be done.

Truly yours, B. F. WADE.

SENATE CHAMBER, April 2.

DEAR MADAM:—I have your note of the 31st, and am very sorry to hear that there is so much distress in the city. I shall endeavor to bring the charter up as soon as I have an opportunity; but while this trial is pending,[30] it is improbable that any legislative business will be done. I am as anxious as you are to secure its adoption.

Yours truly, CHARLES SUMNER.

MRS. J. S. GRIFFING, Washington.

BOSTON, 27th July, 1869.

DEAR MADAM:—The statement or memorial which you placed in my hands was never printed. It is, probably, now on the files of the Senate. I wish I could help your effort with the Secretary of War. You must persevere. If Gen. Rawlins understands the case, he will do all that you desire. Accept my best wishes, and believe me, faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

Will Mrs. Griffing let Mr. Sumner know what institution or person should disburse the money appropriated?

SENATE CHAMBER, Tuesday.

LETTERS ON THE FREEDMAN'S RELIEF ASSOCIATION.

WASHINGTON, April 8, '71.

To the Mayor and Board of Common Council, City of Washington, District of Columbia:

MESSRS.:—I have the honor to state that the aged, sick, crippled, and blind persons, for whom the National Freedman's Relief Association of this District partially provides, are at this time in very great destitution, many of them in extreme suffering for want of food and fuel. The Association has provided clothing. It is now twelve weeks since the Government appropriation for their temporary support for the last year was exhausted. This Association has by soliciting contributions, up to this time, relieved the most extreme cases, that otherwise must have died; but the want of food is so great among at least a thousand of these, not one of whom is able to labor for a support, that it is impossible to provide the absolute relief they must have, by further contributions from the charitable and the humane.

I would therefore most earnestly appeal in their behalf, that the Hon. Council and Mayor will appropriate from the market fund for their temporary relief one thousand dollars, to be disbursed by the above-named association, which sum will enable these destitute persons to subsist until, as is hoped and believed, Congress will make the usual special appropriation for their partial temporary support. This Association to report the use of such money to the Mayor and Common Council of the City of Washington, D. C.

Very respectfully, J. S. GRIFFING, General Agent N. F. R. Association, D. C.

TRIBUNE OFFICE, NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 1870.

MRS. GRIFFING:—In my judgment you and others who wish to befriend the blacks crowded into Washington, do them great injury. Had they been told years ago, "You must find work; go out and seek it," they would have been spared much misery. They are an easy, worthless race, taking no thought for the morrow, and liking to lean on those who befriend them. Your course aggravates their weaknesses, when you should raise their ambition and stimulate them to self-reliance. Unless you change your course speedily and signally, the swarming of blacks to the District will increase, and the argument that Slavery is their natural condition will be immeasurably strengthened. So long as they look to others to calculate and provide for them, they are not truly free. If there be any woman capable of earning wages who would rather some one else than herself should pay her passage to the place where she can have work, then she needs reconstruction and awakening to a just and honest self-reliance.

Yours, HORACE GREELEY.

MRS. J. S. GRIFFING, Washington, D. C.

Sept. 12, 1870. HORACE GREELEY:

DEAR SIR:—Much as I respect your judgment, and admire your candor, I must express entire dissent with your views in reference to those who are laboring to befriend the Freedmen, and also of your estimate of the character of the black race.

When you condemn my work for the old slaves, who can not labor, and are "crowded into Washington" by force of events uncontrollable, as a "great injury," I am at a loss to perceive your estimate of any and all benevolent action. If, to provide houses, food, clothing, and other physical comforts, to those broken-down aged slaves whom we have liberated in their declining years, when all their strength is gone, and for whom no home, family friendship, or subsistence is furnished; if this is a "great injury," in my judgment there is no call for alms-house, hospital, home, or asylum in human society, and all appropriations of sympathy and material aid are worse than useless, and demand your earnest rebuke and discountenance, and to the unfortunates crowded into these institutions, you should say, "You must find work, go out and seek it." So far as an humble individual can be, I am substituting to these a freedman's (relief) bureau; sanitary commission; church sewing society, to aid the poor; orphan asylum; old people's home; hospital and alms-house for the sick and the blind; minister-at-large, to visit the sick, console the dying, and bury the dead; and wherein I fail, and perhaps you discriminate, is the want of wealthy, popular, and what is called honorable associations. Were these at my command, with the field before me, it would be easy to illustrate the practical use as well as the divine origin of the Golden Rule.

If, in your criticism, you refer to my secondary department in which I have labored to furnish employment to the Freedmen both in the District and out, is it not a direct reflection upon all efforts made for the distribution of labor? Is my course more aggravating to the weakness of destitute unemployed freed people, than emigrant societies, intelligence offices, benevolent ladies' societies, and young men's Christian associations, to give work to the poor of all nations; and lastly the Government Indian department, that has wisely called to its aid the American missionary, and the Quaker societies, to farm out the poor Indians? or, if the measures put forth by these admissible agents can raise the ambition and stimulate to self-reliance their beneficiaries, will you be good enough to show wherein the same means, which I claim to employ, must have the opposite effect upon the freedmen crowded into Washington.

Is it possible that the swarming of the Irish, Swiss, and German poor, to the city of New York, is attributable to the intelligence offices and immigration societies of your city, and not, as we have supposed, to the want of work and bread at home, and is there really a danger, that in providing and calculating for them, we shall strengthen the argument of race, while our institutions of charity are filled with descendants of the Saxon, the Norman, the Goth, and the Vandal? I think not.

Respectfully yours, JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING.

From the New National Era.

MRS. JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING THE ORIGINATOR OF THE FREEDMEN's BUREAU.

This truly excellent and noble woman was fitly spoken of in the New National Era just after her death, but at that early date it was not possible to obtain the facts to prove the statement at the head of this article, which is but simple truth and historic justice.

Mrs. Griffing was engaged in an arduous work for the Loyal League in the Northwest in 1862, and foresaw the need of a comprehensive system of protection, help, and education, for the slaves in the trying transition of freedom. She sought counsel and aid from fit persons in Ohio and Michigan, and came here only in 1863 to begin her work of urging the plan of a Bureau for that purpose. Nothing daunted by coldness or indifference she nobly persisted, until in December, 1863, a bill for a Bureau of Emancipation was introduced in the House of Representatives by Hon T. D. Elliott, of Massachusetts. After some changes in the bill, and a committee of conference of the House and Senate, and the valuable aid of Sumner, Wilson, and other Senators, the bill for the Freedman's Bureau finally passed in March, 1865, and was signed by President Lincoln just before his assassination.

The original idea was Mrs. Griffing's; her untiring efforts gave it life, and it is but just that the colored people, of the South especially, should bear in grateful remembrance this able and gentle woman, whose life and strength were spent for their poor sufferers, and who called into useful existence that great national charity, the Freedman's Bureau.

The following letter from William Lloyd Garrison to Giles B. Stebbins, then in Washington, corroborates the above statements:

ROXBURY, MASS., March 4, 1872.

MY DEAR FRIEND: ... I was glad to see the well-merited tributes paid by yourself and others to the memory of Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing. She was, for a considerable period, actively engaged in the anti-slavery struggle in Ohio, where by her rare executive ability and persuasiveness as a public lecturer, she aided greatly in keeping the abolition flag flying, enlightening and changing public sentiment, and hastening the year of jubilee. With what unremitting zeal and energy did she espouse the cause of the homeless, penniless, benighted, starving freedmen, driven by stress of circumstances into the national capital in such overwhelming numbers; and what a multitude were befriended and saved through her moving appeals in their behalf! How like an angel of mercy must she have seemed to them all! No doubt the formation of the Freedman's Bureau was mainly due to her representations as to its indispensable necessity; and how much good was done by that instrumentality in giving food, clothing, and protection to those who were so suddenly brought out of the house of bondage, as against the ferocity of the rebel element, it is difficult to compute because of its magnitude. She deserves to be gratefully remembered among "the honorable women not a few," who, in their day and generation, have been

"Those starry lights of virtue that diffuse, Through the dark depths of time their vital flame,"

whose self-abnegation and self-sacrifice in the cause of suffering humanity having been absolute, and who have nobly vindicated every claim made by their sex to full equality with men in all that serves to dignify human nature. Her rightful place is among "the noble army of martyrs," for her life was undoubtedly very much shortened by her many cares and heavy responsibilities and excessive labors in behalf of the pitiable objects of her sympathy and regard.

Very truly yours, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

PARKER PILLSBURY, in a letter to Mrs. Stebbins says: "The anti-slavery conflict could never boast a braver, truer, abler advocate than Josephine Griffing. It was always an honor and inspiration to stand by her side, no matter how fierce the encounter. I have seen her when an infuriated mob assailed our Conventions, and dashed down doors, windows, seats, stoves, tables, everything that would yield to their demoniac rage, stand amid the ruins calm and unmoved, and with her gentle words of remonstrance shame the intruders, until one by one they shrank away, glad to get out of her sight.

Her beautiful home hospitalities; her warm welcome ever extended to the faithful friends of freedom and humanity, were equal to her unshaken courage and self-control in public assemblies. We used to call that humble home in Litchfield, 'The Saint's Rest,' and such it was to many a fugitive slave, as well as soldier in his cause.

To the first demand for the enfranchisement of women in 1848, Mrs. Griffing heartily responded, and in this reform she was ever untiring in effort, wise in counsel, and eminent in public speech. In 1867 she helped to organize the Universal Franchise Association of the District of Columbia, of which she was president for years. She was also Corresponding Secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and was ever considered the organizing power at Washington. She first suggested the importance of annual conventions at the capital, in order to influence Congressional action.

Mrs. Griffing's last appearance in public was at the May Anniversary of the National Woman Suffrage Association, held in New York in 1871, and so feeble was her condition that a screen was placed behind her to enable the audience to hear her voice. At the close of the Convention she went to the home of her childhood, in Hebron, Conn., hoping that the bracing air of the New England hills would give her new life and strength, until she could finish her work. But it was already finished. She had taxed herself to the uttermost, beyond nature's power to recuperate. In November she returned to Washington, and enjoyed the sweet presence and tender care of her daughters until she passed away on Feb. 18, 1872.

THE LADIES' NATIONAL COVENANT.

After the war was fairly inaugurated, the manufactories of the country largely turned their attention to the production of material required by the army, which, combined with the immense number of volunteers from such avocations, and the rise in prices of all home manufactures, created an immense import of foreign goods, which, pouring into our country when gold was at the highest, brought to our doors a danger no less formidable than that of the Rebellion. It was shown from official returns, in 1863, that during a period of nine months, the imports, at the port of New York alone, amounted to $160,000,000 in gold; equal, including exchange, freight, insurance, etc., to twice that sum, while our exports amounted to only $120,000,000 in paper.

This ruinous state of our trade brought on us the taunts of foreign enemies, and roused the attention of the country to devise some method of meeting the new danger; Congress temporarily raised duties fifty per cent. in hopes of stemming the tide of importation. The patriotic women of the nation, ever on the alert for methods of aiding the country, early in 1864 called a meeting of the loyal women of Washington, at which time an association, pledging women to the use of home manufactures, was formed under the name of "The Ladies' National Covenant," with offices in every State and Territory within the national lines. Mrs. General Jas. Taylor was elected President; Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas, Vice-President; Mrs. Rebecca Gillis and Miss Virginia Smith, Recording Secretaries; with ten Corresponding Secretaries, of whom Mrs. H. C. Ingersoll was the most active.

This association, formed for the purpose of encouraging domestic manufactures, was composed at its first meeting of the wives of members of the Cabinet and of Senators and Representatives, women of fashion, popular authoresses, mothers who had lost their sons, and wives who had lost their husbands. An Advisory and Organizing Committee was appointed, consisting of women from each State and Territory within the national line. An ADDRESS TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA was issued, and a constitution consisting of eleven sections, together with the following pledge, was adopted:

THE PLEDGE.

For three years, or during the war, we pledge ourselves to each other and the country, to purchase no imported goods where those of American manufacture can be obtained, such as "dress goods of velvet, silks, grenadines, India crape, and imported organdies, India lace and broche shawls, fine wrought laces and embroideries, watches and precious stones, hair ornaments, fans, artificial flowers and feathers, carpets, furniture, silks and velvets, painted china, ormolu, bronze, marble, ornaments, and mirrors."

The emblem of this Covenant was a black or gilt bee, worn as a pin fastening the national colors, upon the hair, arm, or bosom, as a public recognition of membership. In August of the same year the Secretary stated that orders for the emblem, the badge of the Covenant, were received by the manufacturer of the pin from all parts of the Union. A meeting was held in New York, rooms opened in Great Jones Street, and the Covenant was in a fair way to assume large proportions. When Lee's capitulation was announced the necessity for the Covenant ended, and with peace, trade was allowed to drift into its natural channels.

ANNA ELIZABETH DICKINSON.

Foremost among the women who understood the political significance of the great conflict, was Miss Dickinson, a young girl of Quaker ancestry, who possessed remarkable oratorical power, a keen sense of justice, and an intense earnestness of purpose. In the heated discussions of Anti-Slavery Conventions, she had acquired a clear comprehension of the province of laws and constitutions; of the fundamental principles of governments, and the rights of man. Like a meteor, she appeared suddenly in the political horizon, as if born for the eventful times in which she lived, and inspired by the dangers that threatened the life of the republic.

At the very beginning of the war her radical utterances were heard at different points in her native State.[31] Her admirable speech on the higher law, first made at Kennett Square, and the discussion that followed, in which Miss Dickinson maintained her position with remarkable clearness and coolness for one of her years, were a surprise to all who listened. The flattering reports of this meeting in several of the Philadelphia journals introduced her at once to the public.

On the evening of February 27, 1861, she addressed eight hundred people in Concert Hall, Philadelphia. This was her first appearance before so large an assembly, and the first time she had the sole responsibility of entertaining an audience for an entire evening. She spoke two full hours extemporaneously, and the lecture was pronounced a success, not only by the press, but by the many notables and professional men present. Although it was considered a marvelous performance for a young girl, Miss Dickinson herself was mortified, as she said, with the length of her speech and its lack of point, order, and arrangement.

Soon after, she entered the United States Mint, to labor from seven o'clock in the morning to six at night. Although she was ever faithful to her duties and skillful in everything she undertook, soon becoming the most rapid adjuster in the Mint, her radical criticisms on the war and its leaders cost her the loss of the place. At a meeting just after the battle of Ball's Bluff, in summing up the record, after exonerating Stone and Baker, she said, "Future history will show that this battle was lost not through ignorance and incompetence, but through the treason of the commanding general, George B. McClellan, and time will vindicate the truth of my assertion." She was hissed all over the house, though some cried, "Go on!" "Go on!" She repeated this startling assertion three times, and each time was hissed.

When Gen. McClellan was running against Lincoln in 1864, after she had achieved a world-wide reputation, she was sent by the Republican Committee of Pennsylvania to this same town, to speak to the same people, in the same hall. In again summing up the incidents of the war, when she came to Ball's Bluff, she said, "I say now, as I said three years ago, history will record that this battle was lost, not through ignorance or incompetence, but through the treason of the commanding general, George B. McClellan." "And time has vindicated your assertion," was shouted all over the house.

It was the speech made in 1861, that cost her her place in the mint, for while laboring there daily with her hands, her mind was not inactive nor indifferent to the momentous events transpiring about her. She kept a close watch of the progress of the war, and the policy of the Republican leaders. When ex-Governor Pollock dismissed her, he admitted that his reason was that Westchester speech, for at that time McClellan was the idol of the nation.[32]

With remarkable prescience all through the war, and the period of reconstruction, Miss Dickinson took the advance position. Wendell Phillips used to say that "she was the young elephant sent forward to try the bridges to see if they were safe for older ones to cross." When wily politicians found that her criticisms were applauded by immense audiences, they gained courage to follow her lead. As popular thought was centering everywhere on national questions, Miss Dickinson thought less of the special wrongs of women and negroes and more of the causes of revolutions and the true basis of government; hence she spoke chiefly on the political aspects of the war, and thus made herself available in party politics at once.

In the intervals of public speaking, she made frequent visits to the Government hospitals, and became a most welcome guest among our soldiers. In long conversations with them, she learned their individual histories, experiences, hardships, and sufferings; the motives that prompted them to go into the army; what they saw there; what they thought of war in their hours of solitude, away from the camp and the battle-field. Thus she acquired an insight into the soldier's life and feelings, and from these narratives drew her materials for that deeply interesting lecture on hospital life, which she delivered in many parts of the country.

This lecture, given in Concord, New Hampshire, in the autumn of 1862, was the turning-point of her fortunes. In this speech she proved slavery to be the cause of the war, that its continuance would result in prolonged suffering to our soldiers, defeat to our armies, and the downfall of the Republic. She related many touching incidents of her experiences in hospital life, and drew such vivid pictures of the horrors of both war and slavery, that by her pathos and logic, she melted her audience to tears, and forced the most prejudiced minds to accept her conclusions.

It was on this occasion that the Secretary of the State Central Committee heard her for the first time. He remarked to a friend at the close of the lecture, "If we can get this girl to make that speech all through New Hampshire we can carry the Republican ticket in the coming election." Fully appreciating her magnetic power over an audience, he resolved at once, that if the State Committee refused to invite her, he should do so on his own responsibility. But through his influence she was invited by the Republican Committee, and on the first of March commenced her regular campaign speeches. During the four weeks before election she spoke twenty times, everywhere to crowded, enthusiastic audiences. Her march through the State was a succession of triumphs, and ended in a Republican victory.

The member in the first district having no faith that a woman could influence politics, sent word to the Secretary, "Don't send that damn woman down here to defeat my election." The Secretary replied, "We have work enough for her to do in other districts without interfering with you." But when the would-be honorable gentleman saw the furor she created, he changed his mind, and inundated the Secretary with letters to have her sent there. But the Secretary replied, "It is too late; the programme is arranged and published throughout the State; you would not have her when you could, and now you can not have her when you will."

It is pleasant to record that this man, who had the moral hardihood to send a profane adjective over the wires, with the name of this noble girl, lost his election. While all other districts went strongly Republican, his was lost by a large majority. When the news came that the Republicans had carried the State, due credit was awarded to Anna Dickinson. The Governor-elect made personal acknowledgment that her eloquent speeches had secured his election. She was serenaded, feasted, and feted, the recipient of many valuable presents, and eulogized by the press and the people.

New Hampshire safe, all eyes were now turned to Connecticut. The contest there was between Seymour and Buckingham. It was generally conceded that, if Seymour was elected, Connecticut would give no more money or troops for the war. The Republicans were completely disheartened. They said nothing could prevent the Democrats from carrying the State by four thousand, while the Democrats boasted that they would carry it by ten thousand. Though the issue was one of such vital importance, there seemed so little hope of success, that the Republicans were disposed to give it up without making an effort. And no resistance to this impending calamity was made until Anna Dickinson went into the State, and galvanized the desponding loyalists to life. She spent two weeks there, and completely turned the tide of popular sentiment. Democrats, in spite of the scurrilous attacks made on her by some of their leaders and editors, received her everywhere with the warmest welcome, tore off their party badges, substituted her likeness, and applauded whatever she said. The halls where she spoke were so densely packed, that Republicans stayed away to make room for the Democrats, and the women were shut out to give place to those who could vote. There never was such enthusiasm over an orator in this country. The period of her advent, the excited condition of the people, her youth, beauty, and remarkable voice, and wonderful magnetic power, all heightened the effect of her genius, and helped to produce this result. Her name was on every lip; ministers preached about her, prayed for her, as a second Joan of Arc, raised up by God to save that State to the loyal party, and through it the nation to freedom and humanity. As the election approached, the excitement was intense; and when at last it was announced that the State was saved by a few hundred votes, the joy and gratitude of the crowds knew no bounds. They shouted and hurrahed for Anna Dickinson, serenaded her with full bands of music, sent her books, flowers, and ornaments, manifesting in every way their love and loyalty to this gifted girl, who through so many years had bravely struggled with poverty to this proud moment of success in her country's cause. Some leading gentlemen of the State who had invited her there presented her a gold watch and chain, a hundred dollars for every night she had spoken, and four hundred for the last night before election, in Hartford. The comments of the press, though most flattering, give the reader but a faint idea of the enthusiasm of the people.[33]

Fresh from the victories in New Hampshire and Connecticut, she was announced to speak in Cooper Institute, New York. That meeting, in May, 1862, was the most splendid ovation to a woman's genius since Fanny Kemble, in all the wealth of her youth, beauty, and wonderful dramatic power, appeared on the American stage for the first time. There never was such excitement over any meeting in New York; hundreds went away unable even to get standing places in the lobbies and outer halls. The platform was graced with the most distinguished men and women in the country, and so crowded that the young orator had scarce room to stand. There were clergymen, generals, admirals, judges, lawyers, editors, the literati, and leaders of fashion, and all alike ready to do homage to this simple girl, who moved them alternately to laughter and tears, to bursts of applause and the most profound silence.

Henry Ward Beecher, who presided, introduced the speaker in his happiest manner. For nearly two hours she held that large audience with intense interest and enthusiasm, and when she finished with a beautiful peroration, the people seemed to take a long breath, as if to find relief from the intensity of their emotions. Loud cries followed for Mr. Beecher; but he arose, and with great feeling and solemnity, said: "Let no man open his lips here to-night; music is the only fitting accompaniment to the eloquent utterances we have heard." The Hutchinsons closed with one of their soul-stirring ballads, and the audience slowly dispersed, singing the John Brown song with thrilling effect, as they marched into the street.[34]

After her remarkable success in New York, the Philadelphia Union League invited her to speak in that city. The invitation, signed by leading Republicans, she readily accepted. Judge Wm. D. Kelley presided, and a most appreciative audience greeted her. In this address, reviewing the incidents of the war, she criticised General McClellan as usual, with great severity. Some of his personal friends, filled with indignation, left the house, while a derisive laugh followed them to the door. The Philadelphia journals vied with each other in their eulogiums of her grace, beauty, and eloquence. The marked attention she has always received in her native city has been most grateful to her, and honorable to her fellow-citizens.

In July, 1862, the first move was made to enlist colored troops in Pennsylvania. A meeting was called for that purpose in Philadelphia. Judge Kelley, Frederick Douglass, and Anna Dickinson were there, and made strong appeals to the people of that State to grant to the colored man the honor of bearing arms in defence of his country. The effort was successful. A splendid regiment was raised, and the first duty they discharged was to serenade the young orator, who had spoken so eloquently for their race all through the war.

In September a field-day was announced at Camp William Penn. General Pleasanton reviewed the troops. It was a brilliant and interesting occasion, as many were about to leave for the seat of war. At the close of the day when the people began to disperse it was noised round that Miss Dickinson was there; a cry was heard at once on all sides, "A speech! a speech!" The moon was just rising, mingling its pale rays with those of the setting sun, and throwing a soft, mysterious light over the whole scene. The troops gathered round with bristling bayonets and flags flying, the band was hushed to silence, and when all was still, mounted on a gun-wagon, with General Pleasanton and his staff on one side, General Wagner and his staff on the other, this brave girl addressed "our boys in blue." She urged that justice and equality might be secured to every citizen in the republic; that slavery and war might end forever and peace be restored; that our country might indeed be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

As she stood there uttering words of warning and prophecy, it seemed as if her lips had been touched with a live coal from the altar of heaven. Her inspired words moved the hearts of our young soldiers to deeds of daring, and gave fresh courage to those about her to bid their loved ones go and die if need be for freedom and their country. The hour, the mysterious light, the stillness, the novel surroundings, the youth of the speaker, all gave a peculiar power to her words, and made the scene one of the most thrilling and beautiful on the page of history.

In January, 1864, she made her first address in Washington. Though she now felt that her success as an orator was established, yet she hesitated long before accepting this invitation.[35] To speak before the President, Chief-Justice, Judges, Senators, Congressmen, Foreign Diplomats, all the dignitaries and honorables of the Government was one of the most trying ordeals in her experience. She had one of the largest and most brilliant audiences ever assembled in the Capitol, and was fully equal to the occasion. She made a profound impression, and her speech was the topic of conversation for days afterward. At the close of her address she was presented to many of the distinguished ladies and gentlemen, and chief among them the President. This was one of the grandest occasions of her life. She was honored as no man ever had been before. The comments of the press[36] must have been satisfactory to her highest ambition as well as to that of her admiring countrywomen.

One of the most powerful and impressive appeals she ever made was in the Convention of Southern Loyalists held in Philadelphia in September, 1866. In this Convention there was a division of opinion between the Border and the Gulf States. The latter wanted to incorporate negro suffrage in their platform, as that was the only means of success for the Liberal party at the South. The former, manipulated by Northern politicians, opposed that measure, lest it should defeat the Republican party in the pending elections at the North. This stultification of principle, of radical public sentiment, stirred the soul of Miss Dickinson, and she desired to speak. But a rule that none but delegates should be allowed that privilege, prevented her. However, as the Southern men had never heard a woman speak in public, and felt great curiosity to hear her, they adjourned the Convention, resolved themselves into a committee of the whole, and invited her to address them.

An eye-witness[37] thus describes the scene: "As the young maiden stepped forward to deliver a speech as denunciatory as was ever listened to against the action of the Border States, on her right sat Brownlow, on her left John Minor Botts with his lips tightly compressed, and his face telling plainly that he remained there from courtesy, and would remain a patient listener to the end. She began; and for the first time since it met, the Convention was so still that the faintest whisper could be heard."

She had not spoken long before she declared that Maryland had no business in the Convention, but should have been with delegates that came to welcome. There was vehement applause from the Border States. "This is a direct insult," shouted a delegate from Maryland. She went on in spite of interruptions, reviewing the conduct of the Border States with scorn, and an eloquence never equalled in any of her previous efforts, in favor of an open, manly declaration of the real opinion of the Convention for justice to the colored Loyalist, not in the courts only, but at the ballot-box. The speech was in Miss Dickinson's noblest style throughout—bold, but tender, and often so pathetic that she brought tears to every eye. Every word came from her heart, and it went right to the hearts of all. Kentucky and Maryland now listened as eagerly as Georgia and Alabama; Brownlow's iron features and Botts' rigid face soon relaxed, and tears stood in the old Virginian's eyes; while the noble Tennesseean moved his place, and gazed at the inspired girl with an interest and wonderment which no other orator had moved before. She had the audience in hand, as easily as a mother holds her child, and like the child, this audience heard her heart beat. It was a marvelous speech. Its greatness lay in its manner and effect, as well as its argument. When she finished, one after another of the Southern delegates came forward and pinned on her dress the badges of their States until she wore the gifts of Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and Maryland.

And thus it was from time to time that this remarkable girl uttered the highest thought in American politics in that crisis of our nation's history. While in camp and hospital she spoke words of tenderness and love to the sick and dying, she did not hesitate to rebuke the incapacity and iniquity of those in high places. She was among the first to distrust McClellan and Lincoln, and in a lecture, entitled "My Policy," to unveil his successor, Andrew Johnson, to the people. She saw the scepter of power grasped by the party of freedom, and the first gun fired at Sumter in defence of slavery. She saw our armies go forth to battle, the youth, the promise, the hope of the nation—two millions strong—and saw them return with their ranks thinned and broken, their flags tattered and stained, the maimed, the halt and the blind, the weary and worn; and this, she said, is the price of liberty. She saw the dawn of the glorious day of emancipation when four million African slaves were set free, and that night of gloom when the darkest page in American history was written in the blood of its chief. Through the nation's agony was this young girl born into a knowledge of her power; and she drew her inspiration from the great events of her day.

THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL LOYAL LEAGUE.

MAMMOTH PETITION.

Those who had been specially engaged in the Woman Suffrage movement, suspended their Conventions during the war and gave their time and thought wholly to the vital issues of the hour. Seeing the political significance of the war, they urged the emancipation of the slaves as the sure, quick way of cutting the gordion knot of the rebellion. To this end they organized a National League, and rolled up a mammoth petition, urging Congress to so amend the Constitution as to prohibit the existence of slavery in the United States.

From their headquarters in Cooper Institute, New York, they sent out their appeals to the President, Congress, and the people at large; tracts and forms of petition, franked by members of Congress, were scattered like snowflakes from Maine to Texas. Meetings were held every week, in which the policy of the Government was freely discussed, approved or condemned. Robert Dale Owen, chairman of the Freedman's Commission, then residing in New York, aided and encouraged this movement from the beginning, frequently speaking in the public meetings.

That this League did a timely educational work, is manifested by the letters received from generals, statesmen, editors, and from women in most of the Northern States, fully endorsing its action and principles.[38] The clearness of thinking women on the cause of the war; the true policy in waging it; their steadfastness in maintaining the principles of freedom, are worthy of consideration. With this League, Abolitionists and Republicans heartily co-operated. In a course of lectures secured for its benefit in Cooper Institute, we find the names of Horace Greeley, George William Curtis, William D. Kelly, Wendell Phillips, E. P. Whipple, Frederick Douglass, Theodore D. Weld, Rev. Dr. Tyng, Dr. Bellows, and Mrs. Frances D. Gage. Many letters are on its files from Charles Sumner, approving its measures, and expressing great satisfaction at the large number of emancipation petitions being rolled into Congress. The Republican press, too, was highly complimentary. The New York Tribune said: "The women of the Loyal League have shown great practical wisdom in restricting their efforts to one object, the most important which any society can aim at, in this hour, and great courage in undertaking to do what never has been done in the world before, to obtain one million of names to a petition."

The leading journals vied with each other in praising the patience and prudence, the executive ability, the loyalty, the patriotism of the women of the League, and yet these were the same women, who when demanding civil and political rights, privileges, and immunities for themselves, had been uniformly denounced as "unwise," "imprudent," "fanatical," "impracticable." During the six years they held their own claims in abeyance to the slaves of the South, and labored to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the great measures of the Republican party, they were highly honored as "wise, loyal, and clear-sighted." But again when the slaves were emancipated and they asked that women should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcendent virtues vanished like dew before the morning sun. And thus it ever is so long as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when she dares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, character, are subjects for ridicule and detraction.

In March, 1863, an appeal[39] to the women of the Republic, was published in the New York Tribune, and in tract form extensively circulated with "a call"[40] for a National Convention in New York, which assembled in Dr. Cheever's church May 14th. An immense audience, mostly women, representing a large number of the States, crowded the house at an early hour. Miss Susan B. Anthony called the Convention to order and nominated Lucy Stone for President; the other officers[41] of the Convention being chosen, Mrs. Stanton made the opening address, and stated the objects of the meeting.

Miss Anthony having received large numbers of letters[42] which it was impossible to read, said that the one word which had come up from all quarters showed an earnestness of purpose on the part of women to do everything in their power to aid the Government in the prosecution of this war to the glorious end of freedom. The President in introducing Angelina Grimke Weld, said:

This lady, once a South Carolina slaveholder, not only gave freedom to all her slaves twenty years ago, but has spent the strength of her younger years in going up and down among the people, urging the Northern States to make their soil sacred to freedom, to so amend their laws and constitutions that slavery can find no protection within their borders.

MRS. WELD said: I came here with no desire and no intention to speak; but my heart is full, my country is bleeding, my people are perishing around me. But I feel as a South Carolinian, I am bound to tell the North, go on! go on! Never falter, never abandon the principles which you have adopted. I could not say this if we were now where we stood two years ago. I could not say thus when it was proclaimed in the Northern States that the Union was all that we sought. No, my friends, such a Union as we had then, God be praised that it has perished. Oh, never for one moment consent that such a Union should be re-established in our land. There was a time when I looked upon the Fathers of the Revolution with the deepest sorrow and the keenest reproach. I said to their shadows in another world, "Why did you leave this accursed system of slavery for us to suffer and die under? why did you not, with a stroke of the pen, determine—when you acquired your own independence—that the principles which you adopted in the Declaration of Independence should be a shield of protection to every man, whether he be slave or whether he be free?" But, my friends, the experience of sixty years has shown me that the fruit grows slowly. I look back and see that great Sower of the world, as he traveled the streets of Jerusalem and dropped the precious seed, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." I look at all the contests of different nations, and see that, whether it were the Patricians of Rome, England, France, or any part of Europe, every battle fought gained something to freedom. Our fathers, driven out by the oppression of England, came to this country and planted that little seed of liberty upon the soil of New England. When our Revolution took place, the seed was only in the process of sprouting. You must recollect that our Declaration of Independence was the very first National evidence of the great doctrine of brotherhood and equality. I verily believe that those who were the true lovers of liberty did all they could at that time. In their debates in the Convention they denounced slavery—they protested against the hypocrisy and inconsistency of a nation declaring such glorious truths, and then trampling them underfoot by enslaving the poor and oppressed, because he had a skin not colored like their own; as though a man's skin should make any difference in the recognition of his rights, any more than the color of his hair or of his eyes. This little blade sprouted as it were from the precious seeds that were planted by Jesus of Nazareth. But, my friends, if it took eighteen hundred years to bring forth the little blade which was seen in our Declaration, are we not unreasonable to suppose that more could have been done than has been done, looking at the imperfections of human nature, looking at the selfishness of man, looking at his desire for wealth and his greed for glory?

Had the South yielded at that time to the freemen of the North, we should have had a free Government; but it was impossible to overcome the long and strong prejudices of the South in favor of slavery. I know what the South is. I lived there the best part of my life. I never could talk against slavery without making my friends angry—never. When they thought the day was far off, and there was no danger of emancipation, they were willing to admit it was an evil; but when God in His providence raised up in this country an Anti-slavery Society, protesting against the oppressions of the colored man, they began to feel that truth which is more powerful than arms—that truth which is the only banner under which we can successfully fight. They were comparatively quiet till they found, in the election of Mr. Lincoln, the scepter had actually departed from them. His election took place on the ground that slavery was not to be extended—that it must not pass into the Territories. This was what alarmed them. They saw that if the National Government should take one such step, it never would stop there; that this principle had never before been acknowledged by those who had any power in the nation.

God be praised. Abolitionists never sought place or power. All they asked was freedom; all they wanted was that the white man should take his foot off the negro's neck. The South determined to resist the election of Mr. Lincoln. They determined if Fremont was elected, they would rebel. And this rebellion is like their own Republic, as they call it; it is founded upon slavery. As I asked one of my friends one day, "What are you rebelling for? The North never made any laws for you that they have not cheerfully obeyed themselves. What is the trouble between us?" Slavery, slavery is the trouble. Slavery is a "divine institution." My friends, it is a fact that the South has incorporated slavery into her religion; that is the most fearful thing in this rebellion. They are fighting, verily believing that they are doing God service. Most of them have never seen the North. They understand very little of the working of our institutions; but their politicians are stung to the quick by the prosperity of the North. They see that the institution which they have established can not make them wealthy, can not make them happy, can not make them respected in the world at large, and their motto is, "Rule or ruin."

Before I close, I would like, however strange it may seem, to utter a protest against what Mrs. Stanton said of colonizing the aristocrats in Liberia. I can not consent to such a thing. Do you know that Liberia has never let a slave tread her soil?—that when, from the interior of the country, the slaves came there to seek shelter, and their heathen masters pursued them, she never surrendered one? She stands firmly on the platform of freedom to all. I am deeply interested in this colony of Liberia. I do not want it to be cursed with the aristocracy of the South, or any other aristocracy, and far less with the Copperheadism of the North. (Laughter). If these Southern aristocrats are to be colonized, Mrs. President, don't you think England is the best place for them? England is the country which has sympathized most deeply with them. She has allowed vessels to be built to prey upon our commerce; she has sent them arms and ammunition, and everything she could send through the West India Islands. Shall we send men to Liberia who are ready to tread the black man under their feet? No. God bless Liberia for what she has done, and what she is destined to do. (Applause).

I am very glad to say here, that last summer I had the pleasure of entertaining several times, in our house, a Liberian who was well educated in England. He had graduated at Oxford College, and had a high position there. His health broke down, and he went to Liberia. "When I went to Liberia," said he, "I had a first-rate education, and I supposed, of course, I would be a very superior man there; but I soon found that, though I knew a great deal more Greek and Latin and mathematics than most of the men there, I was a child to them in the science of government and history. Why," said he, "you have no idea of the progress of Liberia. The men who go there are freemen—citizens; the burdens of society are upon them; and they feel that they must begin to educate themselves, and they are self-educated men. The President of Liberia, Mr. Benson, was a slave about seven years ago on a plantation in this country. He went to Liberia. He was a man of uncommon talents. He educated himself to the duties which he found himself called upon to perform as a citizen. And when Mr. Benson visited England a year ago, he had a perfect ovation. The white ladies and gentlemen of England, those who were really anti-slavery in their feelings—who love liberty—followed him wherever he went. They opened their houses, they had their soirees, and they welcomed him by every kind of demonstration of their good wishes for Liberia."

Now, Mrs. President, the great object that I had in view in rising, was to give you a representative from South Carolina. (Applause). I mourn exceedingly that she has taken the position she has. I once had a brother who, had he been there, would have stood by Judge Pettigrew in his protest against the action of the South. He, many years ago, during the time of nullification in 1832, was in the Senate of South Carolina, and delivered an able address, in which he discussed these very points, and showed that the South had no right of secession; that, in becoming an integral part of the United States, they had themselves voluntarily surrendered that right. And he remarked, "If you persist in this contest, you will be like a girdled tree, which must perish and die. You can not stand." (Applause).

THE PRESIDENT (Lucy Stone): Mrs. Weld thinks it would be too bad to send the Southern aristocrats and Northern copperheads to Liberia: I do not know but it would. I am equally sure that it would be too bad to send them among the laboring people of England, who are thoroughly, heartily, and wholly on the side of the loyal North. They ought not to be sent there. I would suggest, when they are fairly subdued, that we should send them to London to make a part of the staff of the London Times. I think they would do better there than anywhere else. (Laughter).

The Hutchinson Family being present, varied the proceedings with their inspiring songs. Lucy Stone, in introducing them, said Gen. McClellan was not willing they should sing on the other side of the Potomac, but we are glad to hear them everywhere. Susan B. Anthony presented a series of resolutions,[43] and said:

There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this war shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is a war to found an empire on the negro in slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it a war to establish the negro in freedom—against whom the whole nation, North and South, East and West, in one mighty conspiracy, has combined from the beginning.

Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed, not only by the people, but by the President, Congress, Cabinet, and every military commander. Instead of President Lincoln's waiting two long years before calling to the side of the Government the four millions of allies whom we have had within the territory of rebeldom, it should have been the first decree he sent forth. Every hour's delay, every life sacrificed up to the proclamation that called the slave to freedom and to arms, was nothing less than downright murder by the Government. For by all the laws of common-sense—to say nothing of laws military or national—if the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, could have devised any possible means whereby he might hope to suppress the rebellion, without the sacrifice of the life of one loyal citizen, without the sacrifice of one dollar of the loyal North, it was clearly his duty to have done so. Every interest of the insurgents, every dollar of their property, every institution, however peculiar, every life in every rebel State, even, if necessary, should have been sacrificed, before one dollar or one man should have been drawn from the free States. How much more, then, was it the President's duty to confer freedom on the four million slaves, transform them into a peaceful army for the Union, cripple the rebellion, and establish justice, the only sure foundation of peace! I therefore hail the day when the Government shall recognize that it is a war for freedom. We talk about returning to the old Union—"the Union as it was," and "the Constitution as it is"—about "restoring our country to peace and prosperity—to the blessed conditions that existed before the war!" I ask you what sort of peace, what sort of prosperity, have we had? Since the first slave-ship sailed up the James River with its human cargo, and there, on the soil of the Old Dominion, sold it to the highest bidder, we have had nothing but war. When that pirate captain landed on the shores of Africa, and there kidnapped the first stalwart negro, and fastened the first manacle, the struggle between that captain and that negro was the commencement of the terrible war in the midst of which we are to-day. Between the slave and the master there has been war, and war only. This is only a new form of it. No, no; we ask for no return to the old conditions. We ask for something better. We want a Union that is a Union in fact, a Union in spirit, not a sham. (Applause).

By the Constitution as it is, the North has stood pledged to protect slavery in the States where it existed. We have been bound, in case of insurrections, to go to the aid, not of those struggling for liberty, but of the oppressors. It was politicians who made this pledge at the beginning, and who have renewed it from year to year to this day. These same men have had control of the churches, the Sabbath-schools, and all religious influences; and the women have been a party in complicity with slavery. They have made the large majority in all the different religious organizations throughout the country, and have without protest, fellowshiped the slave-holder as a Christian; accepted pro-slavery preaching from their pulpits; suffered the words "slavery a crime" to be expurgated from all the lessons taught their children, in defiance of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." They have had no right to vote in their churches, and, like slaves, have meekly accepted whatever morals and religion the selfish interest of politics and trade dictated.

Woman must now assume her God-given responsibilities, and make herself what she is clearly designed to be, the educator of the race. Let her no longer be the mere reflector, the echo of the worldly pride and ambition of man. (Applause). Had the women of the North studied to know and to teach their sons the law of justice to the black man, regardless of the frown or the smile of pro-slavery priest and politician, they would not now be called upon to offer the loved of their households to the bloody Moloch of war. And now, women of the North, I ask you to rise up with earnest, honest purpose, and go forward in the way of right, fearlessly, as independent human beings, responsible to God alone for the discharge of every duty, for the faithful use of every gift, the good Father has given you. Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world will say, whether you are in your place or out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, do your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.

Mrs. HOYT, of Wisconsin: Thus far this meeting has been conducted in such a way as would lead one to suppose that it was an anti-slavery convention. There are ladies here who have come hundreds of miles to attend a business meeting of the Loyal Women of the North; and good as anti-slavery conventions are, and anti-slavery speeches are, in their way, I think that here we should attend to our own business.

Mrs. CHALKSTONE, of California: My speech shall be as brief as possible and I ask for an excuse for my broken language. Our field is very small, and God has given us character and abilities to follow it out. We do not need to stand at the ballot-boxes and cast our votes, neither to stand and plead as lawyers; but in our homes we have a great office. I consider women a great deal superior to men. (Laughter and applause). Men are physically strong, but women are morally better. I speak of pure women, good women. It is woman who keeps the world in the balance.

I am from Germany, where my brothers all fought against the Government and tried to make us free, but were unsuccessful. My only son, seventeen years old, is in our great and noble army of the Union. He has fought in many of the battles here, and I only came from California to see him once more. I have not seen him yet; though I was down in the camp, I could not get any pass. But I am willing to lay down all this sacrifice for the cause of liberty. We foreigners know the preciousness of that great, noble gift a great deal better than you, because you never were in slavery, but we are born in it. Germany pines for freedom. In Germany we sacrificed our wealth and ornaments for it, and the women in this country ought to do the same. We can not fight in the battles, but we can do this, and it is all we can do. The speaker, before me, remarked that Abraham Lincoln was two years before he emancipated slaves. She thought it wrong. It took eighteen hundred years in Europe to emancipate the Jews, and they are not emancipated now. Among great and intelligent peoples like Germany and France, until 1814 no Jew had the right to go on the pavement; they had to go in the middle of the street, where the horses walked! It took more than two years to emancipate the people of the North from the idea that the negro was not a human being, and that he had the right to be a free man. A great many will find fault in the resolution that the negro shall be free and equal, because our equal not every human being can be; but free every human being has a right to be. He can only be equal in his rights. (Applause).

Mrs. ROSE called for the reading of the resolutions, which after a spirited discussion, all except the fifth, were unanimously adopted.

Mrs. HOYT, of Wisconsin, said: Mrs. President—I object to the passage of the fifth resolution, not because I object to the sentiment expressed; but I do not think it is the time to bring before this meeting, assembled for the purpose of devising the best ways and means by which women may properly assist the Government in its struggle against treason, anything which could in the least prejudice the interest in this cause which is so dear to us all. We all know that Woman's Rights as an ism has not been received with entire favor by the women of the country, and I know that there are thousands of earnest, loyal, and able women who will not go into any movement of this kind, if this idea is made prominent. (Applause). I came here from Wisconsin hoping to meet the earnest women of the country. I hoped that nothing that would in any way damage the cause so dear to us all would be brought forward by any of the members. I object to this, because our object should be to maintain, as women properly may, the integrity of our Government; to vindicate its authority; to re-establish it upon a far more enduring basis. We can do this if we do not involve ourselves in any purely political matter, or any ism obnoxious to the people. The one idea should be the maintenance of the authority of the Government as it is, and the integrity of the Republican idea. For this, women may properly work, and I hope this resolution will not pass.

SARAH H. HALLECK, of Milton, N. Y.: I would make the suggestion that those who approve of this resolution can afford to give way, and allow that part of it which is objectionable to be stricken out. The negroes have suffered more than the women, and the women, perhaps, can afford to give them the preference. Let it stand as regards them, and blot out the word "woman." It may possibly be woman's place to suffer. At any rate, let her suffer, if, by that means, mankind may suffer less.

A VOICE: You are too self-sacrificing.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE: I always sympathize with those who seem to be in the minority. I know it requires a great deal of moral courage to object to anything that appears to have been favorably received. I know very well from long experience how it feels to stand in a minority of one; and I am glad that my friend on the other side (Mrs. Halleck) has already added one to make a minority of two, though that is by far too small to be comfortable. I, for one, object to the proposition to throw woman out of the race for freedom. (Applause). And do you know why? Because she needs freedom for the freedom of man. (Applause). Our ancestors made a great mistake in not recognizing woman in the rights of man. It has been justly stated that the negro at present suffers more than woman, but it can do him no injury to place woman in the same category with him. I, for one, object to having that term stricken out, for it can have no possible bearing against anything that we want to promote: we desire to promote human rights and human freedom. It can do no injury, but must do good, for it is a painful fact that woman under the law has been in the same category with the slave. Of late years she has had some small privileges conceded to her. Now, mind, I say conceded; for publicly it has not yet been recognized by the laws of the land that she has a right to an equality with man. In that resolution it simply states a fact, that in a republic based upon freedom, woman, as well as the negro, should be recognized as an equal with the whole human race. (Applause)

ANGELINE G. WELD: Mrs. President—I rejoice exceedingly that that resolution should combine us with the negro. I feel that we have been with him; that the iron has entered into our souls. True, we have not felt the slave-holder's lash; true, we have not had our hands manacled, but our hearts have been crushed. Was there a single institution in this country that would throw open its doors to the acknowledgment of woman's equality with man in the race for science and the languages, until Oberlin, Antioch, Lima, and a very few others opened their doors, twenty years ago? Have I not heard women say—I said thus to my own brother, as I used to receive from him instruction and reading: "Oh, brother, that I could go to college with you! that I could have the instruction you do! but I am crushed! I hear nothing, I know nothing, except in the fashionable circle." A teacher said to a young lady, who had been studying for several years, on the day she finished her course of instruction, "I thought you would be very glad that you were so soon to go home, so soon to leave your studies." She looked up, and said, "What was I made for? When I go home I shall live in a circle of fashion and folly. I was not made for embroidery and dancing; I was made a woman; but I can not be a true woman, a full-grown woman, in America."

Now, my friends, I do not want to find fault with the past. I believe that men did for women the best that they knew how to do. They did not know their own rights; they did not recognize the rights of any man who had a black face. We can not wonder that, in their tenderness for woman, they wanted to shelter and protect her, and they made those laws from true, human, generous feelings. Woman was then too undeveloped to demand anything else. But woman is full-grown to-day, whether man knows it or not, equal to her rights, and equal to the responsibilities of the hour. I want to be identified with the negro; until he gets his rights, we never shall have ours. (Applause).

SUSAN B. ANTHONY: This resolution brings in no question, no ism. It merely makes the assertion that in a true democracy, in a genuine republic, every citizen who lives under the government must have the right of representation. You remember the maxim, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This is the fundamental principle of democracy; and before our Government can be a true democracy—before our republic can be placed upon lasting and enduring foundations—the civil and political rights of every citizen must be practically established. This is the assertion of the resolution. It is a philosophical statement. It is not because women suffer, it is not because slaves suffer, it is not because of any individual rights or wrongs—it is the simple assertion of the great fundamental truth of democracy that was proclaimed by our Revolutionary fathers. I hope the discussion will no longer be continued as to the comparative rights or wrongs of one class or another. The question before us is: Is it possible that peace and union shall be established in this country; is it possible for this Government to be a true democracy, a genuine republic, while one-sixth or one-half of the people are disfranchised?

MRS. HOYT: I do not object to the philosophy of these resolutions. I believe in the advancement of the human race, and certainly not in a retrograde movement of the Woman's Rights question; but at the same time I do insist that nothing that has become obnoxious to a portion of the people of the country shall be dragged into this meeting. (Applause). The women of the North were invited here to meet in convention, not to hold a Temperance meeting, not to hold an Anti-Slavery meeting, not to hold a Woman's Rights Convention, but to consult as to the best practical way for the advancement of the loyal cause. To my certain knowledge there are ladies in this house who have come hundreds of miles, who will withdraw from this convention, who will go home disappointed, and be thrown back on their own resources, and form other plans of organization; whereas they would much prefer to co-operate with the National Convention if this matter were not introduced. This movement must be sacred to the one object of assisting our Government. I would add one more remark, that though the women of the Revolution did help our Government in that early struggle, they did not find it necessary to set forth in any theoretical or clamorous way their right to equal suffrage or equal political position, though doubtless they believed, as much as any of us, in the advancement of woman.

A LADY: I want to ask the lady who just spoke if the women of the Revolution found it necessary to form Loyal Leagues? We are not bound to do just as the women of the Revolution did. (Applause and laughter).

LUCY N. COLEMAN, of Rochester, N. Y.: I wish to say, in the first place, something a little remote from the point, which I have in my mind just now. A peculiar sensitiveness seems to have come over some of the ladies here in reference to the anti-slavery spirit of the resolutions. It seems to me impossible that a company of women could stand upon this platform without catching something of the anti-slavery spirit, and without expressing, to some extent, their sympathy with the advancement of human rights. It is the Anti-Slavery women and the Woman's Rights women who called this meeting, and who have most effectually aided in this movement. Their hearts bleed to the very core that our nation is to-day suffering to its depths, and they came together to devise means whereby they could help the country in its great calamity. I respect the woman who opposed this resolution, for daring to say so much. She says that it is an Anti-Slavery Convention that is in session. So it is, and something more. (Applause). She says it is a Woman's Rights Convention. So it is, and even more than that; it is a World's Convention. (Applause). Another woman (I rejoice to hear that lisping, foreign tongue) says that our sphere is so narrow that we should be careful to keep within it. All honor to her, that she dared to say even that. I recognize for myself no narrow sphere. (Applause). Where you may work, my brother, I may work. I would willingly stand upon the battle-field, and would be glad to receive the balls in my person, if in that way I could do more for my country's good than in any other. I recognize no right of any man or of any woman to say that I should not stand there. Our sphere is not narrow—it is broad.

In reference to this resolution, Mrs. Halleck thinks it might be well to leave out woman. No, no. Do you remember, friends, long, long ago here in New York, an Anti-Slavery convention broke up in high dudgeon, because a woman was put upon a committee? But that Anti-Slavery Society, notwithstanding those persons who felt so sensitive withdrew from it, has lived thirty years, and to-day it has the honor of being credited as the cause of this war. Perhaps if the principle which was then at stake—that a woman had a right to be on a committee—had been waived, from the very fact that the principle of right was overruled, that Society would have failed. I would not yield one iota, one particle, to this clamor for compromise. Be it understood that it is a Woman's Rights matter; for the Woman's Rights women have the same right to dictate to a Loyal League that the Anti-Woman's Rights women have, and the side that is strongest will carry the resolution, of course. But do not withdraw it. Do not say, "We will take it away because it is objectionable."

I want the people to understand that this Loyal League—because it is a Loyal League—must of necessity bring in Anti-Slavery and Woman's Rights. (Applause). Is it possible that any of you believe that there is such a being in this country to-day as a loyal man or woman who is not anti-slavery to the backbone? (Applause). Neither is there a loyal man or woman whose intellect is clear enough to take in a broad, large idea, who is not to the very core a Woman's Rights man or woman. (Applause).

MRS. HOYT: As I have said before, I am not opposed to Anti-Slavery. I stand here an Abolitionist from the earliest childhood, and a stronger anti-slavery woman lives not on the soil of America. (Applause). I voted Yea on the anti-slavery resolution, and I would vote it ten times over. But, at the same time, in the West, which I represent, there is a very strong objection to Woman's Rights; in fact, this Woman's Rights matter is odious to some of us from the manner in which it has been conducted; not that we object to the philosophy—we believe in the philosophy—but object to this matter being tacked on to a purely loyal convention.... I will make one more statement which bears upon the point which I have been trying to make. I have never before spoken except in private meetings, and therefore must ask the indulgence of the audience. The women of Madison, Wisconsin, feeling the necessity and importance of doing something more than women were doing to assist the Government in this struggle, organized a Ladies' Union League, which has been in operation some time, and is very efficient.

A VOICE:—What are they doing? Please state.

MRS. HOYT: In Madison we had a very large and flourishing "Soldiers' Aid Society." We were the headquarters for that part of the State. A great many ladies worked in our Aid Society, and assisted us, who utterly refused to join with the Loyal League, because, they said, it would damage the Aid Society. We recognized that fact, and kept it purely distinct as a Ladies' Loyal League, for the promotion of the loyal sentiment of the North, and to reach the soldiers in the field by the most direct and practical means which were in our power. We have a great many very flourishing Ladies' Loyal Leagues throughout the West, and we have kept them sacred from Anti-Slavery, Woman's Rights, Temperance, and everything else, good though they may be. In our League we have three objects in view. The first is, retrenchment in household expenses, to the end that the material resources of the Government may be, so far as possible, applied to the entire and thorough vindication of its authority. Second, to strengthen the loyal sentiment of the people at home, and instil a deeper love of the national flag. The third and most important object is, to write to the soldiers in the field, thus reaching nearly every private in the army, to encourage and stimulate him in the way that ladies know how to do. I state again, it is not an Anti-Slavery objection. I will vote for every Anti-Slavery movement in this Convention. I object to the Woman's Rights resolutions, and nothing else.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE: It is exceedingly amusing to hear persons talk about throwing out Woman's Rights, when, if it had not been for Woman's Rights, that lady would not have had the courage to stand here and say what she did. (Applause). Pray, what means "loyal"? Loyal means to be true to one's highest conviction. Justice, like charity, begins at home. It is because we are loyal to truth, loyal to justice, loyal to right, loyal to humanity, that woman is included in that resolution. Now, what does this discussion mean? The lady acknowledges that it is not against Woman's Rights itself; she is for Woman's Rights. We are here to endeavor to help the cause of human rights and human freedom. We ought not to be afraid. You may depend upon it, if there are any of those who are called copperheads—but I don't like to call names, for even a copperhead is better than no head at all—(laughter)—if there are any copperheads here, I am perfectly sure they will object to this whole Convention; and if we want to consult them, let us adjourn sine die. If we are loyal to our highest convictions, we need not care how far it may lead. For truth, like water, will find its own level. No, friends, in the name of consistency let us not wrangle here simply because we associate the name of woman with human justice and human rights. Although I always like to see opposition on any subject, for it elicits truth much better than any speech, still I think it will be exceedingly inconsistent if, because some women out in the West are opposed to the Woman's Rights movement—though at the same time they take advantage of it—that therefore we shall throw it out of this resolution.