From here she went to Boston to attend a meeting of the Hovey fund committee and urged them to establish a "depository" at Albany with Lydia Mott in charge, which was done. This depot of supplies of literature, etc., for the anti-slavery cause, and central meeting place for its friends, was continued throughout the war. The Mott sisters, cousins of James, lovely and cultured Quaker women, had a little home in Maiden Lane and kept a gentlemen's furnishing store, making by hand the ruffled shirtbosoms and other fine linen. As their home had been so long the center for the reformers of the day, the committee were glad to put Lydia in charge of this depository, at a small salary, and she conducted an extensive correspondence for them during several years. Miss Anthony stayed with her till everything was arranged and in good running order. In July she had received the following invitation:

By a unanimous vote of the Union Agricultural Society of Dundee a resolution was passed to tender you an invitation to deliver the annual address at our next fair. We know it is a departure from established usage, but your experience as one of a brave band of radical reformers will have taught you that only by gradual steps and continued efforts can the prejudices of custom be overcome and the rights of humanity maintained. Woman's rights are coming to be respected more and more every year, and we hope you will aid us in demonstrating that a woman can deliver as profitable an address at an agricultural fair as can a lord of creation....

Yours respectfully, WILLIAM HOUSE, Secretary, per D. S. BRUNER.

To refuse such an opportunity was not to be thought of, so she accepted, and then wrote Mrs. Stanton, who answered: "Come on and we will grind out the speech. I shall expect to get the inspiration, thoughts and facts from you, and will agree to dress all the children you bring."

She found a cordial welcome when she reached Dundee, October 17. It rained so hard her address was deferred till the next day, as it had to be delivered out of doors, so she visited the "art" and "culinary" departments of the fair, and records in her diary: "I have just put an extra paragraph in my speech on bedquilts and bad cooking." Her stage was a big lumber wagon, and her desk the melodeon of James G. Clark, the noted singer and Abolitionist, who held an umbrella over her head to keep off the rain. The diary says: "More than 2,000 feet were planted in the mud, but I had a grand listening to the very end." The speech was a great success and was published in full in the Dundee Record, occupying the entire front page. It was a fine exposition of modern methods of farming and a strong plea for beautifying the home, giving the children books and music and making life so pleasant they would not want to leave the country for the city. These ideas at that time were new and attracted much attention and favorable comment. This was the first instance of a woman's making an address on such an occasion.

At the close of 1860 an incident occurred which attracted wide attention and strikingly illustrated Miss Anthony's unflinching courage and firm persistence when she felt she was right. One evening in December she was in Albany at the depository with Lydia Mott when a lady, heavily veiled, entered and in a long, confidential talk told her story, which in brief was as follows: She was the sister of a United States senator and of a prominent lawyer, and in her younger days was principal of the academy and had written several books. She married a distinguished member of the Massachusetts Senate and they had three children. Having discovered that her husband was unfaithful to her and confronted him with the proofs, he was furious and threw her down stairs, and thereafter was very abusive. When she threatened to expose him, he had her shut up in an insane asylum, a very easy thing for husbands to do in those days. She was there a year and a half, but at length, through a writ of habeas corpus, was released and taken to the home of her brother. Naturally she longed to see her children and the husband permitted the son to visit her a few weeks. When she had to give him up she begged for the thirteen-year-old daughter, who was allowed to remain for two weeks, and then the father demanded her return. The mother pleaded for longer time but was refused. She prayed her brother to interfere but he answered: "It is of no use for you to say another word. The child belongs by law to the father and it is your place to submit. If you make any more trouble about it we'll send you back to the asylum."

Then in her desperation she took the child and fled from the house, finding refuge with a Quaker family, where she stayed until she learned that her hiding-place was discovered, and now as a last resort she came to these women. They assured the unhappy mother that they would help her and, upon making careful inquiry among her friends, found that, while all believed her sane, no one was willing to take her part because of the prominence of her brothers and husband. Finally it was decided that Miss Anthony should go with the mother and child to New York and put them in a safe place, so they were directed to disguise themselves and be at the train on Christmas afternoon. Miss Anthony went on board and soon saw a woman in an old shawl, dilapidated bonnet and green goggles, accompanied by a poorly dressed child, and she knew that so far all was well, but she found the woman in a terrible state of nervousness. She had met her brother coming out of another car where he had just placed his young son to return to boarding-school, after a happy vacation at home, while his sister with her child was fleeing like a criminal; but fortunately he had not recognized her.

Miss Anthony and her charges reached New York at 10 o'clock at night and went through snow and slush to a hotel but were refused admittance because it did not take women "unaccompanied by a gentleman." They made their weary way to another, only to be met with a similar refusal. Finally she thought of an acquaintance who had had a wretched experience with a bad husband and was now divorced, and she felt that sympathy would certainly impel this woman to give them shelter. When they reached the house they found her keeping boarders and she said all would leave if they learned she was "harboring a runaway wife." It was then midnight. They went in the cold arid darkness to a hotel on Broadway, but here the excuse was made that the house was full. Miss Anthony's patience had reached its limit and she declared: "I know that is not so. You can give us a place to sleep or we will sit in this office all night." The clerk threatened to call the police. "Very well," was the reply, "we will sit here till they come and take us to the station." At last he gave them a room without a fire, and there, cold, wet and exhausted, they remained till morning. Then they started out again on foot, as they had not enough money left to hire a carriage.

They went to Mrs. Rose but she could not accommodate them; then to Abby Hopper Gibbons, who sent them to Elizabeth F. Ellet, saying if they could not find quarters to come back and she would care for them. Mrs. Ellet was not at home. All day they went from place to place but no one was willing to accept the responsibility of sheltering them, and at night, utterly worn out, they returned to Mrs. Gibbons. She promised to keep the mother and child until other arrangements could be effected, and Miss Anthony left them there and took the 10 o'clock train back to Albany. She arrived toward morning, tired out in mind and body, but soon was made comfortable by the ministrations of her faithful friend Lydia.

[Autograph: Abby Hopper Gibbons]

It was not long before the family became convinced that Miss Anthony knew the whereabouts of mother and child and then began a siege of persecution. She had at this time commenced that never-to-be-forgotten series of anti-slavery conventions which were mobbed in every town from Buffalo to Albany. In the midst of all this excitement and danger, she was constantly receiving threats from the brothers that they would have her arrested on the platform. They said she had broken the laws and they would make her pay the penalty; that their sister was an "ugly" woman and nobody could live with her. To this she replied: "I have heard there was Indian blood in your family; perhaps your sister has got a little of it as well as yourselves. I think you would not allow your children to be taken away from you, law or no law. There is no reason or justice in a woman's submitting to such outrages, and I propose to defy the law and you also."

If she had been harassed only by these men, it would have caused her no especial worry, but letters and telegrams from friends poured in urging her to reveal the hiding-place and, most surprising of all, both Garrison and Phillips wrote that she had abducted a man's child and must surrender it! Mr. Phillips remonstrated: "Let us urge you, therefore, at once to advise and insist upon this woman's returning to her relatives. Garrison concurs with me fully and earnestly in this opinion, thinking that our movement's repute for good sense should not be compromised by any such mistake." In a letter from Mr. Garrison covering six pages of foolscap, he argued: "Our identification with the woman's rights movement and the anti-slavery cause is such that we ought not unnecessarily involve them in any hasty and ill-judged, no matter how well-meant, efforts of our own. We, at least, owe to them this—that if for any act of ours we are dragged before courts we ought to be able to show that we acted discreetly as well as with good intentions." Both men spoke kindly and affectionately but they were unable to view the question from a mother's or even from a woman's standpoint. Miss Anthony replied to them:

I can not give you a satisfactory statement on paper, but I feel the strongest assurance that all I have done is wholly right. Had I turned my back upon her I should have scorned myself. In all those hours of aid and sympathy for that outraged woman I remembered only that I was a human being. That I should stop to ask if my act would injure the reputation of any movement never crossed my mind, nor will I now allow such a fear to stifle my sympathies or tempt me to expose her to the cruel, inhuman treatment of her own household. Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

At the anti-slavery convention in Albany Mr. Garrison pleaded with her to give up the child and insisted that she was entirely in the wrong. He said: "Don't you know the law of Massachusetts gives the father the entire guardianship and control of the children?" "Yes, I know it," she replied, "and does not the law of the United States give the slaveholder the ownership of the slave? And don't you break it every time you help a slave to Canada?" "Yes, I do." "Well, the law which gives the father the sole ownership of the children is just as wicked and I'll break it just as quickly. You would die before you would deliver a slave to his master, and I will die before I will give up that child to its father." It was impossible for even such great men as Garrison and Phillips to feel for a wronged and outraged woman as they could for a wronged and outraged black man. Miss Anthony wrote at this time: "Only to think that in this great trial I should be hounded by the two men whom I adore and reverence above all others!" Through all this ordeal her father sustained her position, saying: "My child, I think you have done absolutely right, but don't put a word on paper or make a statement to any one that you are not prepared to face in court. Legally you are wrong, but morally you are right, and I will stand by you."

Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, author of Women of the Revolution and other works, cared for and protected the unfortunates, obtained sewing for the mother and helped her to live in peaceful seclusion for a year. She was placed in the family of a physician who watched her closely and testified, as did all connected with her, that she was perfectly sane. According to her letters still in existence, the husband took possession of her funds in bank, drew all the money due to her from her publishers and forbade them to pay her any more from the sale of her books, as he had a legal right to do. In this extremity one of the brothers sent her some money through Miss Mott, who stood as firm as Miss Anthony in the face of threat and persecution. At length, feeling safe, the mother let the little girl go to Sunday-school alone and at the door of the church she was suddenly snatched up, put into a close carriage and in a few hours placed in possession of the father. The mother and her friends made every effort to secure the child, but the law was on the side of the father and they never succeeded.

[Footnote 29: At Miss Anthony's request only such speeches are published in the appendix of this biography as were prepared entirely without the co-operation of Mrs. Stanton.]

[Footnote 30: In a letter to Miss Anthony regretting that no action was taken on the suffrage question, Mr. Colvin wrote: "The more reflection I give, the more my mind becomes convinced that in a republican government we have no right to deny woman the privileges she claims. Besides, the moral element which those privileges would bring into action would, in my judgment, have a powerful influence in perpetuating our form of government."]



CHAPTER XIII.

MOB EXPERIENCE——CIVIL WAR.

1861—1862.

The beginning of 1861 found the country in a state approaching demoralization. Lincoln had received a majority of the electoral vote but far from a majority of the popular vote. The victory was so narrow that the Republicans did not feel themselves strong enough for aggressive action, and the party was composed of a number of diverse elements not yet sufficiently united to agree upon a distinctive policy. Its one cohesive force was the principle of no further extension of slavery, but there was no thought among its leaders of any interference with this institution in the States where it already existed. They accepted the interpretation of the Constitution which declared that it sanctioned and protected slavery, but were determined that the Territories should be admitted into the Union as free States. While many of them were in favor of emancipation, they expected that in some way this question would be settled without recourse to extreme measures, and they feared the effect, not only on the South but on the North, of the forcible language and radical demands of the Abolitionists.

The latter were roused to desperation. Never for an instant did they accept the doctrine that the North should be satisfied merely by the prevention of any further spread of slavery; they believed the system should be exterminated root and branch. They were angered at the reserved and dispassionate language of Lincoln and alarmed at the threats of the secession of the South, which must result either in putting it forever beyond the power of the government to interfere with slavery, or in terrorizing it into making such concessions as would enable the slave power to intrench itself still more strongly under the protection of the Constitution.

At this critical moment, therefore, the Abolitionists put forth every effort to rouse public sentiment to the impending dangers. They gathered their forces and sent them throughout New England, New York and the Western States, bearing upon their banners the watchwords, "No Compromise with Slaveholders. Immediate and Unconditional Emancipation." One detachment, under the intrepid leadership of Susan B. Anthony, arranged a series of meetings for New York in the winter of 1861. This party was composed of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Samuel J. May, Rev. Beriah Green, Aaron M. Powell and Stephen S. Foster; but one after another gave out and went home, while Miss Anthony still remained at the helm. The series began at Buffalo, January 3, in St. James Hall. The mob was ready for them and, led by ex-Justice George Hinson and Birdseye Wilcox, hissed, hooted, yelled and stamped, making it utterly impossible for the speakers to be heard. Prominent among the disturbers were young Horatio Seymour and a son of ex-President Fillmore. The police refused to obey the orders of a Republican mayor and joined in the efforts of the mob, which held carnival two entire days, finally crowding upon the platform and taking possession; and in the midst of the melee the gas was turned off. Miss Anthony stood her ground, however, until lights were brought in, and then herself declared the meeting adjourned.

In towns where there were not enough people to create a disturbance, the meetings passed off quietly, but they were mobbed and broken up in every city from Buffalo to Albany. Democratic officials encouraged the mob spirit and where Republicans might have wished to oppose it, they were too cowardly to do so. The meetings were advertised for three days in Rochester, beginning January 12, and, as the newspapers occupied many columns with a discussion as to whether they would be broken up here as elsewhere, the opposition was thoroughly aroused and the turbulent elements had time to become fully organized. The board of aldermen were called together to consider whether means could not be found to prevent Mr. Reynolds allowing the use of Corinthian Hall, which had been rented for the occasion, and whether it would not be wise to issue an order forbidding the owner of any public building to let it to the Abolitionists; but finally adjourned without action.

The mob, under the lead of Constable Richard L. Swift, fully answered all expectations. As Miss Anthony stepped forward to open the meeting, she was greeted with a broadside of hisses and ironical applause. When Mrs. Stanton began her address her voice was drowned in jeers and groans and, although she persevered for some time, she was unable to complete a single sentence. Rev. May attempted to speak and was met by yells, and stamping of feet. A Southerner in the audience rose and said: "Well, I may as well go back to Kentucky, for this is ahead of any demonstration against free speech I ever saw in the South;" but he was stopped by cries of, "Put him out!" The men kept on their hats, smoked pipes and cigars, stamped, bellowed, swore, and bedlam reigned. The acting mayor, sheriff and chief of police were present, but not an arrest was made. Mrs. Stanton finally left the platform, but Miss Anthony courageously maintained her position until the chief of police mounted the rostrum and declared the meeting adjourned. Even then the rioters refused to go out of the hall, and the speakers were obliged to leave under protection of the police amid the hooting and howling of the rabble. All wanted to give up the rest of the meetings, but Miss Anthony declared they had a right to speak and it was the business of the authorities to protect them, and persisted in finishing the series as advertised. On Sunday the only place where they were allowed to hold services was in Zion's colored church. The house was filled, morning and evening, and they were left in peace.

At Port Byron the meeting was broken up by the throwing of cayenne pepper on the stove. When the speakers reached Utica, where Mechanics' Hall had been engaged, they learned that the board of directors had met and decided it should not be used, in direct violation of the contract with Miss Anthony, who had spent $60 on the meeting. They found the doors locked and a large crowd on the outside. The mayor was among them and begged her not to attempt to hold a meeting. In reply she demanded that the doors be opened. He refused but offered to escort her to a place of safety. She answered: "I am not afraid. It is you who are the coward. If you have the power to protect me in person, you have also the power to protect me in the right of free speech. I scorn your assistance." She declined his proffered arm, but he persisted in escorting her through the mob. As no hall could be had they held their meeting at the residence of her host, James C. DeLong, and formed an anti-slavery organization. The instigator of the opposition in Utica was ex-Governor Horatio Seymour. Of the meeting at Rome, Miss Anthony wrote:

Last evening there was a furious organized mob. I stood at the foot of the stairs to take the admission fee. Some thirty or forty had properly paid and passed up when a great uproar in the street told of times coming. It proved to be a closely packed gang of forty or fifty rowdies, who stamped and yelled and never halted for me. I said, "Ten cents, sir," to the leader, but he brushed me aside, big cloak, furs and all, as if I had been a mosquito, and cried, "Come on, boys!" They rushed to the platform, where were Foster and Powell who had not yet commenced speaking, seated themselves at the table, drew out packs of cards, sang the Star-Spangled Banner and hurrahed and hooted. After some thirty or forty minutes, Mr. Foster and Aaron came down and I accompanied them back to Stanwix Hotel, where the gang made desperate efforts to get through the entrance room in pursuit of the "damned Abolitionists." The Republican paper called us pestiferous fanatics and infidels, and advised every decent man to stay away. Were the Republicans true at this crisis, we not only should be heard quietly, as in past years, but should have far larger audiences; and yet a hundred unmolested conventions would not have made us a tithe of the sympathizers this one diabolical mob has done.

Mr. May was in favor of giving up the conventions and was especially anxious that one should not be attempted in Syracuse, which city, he said, had always maintained freedom of speech and he did not want the record broken; but still, if they insisted upon coming he would do all in his power to help them. Miss Anthony was firm, replying: "If Syracuse is capable of maintaining free speech the record will not be broken; if it is not capable, it has no right to the reputation." Convention Hall was engaged and Mr. May and Mr. C.D.B. Mills lent every possible assistance, but the Abolitionists encountered here the worst opposition of all. The hall was filled with a howling, drunken, infuriated crowd, headed by Ezra Downer, a liquor dealer, and Luke McKenna, a pro-slavery Democrat. Even Mr. May, who was venerated by all Syracuse, was not allowed to speak. Rotten eggs were thrown, benches broken, and knives and pistols gleamed in every direction. The few ladies present were hurried out of the room, and Miss Anthony faced that raging audience, the only woman there. The Republican chief of police refused to make any effort toward keeping order. The mob crowded upon the platform and took possession of the meeting, and Miss Anthony and her little band were forced out of the hall. They repaired to the residence of Dr. R.W. and Mrs. Hannah Fuller Pease, which was crowded with friends of the cause. That evening the rioters dragged through the streets hideous effigies of Susan B. Anthony and Rev. S.J. May, and burned them in the public square.

Not at all daunted or discouraged, Miss Anthony took her speakers forthwith into the very heart of the enemy's country, the capital of the State. Albany had at that time a Democratic mayor, George H. Thacher. As soon as the papers announced the coming of the Abolitionists, over a hundred prominent citizens addressed a petition to the mayor to forbid their meeting for fear of the same riotous demonstrations which had disgraced the other cities. He replied at considerable length, saying that he had taken an oath to support the Constitutions of the United States and the State of New York, that both guaranteed the right of free speech to all citizens, and while he was mayor he intended to protect them in that right.

On the day of the convention he called at the Delevan House for Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stan ton, now reinforced by Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglass, and accompanied them to Association Hall. They found it packed to the doors. The mayor went on the platform and announced that he had placed policemen in various parts of the hall in citizens' clothes, and that whoever made the least disturbance would be at once arrested. Then he laid a revolver across his knees, and there he sat during the morning, afternoon and evening sessions. Several times the mob broke forth, and each time arrests were promptly made. Toward the close of the evening he said to Miss Anthony: "If you insist upon holding your meetings tomorrow, I shall still protect you, but it will be a difficult thing to hold this rabble in check much longer. If you will adjourn at the close of this session I shall consider it a personal favor." Of course she willingly acceded to his request. He accompanied the ladies to their hotel, the mob following all the way.

This closed the series of conventions. With a Republican mayor in every other city, there had been no attempt at official protection; and yet it may be remembered, in extenuation, that it is always easier for the party out of power than for the one in power to stand for principle; the former has nothing to lose. The Republicans at this time were panic-stricken and staggering under the weight of responsibility suddenly laid upon them; and the Abolitionists, by their radical demands and scathing criticism, were adding to their difficulties. There can be no justification, however, for any official who is too cowardly or too dishonest to fulfill the duties of his office.

Immediately upon the close of this anti-slavery meeting, the State Woman's Rights Convention was held in Albany, February 7 and 8. Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Rose, Lucretia Mott and many of the old brilliant galaxy were among the speakers. They little thought that this was the last convention they would hold for five years, that a long and terrible war would cast its shadow over every household before they met again, that differences would arise in their own ranks, and that never more would they come together in the old, fraternal spirit that had bound them so closely and given them strength to bear the innumerable hardships which so largely had been their portion.

After the Albany meeting, Miss Anthony at once began preparations for the National Woman's Rights Convention in New York in May. The date was set, the Tabernacle secured and many of the speakers engaged, but in the meantime the affairs of the nation had become more and more complicated; the threatened secession of the Southern States had been accomplished; the long-expected, long-dreaded crisis seemed close at hand; the people were uncertain and bewildered in the presence of the dreadful catastrophe. All thought, all interest, all action were centered in the new President. The whole nation was breathlessly awaiting the declaration of Lincoln's policy. To call any kind of meeting which had an object other than that relating to the preservation of the Union seemed almost a sacrilege. Letters poured in upon Miss Anthony urging her to relinquish all idea of a convention, but she never had learned to give up. Even after the fall of Sumter and the President's call for troops, the letters were still insisting that she declare the meeting postponed; but it was not until the abandonment of the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, which always took place the same week, and until she found there were absolutely no speakers to be had, that she finally yielded.

About this time she takes care of a sister with a baby, and writes Mrs. Stanton: "O this babydom, what a constant, never-ending, all-consuming strain! We should never ask anything else of the woman who has to endure it. I realize more and more that rearing children should be looked upon as a profession which, like any other, must be made the primary work of those engaged in it. It can not be properly done if other aims and duties are pressing upon the mother." And yet so great was her spirit of self-sacrifice that in this same letter she offers to take entire charge of Mrs. Stanton's seven children while she makes a three months' trip abroad. At a later date, when caring for a young niece, she says: "The dear little Lucy engrosses most of my time and thoughts. A child one loves is a constant benediction to the soul, whether or not it helps to the accomplishment of great intellectual feats."

The watchword of the Abolitionists ever had been "Peace." Under the leadership of Garrison, their policy had been one of non-resistance. When war actually was precipitated, when the South had fired upon the stars and stripes and the tread of marching feet resounded through every northern city, they were amazed and bewildered. Instinctively they turned to their great leaders for guidance. In Music Hall, Boston, April 21, 1861, to an audience of over 4,000, Wendell Phillips made that masterly address, justifying "this last appeal to the God of Battles," and declaring for War. It was one of the matchless speeches of all history, and touched the keynote which soon swelled into a grand refrain from ocean to ocean. But even then there were those who waited for the declaration of Garrison, the great pioneer of Abolitionism. A letter written by Rev. Beriah Green to Miss Anthony, May 22, expresses the sentiment which pervaded the minds of many Abolitionists at this period:

I looked forward to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary with the keenest pleasure and hope. I should see luminous faces; I should bear the voice of wisdom; I should gather strength and courage and return to my task-garden refreshed and quickened. But when I read the official notice in the Standard and Liberator of the grounds on which the meeting was given up, "that nothing should be done at this solemn crisis needlessly to check or divert the mighty current of popular feeling which is now sweeping southward with the strength and impetuosity of a thousand Niagaras," I was surprised and puzzled. I have read Phillips' War Speech, marked the tenor and spirit of the Liberator, seen the stars and stripes paraded in the Standard, perused James Freeman Clarke's sermon, and I feel more desolate and solitary than ever. Mrs. Stanton, too, is for War for the Union, and I say to myself: "How will Susan Anthony and Parker Pillsbury and all the other old comrades be affected by these signs of the times?"

Miss Anthony replied in the same strain:

A feeling of sadness, almost of suffocation, has been mine ever since the first announcement that the anti-slavery meeting was postponed. I can not welcome the demon of expediency or consent to be an abettor, by silence any more than by word or act, of wicked means to accomplish an end, not even for the sake of emancipating the slaves. I have tried hard to persuade myself that I alone remained mad, while all the rest had become sane, because I have insisted that it is our duty to bear not only our usual testimony but one even louder and more earnest than ever before.... The Abolitionists, for once, seem to have come to an agreement with all the world that they are out of time and place, hence should hold their peace and spare their rebukes and anathemas. Our position to me seems most humiliating, simply that of the politicians, one of expediency not principle. I have not yet seen one good reason for the abandonment of all our meetings, and am more and more ashamed and sad that even the little Apostolic number have yielded to the world's motto—"the end justifies the means."

As the long, hard winter's work had left her very tired she gladly turned to that haven of refuge, the farm-home. The father, who was willing always to put the control of affairs into her capable hands, took this opportunity to make a long-desired trip to Kansas, going the first of May and returning in September. She assumed the entire management of the farm, put in the crops, watched over, harvested and sold them; assisted her mother with the housework and the family sewing and, by way of variety, pieced a silk quilt and wove twenty yards of rag carpet in the old loom. She found time, more-over, to go to the Progressive Friends' meeting at Junius and to attend the State Teachers' Convention at Watertown. She also managed a large anti-slavery Fourth of July meeting at Gregory's grove, near Rochester, securing a number of distinguished speakers. In writing her, relative to this meeting, Frederick Douglass said: "I rejoice not in the death of any one, yet I can not but feel that, in the death of Stephen A. Douglas, a most dangerous person has been removed. No man of his time has done more than he to intensify hatred of the negro and to demoralize northern sentiment. Since Henry Clay he has been the King of Compromise. Yours for the freedom of man and of woman always."

[Autograph: Frederick Douglass]

From her diary may be obtained an idea of the busy life which only allowed the briefest entries, but these show her restlessness and dissatisfaction:

Tried to interest myself in a sewing society; but little intelligence among them.... Attended Progressive Friends' meeting; too much namby-pamby-ism.... Went to colored church to hear Douglass. He seems without solid basis. Speaks only popular truths.... Quilted all day, but sewing seems to be no longer my calling.... I stained and varnished the library bookcase today, and superintended the plowing of the orchard.... The last load of hay is in the barn; all in capital order. Fitted out a fugitive slave for Canada with the help of Harriet Tubman.... The teachers' convention was small and dull. The woman's committee failed to report. I am mortified to death for them.... Washed every window in the house today. Put a quilted petticoat in the frame. Commenced Mrs. Browning's Portuguese Sonnets. Have just finished Casa Guidi Windows, a grand poem and so fitting to our terrible struggle.... I wish the government would move quickly, proclaim freedom to every slave and call on every able-bodied negro to enlist in the Union army. How not to do it seems the whole study at Washington. Good, stiff-backed Union Democrats would dare to move; they would have nothing to lose and all to gain for their party. The present incumbents have all to lose; hence dare not avow any policy, but only wait. To forever blot out slavery is the only possible compensation for this merciless war.

All through the chroniclings of the monotonous daily life is the cry: "The all-alone feeling will creep over me. It is such a fast after the feast of great presences to which I have been so long accustomed." During these days she reads Adam Bede, and thus writes Mrs. Stanton:

I finished Adam Bede yesterday noon. I can not throw off the palsied oppression of its finale to poor, poor Hetty—and Arthur almost equally commands my sympathy. He no more desired to wrong her or cause her one hour of sorrow than did Adam, but the impulse of his nature brooked no restraint. Should public sentiment tolerate such a consummation of love—or passion, if it were not love? (But I believe it was, only the impassable barrier of caste forbade its public avowal.) If such a birth could be left free from odium and scorn, contempt and pity from the world, it would be a thousand times more holy, more happy, than many of those in legal marriage. It will not do for me to read romances; they are too real to shake off. What is the irresistible power so terrifically pictured in both Hetty and Arthur, which led them on to the very ill they most would shun?

To crown the result I went to the colored church to hear Sallie Holley, but she did not come. Mrs. Coleman was in the pulpit and read a poem of Gerald Massey on Peace, spoke a few minutes and said she saw Miss Anthony present and hoped she'd occupy the time. Then rang round the house the appalling cry of "Miss Anthony." There was no escape, and I staggered up and stammered out a few words and sat down—dead, killed—thoroughly enraged that I had not spent the forenoon in making myself ready at least to read something, instead of poring over Adam Bede.

To this Mrs. Stanton replies: "You speak of the effect of Adam Bede on you. It moved me deeply, and The Mill on the Floss is another agony. Such books as these explain why the 'marriage question' is all-absorbing. O, Susan, are you ever coming to visit me again? It would be like a new life to spend a day with you. How I shudder when I think of our awful experience with those mobs last winter, and yet even now I long for action." Miss Anthony was equally restive in her own seclusion which, although by no means an idle one, had shut her from the great outside world that at this hour seemed to cry aloud for the best service of every man and woman. In January, 1862, she went to Mrs. Stanton's and together they prepared an address for the State Anti-Slavery Convention to be held at Albany, February 7 and 8, and here in the society of Garrison and Phillips, she received fresh inspiration. Soon after reaching home, at Phillips' request, she arranged a lecture for him in Rochester. After paying all expenses, she sent him a check—there is no record of its size—but he returned a portion, saying:

DEAR SUSAN: Thank you, but you are too generous. I can't take such an awful big lion's share, even to satisfy your modesty. Put the enclosed, with my thanks, into your own pocket, as a slight compensation for all your trouble. Remember and pay my successor not one cent more than you can afford.... I had to charter a locomotive all to myself to get back from Oswego in time for Rondout. Riding in the darkness with the engineer through the snow gave me time to think of the pleasant group and supper I missed the night before at the Hallowells. Kind regards to them. Tell Mrs. Hallowell her lunch tasted good about midnight, as I entered Syracuse.

Miss Anthony managed the usual series of lectures this winter. When she sent Mr. Tilton his check he returned this rollicking answer:

DEAR S.B.A.: I received your letter and its enclosure, which latter has already vanished like April snow, to pay the debts of the subscriber.... Our morning ride with our good friend Frederick gives me pleasure whenever I think of it. Those pictures of Mount Hope and the waterfall were better than any in the Academy of Design. As to yourself, I have had some talk with Rev. Oliver Johnson about your "sphere," and we both agree that you are defrauding some honest man of his just due. I recommend that you form an acquaintance, with a view to prospective results for life, with some well-settled, Old-School Presbyterian clergyman, and send me some of the cake.

[Autograph: Theodore Tilton]

In 1862, as the previous year, Miss Anthony was determined to hold a National Woman's Rights Convention in New York, but her efforts met with no favorable response and so, for the second time, she was obliged to give up the annual protest which seemed to her a sacred duty. She did not then acknowledge, nor has she ever admitted, that there is any question of more vital importance than that relating to the freedom of woman. Defeated here she decided to start out again in the anti-slavery lecture field, since, as she wrote her friend Lydia: "It is so easy to feel your power for public work slipping away if you allow yourself to remain too long snuggled in the Abrahamic bosom of home. It requires great will-force to resurrect one's soul." In her tour she visited Adams, accompanied by her loved niece, Ann Eliza McLean, and wrote back an amusing account of how she lectured the male relatives for requiring their women folks to use worn-out cook-stoves, broken kitchen utensils and all sorts of inconvenient things in the household. While there she went with a large party of relatives over the mountains to see the wonderful Hoosac Tunnel, now well under way. One day she spoke to an audience on the very top of the Green mountains. On this trip, having for a rarity a little leisure, she visited the art galleries of New York and wrote:

My very heart of hearts has been made to rejoice in the work of two of earth's noblest women—Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur. Twice have I visited the Academy of Design and there have I sat in silent, reverential awe, with eyes intent upon the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci. I have no power to express my hope, my joy, my renewed faith in womanhood. In the accomplishment of that grand work of the sculptor's chisel, making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and elevate woman than she possibly could have done by mere words, it matters not how Godlike; though I would not ignore true words, for it is these which rouse to action the latent powers of the Harriet Hosmers.... Even the rude and uncultivated seem awed into silence when they come into the presence of that sleeping, but speaking purity. Rosa Bonheur is the first woman who has dared venture into the field of animal painting, and her work not only surpasses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful step beyond all other artists. Mark another significant fact: The three greatest productions of art during the past three years are by women—Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair and Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci—and these triumphs are in three of its most difficult and exalted departments.

In April she took Mrs. Stanton's four boys from Seneca Falls to New York, and cared for them while the family were removing to that city. In May she attended the New York Anniversary and the New England convention in Boston, and on the Fourth of July the celebration at Framingham, and during this time gave many addresses on anti-slavery. When in Boston she had a delightful visit with the Garrisons, and called on Mrs. Phillips with Mrs. Garrison, one of the few persons admitted to the invalid's seclusion.

While all the women were giving themselves, body and soul, to the great work of the war, the New York Legislature, April 10, 1862, finding them off guard, very quietly amended the law of 1860 and took away from mothers the lately-acquired right to the equal guardianship of their children. They also repealed the law which secured to the widow the control of the property for the care of minor children. Thus at one blow were swept away the results of nearly a decade of hard work on the part of women, and wives and mothers were left in almost the same position as under the old common law. Had one woman been a member of the Legislature, such an act never would have been possible; but the little band who for ten years had watched and toiled to protect the interests of their sex, were in the sanitary commission, the hospitals, at the front, on the platform in the interest of the Union, or at home doing the work of those who had gone into the army, and this was their reward! Miss Anthony's anger and sorrow were intense when she heard of the repeal of the laws which she had spent seven long years to obtain, tramping through cold and heat to roll up petitions and traversing the whole State of New York in the dead of winter to create public sentiment in their favor. In her anguish she wrote Lydia Mott:

Your startling letter is before me. I knew some weeks ago that abominable thing was on the calendar, with some six or eight hundred bills before it, and hence felt sure it would not come up this winter, and that in the meantime we should sound the alarm. Well, well; while the old guard sleep the "young devils" are wide awake, and we deserve to suffer for our confidence in "man's sense of justice;" but nothing short of this could rouse our women again to action. All our reformers seem suddenly to have grown politic. All alike say: "Have no conventions at this crisis; wait until the war excitement abates;" which is to say: "Ask our opponents if they think we had better speak, or rather if they do not think we had better remain silent." I am sick at heart, but I can not carry the world against the wish and will of our best friends. What can we do now when even the motion to retain the mother's joint guardianship is voted down? Twenty thousand petitions rolled up for that—a hard year's work—the law secured—the echoes of our words of gratitude in the Capitol scarcely died away, and now all is lost!

This year began the acquaintance with Anna Dickinson, whose letters are as refreshing as a breeze from the ocean:

The sunniest of sunny mornings to you, how are you today? Well and happy, I hope. To tell the truth I want to see you very much indeed, to hold your hand in mine, to hear your voice, in a word, I want you—I can't have you? Well, I will at least put down a little fragment of my foolish self and send it to look up at you.... I work closely and happily at my preparations for next winter—no, for the future—nine hours a day, generally; but I never felt better, exercise morning and evening, and never touch book or paper after gaslight this warm weather; so all those talks of yours were not thrown away upon me.

What think you of the "signs of the times?" I am sad always, under all my folly;—this cruel tide of war, sweeping off the fresh, young, brave life to be dashed out utterly or thrown back shattered and ruined! I know we all have been implicated in the "great wrong," yet I think the comparatively innocent suffer today more than the guilty. And the result—will the people save the country they love so well, or will the rulers dig the nation's grave?

Will you not write to me, please, soon? I want to see a touch of you very much.

[Autograph:

Very Affectionately Yours Anna E. Dickinson]

Early in September Greeley writes her: "I still keep at work with the President in various ways and believe you will yet hear him proclaim universal freedom. Keep this letter and judge me by the event."

Miss Anthony thus lectures Mrs. Stanton because she has a teacher and educates her children at home: "I am still of the opinion that whatever the short-comings of the public schools your children would be vastly more profited in them, side by side with the very multitude with whom they must mingle as soon as school days are over. Any and every private education is a blunder, it seems to me. I believe those persons stronger and nobler who have from childhood breasted the commonalty. If children have not the innate strength to resist evil, keeping them apart from what they must inevitably one day meet, only increases their incompetency."

In the summer of 1862 Miss Anthony attended her last State Teachers' Convention, which was held in Rochester, where she began her labors in this direction. In 1853 she had forced this body to grant her a share in their deliberations, the first time a woman's voice had been heard. For ten years she never had missed an annual meeting, keeping up her membership dues and allowing no engagement to interfere. Year after year she had followed them up, insisting that in the conventions women teachers should hold offices, serve on committees and exercise free speech; demanding that they should be eligible to all positions in the schools with equal pay for equal work; and compelling a general recognition of their rights. All these points, with the exception of equal pay, had now been gained and there was much improvement in salaries.

Her mission here being ended, she turned her attention to other fields; but for the privileges which are enjoyed by the women teachers of the present day, they are indebted first of all to Susan B. Anthony.[31]

After speaking at intervals through the summer, she started on a regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott: "I can not feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this. I am speaking now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war. What a stay, counsel and comfort you have been to me, dear Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance meeting in that cold, smoky chapel in 1852. How you have compelled me to feel myself competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and distrust. I never can express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you."

A letter from Abby Kelly Foster at this time said: "I am especially gratified to know that you have entered the field in earnest as your own speaker, which you ought to have done years ago instead of always pushing others to the front and taking the drudgery yourself." Miss Anthony was very successful, each day gaining more courage. Her sole theme was "Emancipation the Duty-of the Government." A prominent citizen of Schuyler county wrote her after she had spoken at Mecklinburg: "There is not a man among all the political speakers who can make that duty as plain as you have done." Her whole heart was in the work and she was constantly inspired by the thought that the day of deliverance for the slave was approaching.



At the height of her enthusiasm came the heaviest blow it would have been possible for her to receive. She had come home for a few days, and the Sunday morning after election was sitting with her father talking over the political situation. They had been reading the Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard and were discussing the probable effect of Lincoln's proclamation, when suddenly he was stricken with acute neuralgia of the stomach. He had not had a day's illness in forty years and had not the slightest premonition of this attack. He lingered in great suffering for two weeks and died on November 25, 1862.

No words can express the terrible bereavement of his family. He had been to them a tower of strength. From childhood his sons and daughters had carried to him every grief and perplexity and there never had been a matter concerning them too trivial to receive his careful attention. In manhood and womanhood they still had turned to him above all others for advice and comfort, even the grandchildren receiving always the same loving care. Between husband and wife there ever had been the deepest, truest affection. He was far ahead of his time in his recognition of the rights of women. Years before he had written to a brother: "Take your family into your confidence and give your wife the purse." He was never willing to enter into any pleasure which his wife did not share. They tell of him that once the daughters persuaded him to remain in town on a stormy evening and go to the Hutchinson concert. As they were driving home he said: "Never again ask me to do such a thing; I suffered more in thinking of your mother at home alone than any enjoyment could possibly compensate." A short time before his death he and his wife went to Ontario Beach one afternoon and did not return till 10 o'clock. When asked by the daughters what detained them, the mother answered that they had a fish supper and then strolled on the beach by moonlight; and on their laughing at her and saying she was worse than the girls, she replied: "Your father is more of a lover today than he was the first year of our marriage."

He was a broad, humane, great-hearted man, always mindful of the rights of others, always standing for liberty to every human being. Public-spirited, benevolent and genial in disposition, his loss was widely mourned. The family's devoted friend, Rev. Samuel J. May, conducted the funeral services, at which Frederick Douglass and several prominent Abolitionists paid affectionate tribute, expressing "profound reverence for Mr. Anthony's character as a man, a friend and a citizen." Many letters of sympathy were received by Miss Anthony, but nothing brought consolation to her heart; her best and strongest friend was gone. Parker Pillsbury expressed her sorrow when he wrote: "You must be stricken sore indeed in the loss of your constant helper in the great mission to which you are devoted, your counselor, your consoler, your all that man could be, besides the endearing relation of father. What or who can supply the loss?"

There had not been a day in her life which had not felt his presence. She went forth to every duty sustained by his cheery and brave encouragement. With her father's support she could face the opposition and calumny of the world, and when these became too great she had but to turn again to him for the fullest sympathy and appreciation. He had inspired all she had done and with his wise advice and financial aid had assisted in the doing. When he passed away she felt the foundations taken from beneath her feet. For a little while she was stunned and helpless, and then the old strength came slowly back. The same spiritual force that had upheld her so many years still spoke to her soul and bade her once more take up life's duties.

[Footnote 31: A few years after the war, Miss Anthony chancing to be in Binghamton at the time of a teachers' convention went in. Immediately the whole body rose to give her welcome, she was escorted to the platform and, amid great applause, invited to address them.]



CHAPTER XIV.

WOMEN'S NATIONAL LOYAL LEAGUE.

1863—1864.

It was with a sore and heavy heart that Miss Anthony again turned to her public work, but she was impelled by the thought that it would have been her father's earnest wish, and also by the feeling that work alone could give relief to the sorrow which overwhelmed her. She was bitterly disappointed that the "old guard" persisted in putting the question of the rights of women in the background, thus losing the vantage points gained by years of agitation. She alone, of all who had labored so earnestly for this sacred cause, was not misled by the sophistry that the work which women were doing for the Union would compel a universal recognition of their demands when the war was ended. Subsequent events showed the correctness of her judgment in maintaining that the close of the war would precipitate upon the country such an avalanche of questions for settlement that the claims of women would receive even less consideration than heretofore had been accorded. Next to this cause, however, that of the slaves appealed to her most strongly and she willingly continued her labors for them, trusting that the day might come when Garrison, Phillips, Greeley and the other great spirits would redeem their pledges and unite their strength in securing justice for women.

On January 11, 1863, Miss Anthony received this letter from Theodore Tilton: "Well, what have you to say to the proclamation? Even if not all one could wish, it is too much not to be thankful for. It makes the remainder of slavery too valueless and precarious to be worth keeping. The millenium is on the way. Three cheers for God!... I had the pleasure of dining yesterday with Wendell Phillips in New York. Shall I tell you a secret? I happened to allude to one Susan Anthony. 'Yes,' said he, 'one of the salt of the earth.'" On the 16th came this from Henry B. Stanton: "I date from the federal capital. Since I arrived here I have been more gloomy than ever. The country is rapidly going to destruction. The army is almost in a state of mutiny for want of its pay and for lack of a leader. Nothing can carry the North through but the Southern negroes, and nobody can marshal them into the struggle except the Abolitionists. The country was never so badly off as at this moment. Such men as Lovejoy, Hale and the like have pretty much given up the struggle in despair. You have no idea how dark the cloud is which hangs over us.... We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls that the proclamation will be of any use if we are beaten and have a dissolution of the Union. Here then is work for you. Susan, put on your armor and go forth!"

From many prominent men and women came the same cry, and so she did gird on her armor and go forth. The latter part of February she took up her abode with Mrs. Stanton in New York. Herculean efforts were being made at this time by the Republicans, under the leadership of Charles Sumner, to secure congressional action in regard to emancipation. A widespread fear existed that the President's proclamation might not prove sufficient, that some way of overriding it might be found, and there was much anxiety to secure such an expression of public sentiment as would justify Congress in submitting an amendment to the United States Constitution which should forever abolish slavery. This could best be done through petitions, and here Miss Anthony recognized her work. An eloquent appeal was sent out, enclosing the following:

CALL FOR A MEETING OF THE LOYAL WOMEN OF THE NATION.

In this crisis it is the duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of government, and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are demanded for its defense and preservation.... No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitutional or military law, no methods of craft or policy, can touch the heart of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand idea of freedom or justice is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm.

At this hour the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, are assigned the forum, camp and field. What is woman's legitimate work and how she may best accomplish it is worthy our earnest counsel one with another.... Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution in solemn council to unseal the last will and testament of the fathers, lay hold of their birthright of freedom and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations.

To this end we ask the loyal women of the nation to meet in the Church of the Puritans, New York, on Thursday, the 14th of May next. Let the women of every State be largely represented both in person and by letter.

On behalf of the Woman's Central Committee,

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

An immense audience, mostly women, assembled in Dr. Cheever's famous church. Miss Anthony called the convention to order and nominated Lucy Stone for president. Stirring addresses were made by Mrs. Stanton and the veteran anti-slavery speaker, Angelina Grimke Weld, while the Hutchinson family with their songs added inspiration to the occasion. Miss Anthony presented a series of patriotic resolutions with the following spirited address:

There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is a war which was begun to found an empire upon slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it one to establish the freedom of the negro—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 aid of the government the millions of allies whom we have had within the territory of rebeldom, it should have been the first decree he sent forth. By all the laws of common sense—to say nothing of laws military or civil—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, 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 millions of slaves, transform them into an 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 this is a war for freedom.

We talk about returning to "the Union as it was" and "the Constitution as it is"—about "restoring our country to peace and prosperity—to the blessed conditions which 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, it was sold 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 today. Between the slave and the master there has been war, and war only. This is but 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 which is a Union in fact, a Union in spirit, not a sham. 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. These same men have had control of the churches, the Sabbath-schools and all religious institutions, and the women have been a party in complicity with slavery. They have made the large majority in all the churches throughout the country and have, without protest, fellowshipped the slaveholder as a Christian; accepted proslavery 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 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. Had the women of the North studied to know and to teach their sons the law of justice to the black man, they would not now be called upon to offer the loved of their households to the bloody Moloch of war. 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. Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world will say, whether you are in your place or out of it; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, do your best works, looking to your own consciences for approval.

The fourth resolution, asking equal rights for women as well as negroes, was seriously objected to by several who insisted that they did not want political rights. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Weld, Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Coleman made strong speeches in its favor, and Miss Anthony said:

This resolution merely makes the assertion that in a genuine republic, every citizen 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 placed on a lasting foundation, the civil and political rights of every citizen must be practically established. This is the meaning of the resolution. It is a philosophical statement, made not because women suffer, not because slaves suffer, not because of any individual rights or wrongs—but as a simple declaration of the fundamental truth of democracy 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. This is the question before us: 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?

The resolution was adopted by a large majority. A business meeting was held in the afternoon to decide upon the practical work, and again the room was crowded. Miss Anthony was in the chair. There were women of all ages, classes and conditions, and the assembly was pervaded with deep and solemn feeling. The following was unanimously adopted: "We, loyal women of the nation, assembled in convention this 14th day of May, 1863, hereby pledge ourselves one to another in a Loyal League, to give support to the government in so far as it makes a war for freedom." Mrs. Stanton was elected president and Miss Anthony secretary of the permanent organization. A great meeting was held in Cooper Institute in the evening. An eloquent address to President Lincoln, read by Miss Anthony, was adopted and sent to him.[32] Powerful speeches were made by Ernestine L. Rose and Rev. Antoinette Blackwell, a patriotic address to the soldiers was adopted, and the convention closed amid great enthusiasm.

At subsequent meetings it was decided to confine the work of the League to the one object of securing signatures to petitions to the Senate and House of Representatives, praying for an act emancipating all persons of African descent held in involuntary servitude. They set their standard at a million names. Their scheme received the commendation of the entire anti-slavery press, and of prominent men and women in all parts of the country. The first of June headquarters were opened in Room 20, Cooper Institute, and the great work was begun. Miss Anthony prepared and sent out thousands of petitions accompanied by this letter:

THE WOMEN'S NATIONAL LOYAL LEAGUE TO THE WOMEN OF THE REPUBLIC: We ask you to sign and circulate this petition for the entire abolition of slavery. Remember the President's proclamation reaches only the slaves of rebels. The jails of loyal Kentucky are today filled with Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama slaves, advertised to be sold for their jail fees "according to law," precisely as before the war! While slavery exists anywhere there can be freedom nowhere. There must be a law abolishing slavery. We have undertaken to canvass the nation for freedom. Women, you can not vote or fight for your country. Your only way to be a power in the government is through the exercise of this one, sacred, constitutional "right of petition;" and we ask you to use it now to the utmost. Go to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the soldier, the civilian, the white, the black—gather up the names of all who hate slavery, all who love liberty, and would have it the law of the land, and lay them at the feet of Congress, your silent but potent vote for human freedom guarded by law....

Every day and every hour were given to the Loyal League. All through the hot summer Miss Anthony remained at her post in Cooper Institute, scattering her letters far and wide, pushing into the field every woman who was willing to work, sending out lecturers to stir up the people, directing affairs with the sagacity of an experienced general, sparing no one who could be pressed into service, and herself least of all. On July 15, during the New York Draft Riots, she writes home: "These are terrible times. The Colored Orphan Asylum which was burned was but one block from Mrs. Stanton's, and all of us left the house on Monday night. Yesterday when I started for Cooper Institute I found the cars and stages had been stopped by the mob and I could not get to the office. I took the ferry and went to Flushing to stay with my cousin, but found it in force there. We all arose and dressed in the middle of the night, but it was finally gotten under control."

Miss Anthony had many heartaches during these trying times and longed more and more for that strength which had been taken from her forever. Writing to her mother of her brother Daniel R.'s election as mayor of Leavenworth, Kan., she says: "O, how has our dear father's face flitted before me as I have thought what his happiness would have been over this honor. Last night when my head was on my pillow, I seemed to be in the old carriage jogging homeward with him, while he happily recounted D.R.'s qualifications for this high post and accepted his election as the triumph of the opposition to rebels and slaveholders. Every day I appreciate more fully father's desire for justice to every human being, the lowest and blackest as well as the highest and whitest, and my constant prayer is to be a worthy daughter."

On the anniversary of his death she writes again to her mother: "It has seemed to me last night and today that I must fly to you and with you sit down in the quiet. It is torture here with not one who knew or cared for the loved one. It is sacrilege to speak his name or tell my grief to those who knew him not. O, how my soul reaches out in yearning to his dear spirit! Does he see me, will he, can he, come to me in my calm, still moments and gently minister and lift me up into nobler living and working?"

In a letter to her, relative to the sale of the home, the mother uses these touching words: "If it had been my heart that had ceased to beat, all might have gone on as before, but now all must go astray. I know I ought to get rid of this care, and Mary and I should not try to live here alone, but every foot of ground is sacred to me, and I love every article bought by the dear father of my children." On this subject Miss Anthony writes to her sister Mary:

Your letter sent a pang to my very heart's core that the dear old home, so full of the memory of our father, must be given up. I do wish it could be best to keep it, and yet I do not think he will be less with us away from that loved spot, for my experience in the past months disproves such feeling. Every place, every movement, almost, suggests him. Last evening, I strolled west on Forty-fifth street to the Hudson river, a mile or more. There was newly-sawed lumber there and the smell carried me back, back to the old sawmill and childhood's days. I looked at the beautiful river and the schooners with their sails spread to the breeze. I felt alone, but my mind traversed the entire round of the loved ones. I doubt if there be any mortal who clings to loves with greater tenacity than do I. To see mother without father in the old home, to feel the loneliness of her spirit, and all of us bereft of the joy of looking into the loved face, listening to the loved tones, waiting for his sanction or rejection—O, how I could see and feel it all!

The rest of us have our work to engross us and other objects to center our affections upon, but mother now lives in her children, and I often feel as if we did too little to lighten her heart and cheer her path. Never was there a mother who came nearer to knowing nothing save her own household, her husband and children, whether high in the world's esteem or crucified, the same still with her through all. If we sometimes give her occasion to feel that we prized father more than her, it was she who taught us ever to hold him thus above all others. Our high respect and deep love for him, our perfect trust in him, we owe to mother's precepts and vastly more to her example. And, by and by, when we have to reckon her among the invisible, we shall live in remembrance of her wise counsel, tender watching, self-sacrifice and devotion not second to that we now cherish for the memory of our father—nay, it will even transcend that in measure, as a mother's constant and ever-present love and care for her children are beyond those of a father.

A bit of mirth comes into the somber atmosphere with a note from Theodore Tilton:

To SUSAN B. ANTHONY, ADJUTANT-GENERAL—Since of late you have been bold in expressing your opinion that the draft should be strenuously enforced and that the broken ranks of our brave armies should be supplied with new men, it will serve to show you how great the difference is between those who say and those who do, if I inform you—as in duty bound I do hereby—that I know a little lady only half your size who doubles your zeal in all these respects and who, without waiting for your tardy example, presented on her own account to the government on Thursday last a new man, weighing nine pounds, to be enrolled among the infantry of the United States.

Miss Anthony undertook the great work of this National Loyal League without the guarantee from any source of a single dollar. The expenses were very heavy; office rent, clerk hire, printing bills, postage, etc., brought them up to over $5,000, but as usual she was fertile in resources for raising money. All who signed the petition were requested to give a cent and in this way about $3,000 were realized. A few contributions came in, but the demands were infinite for every dollar which patriotic citizens could spare, and the league felt desirous of paying its own way. To assist in this, she arranged a course of lectures at Cooper Institute. Among those who responded to her call were Hon. William D. Kelley, Edwin P. Whipple, Theodore D. Weld, Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Frances D. Gage and several others. Most of these donated their services and others reduced their price. Letters of commendation were received from editors, ministers, senators and generals. George Thompson, the British Abolitionist and ex-member of Parliament, gave hearty sympathy and co-operation.

[Autograph:

Respectfully Stephen H. Tyng]

Benjamin F. Wade wrote: "You may count upon any aid which I am competent to bestow to forward the object of your league. As a member of Congress, you shall have my best endeavors for your success, for a cause more honorable to human nature or one that promised more benefit to the world, never called forth the efforts of the patriot or philanthropist." From Major-General Rosecrans came the message: "The cause in which you are engaged is sacred, and would ennoble mean and sanctify common things. You have my best wishes for continued success in your good work."

[Autograph:

My hearty sympathy In extreme haste, Very Sincerely Geo Thompson]

In December, 1863, Miss Anthony went to Philadelphia to attend the great meeting which celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and was strengthened and encouraged by the lofty and enthusiastic addresses and the renewed expressions of friendship and fealty to herself.

The work of securing the petitions was rapidly and energetically pushed during the winter and spring of 1864. Miss Anthony gave all her time to the office.[33] During the year and a half of her arduous labors, she received from the Hovey Committee $12 a week. As she boarded with Mrs. Stanton at a reduced price she managed to keep her expenses within this limit. She writes home: "I go to a restaurant near by for lunch every noon. I take always strawberries with two tea-rusks. Today I said, 'All this lacks is a glass of milk from my mother's cellar,' and the girl replied, 'We have very nice Westchester county milk.' So tomorrow I shall add that to my bill of fare. My lunch costs, berries, five cents, rusks five, and tomorrow the milk will be three." There is reason to believe, however, that she often would have been glad to afford a second dish of strawberries.

The Hovey Committee sent $155, Gerrit Smith $200, Schieffelin Brothers, Druggists, $100, and Jessie Benton Fremont, $50. In her great need of funds, Miss Anthony decided to appeal to Henry Ward Beecher and she relates how, as she was wearily climbing Columbia Heights to his home, she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a hearty voice say: "Well, old girl, what do you want now?" It was Mr. Beecher himself who, the moment she explained her mission, said: "I'll take up a collection in Plymouth church next Sunday." The result of this was $200. The carefully kept books still in existence show that when the accounts of the league were closed, there was a deficit of $4.72 to settle all indebtedness, and this Miss Anthony paid out of her own pocket!

In January the brother Daniel R. came East for his beautiful young bride, and the mother from her quiet farm-nook sends her petition to New York. She can not manage the "infare" unless Susan comes home and helps. So she drops the affairs of government long enough to skim across the State and lend a hand in preparing for this interesting event, and then back again to her incessant drudgery, made doubly hard by financial anxiety.

[Autograph:

Faithfully yours, Robert Dale Owen]

During all this work of the Loyal League, Miss Anthony found her strongest and staunchest support in Robert Dale Owen, who was then in New York by appointment of President Lincoln as chairman of the Freedman's Inquiry Commission. She was also in constant communication with Senator Charles Sumner, who was most anxious that the work should be hastened. The blank petitions were sent in great sacks to him at Washington, and distributed under his "frank" to all parts of the Union. On February 9, 1864, he presented in the Senate the first installment. The petitions from each State were tied by themselves in a large bundle and endorsed with the number of signatures. Two able-bodied negroes carried them into the Senate chamber, and Mr. Sumner presented them, saying in part:

These petitions are signed by 100,000 men and women, who unite in this unparalleled number to support their prayer. They are from all parts of the country and from every condition of life.... They ask nothing less than universal emancipation, and this they ask directly at the hands of Congress. It is not for me to assign reasons which the army of petitioners has forborne to assign; but I may not improperly add that, naturally and obviously, they all feel in their hearts, what reason and knowledge confirm, not only that slavery is the guilty origin of the rebellion, but that its influence everywhere, even outside the rebel States, has been hostile to the Union, always impairing loyalty and sometimes openly menacing the national government. The petitioners know well that to save the country from peril, especially to save the national life, there is no power in the ample arsenal of self-defense which Congress may not grasp; for to Congress under the Constitution, belongs the prerogative of the Roman Dictator to see that the republic receives no detriment. Therefore to Congress these petitioners now appeal.

After an earnest discussion by the Senate the petition was referred to the Select Committee on Slavery and Freedom, whose chairman was Thomas D. Eliot, of Massachusetts. Immediately afterwards several thousand more blank petitions were sent out, accompanied by a second appeal which closed: "Shall we not all join in one loud, earnest, effectual prayer to Congress, which will swell on its ear like the voice of many waters, that this bloody, desolating war shall be arrested and ended by the immediate and final removal by statute law and amended Constitution, of that crime and curse which alone has brought it upon us?"

[Autograph: Charles Sumner]

In answer to an invitation to be present at the first anniversary of the Women's National Loyal League, Senator Sumner wrote:

I can not be with you for my post of duty is here. I am grateful to your association for what you have done to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery. Now is the time to strike and no effort should be spared. The good work must be finished, and to my mind nothing seems to be done, while anything remains to be done. There is one point to which attention must be directed. No effort should be spared to castigate and blast the whole idea of property in man, which is the corner-stone of the rebel pretension and the constant assumption of the partisans of slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled out and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion, and there will be no such abomination as slave-hunting, which is beyond question the most execrable feature of slavery itself.

As Miss Anthony herself had asked so many favors of Wendell Phillips, she thought it would be a good idea to have Mrs. Stanton invite him to make an address at this anniversary; but he was not in the least deceived, as his reply shows:

DEAR MRS. STANTON: Your S.B.A. thinks she is very cunning. As if I did not see a huge pussy under that meal! She has been so modest, humble, ashamed, reluctant, apologetic, contrite, self-accusing whenever the last ten years she has asked me to do anything, go anywhere, speak on any topic! Now she makes you pull the chestnuts out of the fire and thinks I do not see her waiting behind. Ah, the hand is the hand of Esau, the voice is the voice of Jacob, wicked, sly, skulking, mystifying Jacob. Why don't "secretaries" write the official letters? How much they leave the "president" to do! Naughty idlers, those secretaries! Well, let me thank Miss Secretary Anthony for her gentle consideration; then let me say I'll try to speak, as you say, fifteen minutes.... Remember me defiantly to S.B.A.

In the midst of all this correspondence came a letter from a sweetheart of her girlhood, now a prominent officeholder in Ohio, stating that he was a widower but would not long remain one if his old friend would take pity upon him. It is sincerely to be hoped that the secretary of the Loyal League found time at least to have one of her clerks answer this epistle.

The meeting was held in the Church of the Puritans, May 12, 1864, and soul-stirring speeches were made by Phillips, Mrs. Rose, Lucretia Mott, George Thompson, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony. The report of the executive committee showed that a debt of $5,000, including $1,000 for postage alone, had been paid; that 25,000 blank petitions had been sent out; that the league now numbered 5,000 members, and that branch Loyal Leagues had been formed in many cities. Strong resolutions were adopted demanding not only emancipation but enfranchisement for the negroes. The entire proceedings of the convention illustrated how thoroughly the leading women of the country understood the political situation, how broad and comprehensive was their grasp of public affairs, and with what a patriotic and self-sacrificing spirit they performed their part of the duties imposed by the great Civil War.

By August, 1864, the signatures to the petitions had reached almost 400,000. Again and again Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson had written Miss Anthony that these petitions formed the bulwark of their demand for congressional action to abolish slavery. Public sentiment on this point had now become emphatic, the Senate had passed the bill for the prohibition of slavery, and the intention of the House of Representatives was so apparent that it did not seem necessary to continue the petitions. The headquarters in Cooper Institute were closed, and the magnificent work, which from this center had radiated throughout the country, found its reward in the proposition by Congress, on February 1, 1865, for Amendment XIII to the Federal Constitution:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The faithful, untiring, persistent chief of this Women's National Loyal League was Susan B. Anthony, whose only material reminder of that great achievement for the freedom of the slave is the arm-chair in which, for the past thirty-five years, she has sat and conducted her vast correspondence in the interest of liberty for the half of humanity still in bondage; yet in the blessed thought that her efforts were an important factor in securing freedom for millions of her fellow-creatures, she has been rewarded a thousandfold. But what words can express her sense of humiliation when, at the close of this long conflict, the government which she had served so faithfully still held her unworthy a voice in its councils, while it recognized as the political superiors of all the noble women of the nation, the negro men just emerged from slavery and not only totally illiterate but also densely ignorant of every public question?

[Autograph: Elizabeth Blackwell]

There never can be an adequate portrayal of the services rendered by the women of this country during the Civil War, but none will deny that, according to their opportunities, they were as faithful and self-sacrificing as were the men. A comparison of values is impossible, but women's labors supplemented those of men, and together they wrought out the freedom of the slave and the salvation of the Union. Among the great body of women, a few stand out in immortal light. The plan of the vital campaign of the Tennessee, one of the great strategic movements of history, was made by Anna Ella Carroll. The work of Dorothea Dix, government superintendent of women nurses, with its onerous and important duties, needs no eulogy. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, fresh from England and an intimacy with Florence Nightingale, originated the Sanitary Commission. No name is held in more profound reverence than that of Clara Barton, for her matchless services upon the battlefield among the dead and dying. To Josephine S. Griffing belongs the full credit of founding the Freedmen's Bureau, which played so valuable a part in the help and protection of the newly emancipated negroes. Who of all the public speakers rendered greater aid to the Union than the inspired Anna Dickinson? Yet not one of these ever received the slightest official recognition from the government. In the cases of Miss Carroll, Dr. Blackwell and Mrs. Griffing, the honors and the profits all were absorbed by men. Neither Dorothea Dix nor Clara Barton ever asked for a pension. All of these women at the close of the war appealed for the right of suffrage, a voice in the affairs of government; but such appeals were and still are treated with contemptuous denial. The situation was thus eloquently summed up by that woman statesman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: