The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth establishing the citizenship of the negro, did not prove sufficient to protect him in his right of suffrage and, although Sumner and other Republican leaders contended that another amendment was not necessary for this, the majority of the party did not share this opinion and it became evident that one would have to be added.[48] Those proposed by Pomeroy and Julian securing universal suffrage were brushed aside without debate, and the following was submitted by Congress to the State legislatures, February 27, 1869:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Autograph:

Very respectfully Gail Hamilton]

The third aniversary of the Equal Rights Association opened at Steinway Hall, May 12, 1869, Mrs. Stanton presiding, and proved to be the most stormy and unsatisfactory meeting ever held. The usual brilliant galaxy of speakers was present, besides a number of prominent men and women who were just beginning to be heard on the woman suffrage platform. Among these were Olive Logan, Phoebe Couzins, Madam D'Hericourt, a French physician and writer, Rev. Phoebe A. Hanaford, Rev. O.B. Frothingham, Hon. Henry Wilson, Rev. Gilbert Haven and others. There were also more delegates from the West, headed by Mrs. Livermore, than had been present at any previous meeting. The usual number of fine addresses were made and all promised fair, but Stephen S. Foster soon disturbed the harmony by suggesting that it was time for Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to withdraw from the association, as they had repudiated its principles and the Massachusetts society could no longer co-operate with them. This called forth indignant speeches from all parts of the house, and he was soon silenced.[49]

[Autograph:

Yours very truly O.B. Frothingham]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the close of the convention a reception was held at the Woman's Bureau, Saturday evening, May 15, 1869, and attended by women from nineteen States who had come as representatives to the Equal Rights Association.[50] At their earnest request, it was decided to form a new organization to be called the National Woman Suffrage Association, whose especial object should be a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, securing the ballot to the women of the nation on equal terms with men. A convention of officially appointed delegates was at that time impracticable, as there were but few local suffrage societies and still fewer State organizations. It was thought that although it might not be formed by delegates elected for this specific object, it would be sufficient for working purposes until the next spring when, the required three months' notice having been given, a permanent organization might be effected. Accordingly, a constitution was adopted and officers elected.[51] The following week at Cooper Institute Anna Dickinson made her great speech for the rights of women, entitled "Nothing Unreasonable," to inaugurate the new National Woman Suffrage Association, and before an immense audience she pleaded for woman with the same beauty and eloquence as in days past she had pictured the wrongs of the slave and urged his emancipation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lovely Quaker, Sarah Pugh, wrote from Philadelphia:

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

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

[Footnote 48: It is claimed, on good authority, that Anna Dickinson was the first to suggest that such an amendment would be required, as early as 1866, in a consultation with Theodore Tilton and Frederick Douglass at the National Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia, as the only sure method of protecting the freedmen. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 327.]

[Footnote 49: In reference to this unwarranted attack, the noted writer, William Winter, said in the New York Tribune:

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

[Footnote 50: Maine 3, Vermont 1, New Hampshire 1, Massachusetts 5, Rhode Island 2, Connecticut 1, New Jersey 7, Pennsylvania 3, Illinois 3, Ohio 3, Wisconsin 1, Minnesota 1, Missouri 3, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, California 5, District of Columbia 3, Washington Territory 1-46. The remainder of the one hundred members who joined the association that evening resided in different parts of the State of New York.]

[Footnote 51: President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vice-presidents, Elizabeth B. Phelps, N.Y.; Anna Dickinson, Penn.; Kate N. Doggett, Ill.; Madame Anneke, Wis.; Lucy Elmes, Conn.; Mattie Griffith Brown, Mass.; Mrs. Nicholas Smith, Kan.; Lucy A. Snow, Maine; Elizabeth B. Schenck, Cal.; Josephine S. Griffing, D.C.; Paulina Wright Davis, R.I.; Mary Foote Henderson, Phoebe W. Cousins, Mo. Corresponding secretaries, Laura Curtis Bullard, Ida Greeley, Adelaide Hallock. Recording secretaries, Abby Burton Crosby, Sarah E. Fuller. Treasurer, Elizabeth Smith Miller. Executive committee, Ernestine L. Rose, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Mathilda F. Wendt, Mary F. Gilbert, Susan B. Anthony. Advisory counsel, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N.Y.; Mrs. Francis Minor, Mo.; Adeline Thomson, Penn,; Mrs. M.B. Longley, Ohio; Mrs. J.P. Root, Kan.; Lilie Peckham, Wis.]



CHAPTER XX.

FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY—END OF EQUAL RIGHTS SOCIETY.

1870.

Conventions and conventions for fifty years, without a break, planned and managed by one woman—was there ever a similar record? The year 1870 opened with the Second National Woman Suffrage Convention, in Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C., January 19. It had been advertised for two days, but the interest was so great that it was continued through the third day and evening. Mrs. Stanton was in the chair and the papers united in praising the beauty, dignity and elegant attire of the women on the platform. A long table at the Arlington Hotel was reserved for them, and Miss Anthony relates that as they were all going into the dining-room one day, Jessie Benton Fremont beckoned to her and when she went over to the table where the general and she were sitting, she said in her bright, pretty way: "Now tell me, did you hunt the country over and pick out a score of the most beautiful women you could find to melt the hearts of our congressmen?"

Letters of warm approval were read from John Stuart Mill and Helen Taylor, of England; Professor Homer B. Sprague, of Cornell University; Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist church; Senator Matthew H. Carpenter, and many other distinguished persons. A number of senators and representatives addressed the meetings, as did also Hon. A.G. Riddle, of the District of Columbia, Rev. Samuel J. May, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and the usual corps of well-known suffrage speakers. Jennie Collins, the Lowell factory girl, electrified the audience by discussing the great question from the standpoint of the workingwomen. All the New York dailies sent women reporters, a comparatively new feature at conventions.

A hearing was arranged before the joint committees for the District of Columbia, and a number of the ladies made short addresses. Mrs. Stanton based her remarks on the unanswerable argument of Francis Minor at the St. Louis convention a few months before, the first assertion of woman's right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. Miss Anthony said:

We are here for the express purpose of urging you to present in your respective bodies, a bill to strike the word "male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage Act and thereby enfranchise the women of the District. We ask that the experiment of woman suffrage shall be made here, under the eye of Congress, as was that of negro suffrage. Indeed, the District has ever been the experimental ground of each step toward freedom. The auction-block was here first banished, slavery here first abolished, the freedmen here first enfranchised; and we now ask that women here shall be first admitted to the ballot. There was great fear and trepidation all over the country as to the results of negro suffrage, and you deemed it right and safe to inaugurate the experiment here; and you all remember that three days' discussion in 1866 on Senator Cowan's proposition to strike out the word "male." Well do I recollect with what anxious hope we watched the daily reports of that debate, and how we longed that Congress might then declare for the establishment in this District of a real republic. But conscience or courage or something was wanting, and women were bidden still to wait.

When, on that March day of 1867, the negroes of the District first voted, the success of that election inspired Congress with confidence to pass the proposition for the Fifteenth Amendment, and the different States to ratify it, until it has become a fixed fact that black men all over the nation not only may vote but sit in legislative assemblies and constitutional conventions. We now ask Congress to do the same for women. We ask you to enfranchise the women of the District this very winter, so that next March they may go to the ballot-box, and all the people of this nation may see that it is possible for women to vote and the republic yet stand. There is no reason, no argument, nothing but prejudice, against our demand; and there is no way to break down this prejudice but to make the experiment. Therefore, we most earnestly urge it, in full faith that so soon as Congress and the people shall have witnessed its beneficial results, they will go forward with a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit any State from disfranchising any of its citizens on account of sex.

A letter from Mrs. Fannie Howland in the Hartford Courant thus describes the hearing:

Senator Hannibal Hamlin, chairman, presented to them successively the gentlemen of the committee, who took their seats around a long table. Mrs. Stanton stood at one end, serene and dignified. Behind her sat a large semicircle of ladies, and close about her a group of her companions, who would have been remarkable anywhere for the intellectual refinement and elevated expression of their earnest faces. Opposite sat Charles Sumner, looking fatigued and worn, but listening with alert attention. So these two veterans in the cause of freedom were fitly and suggestively brought face to face.

The scene was impressive. It was simple, grand, historic. Women have often appeared in history—noble, brilliant, heroic women; but woman collectively, impersonally, today asks recognition in the commonwealth—not in virtue of hereditary noblesse—not for any excellence or achievement of individuals, but on the one ground of her possessing the same rights, interests and responsibilities as man. There was nothing in this gathering at the Capitol to touch the imagination with illusion, no ball-room splendor of light, fragrance and jewels, none of those graceful enchantments by which women have been content to reign through brief dynasties of beauty and briefer fealties of homage. The cool light of a winter morning, the bare walls of a committee room, the plain costumes of everyday use, held the mind strictly to the actual facts which gave that group of representative men and women its moral significance, its severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new "Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the land for portraits of those ladies who spoke for their countrywomen at the Capitol, and of those senators and representatives who gave them audience. Mrs. Stanton was followed by Miss Anthony, morally as inevitable and impersonal as a Greek chorus, but physically and intellectually individual, intense, original, full of humor and good nature.

The Hearth and Home, in Photographs of our Agitators, thus depicts Miss Anthony on this occasion:

She is the Bismarck; she plans the campaigns, provides the munitions of war, organizes the raw recruits, sets the squadrons in the field. Indeed, in presence of a timid lieutenant, she sometimes heads the charge; but she is most effective as the directing generalissimo. Miss Anthony is a quick, bright, nervous, alert woman of fifty or so—not at all inclined to embonpoint—sharp-eyed, even behind her spectacles. She presides over the treasury, she cuts the Gordian knots, and when the uncontrollables get by the ears at the conventions, she is the one who straightway drags them asunder and turns chaos to order again. In every dilemma, she is unanimously summoned. As a speaker, she is angular and rigid, but trenchant, incisive, cutting through to the heart of whatever topic she touches.

Mrs. Hooker wrote: "There were congratulations without stint; but Sumner, grandest of all, approaching us said in a deep voice, really full of emotion: 'I have been in this place, ladies, for twenty years; I have followed or led in every movement toward liberty and enfranchisement; but this meeting exceeds in interest anything I ever have witnessed.'" In her weekly letter to the Independent, Mary Clemmer wrote of this convention:

I am glad to say that it was not mongrel—in part a dramatic reading, in part a concert, and in part an organ advertisement; but wholly a convention whose leaders, in dignity and intellect, were fully the peers of the men whose councils they besieged and arraigned. There was Mrs. Stanton—smiling, serene, and motherly—just the woman whose hand laid upon a young man's arm, whose voice speaking to him, could do so much to hold him back from evil. There was Susan Anthony—anxious, earnest and importunate, sarcastic, funny and unconventional as ever. Among all the company, "Susan" is the most violently and the most unjustly abused. To be sure, she can be very provocative of such speech. She sometimes has a lawless way of talking and acting, which men think wonderfully fascinating in a belle, but utterly unforgivable in a plain, middle-aged woman. Moreover, "Susan's" utter abnegation to her cause, her passion for it, sometimes carries her on to "ways and means" not altogether tenable—in fine, she will offend your taste and mine; but this is only the outside and a very small side of Susan Anthony. A man, and more than a man—a woman who can deny herself, ignore herself, for a principle, for what she believes to be the truth, whether we believe it or not, is at least entitled to our respect.

Susan B. Anthony has a strong, earnest and loving nature; her devotion to her sex is an utterly absorbing and absolute passion. Born and nurtured a Quaker, she transgresses no prejudice, even of education, when she stands forth everywhere and in all places the unflinching, unwearied, never-to-be-put-down champion of woman. In the better age, when the woman of the future shall be man's equal in law, in education, in labor, in labor's rewards; when time shall have softened the asperities of the present, and the crudeness of the personal shall be buried forever in the grave, Susan B. Anthony will live as one of the truest friends that woman ever had.

[Autograph: Mary Clemmer]

Sarah Pugh wrote Miss Anthony to stop over in Philadelphia and visit Mrs. Mott and herself on her way home from Washington, adding, "We are true to you." In accepting the invitation, Miss Anthony said: "I pray every day to keep broad and generous towards all who scatter and divide, and hope I may hold out to the end. The movement can not be damaged, though some particular schemes may, by any ill-judged action. The wheels are secure on the iron rails, and no 'National' or 'American'—no New York or Boston—assumption or antagonism can block them. Individuals may jump on or off, yet the train is stopped thereby but for a moment."

A letter to her from the California association declares: "We will split into a thousand pieces before we will prove false to you, who have so long borne the heat and burden of the day." The heat and burden had indeed been great, and one less strong in body and less heroic in soul would have sunk under them. Although she was still weighed down by the terrible financial struggle of The Revolution, the storm of opposition which it had aroused was passing away and the old friends and many new ones were flocking around the intrepid standard bearer, whom neither fear nor favor could induce to swerve from the straight line marked out by her own convictions and conscience. Miss Anthony would soon complete a half-century, and her friends resolved to commemorate it in a worthy manner. Handsomely engraved cards were sent out, reading:

The ladies of the Woman's Bureau invite you to a reception on Tuesday evening, February 15, 1870, to celebrate the Fiftieth Birthday of Susan B. Anthony. On this occasion her friends will be afforded an opportunity to testify their appreciation of her twenty years' service in behalf of woman. ELIZABETH B. PHELPS, ANNA B. DARLING, CHARLOTTE B. WILBOUR.

There had been hard work to persuade Miss Anthony to accept this testimonial, but she was very happy that evening when the spacious parlors were crowded with the leading men and women of the day. Although her opinions and methods had been many times attacked by the newspapers, they now united in cordial congratulations. The New York World, in a long account, thus described the affair:

A large number of friends and admirers of the private virtues and public services of Miss Anthony assembled at the Woman's Bureau in Twenty-third street last evening to congratulate the lady upon this auspicious anniversary, and to wish her the customary "many happy returns of the day." The parlors were dazzling with light, the atmosphere laden with perfume, the walls covered with beautiful works of art, and the sweet sounds of women's laughter and silvery voices filled the apartments. Miss Susan B. Anthony stood at the entrance of the front parlor to receive her numerous friends. She wore a dress of rich shot silk, dark red and black, cut square in front, with a stomacher of white lace and a pretty little cameo brooch. All female vanities she rigorously discarded—no hoop, train, bustle, panier, chignon, powder, paint, rouge, patches, no nonsense of any sort. From her kindly eyes and from her gentle lips, there beamed the sweetest smiles to all those loving friends who, admiring her really admirable efforts in the cause of human freedom, her undaunted heroism amid a dark and gloomy warfare, were glad to press her hand and show their appreciation of her character and achievements.

Every daily paper in the city had some pleasant comment, while scores of loving and appreciative letters were received. Accompanying these were many beautiful gifts and also checks to the amount of $1,000.[52]



After the guests had assembled, Isabella Beecher Hooker announced that Anna T. Randall would read a poem written for the occasion by Phoebe Gary.[53] She was followed by Mrs. Hooker, who read some delightfully humorous verses from her husband, John Hooker, dedicated to Miss Anthony. There were more poetical tributes, recitations by Sarah Fisher Ames and other well-known elocutionists, and then a call for the recipient of all these honors. Miss Anthony stepped forward, completely overwhelmed and, after stammering her thanks for the unexpected ovation of the evening, said in a voice which broke in spite of her self-control: "If this were an assembled mob opposing the rights of women I should know what to say. I never made a speech except to rouse people to action. My work is that of subsoil plowing.... I ask you tonight, as your best testimony to my services, on this, the twentieth anniversary of my public work, to join me in making a demand on Congress for a Sixteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote, and then to go with me before the several legislatures to secure its ratification; and when the Secretary of State proclaims that that amendment has been ratified by twenty-eight States, then Susan B. Anthony will stop work—but not before."

When all was over, before she slept, Miss Anthony wrote this characteristically tender little note to the one who never was absent from her mind:

MY DEAR MOTHER: It really seems tonight as if I were parting with something dear—saying good-by to somebody I loved. In the last few hours I have lived over nearly all of life's struggles, and the most painful is the memory of my mother's long and weary efforts to get her six children up into womanhood and manhood. My thought centers on your struggle especially because of the proof-reading of Alice Gary's story this week. I can see the old home—the brick-makers—the dinner-pails—the sick mother—the few years of more fear than hope in the new house, and the hard years since. And yet with it all, I know there was an undercurrent of joy and love which makes the summing-up vastly in their favor. How I wish you and Mary and Hannah and Guelma could have been here—and yet it is nothing—and yet it is much.

My constantly recurring thought and prayer now are that the coming fraction of the century, whether it be small or large, may witness nothing less worthy in my life than has the half just closed—that no word or act of mine may lessen its weight in the scale of truth and right.

Then there is the bare mention of a luncheon a few days before with Alice and Phoebe Cary, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker. What a treat would have been a resume of the conversation of that gifted quintette of women!

Mrs. Stanton was ill and could not attend the reception, which was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony. They had shared so much trouble that she felt most anxious they should share this one great pleasure. In the diary at midnight is recorded: "Fiftieth birthday! One half-century done, one score years of it hard labor for bettering humanity—temperance—emancipation—enfranchisement—oh, such a struggle! Terribly stormy night, but a goodly company and many, many splendid tributes to my work. Really, if I had been dead and these the last words, neither press nor friends could have been more generous and appreciative."

This beautiful anniversary was a sweet oasis in the severe monotony of a life which had been filled always with hard work, criticism and misrepresentation, although it was only a public expression of the numerous and strong friendships which had been many times manifested in private. The birthday celebration served also to disprove the oft-repeated assertion that all women conceal their age, but though Miss Anthony made this frank avowal of her fifty years, there was scarcely a newspaper which did not introduce its comments with the usual silly and threadbare remarks.

After the people began to recover in a social, intellectual and financial way from the effects of the Civil War, the lyceum bureau became a marked feature in literary life. The principal bureaus were in New York, Boston and Chicago. Their managers engaged the best speakers and each season marked out a route, made the appointments, advertised extensively and sent them throughout the country. They paid excellent prices, assuming all responsibility, and engagements with them were considered very desirable. Under the management of the New York bureau, Mrs. Stanton began a tour in November, 1869. Miss Anthony at this time, while well-known from one end of the country to the other, had not gained a reputation as a platform orator. She thoroughly distrusted her own power to make a sustained speech of an entire evening, and at all conventions had placed others on the program for the principal addresses, presided herself, if necessary, and kept everything in motion.

By the winter of 1870, however, the bureau began to receive applications from all parts of the United States for lectures from her, and Mrs. Stanton being ill for a month, Miss Anthony went as her substitute. She proved so acceptable that in February, March and April she was engaged by the bureau for many places in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, and received a considerable sum for her services, besides securing a number of subscribers and some liberal donations for The Revolution. In her journal she speaks of the good audiences, the enthusiasm and the many prominent callers at most of the places. At Mattoon she had a day and a night with Anna Dickinson and wrote: "I found her the most weary and worn I had ever seen her, and desperately tired of the lecture field. Her devotion to me is marvelous. She is like my loving and loved child."

At Peoria, the editor of the Democratic paper stated that the laws of Illinois were better for women than for men. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, whom she never had seen, was in the audience, and sent a note to the president of the meeting, asking that Miss Anthony should not answer the editor but give him that privilege. He then took up the laws, one after another, and, illustrating by cases in his own practice, showed in his eloquent manner how cruelly unjust they were to women and proved how necessary it was that women should have a voice in making them. He also offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted: "We pledge ourselves, irrespective of party, to use all honorable means to make the women of America the equals of men before the law."

In Detroit Rev. Justin Fulton occupied one evening in opposition to woman suffrage, and Miss Anthony replied to him the next. An audience of a thousand gathered in Young Men's Hall at each meeting. The Free Press had a most scurrilous review of the debate in which it said:

The speakeress rattled on in this strain until a late hour, saying nothing new, nothing noble, not a word that would give one maid or mother a purer or better thought. She drew no pictures of love in the household—she did not seem to think that man and wife could even stay under the same roof. She was not content that any woman should be a bashful, modest woman, but wanted them to be like her, to think as she thought.... People went there to see Susan B. Anthony, who has achieved an evanescent reputation by her strenuous endeavors to defy nature. Not one woman in a hundred cares to vote, cares aught for the ballot, would take it with the degrading influences it would surely bring.... Old, angular, sticking to black stockings, wearing spectacles, a voice highly suggestive of midnight Caudleism at poor Anthony, if he ever comes around, though he never will. If all woman's righters look like that, the theory will lose ground like a darkey going through a cornfield in a light night. If she had come out and plainly said, "See here, ladies, see me, I am the result of twenty years of constant howling at man's tyranny," there would never have been another "howl" uttered in Detroit. Or, if she had plainly said, in so many words, "I am going to lecture on bosh, for the sake of that almighty half-dollar per head—take it as bosh," people would have admired her candor, though forming the same conclusions without her assistance....

Myra Bradwell, the able editor of the Chicago Legal News, paid the following tribute: "Miss Anthony is terribly in earnest on this suffrage question. We fully agree with her that the great battle-ground in the first instance should be in Congress.... She is now fifty, and the best years of her life have been devoted solely to the cause of woman. She has never turned aside from this object but has always been in the field, defending her principles against all assaults with an ability which has not only won the admiration of her friends but the respect of her enemies."

She made many new acquaintances on this tour, and one entry in the diary is: "Quite a novel feature this—to have people quarrel as to who shall have the pleasure of entertaining me as their guest!" She returned to New York on Saturday, April 30, and on Sunday the diary says: "Spent the day at Mrs. Tilton's and heard Beecher preach a splendid sermon on 'Visiting the Sins of the Parents on the Children.'"

Various friends of the woman suffrage cause had decided that something must be done to unite the two national organizations. An editorial in the Independent to this effect was followed by a call for a conference to meet at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, April 6, signed by Theodore Tilton, Phoebe Cary, Rev. John Chadwick and a number of others. The meeting was duly held, and the venerable Lucretia Mott, who now rarely left home, came all the way from Philadelphia to use her influence toward a reconciliation. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were lecturing in the West and the former telegraphed: "The entire West demands united national organization for the Sixteenth Amendment, this very congressional session, and so does Susan B. Anthony." Mrs. Stanton wrote to the conference: "I will do all I can for union. If I am a stumbling-block I will gladly resign my office. Having fought the world twenty years, I do not now wish to turn and fight those who have so long stood together through evil and good report. I should be glad to have all united, with Mr. Beecher or Lucretia Mott for our general.... I am willing to work with any and all or to get out of the way entirely, that there may be an organization which shall be respectable at home and abroad."

The representatives of the American Association insisted that they had offered the olive branch at the time of their organization and it had been refused. This olive branch had been a suggestion that the National Association should consider itself a local society and become auxiliary to the American. After a protracted but fruitless discussion of over four hours, they withdrew from the room, declining to accept or to suggest any overtures. The proposition made by the callers of the conference was that the two associations should merge into one, with a new constitution embodying the best features of both, and with a board of officers elected from the two existing organizations. Even the friendly offices of Lucretia Mott, which never before were disregarded, failed to effect a union, and the many letters from mutual friends were equally ineffective. In her regular letter to The Revolution Miss Anthony said:

There is but one feeling all through this glorious West, and that is that it is a sin to have a divided front at this auspicious moment. Since my last I have had splendid meetings in Quincy, Farmington, Elwood, Mendota, Peru, La-Salle, Batavia, Peoria and Champaign in Illinois, and in Sturgis and Jonesvine, Michigan. I can tell you with emphasis that the fields are white unto harvest—waiting, waiting only the reapers. And it is a shame—it is a crime—for any of the old or new public workers to halt by the way to pluck the motes out of their neighbors' eyes. Not one of us but has blundered; yet if only we are in earnest, each will forgive, in the faith that the others, like herself, mean right. How any one can stand in the way of a united national organization at an hour like this, is wholly inexplicable.

Just before the May Anniversary Mrs. Stanton published the following card in The Revolution: "It is a great thing for those who have been prominent in any movement to know when their special work is done, and when the posts they hold can be more ably filled by others. Having, in my own judgment, reached that time, at the present anniversary of our association I must forbid the use of my name for president or any other official position in any organization whatsoever."

The anniversary had been advertised for Irving Hall, but when it was found that colored people would not be admitted to that building, it was changed to Apollo Hall, and opened May 10 with Mrs. Stanton presiding. At the business meeting in the afternoon, with representatives present from nineteen States, the proposition of the conference committee was considered. According to the report in The Revolution there was much feeling on the part of the younger women against any organization which did not have Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton at the head, but at their earnest request, made in the interest of harmony, it was finally voted to accept the name Union Woman Suffrage Society, and Mr. Tilton for president.

On May 14, 1870, the Saturday after the suffrage convention, a number of the old Equal Rights Association came together at a called meeting in New York, which is thus described in The Revolution of May 19:

One of the most interesting as well as important events of the past week, was the transfer of the American Equal Rights Association to the new Union Woman Suffrage Society. This was done on Saturday in the spacious parlors of Mrs. Margaret E. Winchester in Gramercy Place, Mrs. Stanton occupying the chair in the absence of the president, Lucretia Mott. Henry B. Blackweil presented this resolution:

"WHEREAS, The American Equal Rights Association was organized in 1866 in order to secure equal rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex; and, whereas, Political distinctions of race are now abolished by the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments; and whereas, Arrangements have been made by the formation of woman suffrage associations for the advocacy of the legal and political rights of women as a separate question; and, whereas, An unnecessary multiplication of agencies for the accomplishment of a common object should always be avoided; therefore

"Resolved, That we hereby declare the American Equal Eights Association dissolved and adjourned sine die."

Parker Pillsbury offered the following as a substitute:

"WHEREAS, At a meeting of the executive committee held in Brooklyn, March 3, 1870, it was voted, on motion of Oliver Johnson, that 'it is inexpedient to hold any public anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association, and that in our judgment it is expedient to dissolve said body; but as we have no authority to effect such dissolution, an informal business meeting of the association be held in New York, during the coming anniversary week, to consider and act upon this subject; and on motion of Lucy Stone, it was voted that this business meeting be held on Saturday, May 14, 1870, at 10 A.M., at the home of Mrs. Margaret E. Winchester;' therefore

"Resolved, That instead of terminating our existence as an association, we do hereby transfer it, together with all its books, records, reports or whatsoever appertains to it, and unite it with the Union Woman Suffrage Society, organized in New York, May 10, 1870."

A long and earnest discussion succeeded.... At last, after two hours, the vote was reached by the previous question, with this result:

For dissolution, Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell—2. For transfer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Parker Pillsbury, Susan B. Anthony, Theodore Tilton, Paulina Wright Davis, Phoebe W. Couzins, Edwin A. Studwell, Mrs. Studwell, Mrs. John J. Merritt, Mrs. Robert Dale Owen, Margaret E. Winchester, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Eleanor Kirk, Jennie Collins, Elizabeth B. Phelps, Miss Chichester, Mrs. S.B. Morse—18.

Thus ended the existence of the American Equal Rights Association, formed in May, 1866, for the purpose of securing to negroes and women the rights of citizenship. These having been obtained for the negro men, women were left the only class denied equality, and the question therefore became simply one of woman's rights.

At the first anniversary of the American Woman Suffrage Association, the next November, which also was held in Cleveland, this letter was presented:

FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS: We, the undersigned, a committee appointed by the Union Woman Suffrage Society in New York, May, 1870, to confer with you on the subject of merging the two organizations into one, respectfully announce:

1st. That in our judgment no difference exists between the objects and methods of the two societies, nor any good reason for keeping them apart. 2d. That the society we represent has invested us with full power to arrange with you a union of both under a single constitution and executive. 3d. That we ask you to appoint a committee of equal number and authority with our own, to consummate if possible this happy result.

Yours, in the common cause of woman's enfranchisement, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Samuel J. May, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Josephine S. Griffing, Laura Curtis Bullard, Gerrit Smith, Sarah Pugh, Frederick Douglass, Mattie Griffith Brown, James W. Stillman—Theodore Tilton, ex officio.

The acceptance of this proposition was strongly urged by Judge Bradwell, of Chicago, and the committee on resolutions recommended "the appointment of a committee of conference, of like number with the one appointed by the Union Suffrage Society with a view to the union of both organizations." After a spirited discussion, this resolution was rejected. The National Association, having exhausted all efforts for reconciliation and union, never thereafter made further overtures. Two distinct organizations were maintained, and there were no more attempts at union for twenty years.

[Footnote 52: For selections from newspapers and letters and the list of presents see Appendix.]

[Footnote 53:

We touch our caps, and place to night The victor's wreath upon her. The woman who outranks us all In courage and in honor.

While others in domestic broils Have proved by word and carriage, That one of the United States Is not the state of marriage,

She, caring not for loss of men, Nor for the world's confusion, Hap carried on a civil war And made a "Revolution."

True, other women have been brave, When banded or hus-banded, But she has bravely fought her way Alone and single-handed.

And think of her unselfish life, Her generous disposition, Who never made a lasting prop Out of a proposition.

She might have chose an honored name, and none had scorned or hissed it; Have written Mrs. Jones or Smith, But, strange to say, she Missed it.

For fifty years to come may she Grow rich and ripe and mellow, Be quoted even above "par," "Or any other fellow;"

And spread the truth from pole to pole, and keep her light a-burning Before she cuts her stick to go To where there's no returning.

Because her motto grand hath been The rights of every human And first and last, and right or wrong, She takes the part of woman.

"A perfect woman, nobly planned," To aid, not to amuse one: Take her for all in all, we ne'er Shall see the match of Susan. */]



CHAPTER XXI.

END OF REVOLUTION—STATUS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

1870.

Immediately after the Suffrage Anniversary in May, 1870, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton decided to call a mass meeting of women to discuss the questions involved in the McFarland-Richardson trial, which had set the country ablaze with excitement. The case in brief was that McFarland was a drunken, improvident husband, and his wife, Abby Sage, was compelled to be the breadwinner for the family, first as an actress and later as a public reader. She was a woman of education, refinement and marked ability, and enjoyed an intimate friendship with some of the best families of New York. Boarding in the same house with her was Albert D. Richardson, a prominent newspaper man, a stockholder in the Tribune and a special favorite of Mr. Greeley. He befriended Mrs. McFarland, protected her against the brutality of her husband and learned to love her. It was understood among their mutual friends that when she was legally free they would be married. She secured her divorce; and a few days later McFarland walked into the Tribune office, shot and fatally wounded Richardson. Some hours before he died, Mrs. McFarland was married to him, Revs. Henry Ward Beecher and O.B. Frothingham officiating, in the presence of Mr. Greeley and several other distinguished persons. McFarland was tried, acquitted on the ground of insanity, given the custody of their little son and allowed to go free.

Press and pulpit were rent with discussions and, although the general verdict was that if McFarland were insane he should be placed under restraint and not permitted to retain the child, Mrs. Richardson was persecuted in the most cruel and unmerciful manner. The women of New York especially felt indignant at the result of the trial. Miss Anthony offered to take the responsibility of a public demonstration, with Mrs. Stanton to make the address. She sent out 3,000 handsome invitations to the leading women of the city. Before the meeting a number of cautionary letters were received, of which this from Miss Catharine Beecher will serve as a sample:

I am anxious for your own sake and for the sake of "our good cause," that you should manage wisely your very difficult task. There is a widespread combination undermining the family state, and we need to protect all the customs as well as the laws that tend to sustain it. In doing this, we need to discriminate between what is in bad taste and evil in its tendencies, and what is in direct violation of a moral law. The custom that requires a man to wait a year after the death of one wife before he takes another, it is usually in bad taste and inexpedient to violate, but there are cases in which such violation is demanded and is lawful.

But the law of marriage demanding that in no case a man shall seek another wife while his first one lives is always imperative. Then the question of divorce arises, and here the Lord of morality and religion, who sees the end from the beginning, has decided that only one crime can justify it. A woman may separate from her husband for abuse or drunkenness and not violate this law, but neither party can marry again without practically saying, "I do not recognize Jesus Christ as the true teacher of morals and religion." If Mrs. McFarland were sure she could prove adultery, she was morally free to marry again; but could she be justified on any other ground without denying the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is not here a point where you need to be very cautious and guarded?

I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you on Tuesday at Apollo Hall. Very truly and affectionately your friend.

The following account is taken from The Revolution:

On May 17, long before the hour appointed, Apollo Hall was filled. Ministers had preached and editors written their ambiguous views on the justice of the McFarland verdict. Reporters had interviewed the murderer and described (probably from imagination) the conduct and statements of Mrs. Richardson. John Graham had informed a gaping public what should be and what was the opinion of every decent woman in New York in regard to the guilt of this heart-broken widow, thus making it extremely difficult to feel the actual state of the public pulse on this all-important subject. Mrs. Stanton's lecture clearly expressed the convictions of the intelligent and right-minded. Never before in the annals of metropolitan history had there been such an assemblage of women, and it was an equally noticeable fact that they were the earnest, deep-thinking women of the times.[54]

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were greeted with the heartiest applause, and as soon as silence was obtained, the former said it was the first time in her life that she had addressed a public audience composed exclusively of women, and it was natural that she should feel somewhat embarrassed under circumstances so peculiar. This quaint observation brought down the house. After a few more of her downright and invigorating remarks, she introduced Mrs. Stanton, who was robed in quiet black, with an elegant lace shawl over her shoulders and her beautiful white hair modestly ornamented with a ribbon. Her appearance was very motherly and winning. Great applause followed her address, and as she took her seat Celia Burleigh read the resolutions adopted on Monday by Sorosis, which were heartily reaffirmed by all present. After remarks by Miss Anthony, Jenny June Croly, Mrs. Robert Dale Owen, Eleanor Kirk and others, a petition to Governor Hoffman, asking that McFarland be placed in an insane asylum, was enthusiastically endorsed.

So great was the desire that a similar meeting was held in Brooklyn. These assemblies threw the newspaper's into convulsions of horror that modest and shrinking women should dare discuss such questions, advocate the same moral standard for both sexes, criticise judge, jury and laws, and demand a different kind of justice from that which men were in the habit of dealing out. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton came in for their usual lion's share of censure, but they had so long offered themselves as a vicarious sacrifice that they had learned to take criticism and abuse philosophically. For weeks afterwards, however, they received letters from unhappy wives in all parts of the country, thanking them for their attitude in this affair, and pouring out the story of their own wretchedness.

Miss Anthony had little time to think about either the reproof or the approval, for the next day after this meeting saw the beginning of one of the most sorrowful tragedies in her life—the giving up of The Revolution! The favorable financial auspices under which it was launched have been described, and an imperfect idea given of the storm of opposition it encountered because of the alliance with Mr. Train. He put into the paper about $3,000 and severed his connection with it after sixteen months. Mr. Melliss continued his assistance for nearly the same length of time, contributing altogether $7,000. He was its staunch supporter as long as his means would allow, but at length became apprehensive that it never would reach a paying basis and, as he was not a man of wealth, felt unable to advance more money.

From a pecuniary point of view things looked very dark for The Revolution. Every newspaper, in its early days, swallows up money like a bottomless well. The Revolution had started on an expensive basis; its office rent was $1,300 per annum; it was printed on the best of paper, which at that time was very costly; typesetting commanded the highest prices. Partly as a matter of pride and partly for the interest of the paper, Miss Anthony was not willing to reduce expenses. At the end of the first year The Revolution had 2,000, and at the end of the second year 3,000 bona fide, paying subscribers, but these could not sustain it without plenty of advertising, and advertisers never lavish money on a reform paper. Mr. Pillsbury's valuable services were given at a minimum price, Mrs. Stanton received no salary and Miss Anthony drew out only what she was compelled to use for her actual expenses. She was exhausted in mind and body from the long and relentless persecution of those who once had been her co-workers, but to the world she showed still the old indomitable spirit. Her letters to friends and relatives at this time, appealing for funds to carry on the paper, are heart-breaking. A dearly loved Quaker cousin, Anson Lapham, of Skaneateles, loaned her at different times $4,000. To him she wrote:

My paper must not, shall not go down. I am sure you believe in me, in my honesty of purpose, and also in the grand work which The Revolution seeks to do, and therefore you will not allow me to ask you in vain to come to the rescue. Yesterday's mail brought forty-three subscribers from Illinois and twenty from California. We only need time to win financial success. I know you will save me from giving the world a chance to say, "There is a woman's rights failure; even the best of women can't manage business." If I could only die, and thereby fail honorably, I would say "amen," but to live and fail—it would be too terrible to bear.

To Francis G. Shaw, of Staten Island, who sent $100, she wrote: "I wonder why it is that I must forever feel compelled to take the rough things of the world. Why can't I excuse myself from the overpowering and disagreeable struggles? I can not tell, but after such a day as yesterday, my heart fails me—almost. Then I remember that the promise is to those only who hold out to the end—and nerve myself to go forward. I am grateful nowadays for every kind word and every dollar." On the back is inscribed: "My pride would not let me send this, and I substituted merely a cordial note of thanks." Her letters home during this dark period are too sacred to be given to the public. The mother and sisters were distressed beyond expression at the merciless criticism and censure with which she had been assailed, and begged her to withdraw from it all to the seclusion of her own pleasant home, but when she persisted in standing by her ship, they aided her with every means in their power. Her sister Mary loaned her the few thousands she had been able to save by many years' hard work in the schoolroom, and the mother contributed from her small estate.

Her brother Daniel R., a practical newspaper man, assured her that he was ready at any time to be one of a stock company to support the paper, but that it was useless to sink any more money in the shape of individual subscriptions. He urged her to cut down expenses, make it a semi-monthly or monthly if necessary, but not to go any more deeply in debt, saying: "I know how earnest you are, but you stand alone. Very few think with you, and they are not willing to risk a dollar. You have put in your all and all you can borrow, and all is swallowed up. You are making no provision for the future, and you wrong yourself by so doing. No one will thank you hereafter. Although you are now fifty years old and have worked like a slave all your life, you have not a dollar to show for it. This is not right. Do make a change." Her sister Mary spent all her vacation in New York one hot summer looking after the business of the paper, while Miss Anthony went out lecturing and getting subscribers. After returning home she wrote:

You can not begin to know how you have changed, and many times every day the tears would fill my eyes if I allowed myself a moment to reflect upon it. I beg of you for your own sake and for ours, do not persevere in this work unless people will aid you enough to do credit to yourself as you always have done. Make a plain statement to your friends, and if they will not come to your rescue, go down as gracefully as possible and with far less indebtedness than you will have three months from now. It is very sad for all of us to feel that you are working so hard and being so misunderstood, and we constantly fear that, in some of your hurried business transactions, your enemies will delight to pick you up and make you still more trouble.

At this time, in a letter to Martha C. Wright, Mr. Pillsbury said: "Susan works like a whole plantation of slaves, and her example is scourge enough to keep me tugging also." With her rare optimism, Miss Anthony never gives up hoping, and on January 1, 1870, writes to Sarah Pugh: "The year opens splendidly. December brought the largest number of subscriptions of any month since we began, and yesterday the largest of any day. So the little 'rebel Revolution' doesn't feel anything but the happiest sort of a New Year."

A movement was begun for forming a stock company of several wealthy women, on a basis of $50,000, to relieve Miss Anthony of all financial responsibility, making her simply the business manager. Paulina Wright Davis already had given $500, and January 1, 1870, her name appeared as corresponding editor. Isabella Beecher Hooker took the liveliest interest in the paper and was very anxious that it should be continued. She devised various schemes for this purpose and finally decided that her sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and herself would give The Revolution their personal influence and that of their large circle of friends, by putting their names on the staff of editors. Early in December, 1869, she sent the following:

We will give our names as corresponding editors for your paper for one year and agree to furnish at least six articles apiece and also to secure an original article from some friend every other week during the year. We agree to do this without promised compensation, but on the condition that you will change the name of the paper to The True Republic, or something equally satisfactory to us; and that you will pay us equally for this service according to your ability, you yourself being sole judge of that.

H.B. STOWE, I.B. HOOKER.

This was written while they were in New York City, and on her way home Mrs. Hooker wrote, while on board the train, an enthusiastic letter regarding details of the work, ending, after she arrived: "I give you my hand upon it. I have read the above to my two Mentors, and they approve in the main." In a few days, she said in a long letter:

I wish Mrs. Stanton's "editorial welcome" to us might be in the dignified style of her best essays or speeches, not in the least gossipy or familiar, but stately and full of womanly presence. She ought to have a copy of Mrs. Stowe's editorial the moment it is written, for approval and suggestion. If Mr. Pillsbury would stay for a month or two and initiate Phoebe Cary, and we all work well as we mean to, I think she might get on.... I shall go to the Washington convention to work, not to speak. Tilton should be secured by all means—his wife, too. Our parlor needs her demure, motherly, angelic sweetness, as much as our platform needs him. These little, quiet, domestic women are trump cards, nowadays. I wish we had a whole pack of them.... Mr. Burton will hunt up a capital motto or heading, and he will write, I am sure. Mrs. Jewell met me in the street and said, "Is it true that you and Mrs. Stowe are going to help The Revolution?" I told her what we proposed and she was much delighted.