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Title: Susan B. Anthony
Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian
Author: Alma Lutz
Release Date: January 25, 2007 [EBook #20439]
Language: English
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SUSAN B. ANTHONY
REBEL, CRUSADER, HUMANITARIAN
BY ALMA LUTZ
ZENGER PUBLISHING CO. INC. BOX 9883, WASHINGTON DC 20015
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony]
Alma Lutz was born and brought up in North Dakota, graduated from the
Emma Willard School and Vassar College, and attended the Boston
University School of Business Administration. She has written numerous
articles and pamphlets and for many years has been a contributor to
_The Christian Science Monitor_. Active in organizations working for
the political, civil, and economic rights of women, she has also been
interested in preserving the records of women's role in history and
serves on the Advisory Board of the Radcliffe Women's Archives. Miss
Lutz is the author of _Emma Willard, Daughter of Democracy_ (1929),
_Created Equal, A Biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton_ (1940),
_Challenging Years, The Memoirs of Harriot Stanton Blatch_, with
Harriot Stanton Blatch (1940), and the editor of _With Love Jane,
Letters from American Women on the War Fronts_ (1945).
© 1959 by Alma Lutz
Member of the Authors League of America
Published by arrangement with
Beacon Press
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lutz, Alma.
Susan B. Anthony: rebel, crusader, humanitarian.
Reprint of the ed. published by Beacon Press, Boston.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Anthony, Susan Brownell, 1820-1906.
[JK1899.A6L8 1975] 324'.3'0924 [B] 75-37764
ISBN 0-89201-017-7
Printed in the United States of America
_To the young women of today_
PREFACE
To strive for liberty and for a democratic way of life has always been
a noble tradition of our country. Susan B. Anthony followed this
tradition. Convinced that the principle of equal rights for all, as
stated in the Declaration of Independence, must be expressed in the
laws of a true republic, she devoted her life to the establishment of
this ideal.
Because she recognized in Negro slavery and in the legal bondage of
women flagrant violations of this principle, she became an active,
courageous, effective antislavery crusader and a champion of civil and
political rights for women. She saw women's struggle for freedom from
legal restrictions as an important phase in the development of
American democracy. To her this struggle was never a battle of the
sexes, but a battle such as any freedom-loving people would wage for
civil and political rights.
While her goals for women were only partially realized in her
lifetime, she prepared the soil for the acceptance not only of her
long-hoped-for federal woman suffrage amendment but for a worldwide
recognition of human rights, now expressed in the United Nations
Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights. She looked forward to the
time when throughout the world there would be no discrimination
because of race, color, religion, or sex.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
"The letters of a person ...," said Thomas Jefferson, "form the only
full and genuine journal of his life." Susan B. Anthony's letters,
hundreds of them, preserved in libraries and private collections, and
her diaries have been the basis of this biography, and I acknowledge
my indebtedness to the following libraries and their helpful
librarians: the American Antiquarian Society; the Bancroft Library of
the University of California; the Boston Public Library; the Henry E.
Huntington Library and Art Gallery; the Indiana State Library; the
Kansas Historical Society; the Library of Congress; the Susan B.
Anthony Memorial Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library, which
has been transferred to the Henry E. Huntington Library; the New York
Public Library; the New York State Library; the Ohio State Library;
the Radcliffe Women's Archives; the Seneca Falls Historical Society;
the Smith College Library; the Susan B. Anthony Memorial Inc.,
Rochester, New York; the University of Rochester Library; the
University of Kentucky Library; and the Vassar College Library.
I am particularly indebted to Lucy E. Anthony, who asked me to write a
biography of her aunt, lent me her aunt's diaries, and was most
generous with her records and personal recollections. To her and to
her sister, Mrs. Ann Anthony Bacon, I am very grateful for photographs
and for permission to quote from Susan B. Anthony's diaries and from
her letters and manuscripts.
Ida Husted Harper's _Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_, written in
collaboration with Susan B. Anthony, and the _History of Woman
Suffrage_, compiled by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,
Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, have been invaluable. As
many of the letters and documents used in the preparation of these
books were destroyed, they have preserved an important record of the
work of Susan B. Anthony and of the woman's rights movement.
I am especially grateful to Martha Taylor Howard for her unfailing
interest and for the use of the valuable Susan B. Anthony Memorial
Collection which she initiated and developed in Rochester, New York;
and to Una R. Winter for her interest and for the use of her Susan B.
Anthony Collection, most of which is now in the Henry E. Huntington
Library.
I thank Edna M. Stantial for permission to examine and quote from the
Blackwell Papers; Anna Dann Mason for permission to read her
reminiscences and the many letters written to her by Susan B. Anthony;
Ellen Garrison for permission to quote from letters of Lucretia Mott
and Martha C. Wright; Eleanor W. Thompson for copies of Susan B.
Anthony's letters to Amelia Bloomer; Henry R. Selden II whose
grandfather was Susan B. Anthony's lawyer during her trial for voting;
Judge John Van Voorhis whose grandfather was associated with Judge
Selden in Miss Anthony's defense; William B. Brown for information
about the early history of Adams, Massachusetts, the Susan B. Anthony
birthplace, and the Friends Meeting House in Adams; Dr. James Harvey
Young for information about Anna E. Dickinson; Margaret Lutz Fogg for
help in connection with the trial of Susan B. Anthony; Dr. Blake
McKelvey, City Historian of Rochester; Clara Sayre Selden and Wheeler
Chapin Case of the Rochester Historical Society; the grand-nieces of
Susan B. Anthony, Marion and Florence Mosher; Matilda Joslyn Gage II;
Florence L. C. Kitchelt; and Rose Arnold Powell.
I thank _The Christian Science Monitor_ for permission to use portions
of an article published on October 24, 1958.
I am especially grateful to A. Marguerite Smith for her constructive
criticism of the manuscript and her unfailing encouragement.
ALMA LUTZ
_Highmeadow_
_Berlin, New York_
TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUAKER HERITAGE 1
WIDENING HORIZONS 15
FREEDOM TO SPEAK 28
A PURSE OF HER OWN 39
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS 56
THE TRUE WOMAN 67
THE ZEALOT 79
A WAR FOR FREEDOM 92
THE NEGRO'S HOUR 108
TIMES THAT TRIED WOMEN'S SOULS 125
HE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR 138
WORK, WAGES, AND THE BALLOT 149
THE INADEQUATE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT 159
A HOUSE DIVIDED 169
A NEW SLANT ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT 180
TESTING THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT 198
"IS IT A CRIME FOR A CITIZEN ... TO VOTE?" 209
SOCIAL PURITY 217
A FEDERAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT 226
RECORDING WOMEN'S HISTORY 235
IMPETUS FROM THE WEST 241
VICTORIES IN THE WEST 252
LIQUOR INTERESTS ALERT FOREIGN-BORN VOTERS AGAINST WOMAN
SUFFRAGE 266
AUNT SUSAN AND HER GIRLS 274
PASSING ON THE TORCH 285
SUSAN B. ANTHONY OF THE WORLD 299
NOTES 311
BIBLIOGRAPHY 327
INDEX 335
TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Susan B. Anthony at the age of thirty-five _Frontispiece_
(From a daguerrotype, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, N.Y.)
Daniel Anthony, father of Susan B. Anthony 2
(From _The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_ by
Ida Husted Harper)
Lucy Read Anthony, mother of Susan B. Anthony 3
(From _The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_ by
Ida Husted Harper)
Susan B. Anthony Homestead, Adams, Massachusetts 5
(The Smith Studio, Adams, Massachusetts)
Frederick Douglass 22
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her "Bloomer costume" 27
(From _The Lily_)
Lucy Stone 29
(From _Lucy Stone_ by Alice Stone Blackwell. Courtesy Little,
Brown and Company)
Susan B. Anthony at the age of thirty-four 31
(Courtesy Susan B. Anthony Memorial, Inc., Rochester, New York)
James and Lucretia Mott 33
(From _James and Lucretia Mott_ by Anna D. Hallowell.
Courtesy Houghton Mifflin Company)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her son, Henry 40
Ernestine Rose 42
(From _History of Woman Suffrage_ by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage)
Parker Pillsbury 49
(From _William Lloyd Garrison_ by His Children)
Merritt Anthony 57
(Courtesy Mrs. Ann Anthony Bacon)
Susan B. Anthony, 1856 68
(Courtesy Mrs. Ann Anthony Bacon)
Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell 72
(Courtesy Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery,
San Marino, California)
William Lloyd Garrison 86
(From _William Lloyd Garrison and His Times_ by Oliver
Johnson)
Susan B. Anthony 97
Daniel Anthony, brother of Susan B. Anthony 110
(Courtesy Mrs. Ann Anthony Bacon)
Wendell Phillips 114
(From _William Lloyd Garrison_ by His Children)
George Francis Train 132
(Courtesy New York Public Library)
Anna E. Dickinson 144
(From _History of Woman Suffrage_ by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage)
Paulina Wright Davis 165
Isabella Beecher Hooker 167
Victoria C. Woodhull 181
Susan B. Anthony, 1871 187
(Courtesy Mrs. Ann Anthony Bacon)
Judge Henry R. Selden 203
(Courtesy Henry R. Selden II)
"The Woman Who Dared" 206
(New York _Daily Graphic_, June 5, 1873)
Aaron A. Sargent 229
(Courtesy Library of Congress)
Clara Bewick Colby 232
(From _History of Woman Suffrage_ by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage)
Matilda Joslyn Gage 236
(From _History of Woman Suffrage_ by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage)
Anna Howard Shaw 248
(From a photograph by Mary Carnel)
Harriot Stanton Blatch 250
(Courtesy Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery,
San Marino, California)
The Anthony home, Rochester, New York 255
(Courtesy Susan B. Anthony Memorial, Inc., Rochester, New York)
Susan B. Anthony at her desk 257
(Courtesy Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College,
Northampton, Massachusetts)
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 259
Elizabeth Smith Miller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 262
and Susan B. Anthony
Ida Husted Harper 271
(Courtesy Library of Congress)
Rachel Foster Avery 275
(Courtesy Library of Congress)
Harriet Taylor Upton 276
(Courtesy Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery,
San Marino, California)
Carrie Chapman Catt 289
(Courtesy Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College,
Northampton, Massachusetts)
Quotation in the handwriting of Susan B. Anthony 297
Susan B. Anthony at the age of eighty-five 301
(From a photograph by J. E. Hale)
Susan B. Anthony, 1905 309
(From a photograph by Ellis)
QUAKER HERITAGE
"If Sally Ann knows more about weaving than Elijah," reasoned
eleven-year-old Susan with her father, "then why don't you make her
overseer?"
"It would never do," replied Daniel Anthony as a matter of course. "It
would never do to have a woman overseer in the mill."
This answer did not satisfy Susan and she often thought about it. To
enter the mill, to stand quietly and look about, was the best kind of
entertainment, for she was fascinated by the whir of the looms, by the
nimble fingers of the weavers, and by the general air of efficiency.
Admiringly she watched Sally Ann Hyatt, the tall capable weaver from
Vermont. When the yarn on the beam was tangled or there was something
wrong with the machinery, Elijah, the overseer, always called out to
Sally Ann, "I'll tend your loom, if you'll look after this." Sally Ann
never failed to locate the trouble or to untangle the yarn. Yet she
was never made overseer, and this continued to puzzle Susan.[1]
The manufacture of cotton was a new industry, developing with great
promise in the United States, when Susan B. Anthony was born on
February 15, 1820, in the wide valley at the foot of Mt. Greylock,
near Adams, Massachusetts. Enterprising young men like her father,
Daniel Anthony, saw a potential cotton mill by the side of every
rushing brook, and young women, eager to earn the first money they
could call their own, were leaving the farms, for a few months at
least, to work in the mills. Cotton cloth was the new sensation and
the demand for it was steadily growing. Brides were proud to display a
few cotton sheets instead of commonplace homespun linen.
When Susan was two years old, her father built a cotton factory of
twenty-six looms beside the brook which ran through Grandfather Read's
meadow, hauling the cotton forty miles by wagon from Troy, New York.
The millworkers, most of them young girls from Vermont, boarded, as
was the custom, in the home of the millowner; Susan's mother, Lucy
Read Anthony, although she had three small daughters to care for,
Guelma, Susan, and Hannah, boarded eleven of the millworkers with
only the help of a thirteen-year-old girl who worked for her after
school hours. Lucy Anthony cooked their meals on the hearth of the big
kitchen fireplace, and in the large brick oven beside it baked crisp
brown loaves of bread. In addition, washing, ironing, mending, and
spinning filled her days. But she was capable and strong and was doing
only what all women in this new country were expected to do. She
taught her young daughters to help her, and Susan, even before she was
six, was very useful; by the time she was ten she could cook a good
meal and pack a dinner pail.
[Illustration: Daniel Anthony, father of Susan B. Anthony]
* * * * *
Hard work and skill were respected as Susan grew up in the rapidly
expanding young republic which less than fifty years before had been
founded and fought for. Settlers, steadily pushing westward, had built
new states out of the wilderness, adding ten to the original thirteen.
Everywhere the leaven of democracy was working and men were putting
into practice many of the principles so boldly stated in the
Declaration of Independence, claiming for themselves equal rights and
opportunities. The new states entered the Union with none of the
traditional property and religious limitations on the franchise, but
with manhood suffrage and all voters eligible for office. The older
states soon fell into line, Massachusetts in 1820 removing property
qualifications for voters. Before long, throughout the United States,
all free white men were enfranchised, leaving only women, Negroes, and
Indians without the full rights of citizenship.
[Illustration: Lucy Read Anthony, mother of Susan B. Anthony]
Although women freeholders had voted in some of the colonies and in
New Jersey as late as 1807,[2] just as in England in the fifteenth
franchise had gradually found its way into the statutes, and women's
rights as citizens were ignored, in spite of the contribution they had
made to the defense and development of the new nation. However,
European travelers, among them De Tocqueville, recognized that the
survival of the New World experiment in government and the prosperity
and strength of the people were due in large measure to the
superiority of American women. A few women had urged their claims:
Abigail Adams asked her husband, a member of the Continental Congress,
"to remember the ladies" in the "new code of laws"; and Hannah Lee
Corbin of Virginia pleaded with her brother, Richard Henry Lee, to
make good the principle of "no taxation without representation" by
enfranchising widows with property.[3]
Yet the legal bondage of women continued to be overlooked. It seemed a
less obvious threat to free institutions and democratic government
than the Negro in slavery. In fact, Negro slavery presented a problem
which demanded attention again and again, flaring up alarmingly in
1820, the year Susan B. Anthony was born, when Missouri was admitted
to the Union as a slave state.[4]
* * * * *
These were some of the forces at work in the minds of Americans during
Susan's childhood. Her father, a liberal Quaker, was concerned over
the extension of slavery, and she often heard him say that he tried to
avoid purchasing cotton raised by slave labor. This early impression
of the evil of slavery was never erased.
The Quakers' respect for women's equality with men before God also
left its mark on young Susan. As soon as she was old enough she went
regularly to Meeting with her father, for all of the Anthonys were
Quakers. They had migrated to western Massachusetts from Rhode Island,
and there on the frontier had built prosperous farms, comfortable
homes, and a meeting house where they could worship God in their own
way. Susan, sitting with the women and children on the hand-hewn
benches near the big fireplace in the meeting house[5] which her
ancestors had built, found peace and consecration in the simple
unordered service, in the long reverent silence broken by both the men
and the women in the congregation as they were led to say a prayer or
give out a helpful message. Forty families now worshiped here, the
women sitting on one side and the men on the other; but women took
their places with men in positions of honor, Susan's own grandmother,
Hannah Latham Anthony, an elder, sitting in the "high seat," and her
aunt, Hannah Anthony Hoxie, preaching as the spirit moved her. With
this valuation of women accepted as a matter of course in her church
and family circle, Susan took it for granted that it existed
everywhere.
Although her father was a devout Friend, she discovered that he had
the reputation of thinking for himself, following the "inner light"
even when its leading differed from the considered judgment of his
fellow Quakers. For this he became a hero to her, especially after she
heard the romantic story of his marriage to Lucy Read who was not a
Quaker. The Anthonys and the Reads had been neighbors for years, and
Lucy was one of the pupils at the "home school" which Grandfather
Humphrey Anthony had built for his children on the farm, under the
weeping willow at the front gate. Daniel and Lucy were schoolmates
until Daniel at nineteen was sent to Richard Mott's Friends' boarding
school at Nine Partners on the Hudson. When he returned as a teacher,
he found his old playmate still one of the pupils, but now a beautiful
tall young woman with deep blue eyes and glossy brown hair. Full of
fun, a good dancer, and always dressed in the prettiest clothes, she
was the most popular girl in the neighborhood. Promptly Daniel Anthony
fell in love with her, but an almost insurmountable obstacle stood in
the way: Quakers were not permitted to "marry out of Meeting." This,
however, did not deter Daniel.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony Homestead, Adams, Massachusetts]
It was harder for Lucy to make up her mind. She enjoyed parties,
dances, and music. She had a full rich voice, and as she sat at her
spinning wheel, singing and spinning, she often wished that she could
"go into a ten acre lot with the bars down"[6] and let her voice out.
If she married Daniel, she would have to give all this up, but she
decided in favor of Daniel. A few nights before the wedding, she went
to her last party and danced until four in the morning while Daniel
looked on and patiently waited until she was ready to leave.
For his transgression of marrying out of Meeting, Daniel had to face
the elders as soon as he returned from his wedding trip. They weighed
the matter carefully, found him otherwise sincere and earnest, and
decided not to turn him out. Lucy gave up her dancing and her singing.
She gave up her pretty bright-colored dresses for plain somber
clothes, but she did not adopt the Quaker dress or use the "plain
speech." She went to meeting with Daniel but never became a Quaker,
feeling always that she could not live up to their strict standard of
righteousness.[7]
This was Susan's heritage--Quaker discipline and austerity lightened
by her father's independent spirit and by the kindly understanding of
her mother who had not forgotten her own fun-loving girlhood; an
environment where men and women were partners in church and at home,
where hard physical work was respected, where help for the needy and
unfortunate was spontaneous, and where education was regarded as so
important that Grandfather Anthony built a school for his children and
the neighbors' in his front yard. Her childhood was close enough to
the Revolution to make Grandfather Read's part in it very real and a
source of great pride. Eagerly and often she listened to the story of
how he enlisted in the Continental army as soon as the news of the
Battle of Lexington reached Cheshire and served with outstanding
bravery under Arnold at Quebec, Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, and
Colonel Stafford at Bennington while his young wife waited anxiously
for him throughout the long years of the war.
* * * * *
The wide valley in the Berkshire Hills where Susan grew up made a
lasting impression on her. There was beauty all about her--the fruit
trees blooming in the spring, the meadows white with daisies, the
brook splashing over the rocks and sparkling in the summer sun, the
flaming colors of autumn, the strength and companionship of the hills
when the countryside was white with snow. She seldom failed to watch
the sun set behind Greylock.
Her father's cotton mill flourished. Regarded as one of the most
promising, successful young men of the district, he soon attracted the
attention of Judge John McLean, a cotton manufacturer of Battenville,
New York, who, eager to enlarge his mills, saw in Daniel Anthony an
able manager. Daniel, always ready to take the next step ahead,
accepted McLean's offer, and on a sunny July day in 1826, Susan drove
with her family through the hills forty-four miles to the new world of
Battenville.
Here in the home of Judge McLean, she saw Negroes for the first time,
Negroes working to earn their freedom. Startled by their black faces,
she was a little afraid, but when her father explained that in the
South they could be sold like cattle and torn from their families, her
fear turned to pity.
At the district school, taught by a woman in summer and by a man in
the winter, she learned to sew, spell, read, and write, and she wanted
to study long division but the schoolmaster, unable to teach it, saw
no reason why a woman should care for such knowledge. Her father, then
realizing the need of better education for his five children, Guelma,
Susan, Hannah, Daniel, and Mary, established a school for them in the
new brick building where he had opened a store. Later on when their
new brick house was finished, he set aside a large room for the
school, and here for the first time in that district the pupils had
separate seats, stools without backs, instead of the usual benches
around the schoolroom walls. He engaged as teachers young women who
had studied a year or two in a female seminary; and because female
seminaries were rare in those days, women teachers with up-to-date
training were hard to find. Only a few visionaries believed in the
education of women. Nearby Emma Willard's recently established Troy
Female Seminary was being watched with interest and suspicion. Mary
Lyon, who had not yet founded her own seminary at Mt. Holyoke, was
teaching at Zilpha Grant's school in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and one
of her pupils, Mary Perkins, came to Battenville to teach the Anthony
children. Mary Perkins brought new methods and new studies to the
little school. She introduced a primer with small black illustrations
which fascinated Susan. She taught the children to recite poetry,
drilled them regularly in calisthenics, and longed to add music as
well, but Daniel Anthony forbade this, for Quakers believed that music
might seduce the thoughts of the young. So Susan, although she often
had a song in her heart, had to repress it and never knew the joy of
singing the songs of childhood.
Her father, looking upon the millworkers as part of his family,
started an evening school for them, often teaching it himself or
calling in the family teacher. He organized a temperance society among
the workers, and all signed a pledge never to drink distilled liquor.
When he opened a store in the new brick building, he refused to sell
liquor, although Judge McLean warned him it would ruin his trade.
Daniel Anthony went even further. He resolved not to serve liquor when
the millworkers' houses were built and the neighbors came to the
"raising." Again Judge McLean protested, feeling certain that the men
and boys would demand their gin and their rum, but Susan and her
sisters helped their mother serve lemonade, tea, coffee, doughnuts,
and gingerbread in abundance. The men joked a bit about the lack of
strong drink which they expected with every meal, but they did not
turn away from the good substitutes which were offered and they were
on hand for the next "raising." Hearing all of this discussed at home,
Susan, again proud of her father, ardently advocated the cause of
temperance.
* * * * *
The mill was still of great interest to her and she watched every
operation closely in her spare time, longing to try her hand at the
work. One day when a "spooler" was ill, Susan and her sister Hannah
eagerly volunteered to take her place. Their father was ready to let
them try, pleased by their interest and curious to see what they could
do, but their mother protested that the mill was no place for
children. Finally Susan's earnest pleading won her mother's reluctant
consent, and the two girls drew lots for the job. It went to
twelve-year-old Susan on the condition that she divide her earnings
with Hannah. Every day for two weeks she went early to the mill in her
plain homespun dress, her straight hair neatly parted and smoothed
over her ears. Proudly she tended the spools. She was skillful and
quick, and received the regular wage of $1.50 a week, which she
divided with Hannah, buying with her share six pale blue coffee cups
for her mother who had allowed her this satisfying adventure.
A few weeks before her thirteenth birthday, Susan became a member of
the Society of Friends which met in nearby Easton, New York, and
learned to search her heart and ask herself, "Art thou faithful?"
Parties, dancing, and entertainments were generally ruled out of her
life as sinful, and rarely were a temptation, but occasionally her
mother, remembering her own good times, let her and her sisters go to
parties at the homes of their Presbyterian neighbors, and for this her
father was criticized at Friends' Meeting. Condemning bright colors,
frills, and jewelry as vain and worldly, Susan accepted plain somber
clothing as a mark of righteousness, and when she deviated to the
extent of wearing the Scotch-plaid coat which her mother had bought
her, she wondered if the big rent torn in it by a dog might not be
deserved punishment for her pride in wearing it.
That same year, the family moved into their new brick house of fifteen
rooms, with hard-finish plaster walls and light green woodwork, the
finest house in that part of the country. Here Susan's brother Merritt
was born the next April, and her two-year-old sister, Eliza, died.
Susan, Guelma, and Hannah continued their studies longer than most
girls in the neighborhood, for Quakers not only encouraged but
demanded education for both boys and girls. As soon as Susan and her
sister Guelma were old enough, they taught the "home" school in the
summer when the younger children attended, and then went further
afield to teach in nearby villages. At fifteen Susan was teaching a
district school for $1.50 a week and board, and although it was hard
for her to be away from home, she accepted it as a Friend's duty to
provide good education for children. Now Presbyterian neighbors
criticized her father, protesting that well-to-do young ladies should
not venture into paid work.
Daniel Anthony was now a wealthy man, his factory the largest and most
prosperous in that part of the country, and he could afford more and
better education for his daughters. He sent Guelma, the eldest, to
Deborah Moulson's Friends' Seminary near Philadelphia, where for $125
a year "the inculcation of the principles of Humility, Morality, and
Virtue" received particular attention; and when Guelma was asked to
stay on a second year as a teacher, he suggested that Susan join her
there as a pupil.
* * * * *
It was a long journey from Battenville to Philadelphia in 1837, and
when Susan left her home on a snowy afternoon with her father, she
felt as if the parting would be forever. Her first glimpse of the
world beyond Battenville interested her immensely until her father
left her at the seminary, and then she confessed to her diary, "Oh
what pangs were felt. It seemed impossible for me to part with him. I
could not speak to bid him farewell."[8] She tried to comfort herself
by writing letters, and wrote so many and so much that Guelma often
exclaimed, "Susan, thee writes too much; thee should learn to be
concise." As it was a rule of the seminary that each letter must first
be written out carefully on a slate, inspected by Deborah Moulson,
then copied with care, inspected again, and finally sent out after
four or five days of preparation, all spontaneity was stifled and her
letters were stilted and overvirtuous. This censorship left its mark,
and years later she confessed, "Whenever I take my pen in hand, I
always seem to be mounted on stilts."[9]
To her diary she could confide her real feelings--her discouragement
over her lack of improvement and her inability to understand her many
"sins," such as not dotting an _i_, too much laughter, or smiling at
her friends instead of reproving them for frivolous conduct. She
wrote, "Thought so much of my resolutions to do better in the future
that even my dreams were filled with these desires.... Although I have
been guilty of much levity and nonsensical conversation, and have also
admitted thoughts to occupy my mind which should have been far distant
from it, I do not consider myself as having committed any wilful
offense but perhaps the reason I cannot see my own defects is because
my heart is hardened."[10]
The girls studied a variety of subjects, arithmetic, algebra,
literature, chemistry, philosophy, physiology, astronomy, and
bookkeeping. Men came to the school to conduct some of the classes,
and Deborah Moulson was also assisted by several student teachers, one
of whom, Lydia Mott, became Susan's lifelong friend. Susan worked
hard, for she was a conscientious child, but none of her efforts
seemed to satisfy Deborah Moulson, who was a hard taskmaster. Her
reproofs cut deep, and once when Susan protested that she was always
censured while Guelma was praised, Deborah Moulson sternly replied,
"Thy sister Guelma does the best she is capable of, but thou dost not.
Thou hast greater abilities and I demand of thee the best of thy
capacity."[11]
Mail from home was a bright spot, bringing into those busy austere
days news of her friends, and when she read that one of them had
married an old widower with six children, she reflected sagely, "I
should think any female would rather live and die an old maid."[12]
Then came word that her father's business had been so affected by the
financial depression that the family would have to give up their home
in Battenville. Sorrowfully she wrote in her diary, "O can I ever
forget that loved residence in Battenville, and no more to call it
home seems impossible."[13] It helped little to realize that countless
other families throughout the country were facing the future penniless
because banks had failed, mills were shut down, and work on canals and
railroads had ceased. In April 1838, Daniel Anthony came to the
seminary to take his daughters home.
Susan felt keenly her father's sorrow over the failure of his business
and the loss of the home he had built for his family, and she resolved
at once to help out by teaching in Union Village, New York. In May
1838, she wrote in her diary, "On last evening ... I again left my
home to mingle with strangers which seems to be my sad lot. Separation
was rendered more trying on account of the embarrassing condition of
our business affairs, an inventory was expected to be taken today of
our furniture by assignees.... Spent this day in school, found it
small and quite disorderly. O, may my patience hold out to persevere
without intermission."[14]
Her patience did hold out, and also her courage, as the news came from
home telling her how everything had to be sold to satisfy the
creditors, the furniture, her mother's silver spoons, their clothing
and books, the flour, tea, coffee, and sugar in the pantries. She
rejoiced to hear that Uncle Joshua Read from Palatine Bridge, New
York, had come to the rescue, had bought their most treasured and
needed possessions and turned them over to her mother.
On a cold blustery March day in 1839, when she was nineteen, Susan
moved with her family two miles down the Battenkill to the little
settlement of Hardscrabble, later called Center Falls, where her
father owned a satinet factory and grist mill, built in more
prosperous times. These were now heavily mortgaged but he hoped to
save them. They moved into a large house which had been a tavern in
the days when lumber had been cut around Hardscrabble. It was
disappointing after their fine brick house in Battenville, but they
made it comfortable, and their love for and loyalty to each other made
them a happy family anywhere. As it had been a halfway house on the
road to Troy and travelers continued to stop there asking for a meal
or a night's lodging, they took them in, and young Daniel served them
food and nonintoxicating drinks at the old tavern bar.
Susan, when her school term was over, put her energies into housework,
recording in her diary, "Did a large washing today.... Spent today at
the spinning wheel.... Baked 21 loaves of bread.... Wove three yards
of carpet yesterday."[15]
The attic of the tavern had been finished off for a ballroom with
bottles laid under the floor to give a nice tone to the music of the
fiddles, and now the young people of the village wanted to hold their
dancing school there. Susan's father, true to his Quaker training,
felt obliged to refuse, but when they came the second time to tell him
that the only other place available was a disreputable tavern where
liquor was sold, he relented a little, and talked the matter over with
his wife and daughters. Lucy Anthony, recalling her love of dancing,
urged him to let the young people come. Finally he consented on the
condition that Guelma, Hannah, and Susan would not dance. They agreed.
Every two weeks all through the winter, the fiddles played in the
attic room and the boys and girls of the neighborhood danced the
Virginia reel and their rounds and squares, while the three Quaker
girls sat around the wall, watching and longing to join in the fun.
Such frivolous entertainment in the home of a Quaker could not be
condoned, and Daniel Anthony was not only severely censured by the
Friends but read out of Meeting, "because he kept a place of amusement
in his house." But he did not regret his so-called sin any more than
he regretted marrying out of Meeting. He continued to attend Friends'
Meeting, but grew more and more liberal as the years went by. At this
time, like all Quakers, he refused to vote, not wishing in any way to
support a government that believed in war, and this influenced Susan
who for some years regarded voting as unimportant. He refused to pay
taxes for the same reason, and she often saw him put his pocketbook on
the table and then remark drily to the tax collector, "I shall not
voluntarily pay these taxes. If thee wants to rifle my pocketbook,
thee can do so."[16]
* * * * *
To help her father with his burden of debt was now Susan's purpose in
life, and in the spring she again left the family circle to teach at
Eunice Kenyon's Friends' Seminary in New Rochelle, New York. There
were twenty-eight day pupils and a few boarders at the seminary, and
for long periods while Eunice Kenyon was ill, Susan took full charge.
She wrote her family all the little details of her life, but their
letters never came often enough to satisfy her. Occasionally she
received a paper or a letter from Aaron McLean, Judge McLean's
grandson, who had been her good friend and Guelma's ever since they
had moved to Battenville. His letters almost always started an
argument which both of them continued with zest. After hearing the
Quaker preacher, Rachel Barker, she wrote him, "I guess if you would
hear her you would believe in a woman's preaching. What an absurd
notion that women have not intellectual and moral faculties sufficient
for anything but domestic concerns."[17]
When New Rochelle welcomed President Van Buren with a parade, bands
playing, and crowds in the streets, this prim self-righteous young
woman took no part in this hero worship, but gave vent to her
disapproval in a letter to Aaron.
Disturbed over the treatment Negroes received at Friends' Meeting in
New Rochelle, she impulsively wrote him, "The people about here are
anti-abolitionist and anti everything else that's good. The Friends
raised quite a fuss about a colored man sitting in the meeting house,
and some left on account of it.... What a lack of Christianity is
this!"[18]
Her school term of fifteen weeks, for which she was paid $30, was over
early in September, just in time for her to be at home for Guelma's
wedding to Aaron McLean, and afterward she stayed on to teach the
village school in Center Falls. This made it possible for her to join
in the social life of the neighborhood. Often the young people drove
to nearby villages, twenty buggies in procession. On a drive to
Saratoga, her escort asked her to give up teaching to marry him. She
refused, as she did again a few years later when a Quaker elder tried
to entice her with his fine house, his many acres, and his sixty cows.
Although she had reached the age of twenty, when most girls felt they
should be married, she was still particular, and when a friend married
a man far inferior mentally, she wrote in her diary, "'Tis strange,
'tis passing strange that a girl possessed of common sense should be
willing to marry a lunatic--but so it is."[19]
During the next few years, both she and Hannah taught school almost
continuously, for $2 to $2.50 a week. Time and time again Susan
replaced a man who had been discharged for inefficiency. Although she
made a success of the school, she discovered that she was paid only a
fourth the salary he had received, and this rankled.
Almost everywhere except among Quakers, she encountered a false
estimate of women which she instinctively opposed. After spending
several months with relatives in Vermont, where she had the unexpected
opportunity of studying algebra, she stopped over for a visit with
Guelma and Aaron in Battenville, where Aaron was a successful
merchant. Eagerly she told them of her latest accomplishment. Aaron
was not impressed. Later at dinner when she offered him the delicious
cream biscuits which she had baked, he remarked with his most
tantalizing air of male superiority, "I'd rather see a woman make
biscuits like these than solve the knottiest problem in algebra."
"There is no reason," she retorted, "why she should not be able to do
both."[20]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Report of the International Council of Women_, 1888 (Washington,
1888), p. 163.
[2] Charles B. Waite, "Who Were the Voters in the Early History of
This Country?" _Chicago Law Times_, Oct., 1888.
[3] Janet Whitney, _Abigail Adams_ (Boston, 1947), p. 129. In 1776,
Abigail Adams wrote her husband, John Adams, at the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia, "In the new code of laws which I suppose it
will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the
ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors!
Do not put such unlimited powers into the hands of husbands. Remember
all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and
attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a
rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we
have no voice or representation." Ethel Armes, _Stratford Hall_
(Richmond, Va., 1936), pp. 206-209.
[4] Under the Missouri Compromise, Maine was admitted as a free state,
Missouri as a slave state, and slavery was excluded from all of the
Louisiana Purchase, north of latitude 36°31'.
[5] The meeting house, built in 1783, is still standing. It is owned
by the town of Adams, and cared for by the Adams Society of Friends
Descendants. Susan traced her ancestry to William Anthony of Cologne
who migrated to England and during the reign of Edward VI, was made
Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and Master of the Scales, holding this
office also during the reign of Queen Mary and part of Queen
Elizabeth's reign. In 1634, one of his descendants, John Anthony,
settled in Rhode Island, and just before the Revolution, his great
grandson, David, Susan's great grandfather, bought land near Adams,
Massachusetts, then regarded as the far West.
[6] Ida Husted Harper, _The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony_
(Indianapolis, 1898), I, p. 10.
[7] Daniel and Susannah Richardson Read gave Lucy and Daniel Anthony
land for their home, midway between the Anthony and Read farms. Here
Susan was born in a substantial two-story, frame house, built by her
father.
[8] Ms., Diary, 1837.
[9] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 25.
[10] Ms., Diary, Jan. 21, Feb. 10, 1838
[11] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 31.
[12] Ms., Diary, Feb. 26, 1838.
[13] _Ibid._, Feb. 6, 1838.
[14] _Ibid._, May 7, 1838.
[15] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 36.
[16] _Ibid._, p. 37.
[17] _Ibid._, p. 40.
[18] _Ibid._, p. 39.
[19] _Ibid._
[20] _Ibid._, pp. 43-44.
WIDENING HORIZONS
Unable to recoup his business losses in Center Falls and losing even
the satinet factory, Susan's father had looked about in Virginia and
Michigan as well as western New York for an opportunity to make a
fresh start. A farm on the outskirts of Rochester looked promising,
and with the money which Lucy Anthony had inherited from Grandfather
Read and which had been held for her by Uncle Joshua Read, the first
payment had been made on the farm by Uncle Joshua, who held it in his
name and leased it to Daniel.[21] Had it been turned over to Susan's
mother, it would have become Daniel Anthony's property under the law
and could have been claimed by his creditors.
Only Susan, Merritt, and Mary climbed into the stage with their
parents, early in November 1845, on the first lap of their journey to
their new home, near Rochester, New York. Guelma and Hannah[22] were
both married and settled in homes of their own, and young Daniel,
clerking in Lenox, had decided to stay behind.
After a visit with Uncle Joshua at Palatine Bridge, they boarded a
line boat on the Erie Canal, taking with them their gray horse and
wagon; and surrounded by their household goods, they moved slowly
westward. Standing beside her father in the warm November sunshine,
Susan watched the strong horses on the towpath, plodding patiently
ahead, and heard the wash of the water against the prow and the noisy
greeting of boat horns. As they passed the snug friendly villages
along the canal and the wide fertile fields, now brown and bleak after
the harvest, she wondered what the new farm would be like and what the
future would bring; and at night when the lights twinkled in the
settlements along the shore, she thought longingly of her old home and
the sisters she had left behind.
After a journey of several days, they reached Rochester late in the
afternoon. Her father took the horse and wagon off the boat, and in
the chill gray dusk drove them three miles over muddy roads to the
farm. It was dark when they arrived, and the house was cold, empty,
and dismal, but after the fires were lighted and her mother had cooked
a big kettle of cornmeal mush, their spirits revived. Within the next
few days they transformed it into a cheerful comfortable home.
The house on a little hill overlooked their thirty-two acres. Back of
it was the barn, a carriage house, and a little blacksmith shop.[23]
Looking out over the flat snowy fields toward the curving Genesee
River and the church steeples in Rochester, Susan often thought
wistfully of the blue hills around Center Falls and Battenville and of
the good times she had had there.
The winter was lonely for her in spite of the friendliness of their
Quaker neighbors, the De Garmos, and the Quaker families in Rochester
who called at once to welcome them. Her father found these neighbors
very congenial and they readily interested him in the antislavery
movement, now active in western New York. Within the next few months,
several antislavery meetings were held in the Anthony home and opened
a new world to Susan. For the first time she heard of the Underground
Railroad which secretly guided fugitive slaves to Canada and of the
Liberty party which was making a political issue of slavery. She
listened to serious, troubled discussion of the annexation of Texas,
bringing more power to the proslavery block, which even the
acquisition of free Oregon could not offset. She read antislavery
tracts and copies of William Lloyd Garrison's _Liberator_, borrowed
from Quaker friends; and on long winter evenings, as she sat by the
fire sewing, she talked over with her father the issues they raised.
When spring came and the trees and bushes leafed out, she took more
interest in the farm, discovering its good points one by one--the
flowering quince along the driveway, the pinks bordering the walk to
the front door, the rosebushes in the yard, and cherry trees, currant
and gooseberry bushes in abundance. Her father planted peach and apple
orchards and worked the "sixpenny farm,"[24] as he called it, to the
best of his ability, but the thirty-two acres seemed very small
compared with the large Anthony and Read farms in the Berkshires, and
he soon began to look about for more satisfying work. This he found a
few years later with the New York Life Insurance Company, then
developing its business in western New York. Very successful in this
new field, he continued in it the rest of his life, but he always kept
the farm for the family home.
* * * * *
The first member of the family to leave the Rochester farm was Susan.
The cherry trees were in bloom when she received an offer from
Canajoharie Academy to teach the female department. As Canajoharie was
across the river from Uncle Joshua Read's home in Palatine Bridge and
he was a trustee of the academy, she read between the lines his kindly
interest in her. He was an influential citizen of that community, a
bank director and part owner of the Albany-Utica turnpike and the
stage line to Schenectady. Accepting the offer at once, she made the
long journey by canal boat to Canajoharie, and early in May 1846 was
comfortably settled in the home of Uncle Joshua's daughter, Margaret
Read Caldwell.
She soon loved Margaret as a sister and was devoted to her children.
None of her new friends were Quakers and she enjoyed their social life
thoroughly, leaving behind her forever the somber clothing which she
had heretofore regarded as a mark of righteousness. She began her
school with twenty-five pupils and a yearly salary of approximately
$110. This was more than she had ever earned before, and for the first
time in her life she spent her money freely on herself.
Her first quarterly examination, held before the principal, the
trustees, and parents, established her reputation as a teacher, and in
addition everyone said, "The schoolmarm looks beautiful."[25] She had
dressed up for the occasion, wearing a new plaid muslin, purple,
white, blue, and brown, with white collar and cuffs, and had hung a
gold watch and chain about her neck. She wound the four braids of her
smooth brown hair around her big shell comb and put on her new
prunella gaiters with patent-leather heels and tips. She looked so
pretty, so neat, and so capable that many of the parents feared some
young man would fall desperately in love with her and rob the academy
of a teacher. She did have more than her share of admirers. She soon
saw her first circus and went to her first ball, a real novelty for
the young woman who had sat demurely along the wall in the attic room
of her Center Falls home while her more worldly friends danced.
In spite of all her good times, she missed her family, but because of
the long trip to Rochester, she did not return to the farm for two
years. She spent her vacations with Guelma and Hannah, who lived only
a few hours away, or in Albany with her former teacher at Deborah
Moulson's seminary, Lydia Mott, a cousin by marriage of Lucretia Mott.
In anticipation of a vacation at home, she wrote her parents,
"Sometimes I can hardly wait for the day to come. They have talked of
building a new academy this summer, but I do not believe they will. My
room is not fit to stay in and I have promised myself that I would not
pass another winter in it. If I must forever teach, I will seek at
least a comfortable house to do penance in. I have a pleasant school
of twenty scholars, but I have to manufacture the interest duty
compels me to exhibit.... Energy and something to stimulate is
wanting! But I expect the busy summer vacation spent with my dearest
and truest friends will give me new life and fresh courage to
persevere in the arduous path of duty. Do not think me unhappy with my
fate, no not so. I am only a little tired and a good deal lazy. That
is all. Do write very soon. Tell about the strawberries and peaches,
cherries and plums.... Tell me how the yard looks, what flowers are in
bloom and all about the farming business."[26]
* * * * *
During her visits in Albany with Lydia Mott, who was now an active
abolitionist, Susan heard a great deal about antislavery work. At this
time, however, Canajoharie took little interest in this reform
movement, but temperance was gaining a foothold. Throughout the
country, Sons of Temperance were organizing and women wanted to help,
but the men refused to admit them to their organizations, protesting
that public reform was outside women's sphere. Unwilling to be put off
when the need was so great, women formed their own secret temperance
societies, and then, growing bolder, announced themselves as Daughters
of Temperance.
Canajoharie had its Daughters of Temperance, and Susan, long an
advocate of temperance, gladly joined the crusade, and made her first
speech when the Daughters of Temperance held a supper meeting to
interest the people of the village. Few women at this time could have
been persuaded to address an audience of both men and women, believing
this to be bold, unladylike, and contrary to the will of God; but the
young Quaker, whose grandmother and aunts had always spoken in
Meeting when the spirit moved them, was ready to say her word for
temperance, taking it for granted that it was not only woman's right
but her responsibility to speak and work for social reform.
About two hundred people assembled for the supper, and entering the
hall, Susan found it festooned with cedar and red flannel and to her
amazement saw letters in evergreen on one of the walls, spelling out
Susan B. Anthony.
"I hardly knew how to conduct myself amidst so much kindly
regard,"[27] she confided to her family.
She had carefully written out her speech and had sewn the pages
together in a blue cover. Now in a clear serious voice, she read its
formal flowery sentences telling of the weekly meetings of "this now
despised little band" which had awakened women to the great need of
reform.
"It is generally conceded," she declared, "that our sex fashions the
social and moral state of society. We do not assume that females
possess unbounded power in abolishing the evil customs of the day; but
we do believe that were they en masse to discontinue the use of wine
and brandy as beverages at both their public and private parties, not
one of the opposite sex, who has any claim to the title of gentleman,
would so insult them as to come into their presence after having
quaffed of that foul destroyer of all true delicacy and refinement....
Ladies! There is no neutral position for us to assume...."[28]
The next day the village buzzed with talk of the meeting; only a few
criticized Susan for speaking in public, and almost all agreed that
she was the smartest woman in Canajoharie.
While she was busy with her temperance work, there were stirrings
among women in other parts of New York State in the spring and early
summer of 1848. Through the efforts of a few women who circulated
petitions and the influence of wealthy men who saw irresponsible
sons-in-law taking over the property they wanted their daughters to
own, a Married Women's Property Law passed the legislature; this made
it possible for a married woman to hold real estate in her own name.
Heretofore all property owned by a woman at marriage and all received
by gift or inheritance had at once become her husband's and he had had
the right to sell it or will it away without her consent and to
collect the rents or the income. The new law was welcomed in the
Anthony household, for now Lucy Anthony's inheritance, which had
bought the Rochester farm, could at last be put in her own name and
need no longer be held for her by her brother.
In the newspapers in July, Susan read scornful, humorous, and
indignant reports of a woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New
York, at which women had issued a Declaration of Sentiments,
announcing themselves men's equals. They had protested against legal,
economic, social, and educational discriminations and asked for the
franchise. A woman's rights convention in the 1840s was a startling
event. Women, if they were "ladies" did not attend public gatherings
where politics or social reforms were discussed, because such subjects
were regarded as definitely out of their sphere. Much less did they
venture to call meetings of their own and issue bold resolutions.
Susan was not shocked by this break with tradition, but she did not
instinctively come to the defense of these rebellious women, nor
champion their cause. She was amused rather than impressed. Yet
Lucretia Mott's presence at the convention aroused her curiosity.
Among her father's Quaker friends in Rochester, she had heard only
praise of Mrs. Mott, and she herself, when a pupil at Deborah
Moulson's seminary, had been inspired by Mrs. Mott's remarks at
Friends' Meeting in Philadelphia.
So far Susan had encountered few barriers because she was a woman. She
had had little personal contact with the hardships other women
suffered because of their inferior legal status. To be sure, it had
been puzzling to her as child that Sally Hyatt, the most skillful
weaver in her father's mill, had never been made overseer, but the
fact that her mother had not the legal right to hold property in her
own name did not at the time make an impression upon her. Brought up
as a Quaker, she had no obstacles put in the way of her education. She
had an exceptional father who was proud of his daughters' intelligence
and ability and respected their opinions and decisions. Her only real
complaint was the low salary she had been obliged to accept as a
teacher because she was a woman. She sensed a feeling of male
superiority, which she resented, in her brother-in-law, Aaron McLean,
who did not approve of women preachers and who thought it more
important for a woman to bake biscuits than to study algebra. She met
the same arrogance of sex in her Cousin Margaret's husband, but she
had not analyzed the cause, or seen the need of concerted action by
women.
Returning home for her vacation in August, she found to her surprise
that a second woman's rights convention had been held in Rochester in
the Unitarian church, that her mother, her father, and her sister
Mary, and many of their Quaker friends had not only attended, but had
signed the Declaration of Sentiments and the resolutions, and that her
cousin, Sarah Burtis Anthony, had acted as secretary. Her father
showed so much interest, as he told her about the meetings, that she
laughingly remarked, "I think you are getting a good deal ahead of the
times."[29] She countered Mary's ardent defense of the convention with
good-natured ridicule. The whole family, however, continued to be so
enthusiastic over the meetings and this new movement for woman's
rights, they talked so much about Elizabeth Cady Stanton "with her
black curls and ruddy cheeks"[30] and about Lucretia Mott "with her
Quaker cap and her crossed handkerchief of the finest muslin," both
"speaking so grandly and looking magnificent," that Susan's interest
was finally aroused and she decided she would like to meet these women
and talk with them. There was no opportunity for this, however, before
she returned to Canajoharie for another year of teaching.
It proved to be a year of great sadness because of the illness of her
cousin Margaret whom she loved dearly. In addition to her teaching,
she nursed Margaret and looked after the house and children. She saw
much to discredit the belief that men were the stronger and women the
weaker sex, and impatient with Margaret's husband, she wrote her
mother that there were some drawbacks to marriage that made a woman
quite content to remain single. In explanation she added, "Joseph had
a headache the other day and Margaret remarked that she had had one
for weeks. 'Oh,' said the husband, 'mine is the real headache, genuine
pain, yours is sort of a natural consequence.'"[31]
Within a few weeks Margaret died. This was heart-breaking for Susan,
and without her cousin, Canajoharie offered little attraction.
Teaching had become irksome. The new principal was uncongenial, a
severe young man from the South whose father was a slaveholder. Susan
longed for a change, and as she read of the young men leaving for the
West, lured by gold in California, she envied them their adventure and
their opportunity to explore and conquer a whole new world.
[Illustration: Frederick Douglass]
* * * * *
The peaches were ripe when Susan returned to the farm. The orchard
which her father had planted, now bore abundantly. Restless and eager
for hard physical work, she discarded the stylish hoops which impeded
action, put on an old calico dress, and spent days in the warm
September sunshine picking peaches. Then while she preserved, canned,
and pickled them, there was little time to long for pioneering in the
West.
She enjoyed the active life on the farm for she was essentially a
doer, most happy when her hands and her mind were busy. As she helped
with the housework, wove rag carpet, or made shirts by hand for her
father and brothers, she dreamed of the future, of the work she might
do to make her life count for something. Teaching, she decided, was
definitely behind her. She would not allow her sister Mary's interest
in that career to persuade her otherwise, even if teaching were the
only promising and well-thought-of occupation for women. Reading the
poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she was deeply stirred and looked
forward romantically to some great and useful life work.
The _Liberator_, with its fearless denunciation of Negro slavery, now
came regularly to the Anthony home, and as she pored over its pages,
its message fired her soul. Eagerly she called with her father at the
home of Frederick Douglass, who had recently settled in Rochester and
was publishing his paper, the _North Star_. Not only did she want to
show friendliness to this free Negro of whose intelligence and
eloquence she had heard so much, but she wanted to hear first-hand
from him and his wife of the needs of his people.
Almost every Sunday the antislavery Quakers met at the Anthony farm.
The Posts, the Hallowells, the De Garmos, and the Willises were sure
to be there. Sometimes they sent a wagon into the city for Frederick
Douglass and his family. Now and then famous abolitionists joined the
circle when their work brought them to western New York--William Lloyd
Garrison, looking with fatherly kindness at his friends through his
small steel-rimmed spectacles; Wendell Phillips, handsome, learned,
and impressive; black-bearded, fiery Parker Pillsbury; and the
friendly Unitarian pastor from Syracuse, the Reverend Samuel J. May.
Susan, helping her mother with dinner for fifteen or twenty, was torn
between establishing her reputation as a good cook and listening to
the interesting conversation. She heard them discuss woman's rights,
which had divided the antislavery ranks. They talked of their
antislavery campaigns and the infamous compromises made by Congress to
pacify the powerful slaveholding interests. Like William Lloyd
Garrison, all of them refused to vote, not wishing to take any part in
a government which countenanced slavery. They called the Constitution
a proslavery document, advocated "No Union with Slaveholders," and
demanded immediate and unconditional emancipation. All about them and
with their help the Underground Railroad was operating, circumventing
the Fugitive Slave Law and guiding Negro refugees to Canada and
freedom. Amy and Isaac Post's barn, Susan knew, was a station on the
Underground, and the De Garmos and Frederick Douglass almost always
had a Negro hidden away. She heard of riots and mobs in Boston and
Ohio; but in Rochester not a fugitive was retaken and there were no
street battles, although the New York _Herald_ advised the city to
throw its "nigger printing press"[32] into Lake Ontario and banish
Douglass to Canada.
As the Society of Friends in Rochester was unfriendly to the
antislavery movement, Susan with her father and other liberal Hicksite
Quakers left it for the Unitarian church. Here for the first time they
listened to "hireling ministry" and to a formal church service with
music. This was a complete break with what they had always known as
worship, but the friendly Christian spirit expressed by both minister
and congregation made them soon feel at home. This new religious
fellowship put Susan in touch with the most advanced thought of the
day, broke down some of the rigid precepts drilled into her at Deborah
Moulson's seminary, and encouraged liberalism and tolerance. Although
there had been austerity in the outward forms of her Quaker training,
it had developed in her a very personal religion, a strong sense of
duty, and a high standard of ethics, which always remained with her.
It had fostered a love of mankind that reached out spontaneously to
help the needy, the unfortunate, and the oppressed, and this now
became the driving force of her life. It led her naturally to seek
ways and means to free the Negro from slavery and to turn to the
temperance movement to wipe out the evil of drunkenness.
These were the days when the reformed drunkard, John B. Gough, was
lecturing throughout the country with the zeal of an evangelist,
getting thousands to sign the total-abstinence pledge. Inspired by his
example, the Daughters of Temperance were active in Rochester. They
elected Susan their president, and not only did she plan suppers and
festivals to raise money for their work but she organized new
societies in neighboring towns. Her more ambitious plans for them were
somewhat delayed by home responsibilities which developed when her
father became an agent of the New York Life Insurance Company. This
took him away from home a great deal, and as both her brothers were
busy with work of their own and Mary was teaching, it fell to Susan to
take charge of the farm. She superintended the planting, the
harvesting, and the marketing, and enjoyed it, but she did not let it
crowd out her interest in the causes which now seemed so vital.
Horace Greeley's New York _Tribune_ came regularly to the farm, for
the Anthonys, like many others throughout the country, had come to
depend upon it for what they felt was a truthful report of the news.
In this day of few magazines, it met a real need, and Susan, poring
over its pages, not only kept in touch with current events, but found
inspiration in its earnest editorials which so often upheld the ideals
which she felt were important. She found thought-provoking news in the
full and favorable report of the national woman's rights convention
held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in October 1850. Better informed now
through her antislavery friends about this new movement for woman's
rights, she was ready to consider it seriously and she read all the
stirring speeches, noting the caliber of the men and women taking
part. Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Lucretia Mott were there, as
well as Lucy Stone, that appealing young woman of whose eloquence on
the antislavery platform Susan had heard so much, and Abby Kelley
Foster, whose appointment to office in the American Antislavery
Society had precipitated a split in the ranks on the "woman question."
* * * * *
A year later, when Abby Kelley Foster and her husband Stephen spoke at
antislavery meetings in Rochester, Susan had her first opportunity to
meet this fearless woman. Listening to Abby's speeches and watching
the play of emotion on her eager Irish face under the Quaker bonnet,
Susan wondered if she would ever have the courage to follow her
example. Like herself, Abby had started as a schoolteacher, but after
hearing Theodore Weld speak, had devoted herself to the antislavery
cause, traveling alone through the country to say her word against
slavery and facing not only the antagonism which abolition always
provoked, but the unreasoning prejudice against public speaking by
women, which was fanned into flame by the clergy. For listening to
Abby Kelley, men and women had been excommunicated. Mobs had jeered at
her and often pelted her with rotten eggs. She had married a
fellow-abolitionist, Stephen Foster, even more unrelenting than she.
Sensing Susan's interest in the antislavery cause and hoping to make
an active worker of her, Abby and Stephen suggested that she join them
on a week's tour, during which she marveled at Abby's ability to hold
the attention and meet the arguments of her unfriendly audiences and
wondered if she could ever be moved to such eloquence.
Not yet ready to join the ranks as a lecturer, she continued her
apprenticeship by attending antislavery meetings whenever possible and
traveled to Syracuse for the convention which the mob had driven out
of New York. Eager for more, she stopped over in Seneca Falls to hear
William Lloyd Garrison and the English abolitionist, George Thompson,
and was the guest of a temperance colleague, Amelia Bloomer, an
enterprising young woman who was editing a temperance paper for women,
_The Lily_.
To her surprise Susan found Amelia in the bloomer costume about which
she had read in _The Lily_. Introduced in Seneca Falls by Elizabeth
Smith Miller, the costume, because of its comfort, had so intrigued
Amelia that she had advocated it in her paper and it had been dubbed
with her name. Looking at Amelia's long full trousers, showing beneath
her short skirt but modestly covering every inch of her leg, Susan was
a bit startled. Yet she could understand the usefulness of the costume
even if she had no desire to wear it herself. In fact she was more
than ever pleased with her new gray delaine dress with its long full
skirt.
Seneca Falls, however, had an attraction for Susan far greater than
either William Lloyd Garrison or Amelia Bloomer, for it was the home
of Elizabeth Cady Stanton whom she had longed to meet ever since 1848
when her parents had reported so enthusiastically about her and the
Rochester woman's rights convention. Walking home from the antislavery
meeting with Mrs. Bloomer, Susan met Mrs. Stanton. She liked her at
once and later called at her home. They discussed abolition,
temperance, and woman's rights, and with every word Susan's interest
grew. Mrs. Stanton's interest in woman's rights and her forthright,
clear thinking made an instant appeal. Never before had Susan had such
a satisfactory conversation with another woman, and she thought her
beautiful. Mrs. Stanton's deep blue eyes with their mischievous
twinkle, her rosy cheeks and short dark hair gave her a very youthful
appearance, and it was hard for Susan to realize she was the mother of
three lively boys.
Susan listened enthralled while Mrs. Stanton told how deeply she had
been moved as a child by the pitiful stories of the women who came to
her father's law office, begging for relief from the unjust property
laws which turned over their inheritance and their earnings to their
husbands. For the first time, Susan heard the story of the exclusion
of women delegates from the World's antislavery convention in London,
in 1840, which Mrs. Stanton had attended with her husband and where
she became the devoted friend of Lucretia Mott. She now better
understood why these two women had called the first woman's rights
convention in 1848 at which Mrs. Stanton had made the first public
demand for woman suffrage.
[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her "Bloomer costume"]
They talked about the bloomer costume which Mrs. Stanton now wore and
about dress reform which at the moment seemed to Mrs. Stanton an
important phase of the woman's rights movement, and she pointed out to
Susan the advantages of the bloomer in the life of a busy housekeeper
who ran up and down stairs carrying babies, lamps, and buckets of
water. She praised the freedom it gave from uncomfortable stays and
tight lacing, confident it would be a big factor in improving the
health of women.
Thoroughly interested, Susan left Seneca Falls with much to think
about, but not yet converted to the bloomer costume, or even to woman
suffrage. Of one thing, however, she was certain. She wanted this
woman of vision and courage for her friend.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] Anthony Collection, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Rochester, New
York.
[22] Hannah Anthony married Eugene Mosher, a merchant of Easton, New
York, on September 4, 1845.
[23] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Memorial Collection, Rochester, New York.
[24] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 48.
[25] _Ibid._, p. 50.
[26] May 28, 1848, Lucy E. Anthony Collection.
[27] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 53.
[28] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[29] _Report of the International Council of Women_, 1888, p. 327.
[30] To Nora Blatch, n.d., Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Vassar
College Library, Poughkeepsie, New York.
[31] Harper, _Anthony_, I. p. 52.
[32] Amy H. Croughton, _Antislavery Days in Rochester_ (Rochester,
N.Y., 1936). Anyone implicated in the escape of a slave was liable to
$1000 fine, to the payment of $1000 to the owner of the fugitive, and
to a possible jail sentence of six months.
FREEDOM TO SPEAK
Susan was soon rejoicing at the prospect of meeting Lucy Stone and
Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York _Tribune_. Mrs. Stanton had
invited her to Seneca Falls to discuss with them and other influential
men and women the founding of a people's college. Unhesitatingly she
joined forces with Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone to insist that the
people's college be opened to women on the same terms as men. Lucy had
proved the practicability of this as a student at Oberlin, the first
college to admit women, and was one of the first women to receive a
college degree. However, to suggest coeducation in those days was
enough to jeopardize the founding of a college, and Horace Greeley
stood out against them, his babylike face, fringed with throat
whiskers, getting redder by the moment as he begged them not to
agitate the question.
The people's college did not materialize, but out of this meeting grew
a friendship between Susan, Elizabeth Stanton, and Lucy Stone, which
developed the woman's rights movement in the United States. Susan
discovered at once that Lucy, like Mrs. Stanton, was an ardent
advocate of woman's rights. Brought up in a large family on a farm in
western Massachusetts where a woman's lot was an unending round of
hard work with no rights over her children or property, Lucy had seen
much to make her rebellious. Resolving to free herself from this
bondage, she had worked hard for an education, finally reaching
Oberlin College. Here she held out for equal rights in education, and
now as she went through the country, pleading for the abolition of
slavery, she was not only putting into practice woman's right to
express herself on public affairs, but was scattering woman's rights
doctrine wherever she went. Listening to this rosy-cheeked,
enthusiastic young woman with her little snub nose and soulful gray
eyes, Susan began to realize how little opposition in comparison she
herself had met because she was a woman. Not only had her father
encouraged her to become a teacher, but he had actually aroused her
interest in such causes as abolition, temperance, and woman's rights,
while both Lucy and Mrs. Stanton had met disapproval and resistance
all the way.
[Illustration: Lucy Stone]
She found Lucy, as well as Mrs. Stanton, in the bloomer dress,
praising its convenience. As Lucy traveled about lecturing, in all
kinds of weather, climbing on trains, into carriages, and walking on
muddy streets, she found it much more practical and comfortable than
the fashionable long full skirts. Nevertheless, there was discomfort
in being stared at on the streets and in the chagrin of her friends.
This reform was much on their minds and they discussed it pro and con,
for Mrs. Stanton was facing real persecution in Seneca Falls, with
boys screaming "breeches" at her when she appeared in the street and
with her husband's political opponents ridiculing her costume in their
campaign speeches. Both women, however, felt it their duty to bear
this cross to free women from the bondage of cumbersome clothing,
hoping always that the bloomer, because of its utility, would win
converts and finally become the fashion. Susan admired their courage,
but still could not be persuaded to put on the bloomer.
Fired with their zeal, she began planning what she herself might do
to rouse women. The idea of a separate woman's rights movement did not
as yet enter her mind. Her thoughts turned rather to the two national
reform movements already well under way, temperance and antislavery.
While a career as an antislavery worker appealed strongly to her, she
felt unqualified when she measured herself with the courageous Grimké
sisters from South Carolina, or with Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone,
and the eloquent men in the movement. She had made a place for herself
locally in temperance societies, and she decided that her work was
there--to make women an active, important part of this reform.
That winter, as a delegate of the Rochester Daughters of Temperance,
she went with high hopes to the state convention of the Sons of
Temperance in Albany, where she visited Lydia Mott and her sister
Abigail, who lived in a small house on Maiden Lane. Both Lydia and
Abigail, because of their independence, interested Susan greatly. They
supported themselves by "taking in" boarders from among the leading
politicians in Albany. They also kept a men's furnishings store on
Broadway and made hand-ruffled shirt bosoms and fine linen accessories
for Thurlow Weed, Horatio Seymour, and other influential citizens.
Their political contacts were many and important, and yet they were
also among the very few in that conservative city who stood for
temperance, abolition of slavery, and woman's rights. Their home was a
rallying point for reformers and a refuge for fugitive slaves. It was
to be a second home to Susan in the years to come.
When Susan and the other women delegates entered the convention of the
Sons of Temperance, they looked forward proudly, if a bit timidly, to
taking part in the meetings, but when Susan spoke to a motion, the
chairman, astonished that a woman would be so immodest as to speak in
a public meeting, scathingly announced, "The sisters were not invited
here to speak, but to listen and to learn."[33]
This was the first time that Susan had been publicly rebuked because
she was a woman, and she did not take it lightly. Leaving the hall
with several other indignant women delegates, amid the critical
whisperings of those who remained "to listen and to learn," she
hurried over to Lydia's shop to ask her advice on the next step to be
taken. Lydia, delighted that they had had the spirit to leave the
meeting, suggested they engage the lecture room of the Hudson Street
Presbyterian Church and hold a meeting of their own that very night.
She went with them to the office of her friend Thurlow Weed, the
editor of the _Evening Journal_, who published the whole story in his
paper.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony at the age of thirty-four]
Well in advance of the meeting, Susan was at the church, feeling very
responsible, and when she saw Samuel J. May enter, she was greatly
relieved. He had read the notice in the _Evening Journal_ and
persuaded a friend to come with him. To see his genial face in the
audience gave her confidence, for he would speak easily and well if
others should fail her. Only a few people drifted into the meeting,
for the night was snowy and cold. The room was poorly lighted, the
stove smoked, and in the middle of the speeches, the stovepipe fell
down. Yet in spite of all this, a spirit of independence and
accomplishment was born in that gathering and plans were made to call
a woman's state temperance convention in Rochester with Susan in
charge.
All this Susan reported to her new friend, Elizabeth Stanton, who
promised to help all she could, urging that the new organization lead
the way and not follow the advice of cautious, conservative women.
Susan agreed, and as a first step in carrying out this policy, she
asked Mrs. Stanton to make the keynote speech of the convention. Soon
the Woman's State Temperance Society was a going concern with Mrs.
Stanton as president and Susan as secretary. There was no doubt about
its leading the way far ahead of the rank and file of the temperance
movement when Mrs. Stanton, with Susan's full approval, recommended
divorce on the grounds of drunkenness, declaring, "Let us petition our
State government so to modify the laws affecting marriage and the
custody of children that the drunkard shall have no claims on wife and
child."[34]
Such independence on the part of women could not be tolerated, and
both the press and the clergy ruthlessly denounced the Woman's State
Temperance Society. Susan, however, did not take this too seriously,
familiar as she was with the persecution antislavery workers endured
when they frankly expressed their convictions.
* * * * *
Now recognized as the leader of women's temperance groups in New York,
Susan traveled throughout the state, organizing temperance societies,
getting subscriptions for Amelia Bloomer's temperance paper, _The
Lily_, and attending temperance conventions in spite of the fact that
she met determined opposition to the participation of women. Impressed
by the success of political action in Maine, where in 1851 the first
prohibition law in the country had been passed, she now signed her
letters, "Yours for Temperance Politics."[35] She appealed to women to
petition for a Maine law for New York and brought a group of women
before the legislature for the first time for a hearing on this
prohibition bill. Realizing then that women's indirect influence could
be of little help in political action, she saw clearly that women
needed the vote.
However, it was the woman's rights convention in Syracuse, New York,
in September 1852, which turned her thoughts definitely in the
direction of votes for women. It was the first woman's rights
gathering she had ever attended and she was enthusiastic over the
people she met. She talked eagerly with the courageous Jewish
lecturer, Ernestine Rose; with Dr. Harriot K. Hunt of Boston, one of
the first women physicians, who was waging a battle against taxation
without representation; with Clarina Nichols of Vermont, editor of
the _Windham County Democrat_, and with Matilda Joslyn Gage, the
youngest member of the convention. All of these became valuable, loyal
friends in the years ahead. Susan renewed her acquaintance with Lucy
Stone, and met Antoinette Brown who had also studied at Oberlin
College and was now the first woman ordained as a minister. With real
pleasure she greeted Mrs. Stanton's cousin, Gerrit Smith, now
Congressman from New York, and his daughter, Elizabeth Smith Miller,
the originator of the much-discussed bloomer. Best of all was her
long-hoped-for meeting with James and Lucretia Mott and Lucretia's
sister, Martha C. Wright. Only Paulina Wright Davis of Providence and
Elizabeth Oakes Smith of Boston were disappointing, for they appeared
at the meetings in short-sleeved, low-necked dresses with
loose-fitting jackets of pink and blue wool, shocking her deeply
intrenched Quaker instincts. Although she realized that they wore
ultrafashionable clothes to show the world that not all woman's rights
advocates were frumps wearing the hideous bloomer, she could not
forgive them for what to her seemed bad taste. How could such women,
she asked herself, hope to represent the earnest, hard-working women
who must be the backbone of the equal rights movement? Always
forthright, when a principle was at stake, she expressed her feelings
frankly when James Mott, serving with her on the nominating committee,
proposed Elizabeth Oakes Smith for president. His reply, that they
must not expect all women to dress as plainly as the Friends, in no
way quieted her opposition. To her delight, Lucretia Mott was elected,
and her dignity and poise as president of this large convention of
2,000 won the respect even of the critical press. Susan was elected
secretary and so clearly could her voice be heard as she read the
minutes and the resolutions that the Syracuse _Standard_ commented,
"Miss Anthony has a capital voice and deserves to be clerk of the
Assembly."[36]
[Illustration: James and Lucretia Mott]
Not all of the newspapers were so friendly. Some labeled the gathering
"a Tomfoolery convention" of "Aunt Nancy men and brawling women";
others called it "the farce at Syracuse,"[37] but for Susan it marked
a milestone. Never before had she heard so many earnest, intelligent
women plead so convincingly for property rights, civil rights, and the
ballot. Never before had she seen so clearly that in a republic women
as well as men should enjoy these rights. The ballot assumed a new
importance for her. Her conversion to woman suffrage was complete.
* * * * *
This new interest in the vote was steadily nurtured by Elizabeth
Stanton, whom Susan now saw more frequently. Whenever she could, Susan
stopped over in Seneca Falls for a visit. Here she found inspiration,
new ideas, and good advice, and always left the comfortable Stanton
home ready to battle for the rights of women. While Susan traveled
about, organizing temperance societies and attending conventions, Mrs.
Stanton, tied down at home by a family of young children, wrote
letters and resolutions for her and helped her with her speeches.
Susan was very reluctant about writing speeches or making them. The
moment she sat down to write, her thoughts refused to come and her
phrases grew stilted. She needed encouragement, and Mrs. Stanton gave
it unstintingly, for she had grown very fond of this young woman whose
mental companionship she found so stimulating.
During one of these visits, Susan finally put on the bloomer and cut
her long thick brown hair as part of the stern task of winning
freedom for women. It was not an easy decision and she came to it only
because she was unwilling to do less for the cause than Mrs. Stanton
or Lucy Stone. Comfortable as the new dress was, it always attracted
unfavorable attention and added fuel to the fire of an unfriendly
press. This fire soon scorched her at the World's Temperance
convention in New York, where women delegates faced the determined
animosity of the clergy, who held the balance of power and quoted the
Bible to prove that women were defying the will of God when they took
part in public meetings. Obliged to withdraw, the women held meetings
of their own in the Broadway Tabernacle, over which Susan presided
with a poise and confidence undreamed of a few months before. A
success in every way, they were nevertheless described by the press as
a battle of the sexes, a free-for-all struggle in which shrill-voiced
women in the bloomer costume were supported by a few "male Betties."
The New York _Sun_ spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the
bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule
by her very motions on the platform."[38] Untruth was piled upon
untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing
appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less
courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to
associate with such a strong-minded woman as Susan B. Anthony.
There were rumblings of discontent when the Woman's State Temperance
Society met in Rochester for its next annual convention in June 1853,
and Susan and Mrs. Stanton were roundly criticized because they did
not confine themselves to the subject of temperance and talked too
much about woman's rights. Not only was Mrs. Stanton defeated for the
presidency but the by-laws were amended to make men eligible as
officers. Men had been barred when the first by-laws were drafted by
Susan and Mrs. Stanton because they wished to make the society a
proving ground for women and were convinced that men holding office
would take over the management, and women, less experienced, would
yield to their wishes.
This now proved to be the case, as the men began to do all the
talking, calling for a new name for the society and insisting that all
discussion of woman's rights be ruled out. In the face of this clear
indication of a determined new policy which few of the women wished to
resist, Susan refused re-election as secretary and both she and Mrs.
Stanton resigned.
This was Susan's first experience with intrigue and her first rebuff
by women whom she had sincerely tried to serve. Defeated, hurt, and
uncertain, she poured out her disappointment in troubled letters to
Elizabeth Stanton, who, with the steadying touch of an older sister,
roused her with the challenge, "We have other and bigger fish to
fry."[39]
* * * * *
A few months later, Susan was off on a new crusade as she attended the
state teachers' convention in Rochester. Of the five hundred teachers
present, two-thirds were women, but there was not the slightest
recognition of their presence. They filled the back seats of
Corinthian Hall, forming an inert background for the vocal minority,
the men. After sitting through two days' sessions and growing more and
more impatient as not one woman raised her voice, Susan listened, as
long as she could endure it, to a lengthy debate on the question, "Why
the profession of teacher is not as much respected as that of lawyer,
doctor, or minister."[40] Then she rose to her feet and in a
low-pitched, clear voice addressed the chairman.
At the sound of a woman's voice, an astonished rustle of excitement
swept through the audience, and when the chairman, Charles Davies,
Professor of Mathematics at West Point, had recovered from his
surprise, he patronizingly asked, "What will the lady have?"
"I wish, sir, to speak to the subject under discussion," she bravely
replied.
Turning to the men in the front row, Professor Davies then asked,
"What is the pleasure of the convention?"
"I move that she be heard," shouted an unexpected champion. Another
seconded the motion. After a lengthy debate during which Susan stood
patiently waiting, the men finally voted their approval by a small
majority, and Professor Davies, a bit taken aback, announced, "The
lady may speak."
"It seems to me, gentlemen," Susan began, "that none of you quite
comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you
not see that so long as society says woman is incompetent to be a
lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher,
every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges that
he has no more brains than a woman? And this, too, is the reason that
teaching is a less lucrative profession; as here men must compete with
the cheap labor of woman. Would you exalt your profession, exalt those
who labor with you. Would you make it more lucrative, increase the
salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our
future Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen."
For a moment after this bombshell, there was complete silence. Then
three men rushed down the aisle to congratulate her, telling her she
had pluck, that she had hit the nail on the head, but the women near
by glanced scornfully at her, murmuring, "Who can that creature be?"
Susan, however, had started a few women thinking and questioning, and
the next morning, Professor Davies, resplendent in his buff vest and
blue coat with brass buttons, opened the convention with an
explanation. "I have been asked," he said, "why no provisions have
been made for female lecturers before this association and why ladies
are not appointed on committees. I will answer." Then, in flowery
metaphor, he assured them that he would not think of dragging women
from their pedestals into the dust.
"Beautiful, beautiful," murmured the women in the back rows, but Mrs.
Northrup of Rochester offered resolutions recognizing the right of
women teachers to share in all the privileges and deliberations of the
organization and calling attention to the inadequate salaries women
teachers received. These resolutions were kept before the meeting by a
determined group and finally adopted. Susan also offered the name of
Emma Willard as a candidate for vice-president, thinking the
successful retired principal of the Troy Female Seminary, now
interested in improving the public schools, might also be willing to
lend a hand in improving the status of women in this educational
organization. Mrs. Willard, however, declined the nomination, refusing
to be drawn into Susan's rebellion.[41] Susan, nevertheless, left the
convention satisfied that she had driven an entering wedge into
Professor Davies' male stronghold, and she continued battering at
this stronghold whenever she had an opportunity. She meant to put
women in office and to win approval for coeducation and equal pay.
* * * * *
Teachers' conventions, however, were only a minor part of her new
crusade, plans for which were still simmering in her mind and
developing from day to day. Going back to many of the towns where she
had held temperance meetings, she found that most of the societies she
had organized had disbanded because women lacked the money to engage
speakers or to subscribe to temperance papers. If they were married,
they had no money of their own and no right to any interest outside
their homes, unless their husbands consented.
Discouraged, she wrote in her diary, "As I passed from town to town I
was made to feel the great evil of woman's entire dependency upon man
for the necessary means to aid on any and every reform movement.
Though I had long admitted the wrong, I never until this time so fully
took in the grand idea of pecuniary and personal independence. It
matters not how overflowing with benevolence toward suffering humanity
may be the heart of woman, it avails nothing so long as she possesses
not the power to act in accordance with these promptings. Woman must
have a purse of her own, and how can this be, so long as the _Wife_ is
denied the right to her individual and joint earnings. Reflections
like these, caused me to see and really feel that there was no true
freedom for Woman without the possession of all her property rights,
and that these rights could be obtained through legislation only, and
so, the sooner the demand was made of the Legislature, the sooner
would we be likely to obtain them."[42]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 65.
[34] _The Lily_, May, 1852.
[35] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn
Gage, _History of Woman Suffrage_ (New York, 1881), I, p. 489.
[36] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 77.
[37] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[38] _Ibid._, p. 90.
[39] Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, Eds., _Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences_
(New York, 1922), II, p. 52.
[40] Aug., 1853, Harper, Anthony, I, pp. 98-99; _History of Woman
Suffrage_, I, pp. 513-515.
[41] Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, Library of Congress.
[42] Ms., Diary, 1853.
A PURSE OF HER OWN
The next important step in winning further property rights for women,
it seemed to Susan, was to hold a woman's rights convention in the
conservative capital city of Albany. This was definitely a challenge
and she at once turned to Elizabeth Stanton for counsel. Somehow she
must persuade Mrs. Stanton to find time in spite of her many household
cares to prepare a speech for the convention and for presentation to
the legislature. As eager as Susan to free women from unjust property
laws, Mrs. Stanton asked only that Susan get a good lawyer, and one
sympathetic to the cause, to look up New York State's very worst laws
affecting women.[43] She could think and philosophize while she was
baking and sewing, she assured Susan, but she had no time for
research. Susan produced the facts for Mrs. Stanton, and while she
worked on the speech, Susan went from door to door during the cold
blustery days of December and January 1854 to get signatures on her
petitions for married women's property rights and woman suffrage. Some
of the women signed, but more of them slammed the door in her face,
declaring indignantly that they had all the rights they wanted. Yet at
this time a father had the legal authority to apprentice or will away
a child without the mother's consent and an employer was obliged by
law to pay a wife's wages to her husband.
In spite of the fact that the bloomer costume made it easier for her
to get about in the snowy streets, she now found it a real burden
because it always attracted unfavorable attention. Boys jeered at her
and she was continually conscious of the amused, critical glances of
the men and women she met. She longed to take it off and wear an
inconspicuous trailing skirt, but if she had been right to put it on,
it would be weakness to take it off. By this time Elizabeth Stanton
had given it up except in her own home, convinced that it harmed the
cause and that the physical freedom it gave was not worth the price.
"I hope you have let down a dress and a petticoat," she now wrote
Susan. "The cup of ridicule is greater than you can bear. It is not
wise, Susan, to use up so much energy and feeling in that way. You
can put them to better use. I speak from experience."[44]
[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her son, Henry]
Lucy Stone too was wavering and was thinking of having her next dress
made long. The three women corresponded about it, and Lucy as well as
Mrs. Stanton urged Susan to give up the bloomer. With these entreaties
ringing in her ears, Susan set out for Albany in February 1854 to make
final arrangements for the convention. On the streets in Albany, in
the printing offices, and at the capitol, men stared boldly at her,
some calling out hilariously, "Here comes my bloomer." She endured it
bravely until her work was done, but at night alone in her room at
Lydia Mott's she poured out her anguish in letters to Lucy. "Here I am
known only," she wrote, "as one of the women who ape men--coarse,
brutal men! Oh, I can not, can not bear it any longer."[45]
Even so she did not let down the hem of her skirt, but wore her
bloomer costume heroically during the entire convention, determined
that she would not be stampeded into a long skirt by the jeers of
Albany men or the ridicule of the women. However, she made up her mind
that immediately after the convention she would take off the bloomer
forever. She had worn it a little over a year. Never again could she
be lured into the path of dress reform.
The Albany _Register_ scoffed at the "feminine propagandists of
woman's rights" exhibiting themselves in "short petticoats and
long-legged boots."[46] Nevertheless, the convention aroused such
genuine interest that evening meetings were continued for two weeks,
featuring as speakers Ernestine Rose, Antoinette Brown, Samuel J. May,
and William Henry Channing, the young Unitarian minister from
Rochester; and when the men appeared on the platform, the audience
called for the women.
Susan could not have asked for anything better than Elizabeth
Stanton's moving plea for property rights for married women and the
attention it received from the large audience in the Senate Chamber.
Her heart swelled with pride as she listened to her friend, and so
important did she think the speech that she had 50,000 copies printed
for distribution.
To back up Mrs. Stanton's words with concrete evidence of a demand for
a change in the law, Susan presented petitions with 10,000 signatures,
6,000 asking that married women be granted the right to their wages
and 4,000 venturing to be recorded for woman suffrage.
Enthusiastic over her Albany success, she impetuously wrote Lucy
Stone, "Is this not a wonderful time, an era long to be
remembered?"[47]
Although the legislature failed to act on the petitions, she knew that
her cause had made progress, for never before had women been listened
to with such respect and never had newspapers been so friendly. She
cherished these words of praise from Lucy, "God bless you, Susan dear,
for the brave heart that will work on even in the midst of
discouragement and lack of helpers. Everywhere I am telling people
what your state is doing, and it is worth a great deal to the cause.
The example of positive action is what we need."[48]
* * * * *
Susan continued her "example of positive action," this time against
the Kansas-Nebraska bill, pending in Congress, which threatened repeal
of the Missouri Compromise by admitting Kansas and Nebraska as
territories with the right to choose for themselves whether they
would be slave or free. "I feel that woman should in the very capitol
of the nation lift her voice against that abominable measure," she
wrote Lucy Stone, with whom she was corresponding more and more
frequently. "It is not enough that H. B. Stowe should write."[49]
Harriet Beecher Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had been published in 1852
and during that year 300,000 copies were sold.
[Illustration: Ernestine Rose]
With Ernestine Rose, Susan now headed for Washington. These two women
had been drawn together by common interests ever since they had met in
Syracuse in 1852. Susan was not frightened, as many were, by
Ernestine's reputed atheism. She appreciated Ernestine's intelligence,
her devotion to woman's rights, and her easy eloquence. Conscious of
her own limitations as an orator, she recognized her need of Ernestine
for the many meetings she planned for the future.
As they traveled to Washington together, she learned more about this
beautiful, impressive, black-haired Jewess from Poland, who was ten
years her senior. The daughter of a rabbi, Ernestine had found the
limitations of orthodox religion unbearable for a woman and had left
her home to see and learn more of the world in Prussia, Holland,
France, Scotland, and England. She had married an Englishman
sympathetic to her liberal views, and together they had come to New
York where she began her career as a lecturer in 1836 when speaking in
public branded women immoral. She spoke easily and well on education,
woman's rights, and the evils of slavery. Her slight foreign accent
added charm to her rich musical voice, and before long she was in
demand as far west as Ohio and Michigan. With a colleague as
experienced as Ernestine, Susan dared arrange for meetings even in the
capital of the nation.
Washington was tense over the slavery issue when they arrived, and
Ernestine's friends warned her not to mention the subject in her
lectures. Unheeding she commented on the Kansas-Nebraska bill, but the
press took no notice and her audiences showed no signs of
dissatisfaction. In fact, two comparatively unknown women, billed to
lecture on the "Educational and Social Rights of Women" and the
"Political and Legal Rights of Women," attracted little attention in a
city accustomed to a blaze of Congressional oratory. Hoping to draw
larger audiences and to lend dignity to their meetings, Susan asked
for the use of the Capitol on Sunday, but was refused because
Ernestine was not a member of a religious society. Making an attempt
for Smithsonian Hall, Ernestine was told it could not risk its
reputation by presenting a woman speaker.[50]
A failure financially, their Washington venture was rich in
experience. Susan took time out for sightseeing, visiting the
"President's house" and Mt. Vernon, which to her surprise she found in
a state of "delapidation and decay." "The mark of slavery o'ershadows
the whole," she wrote in her diary. "Oh the thought that it was here
that he whose name is the pride of this Nation, was the _Slave
Master_."[51]
Again and again in the Capitol, she listened to heated debates on the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, astonished at the eloquence and fervor with
which the "institution of slavery" could be defended. Seeing slavery
first-hand, she abhorred it more than ever and observed with dismay
its degenerating influence on master as well as slave. She began to
feel that even she herself might be undermined by it almost
unwittingly and confessed to her diary, "This noon, I ate my dinner
without once asking myself are these human beings who minister to my
wants, Slaves to be bought and sold and hired out at the will of a
master?... Even I am getting _accustomed_ to _Slavery_ ... so much so
that I have ceased continually to be made to feel its blighting,
cursing influence."[52]
* * * * *
A few months later, Susan and Ernestine were in Philadelphia at a
national woman's rights convention, and when Ernestine was proposed
for president, Susan had her first opportunity to champion her new
friend. A foreigner and a free-thinker, Ernestine encountered a great
deal of prejudice even among liberal reformers, and Susan was
surprised at the strength of feeling against her. Impressed during
their trip to Washington by Ernestine's essentially fine qualities and
her value to the cause, Susan fought for her behind the scenes,
insisting that freedom of religion or the freedom to have no religion
be observed in woman's rights conventions, and she had the
satisfaction of seeing Ernestine elected to the office she so richly
deserved.
Freedom of religion or freedom to have no religion had become for
Susan a principle to hold on to, as she listened at these early
woman's rights meetings to the lengthy fruitless discussions regarding
the lack of Scriptural sanction for women's new freedom. Usually a
clergyman appeared on the scene, volubly quoting the Bible to prove
that any widening of woman's sphere was contrary to the will of God.
But always ready to refute him were Antoinette Brown, now an ordained
minister, William Lloyd Garrison, and occasionally Susan herself. To
the young Quaker broadened by her Unitarian contacts and unhampered by
creed or theological dogma, such debates were worse than useless; they
deepened theological differences, stirred up needless antagonisms,
solved no problems, and wasted valuable time.
During this convention, she was one of the twenty-four guests in
Lucretia Mott's comfortable home at 238 Arch Street. Every meal, with
its stimulating discussions, was a convention in itself. Susan's great
hero, William Lloyd Garrison, sat at Lucretia's right at the long
table in the dining room, Susan on her left, and at the end of each
meal, when the little cedar tub filled with hot soapy water was
brought in and set before Lucretia so that she could wash the silver,
glass, and fine china at the table, Susan dried them on a snowy-white
towel while the interesting conversation continued. There was talk of
woman's rights, of temperance, and of spiritualism, which was
attracting many new converts. There were thrilling stories of the
opening of the West and the building of transcontinental railways; but
most often and most earnestly the discussion turned to the progress of
the antislavery movement, to the infamous Kansas-Nebraska bill, to the
New England Emigrant Aid Company,[53] which was sending free-state
settlers to Kansas, to the weakness of the government in playing again
and again into the hands of the proslavery faction. Most of them saw
the country headed toward a vast slave empire which would embrace
Cuba, Mexico, and finally Brazil; and William Lloyd Garrison fervently
reiterated his doctrine, "No Union with Slaveholders."
Before leaving home Susan had heard first-hand reports of the bitter
bloody antislavery contest in Kansas from her brother Daniel, who had
just returned from a trip to that frontier territory with settlers
sent out by the New England Emigrant Aid Company. Now talking with
William Lloyd Garrison, she found herself torn between these two great
causes for human freedom, abolition and woman's rights, and it was
hard for her to decide which cause needed her more.
* * * * *
She had not, however, forgotten her unfinished business in New York
State. The refusal of the legislature to amend the property laws had
doubled her determination to continue circulating petitions until
married women's civil rights were finally recognized. It took courage
to go alone to towns where she was unknown to arrange for meetings on
the unpopular subject of woman's rights. Not knowing how she would be
received, she found it almost as difficult to return to such towns as
Canajoharie where she had been highly respected as a teacher six years
before. In Canajoharie, however, she was greeted affectionately by her
uncle Joshua Read. He and his friends let her use the Methodist church
for her lecture, and when the trustees of the academy urged her to
return there to teach, Uncle Joshua interrupted with a vehement "No!"
protesting that others could teach but it was Susan's work "to go
around and set people thinking about the laws."[54]
Returning to the scene of her girlhood in Battenville and Easton,
visiting her sisters Guelma and Hannah, and meeting many of her old
friends, Susan realized as never before how completely she had
outgrown her old environment. In her enthusiasm for her new work, she
exposed "many of her heresies," and when her friends labeled William
Lloyd Garrison an agnostic and rabble rouser, she protested that he
was the most Christlike man she had ever known. "Thus it is belief,
not Christian benevolence," she confided to her diary in 1854, "that
is made the modern test of Christianity."[55]
After eight strenuous months away from home, she was welcomed warmly
by a family who believed in her work. She found abolition uppermost in
everyone's mind. Her brother Merritt, fired by Daniel's tales of the
West and the antislavery struggle in Kansas, was impatient to join the
settlers there and could talk of nothing else. While he poured out the
latest news about Kansas, he and a cousin Mary Luther helped Susan
fold handbills for future woman's rights meetings. Susan listened
eagerly and approvingly as he told of the 750 free-state settlers who
during the past summer had gone out to Kansas, traveling up the
Missouri on steamboats and over lonely trails in wagons marked
"Kansas." Most of them were not abolitionists but men who wanted
Kansas a free-labor state which they could develop with their own hard
work. She heard of the ruthless treatment these "Yankee" settlers
faced from the proslavery Missourians who wanted Kansas in the slavery
bloc. There was bloodshed and there would be more. John Brown's sons
had written from Kansas, "Send us guns. We need them more than
bread."[56] Merritt was ready and eager to join John Brown.
The Anthony farm was virtually a hotbed of insurrection with Merritt
planning resistance in Kansas and Susan reform in New York. Susan
mapped out an ambitious itinerary, hoping to canvass with her
petitions every county in the state. With her father as security, she
borrowed money to print her handbills and notices, and then wrote
Wendell Phillips asking if any money for a woman's rights campaign had
been raised by the last national convention. He replied with his own
personal check for fifty dollars. His generosity and confidence
touched her deeply, for already he had become a hero to her second
only to William Lloyd Garrison. This tall handsome intellectual, a
graduate of Harvard and an unsurpassed orator, had forfeited friends,
social position, and a promising career as a lawyer to plead for the
slave. He was also one of the very few men who sympathized with and
aided the woman's rights cause.
Horace Greeley too proved at this time to be a good friend, writing,
"I have your letter and your programme, friend Susan. I will publish
the latter in all our editions, but return your dollars."[57]
Her earnestness and ability made a great appeal to these men. They
marveled at her industry. Thirty-four years old now, not handsome but
wholesome, simply and neatly dressed, her brown hair smoothly parted
and brought down over her ears, she had nothing of the scatterbrained
impulsive reformer about her, and no coquetry. She was practical and
intelligent, and men liked to discuss their work with her. William
Henry Channing, admiring her executive ability and her plucky reaction
to defeat, dubbed her the Napoleon of the woman's rights movement.
Parker Pillsbury, the fiery abolitionist from New Hampshire,
broad-shouldered, dark-bearded, with blazing eyes and almost fanatical
zeal, had become her devoted friend. He liked nothing better than to
tease her about her idleness and pretend to be in search of more work
for her to do.
* * * * *
So impatient was Susan to begin her New York State campaign that she
left home on Christmas Day to hold her first meeting on December 26,
1854, at Mayville in Chatauqua County. The weather was cold and damp,
but the four pounds of candles which she had bought to light the court
house flickered cheerily while the small curious audience, gathered
from several nearby towns, listened to the first woman most of them
had ever heard speak in public. She would be, they reckoned, worth
hearing at least once.
Traveling from town to town, she held meetings every other night.
Usually the postmasters or sheriffs posted her notices in the town
square and gave them to the newspapers and to the ministers to
announce in their churches. Even in a hostile community she almost
always found a gallant fair-minded man to come to her aid, such as the
hotel proprietor who offered his dining room for her meetings when
the court house, schoolhouse, and churches were closed to her, or the
group of men who, when the ministers refused to announce her meetings,
struck off handbills which they distributed at the church doors at the
close of the services. The newspapers too were generally friendly.
As men were the voters with power to change the laws, she aimed to
attract them to her evening meetings, and usually they came, seeking
diversion, and listened respectfully. Some of them scoffed, others
condemned her for undermining the home, but many found her reasoning
logical and by their questions put life into the meetings. A few even
encouraged their wives to enlist in the cause.
The women, on the other hand, were timid or indifferent, although she
pointed out to them the way to win the legal right to their earnings
and their children. It was difficult to find among them a rebellious
spirit brave enough to head a woman's rights society.
"Susan B. Anthony is in town," wrote young Caroline Cowles, a
Canandaigua school girl, in her diary at this time. "She made a
special request that all seminary girls should come to hear her as
well as all the women and girls in town. She had a large audience and
she talked very plainly about our rights and how we ought to stand up
for them and said the world would never go right until the women had
just as much right to vote and rule as the men.... When I told
Grandmother about it, she said she guessed Susan B. Anthony had
forgotten that St. Paul said women should keep silence. I told her,
no, she didn't, for she spoke particularly about St. Paul and said if
he had lived in these times ... he would have been as anxious to have
women at the head of the government as she was. I could not make
Grandmother agree with her at all."[58]
Many of the towns Susan visited were not on a railroad. Often after a
long cold sleigh ride she slept in a hotel room without a fire; in the
morning she might have to break the ice in the pitcher to take the
cold sponge bath which nothing could induce her to omit since she had
begun to follow the water cure, a new therapeutic method then in
vogue.
For a time Ernestine Rose came to her aid and it was a relief to turn
over the meetings to such an accomplished speaker. But for the most
part Susan braved it alone. Steadily adding names to her petitions
and leaving behind the leaflets which Elizabeth Stanton had written,
she aroused a glimmer of interest in a new valuation of women.
[Illustration: Parker Pillsbury]
On the stagecoach leaving Lake George on a particularly cold day, she
found to her surprise a wealthy Quaker, whom she had met at the Albany
convention, so solicitous of her comfort that he placed heated planks
under her feet, making the long ride much more bearable. He turned up
again, this time with his own sleigh, at the close of one of her
meetings in northern New York, and wrapped in fur robes, she drove
with him behind spirited gray horses to his sisters' home to stay over
Sunday, and then to all her meetings in the neighborhood. It was
pleasant to be looked after and to travel in comfort and she enjoyed
his company, but when he urged her to give up the hard life of a
reformer to become his wife, there was no hesitation on her part. She
had dedicated her life to freeing women and Negroes and there could be
no turning aside. If she ever married, it must be to a man who would
encourage her work for humanity, a great man like Wendell Phillips, or
a reformer like Parker Pillsbury.
Returning home in May 1855, she took stock of her accomplishments. She
had canvassed fifty-four counties and sold 20,000 tracts. Her expenses
had been $2,291 and she had paid her way by selling tracts and by a
small admission charge for her meetings. She even had seventy dollars
over and above all expenses. She promptly repaid the fifty dollars
which Wendell Phillips had advanced, but he returned it for her next
campaign.
However, her heart quailed at the prospect of another such winter, as
she recalled the long, bitter-cold days of travel and the indifference
of the women she was trying to help. Even the unfailing praise of her
family and of Elizabeth Stanton, even the kindness and interest of the
new friends she made paled into insignificance before the thought of
another lone crusade. She was exhausted and suffering with rheumatic
pains, and yet she would not rest, but prepared for an ambitious
convention at Saratoga Springs, then the fashionable summer resort of
the East.
She had braved this center of fashion and frivolity the year before
with her message of woman's rights, and to her great surprise, crowds
seeking entertainment had come to her meetings, their admission fees
and their purchase of tracts making the venture a financial success.
Here was fertile ground. Susan was counting on Lucy Stone and
Antoinette Brown to help her, for Elizabeth Stanton, then expecting
her sixth baby, was out of the picture. Now, to her dismay, Lucy and
Antoinette married the Blackwell brothers, Henry and Samuel.
Fearing that they too like Elizabeth Stanton would be tied down with
babies and household cares, Susan saw a bleak lonely road ahead for
the woman's rights movement. She did so want her best speakers and
most valuable workers to remain single until the spade work for
woman's rights was done. Almost in a panic at the prospect of being
left to carry on the Saratoga convention alone, Susan wrote Lucy
irritable letters instead of praising her for drawing up a marriage
contract and keeping her own name. Later, however, she realized what
it had meant for Lucy to keep her own name, and then she wrote her, "I
am more and more rejoiced that you have declared by actual doing that
a woman has a name and may retain it all through her life."[59]
So persistently did she now pursue Lucy and Antoinette that they both
kept their promise to speak at the Saratoga convention, Lucy traveling
all the way from Cincinnati where she was visiting in the Blackwell
home. Lucy was loudly cheered by a large audience, eager to see this
young woman whose marriage had attracted so much notice in the press.
In fact Lucy Stone, who had kept her own name and who with her husband
had signed a marriage protest against the legal disabilities of a
married woman, was as much of a novelty in this fashionable circle as
one of Barnum's high-priced curiosities.
Pleased at Lucy's reception, Susan surveyed the audience
hopefully--handsome men in nankeen trousers, red waistcoats, white
neckcloths, and gray swallowtail coats, sitting beside beautiful young
women wearing gowns of bombazine and watered silk with wide hoop
skirts and elaborately trimmed bonnets which set off their curls. To
her delight, they also applauded Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first
woman minister they had ever seen, and Ernestine Rose with her
appealing foreign accent. They clapped loudly when she herself asked
them to buy tracts and contribute to the work.
Complimentary as this was, she did not flatter herself that they had
endorsed woman's rights. That they had come to her meetings in large
numbers while vacationing in Saratoga Springs, this was important. In
some a spark of understanding glowed, and this spark would light
others. They came from the South, from the West, and from the large
cities of the East. There were railroad magnates among them, rich
merchants, manufacturers, and politicians. Charles F. Hovey, the
wealthy Boston dry-goods merchant, listened attentively to every word,
and in the years that followed became a generous contributor to the
cause.
* * * * *
Realizing how very tired she was and that she must feel more
physically fit before continuing her work, Susan decided to take the
water cure at her cousin Seth Rogers' Hydropathic Institute in
Worcester, Massachusetts. This well-known sanitorium prescribed water
internally and externally as a remedy for all kinds of ailments, and
in an age when meals were overhearty, baths infrequent, and clothing
tight and confining, the drinking of water, tub baths, showers, and
wet packs had enthusiastic advocates. The soothing baths relaxed
Susan and the leisure to read refreshed and strengthened her. She
read, one after another, Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_, George Sand's
_Consuelo_, Madame de Stael's _Corinne_, then Frances Wright's _A Few
Days in Athens_ and Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, making
notes in her diary (1855) of passages she particularly liked. She
discussed current events with her cousin Seth on long drives in the
country, finding him a delightful companion, well-read, understanding,
and interested in people and causes. He took her to her first
political meeting, where she was the only woman present and had a seat
on the platform. It was one of the first rallies of the new Republican
party which had developed among rebellious northern Whigs,
Free-Soilers, and anti-Nebraska Democrats who opposed the extension of
slavery. After listening to the speakers, among them Charles Sumner,
she drew these conclusions: "Had the accident of birth given me place
among the aristocracy of sex, I doubt not I should be an active,
zealous advocate of Republicanism; unless perchance, I had received
that higher, holier light which would have lifted me to the sublime
height where now stand Garrison, Phillips, and all that small band
whose motto is 'No Union with Slaveholders.'"[60]
After listening to the satisfying sermons of Thomas Wentworth
Higginson at his Free Church in Worcester, she wrote in her diary, "It
is plain to me now that it is not sitting under preaching I dislike,
but the fact that most of it is not of a stamp that my soul can
respond to."[61]
In September she interrupted "the cure" to attend a woman's rights
meeting in Boston, and with Lucy Stone, Antoinette and Ellen Blackwell
visited in the home of the wealthy merchant, Francis Jackson, making
many new friends, among them his daughter, Eliza J. Eddy, whose
unhappy marriage was to prove a blessing to the woman's rights
cause.[62]
At tea at the Garrisons', she met many of the "distinguished" men and
women she had "worshiped" from afar. She heard Theodore Parker preach
a sermon which filled her soul, and with Mr. Garrison called on him in
his famous library. "It really seemed audacious in me to be ushered
into such a presence and on such a commonplace errand as to ask him to
come to Rochester to speak in a course of lectures I am planning," she
wrote her family, "but he received me with such kindness and
simplicity that the awe I felt on entering was soon dissipated. I then
called on Wendell Phillips in his sanctum for the same purpose. I have
invited Ralph Waldo Emerson by letter and all three have promised to
come. In the evening with Mr. Jackson's son James, Ellen Blackwell and
I went to see _Hamlet_. In spite of my Quaker training, I find I enjoy
all these worldly amusements intensely."[63]
* * * * *
In January 1856, Susan set out again on a woman's rights tour of New
York State to gather more signatures for her petitions. This time she
persuaded Frances D. Gage of Ohio, a temperance worker and popular
author of children's stories, to join her. An easy extemporaneous
speaker, Mrs. Gage was an attraction to offer audiences, who drove
eight or more miles to hear her; and in the cheerless hotels at night
and on the long cold sleigh rides from town to town, she was a
congenial companion.
The winter was even colder and snowier than that of the year before.
"No trains running," Susan wrote her family, "and we had a 36-mile
ride in a sleigh.... Just emerged from a long line of snow drifts and
stopped at this little country tavern, supped, and am now roasting
over the hot stove."[64]
Confronted almost daily with glaring examples of the injustices women
suffered under the property laws, she was more than ever convinced
that her work was worth-while. "We stopped at a little tavern where
the landlady was not yet twenty and had a baby, fifteen months old,"
she reported. "Her supper dishes were not washed and her baby was
crying.... She rocked the little thing to sleep, washed the dishes and
got our supper; beautiful white bread, butter, cheese, pickles, apple
and mince pie, and excellent peach preserves. She gave us her warm
room to sleep in.... She prepared a six o'clock breakfast for us,
fried pork, mashed potatoes, mince pie, and for me at my special
request, a plate of sweet baked apples and a pitcher of rich milk....
When we came to pay our bill, the dolt of a husband took the money and
put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a finger to lighten that
woman's burdens.... Yet the law gives him the right to every dollar
she earns, and when she needs two cents to buy a darning needle she
has to ask him and explain what she wants it for."[65]
When after a few weeks Mrs. Gage was called home by illness in her
family, Susan appealed hopefully to Lucretia Mott's sister, Martha C.
Wright, in Auburn, New York, "You can speak so much better, so much
more wisely, so much more everything than I can." Then she added, "I
should like a particular effort made to call out the Teachers, the
Sewing Women, the Working Women generally--Can't you write something
for your papers that will make them feel that it is for them that we
work more than [for] the wives and daughters of the rich?"[66] Mrs.
Wright, however, could help only in Auburn, and Susan was obliged to
continue her scheduled meetings alone. She interrupted them only to
present her petitions to the legislature.
The response of the legislature to her two years of hard work was a
sarcastic, wholly irrelevant report issued by the judiciary committee
some weeks later to a Senate roaring with laughter. In the Albany
_Register_ Susan read with mounting indignation portions of this
infuriating report: "The ladies always have the best places and the
choicest tidbit at the table. They have the best seats in cars,
carriages, and sleighs; the warmest place in winter, the coolest in
summer. They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie,
front or back. A lady's dress costs three times as much as that of a
gentleman; and at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one
lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman.
It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen of your committee, being
a majority ... that if there is any inequality or oppression in the
case, the gentlemen are the sufferers. They, however, have presented
no petitions for redress, having doubtless made up their minds to
yield to an inevitable destiny."[67]
Why, Susan wondered sadly, were woman's rights only a joke to most
men--something to be laughed at even in the face of glaring proofs of
the law's injustice.
There was encouragement, however, in the letters which now came from
Lucy Stone in Ohio: "Hurrah Susan! Last week this State Legislature
passed a law giving wives equal property rights, and to mothers equal
baby rights with fathers. So much is gained. The petitions which I set
on foot in Wisconsin for suffrage have been presented, made a rousing
discussion, and then were tabled with three men to defend them!... In
Nebraska too, the bill for suffrage passed the House.... The world
moves!"[68]
The world was moving in Great Britain as well, for as Susan read in
her newspaper, women there were petitioning Parliament for married
women's property rights, and among the petitioners were her
well-beloved Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Martineau, Mrs.
Gaskell, and Charlotte Cushman. Better still, Harriet Taylor, inspired
by the example of woman's rights conventions in America, had written
for the _Westminster Review_ an article advocating the enfranchisement
of women.
All this reassured Susan, even if New York legislators laughed at her
efforts.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Judge William Hay of Saratoga Springs, New York.
[44] Feb. 19, 1854, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[45] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 116. Among those who wore the bloomer
costume were Angelina and Sarah Grimké, many women in sanitoriums and
some of the Lowell, Mass. mill workers. In Ohio, the bloomer was so
popular that 60 women in Akron wore it at a ball, and in Battle Creek,
Michigan, 31 attended a Fourth of July celebration in the bloomer.
Amelia Bloomer, moving to the West wore it for eight years. Garrison,
Phillips, and William Henry Channing disapproved of the bloomer
costume, but Gerrit Smith continued to champion it and his daughter
wore it at fashionable receptions in Washington during his term in
Congress.
[46] _History of Woman Suffrage_, I, p. 608.
[47] 1854 (copy), Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
[48] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 111-112.
[49] March 3, 1854 (copy), Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial
Collection.
[50] Ms., Diary, March 24, 28, 1854.
[51] _Ibid._, March 29, 1854.
[52] _Ibid._, March 30, 1854.
[53] The New England Emigrant Aid Company, headed by Eli Thayer of
Worcester, was formed to send free-soil settlers to Kansas, offering
reduced fare and farm equipment. Their first settlers reached Kansas
in August, 1854, founding the town of Lawrence in honor of one of
their chief patrons, the wealthy Amos Lawrence of Massachusetts.
[54] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 121.
[55] Diary, April 28, 1854.
[56] Leonard C. Ehrlich, _God's Angry Man_ (New York, 1941), p. 57.
[57] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 122.
[58] Caroline Cowles Richards, _Village Life in America_ (New York,
1913), p. 49.
[59] 1858, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
[60] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 133.
[61] _Ibid._
[62] Eliza J. Eddy's husband, James Eddy, took their two young
daughters away from their mother and to Europe, causing her great
anguish. This led her father, Francis Jackson, to give liberally to
the woman's rights cause. Mrs. Eddy, herself, left a bequest of
$56,000 to be divided between Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone.
[63] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 131-133.
[64] _Ibid._, p. 138.
[65] _Ibid._, p. 139.
[66] Jan. 18, 1856, Garrison Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith
College.
[67] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 140-141.
[68] May 25, 1856, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS
Susan's thoughts during the summer of 1856 often strayed from woman's
rights meetings toward Kansas, where her brother Merritt had settled
on a claim near Osawatomie. Well aware of his eagerness to help John
Brown, she knew that he must be in the thick of the bloody antislavery
struggle. In fact the whole Anthony family had been anxiously waiting
for news from Merritt ever since the wires had flashed word in May
1856 of the burning of Lawrence by proslavery "border ruffians" from
Missouri and of John Brown's raid in retaliation at Pottawatomie
Creek.
Merritt had built a log cabin at Osawatomie. While Susan was at home
in September, the newspapers reported an attack by proslavery men on
Osawatomie in which thirty out of fifty settlers were killed. Was
Merritt among them? Finally letters came through from him. Susan read
and reread them, assuring herself of his safety. Although ill at the
time, he had been in the thick of the fight, but was unharmed. Weak
from the exertion he had crawled back to his cabin on his hands and
knees and had lain there ill and alone for several weeks.
Parts of Merritt's letters were published in the Rochester _Democrat_,
and the city took sides in the conflict, some papers claiming that his
letters were fiction. Susan wrote Merritt, "How much rather would I
have you at my side tonight than to think of your daring and enduring
greater hardships even than our Revolutionary heroes. Words cannot
tell how often we think of you or how sadly we feel that the terrible
crime of this nation against humanity is being avenged on the heads of
our sons and brothers.... Father brings the _Democrat_ giving a list
of killed, wounded, and missing and the name of our Merritt is not
therein, but oh! the slain are sons, brothers, and husbands of others
as dearly loved and sadly mourned."[69]
With difficulty, she prepared for the annual woman's rights
convention, for the country was in a state of unrest not only over
Kansas and the whole antislavery question, but also over the
presidential campaign with three candidates in the field. Even her
faithful friends Horace Greeley and Gerrit Smith now failed her,
Horace Greeley writing that he could no longer publish her notices
free in the news columns of his _Tribune_, because they cast upon him
the stigma of ultraradicalism, and Gerrit Smith withholding his
hitherto generous financial support because woman's rights conventions
would not press for dress reform--comfortable clothing for women
suitable for an active life, which he believed to be the foundation
stone of women's emancipation.
[Illustration: Merritt Anthony]
She watched the lively bitter presidential campaign with interest and
concern. The new Republican party was in the contest, offering its
first presidential candidate, the colorful hero and explorer of the
far West, John C. Frémont. She had leanings toward this virile young
party which stood firmly against the extension of slavery in the
territories, and discussed its platform with Elizabeth and Henry B.
Stanton, both enthusiastically for "Frémont and Freedom." Yet she was
distrustful of political parties, for they eventually yielded to
expediency, no matter how high their purpose at the start. Her ideal
was the Garrisonian doctrine, "No Union with Slaveholders" and
"Immediate Unconditional Emancipation," which courageously faced the
"whole question" of slavery. There was no compromise among
Garrisonians.
With the burning issue of slavery now uppermost in her mind, she began
seriously to reconsider the offer she had received from the American
Antislavery Society, shortly after her visit to Boston in 1855, to act
as their agent in central and western New York. Unable to accept at
that time because she was committed to her woman's rights program, she
had nevertheless felt highly honored that she had been chosen. Still
hesitating a little, she wrote Lucy Stone, wanting reassurance that no
woman's rights work demanded immediate attention. "They talk of
sending two companies of Lecturers into this state," she wrote Lucy,
"wish me to lay out the route of each one and accompany one. They seem
to think me possessed of a vast amount of executive ability. I shrink
from going into Conventions where speaking is expected of me.... I
know they want me to help about finance and that part I like and am
good for nothing else."[70]
She also had the farm home on her mind. With her father in the
insurance business, her brothers now both in Kansas, her sister Mary
teaching in the Rochester schools and "looking matrimonially-wise,"
and her mother at home all alone, Susan often wondered if it might not
be as much her duty to stay there to take care of her mother and
father as it would be to make a home comfortable for a husband.
Sometimes the quietness of such a life beckoned enticingly. But after
the disappointing November elections which put into the presidency the
conservative James Buchanan, from whom only a vacillating policy on
the slavery issue could be expected, she wrote Samuel May, Jr., the
secretary of the American Antislavery Society, "I shall be very glad
if I am able to render even the most humble service to this cause.
Heaven knows there is need of earnest, effective radical workers. The
heart sickens over the delusions of the recent campaign and turns
achingly to the unconsidered _whole question_."[71]
His reply came promptly, "We put all New York into your control and
want your name to all letters and your hand in all arrangements."
For $10 a week and expenses, Susan now arranged antislavery meetings,
displayed posters bearing the provocative words, "No Union with
Slaveholders," planned tours for a corps of speakers, among them
Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, Parker Pillsbury, and two free
Negroes, Charles Remond and his sister, Sarah.
In debt from her last woman's rights campaign, she could not afford a
new dress for these tours, but she dyed a dark green the merino which
she had worn so proudly in Canajoharie ten years before, bought cloth
to match for a basque, and made a "handsome suit." "With my Siberian
squirrel cape, I shall be very comfortable," she noted in her
diary.[72]
She had met indifference and ridicule in her campaigns for woman's
rights. Now she faced outright hostility, for northern businessmen had
no use for abolition-mad fanatics, as they called anyone who spoke
against slavery. Abolitionists, they believed, ruined business by
stirring up trouble between the North and the South.
Usually antislavery meetings turned into debates between speakers and
audience, often lasting until midnight, and were charged with
animosity which might flame into violence. All of the speakers lived
under a strain, and under emotional pressure. Consequently they were
not always easy to handle. Some of them were temperamental, a bit
jealous of each other, and not always satisfied with the tours Susan
mapped out for them. She expected of her colleagues what she herself
could endure, but they often complained and sometimes refused to
fulfill their engagements.
When no one else was at hand, she took her turn at speaking, but she
was seldom satisfied with her efforts. "I spoke for an hour," she
confided to her diary, "but my heart fails me. Can it be that my
stammering tongue ever will be loosed?"
Lucy Stone, who spoke with such ease, gave her advice and
encouragement. "You ought to cultivate your power of expression," she
wrote. "The subject is clear to you and you ought to be able to make
it so to others. It is only a few years ago that Mr. Higginson told me
he could not speak, he was so much accustomed to writing, and now he
is second only to Phillips. 'Go thou and do likewise.'"[73]
In March 1857, the Supreme Court startled the country with the Dred
Scott decision, which not only substantiated the claim of
Garrisonians that the Constitution sanctioned slavery and protected
the slaveholder, but practically swept away the Republican platform of
no extention of slavery in the territories. The decision declared that
the Constitution did not apply to Negroes, since they were citizens of
no state when it was adopted and therefore had not the right of
citizens to sue for freedom or to claim freedom in the territories;
that the Missouri Compromise had always been void, since Congress did
not have the right to enact a law which arbitrarily deprived citizens
of their property.
Reading the decision word for word with dismay and pondering
indignantly over the cold letter of the law, Susan found herself so
aroused and so full of the subject that she occasionally made a
spontaneous speech, and thus gradually began to free herself from
reliance on written speeches. She spoke from these notes: "Consider
the fact of 4,000,000 slaves in a Christian and republican
government.... Antislavery prayers, resolutions, and speeches avail
nothing without action.... Our mission is to deepen sympathy and
convert into right action: to show that the men and women of the North
are slaveholders, those of the South slave-owners. The guilt rests on
the North equally with the South. Therefore our work is to rouse the
sleeping consciousness of the North....[74]
"We ask you to feel as if you, yourselves, were the slaves. The
politician talks of slavery as he does of United States banks, tariff,
or any other commercial question. We demand the abolition of slavery
because the slave is a human being and because man should not hold
property in his fellowman.... We say disobey every unjust law; the
politician says obey them and meanwhile labor constitutionally for
repeal.... We preach revolution, the politicians, reform."
Instinctively she reaffirmed her allegiance to the doctrine, "No Union
with Slaveholders," and she gloried in the courage of Garrison,
Phillips, and Higginson, who had called a disunion convention,
demanding that the free states secede. It was good to be one of this
devoted band, for she sincerely believed that in the ages to come "the
prophecies of these noble men and women will be read with the same
wonder and veneration as those of Isaiah and Jeremiah inspire
today."[75]
She gave herself to the work with religious fervor. Even so, she could
not make her antislavery meetings self-supporting, and at the end of
the first season, after paying her speakers, she faced a deficit of
$1,000. This troubled her greatly but the Antislavery Society,
recognizing her value, wrote her, "We cheerfully pay your expenses and
want to keep you at the head of the work." They took note of her
"business enterprise, practical sagacity, and platform ability," and
looked upon the expenditure of $1,000 for the education and
development of such an exceptional worker as a good investment.
This new experience was a good investment for Susan as well. She made
many new friends. She won the further respect, confidence, and good
will of men like William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Francis
Jackson. Her friendship with Parker Pillsbury deepened. "I can truly
say," she wrote Abby Kelley Foster, "my spirit has grown in grace and
that the experience of the past winter is worth more to me than all my
Temperance and Woman's Rights labors--though the latter were the
school necessary to bring me into the Antislavery work."[76]
Only the crusading spirit of the "antislavery apostles"[77] and what
to them seemed the desperate state of the nation made the hard
campaigning bearable. The animosity they faced, the cold, the poor
transportation, the long hours, and wretched food taxed the physical
endurance of all of them. "O the crimes that are committed in the
kitchens of this land!"[78] wrote Susan in her diary, as she ate heavy
bread and the cake ruined with soda and drank what passed for coffee.
A good cook herself, she had little patience with those who through
ignorance or carelessness neglected that art. Equally bad were the
food fads they had to endure when they were entertained in homes of
otherwise hospitable friends of the cause. Raw-food diets found many
devotees in those days, and often after long cold rides in the
stagecoach, these tired hungry antislavery workers were obliged to sit
down to a supper of apples, nuts, and a baked mixture of coarse bran
and water. Nor did breakfast or dinner offer anything more. Facing
these diets seemed harder for the men than for Susan. Repeatedly in
such situations, they hurried away, leaving her to complete two-or
three-day engagements among the food cranks. How she welcomed a good
beefsteak and a pot of hot coffee at home after these long days of
fasting!
A night at home now was sheer bliss, and she wrote Lucy Stone, "Here
I am once more in my own Farm Home, where my weary head rests upon my
own home pillows.... I had been gone _Four Months_, scarcely sleeping
the second night under the same roof."[79]
It was good to be with her mother again, to talk with her father when
he came home from work and with Mary who had not married after all but
continued teaching in the Rochester schools. Guelma and her husband,
Aaron McLean, who had moved to Rochester, often came out to the farm
with their children.
Turning for relaxation to work in the garden in the warm sun, Susan
thought over the year's experience and planned for the future. "I can
but acknowledge to myself that Antislavery has made me richer and
braver in spirit," she wrote Samuel May, Jr., "and that it is the
school of schools for the true and full development of the nobler
elements of life. I find my raspberry field looking finely--also my
strawberry bed. The prospect for peaches, cherries, plums, apples, and
pears is very promising--Indeed all nature is clothed in her most
hopeful dress. It really seems to me that the trees and the grass and
the large fields of waving grain did never look so beautifully as now.
It is more probable, however, that my soul has grown to appreciate
Nature more fully...."[80]
Susan needed that growth of soul to face the events of the next few
years and do the work which lay ahead. The whole country was tense
over the slavery issue, which could no longer be pushed into the
background. On public platforms and at every fireside, men and women
were discussing the subject. Antislavery workers sensed the gravity of
the situation and felt the onrush of the impending conflict between
what they regarded as the forces of good and evil--freedom and
slavery. When the Republican leader, William H. Seward, spoke in
Rochester, of "an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring
forces,"[81] he was expressing only what Garrisonian abolitionists,
like Susan, always had recognized. In the West, a tall awkward country
lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, debating with the suave Stephen A. Douglas,
declared with prophetic wisdom, "'A house divided against itself
cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free.... It will become all one thing or all the
other.'"[82]
So Susan believed, and she was doing her best to make it all free.
Not only was she holding antislavery meetings, making speeches, and
distributing leaflets whenever and wherever possible, but she was also
lobbying in Albany for a personal liberty bill to protect the slaves
who were escaping from the South. "Treason in the Capitol," the
Democratic press labeled efforts for a personal liberty bill, and as
Susan reported to William Lloyd Garrison,[83] even Republicans shied
away from it, many of them regarding Seward's "irrepressible conflict"
speech a sorry mistake. Such timidity and shilly-shallying were
repugnant to her. She could better understand the fervor of John Brown
although he fought with bullets.
Yet John Brown's fervor soon ended in tragedy, sowing seeds of fear,
distrust, and bitter partisanship in all parts of the country. When,
in October 1859, the startling news reached Susan of the raid on
Harper's Ferry and the capture of John Brown, she sadly tried to piece
together the story of his failure. She admired and respected John
Brown, believing he had saved Kansas for freedom. That he had further
ambitious plans was common knowledge among antislavery workers, for he
had talked them over with Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass, and the
three young militants, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Frank Sanborn, and
Samuel Gridley Howe. Somehow these plans had failed, but she was sure
that his motives were good. He was imprisoned, accused of treason and
murder, and in his carpetbag were papers which, it was said,
implicated prominent antislavery workers. Now his friends were fleeing
the country, Sanborn, Douglass, and Howe. Gerrit Smith broke down so
completely that for a time his mind was affected. Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, defiant and unafraid, stuck by John Brown to the end,
befriending his family, hoping to rescue him as he had rescued
fugitive slaves.
Scanning the _Liberator_ for its comment on John Brown, Susan found it
colored, as she had expected, by Garrison's instinctive opposition to
all war and bloodshed. He called the raid "a misguided, wild,
apparently insane though disinterested and well-intentioned effort by
insurrection to emancipate the slaves of Virginia," but even he added,
"Let no one who glories in the Revolutionary struggle of 1776 deny the
right of the slaves to imitate the example of our fathers."[84]
Behind closed doors and in public meetings, abolitionists pledged
their allegiance to John Brown's noble purpose. He had wanted no
bloodshed, they said, had no thought of stirring up slaves to brutal
revenge. The raid was to be merely a signal for slaves to arise, to
cast off slavery forever, to follow him to a mountain refuge, which
other slave insurrections would reinforce until all slaves were free.
To him the plan seemed logical and he was convinced it was
God-inspired. To some of his friends it seemed possible--just a step
beyond the Underground Railroad and hiding fugitive slaves. To Susan
he was a hero and a martyr.
Southerners, increasingly fearful of slave insurrections, called John
Brown a cold-blooded murderer and accused Republicans--"black
Republicans," they classed them--of taking orders from abolitionists
and planning evil against them. To law-abiding northerners, John Brown
was a menace, stirring up lawlessness. Seward and Lincoln, speaking
for the Republicans, declared that violence, bloodshed, and treason
could not be excused even if slavery was wrong and Brown thought he
was right. All saw before them the horrible threat of civil war.
During John Brown's trial, his friends did their utmost to save him.
The noble old giant with flowing white beard, who had always been more
or less of a legend, now to them assumed heroic proportions. His
calmness, his steadfastness in what he believed to be right captured
the imagination.
The jury declared him guilty--guilty of treason, of conspiring with
slaves to rebel, guilty of murder in the first degree. The papers
carried the story, and it spread by word of mouth--the story of those
last tense moments in the courtroom when John Brown declared, "It is
unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interferred ... in
behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called
great, or in behalf of any of their friends ... it would have been all
right.... I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any
respecter of persons. I believe that to have interferred as I have
done, in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong but right. Now if
it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the
furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with
the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave
country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust
enactments, I say, let it be done...."[85]
He was sentenced to die.
Susan, sick at heart, talked all this over with her abolitionist
friends and began planning a meeting of protest and mourning in
Rochester if John Brown were hanged. She engaged the city's most
popular hall for this meeting, never thinking of the animosity she
might arouse, and as she went from door to door selling tickets, she
asked for contributions for John Brown's destitute family. She tried
to get speakers from among respected Republicans to widen the popular
appeal of the meeting, but her diary records, "Not one man of
prominence in religion or politics will identify himself with the John
Brown meeting."[86] Only a Free Church minister, the Rev. Abram Pryn,
and the ever-faithful Parker Pillsbury were willing to speak.
There was still hope that John Brown might be saved and excitement ran
high. Some like Higginson, unwilling to let him die, wanted to rescue
him, but Brown forbade it. Others wanted to kidnap Governor Wise of
Virginia and hold him on the high seas, a hostage for John Brown.
Wendell Phillips was one of these. Parker Pillsbury, sending Susan the
latest news from "the seat of war" and signing his letter, "Faithfully
and fervently yours," wrote, "My voice is against any attempt at
rescue. It would inevitably, I fear, lead to bloodshed which could not
compensate nor be compensated. If the people dare murder their victim,
as they are determined to do, and in the name of the law ... the moral
effect of the execution will be without a parallel since the scenes on
Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, and the halter that day sanctified
shall be the cord to draw millions to salvation."[87]
On Friday, December 2, 1859, John Brown was hanged. Through the North,
church bells tolled and prayers were said for him. Everywhere people
gathered together to mourn and honor or to condemn. In New York City,
at a big meeting which overflowed to the streets, it was resolved
"that we regard the recent outrage at Harper's Ferry as a crime, not
only against the State of Virginia, but against the Union itself...."
In Boston, however, Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke to a tremendous audience
of "the new saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by
love of man into conflict and death ... who will make the gallows
glorious," and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow recorded in his diary, "This
will be a great day in our history; the date of a new revolution." Far
away in France, Victor Hugo declared, "The eyes of Europe are fixed on
America. The hanging of John Brown will open a latent fissure that
will finally split the union asunder.... You preserve your shame, but
you kill your glory."[88]
In Rochester, three hundred people assembled. All were friends of the
cause and there was no unfriendly disturbance to mar the proceedings.
Susan presided and Parker Pillsbury, in her opinion, made "the
grandest speech of his life," for it was the only occasion he ever
found fully wicked enough to warrant "his terrific invective."[89]
Thus these two militant abolitionists, Susan B. Anthony and Parker
Pillsbury, joined hundreds of others throughout the nation in honoring
John Brown, sensing the portent of his martyrdom and prophesying that
his soul would go marching on.
FOOTNOTES:
[69] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 144-145. As John Brown visited
Frederick Douglass in Rochester, it is possible that Susan B. Anthony
had met him.
[70] Oct. 19, 1856, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
[71] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 148.
[72] _Ibid._, p. 151; also quotation following.
[73] Alice Stone Blackwell, _Lucy Stone_ (Boston, 1930), pp. 197-198.
[74] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[75] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 152.
[76] April 20, 1857, Abby Kelley Foster Papers, American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
[77] Parker Pillsbury, _The Acts of the Antislavery Apostles_
(Concord, N.H., 1883).
[78] Harper, _Anthony_, I. p. 160.
[79] March 22, 1858, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
[80] N.d., Alma Lutz Collection.
[81] Charles A. and Mary B. Beard, _The Rise of American Civilization_
(New York, 1930), II, p. 9.
[82] A. M. Schlesinger and H. C. Hockett, _Land of the Free_ (New
York, 1944), p. 297.
[83] March 19, 1859, Antislavery Papers, Boston Public Library.
[84] Francis Jackson, William Lloyd II, and Wendell Phillips Garrison,
_William Lloyd Garrison_, 1805-1879 (New York, 1889), III, p. 486.
[85] _Ibid._, p. 490.
[86] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 181.
[87] _Ibid._, p. 180.
[88] Henrietta Buckmaster, _Let My People Go_ (New York, 1941), p.
269; Ehrlich, _God's Angry Man_, pp. 344-345, 350.
[89] Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, Library of Congress. In 1890, after
visiting the John Brown Memorial at North Elbe, New York, Susan B.
Anthony wrote: "John Brown was crucified for doing what he believed
God commanded him to do, 'to break the yoke and let the oppressed go
free,' precisely as were the saints of old for following what they
believed to be God's commands. The barbarism of our government was by
so much the greater as our light and knowledge are greater than those
of two thousand years ago." Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 708.
THE TRUE WOMAN
Susan's preoccupation with antislavery work did not lessen her
interest in women's advancement. Her own expanding courage and ability
showed her the possibilities for all women in widened horizons and
activities. These possibilities were the chief topic of conversation
when she and Elizabeth Stanton were together. With Mrs. Stanton's
young daughters, Margaret and Harriot, in mind, they were continually
planning ways and means of developing the new woman, or the "true
woman" as they liked to call her; and one of these ways was physical
exercise in the fresh air, which was almost unheard of for women
except on the frontier.
Taking off her hoops and working in the garden in the freedom of her
long calico dress, Susan was refreshed and exhilarated. "Uncovered the
strawberry and raspberry beds ..." her diary records. "Worked with
Simon building frames for the grapevines in the peach orchards.... Set
out 18 English black currants, 22 English gooseberries and Muscatine
grape vines.... Finished setting out the apple trees & 600 blackberry
bushes...."[90]
She knew how little this strengthening work and healing influence
touched the lives of most women. Hemmed in by the walls of their
homes, weighed down by bulky confining clothing, fed on the tradition
of weakness, women could never gain the breadth of view, courage, and
stamina needed to demand and appreciate emancipation. She thought a
great deal about this and how it could be remedied, and wrote her
friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson "The salvation of the race depends,
in a great measure, upon rescuing women from their hot-house
existence. Whether in kitchen, nursery or parlor, all alike are shut
away from God's sunshine. Why did not your Caroline Plummer of Salem,
why do not all of our wealthy women leave money for industrial and
agricultural schools for girls, instead of ever and always providing
for boys alone?"[91]
An exceptional opportunity was now offered Susan--to speak on the
controversial subject of coeducation before the State Teachers'
Association, which only a few years before had been shocked by the
sound of a woman's voice. Deeply concerned over her ability to write
the speech, she at once appealed to Elizabeth Stanton, "Do you please
mark out a plan and give me as soon as you can...."[92]
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony, 1856]
Busy with preparations for woman's rights meetings in popular New York
summer resorts, Saratoga Springs, Lake George, Clifton Springs, and
Avon, she grew panicky at the prospect of her impending speech and
dashed off another urgent letter to Mrs. Stanton, underlining it
vigorously for emphasis: "Not a _word written_ ... and mercy only
knows when I can get a moment, and what is _worse_, as the _Lord knows
full well_, is, that if _I get all the time the world has--I can't get
up a decent document_.... It is of but small moment who writes the
Address, but of _vast moment_ that it be _well done_.... No woman but
you can write from _my standpoint_ for all would base their strongest
_argument_ on the _un_likeness of the _sexes_....
"Those of you who have the _talent_ to do honor to poor, oh how poor
womanhood have all given yourselves over to _baby_-making and left
poor brainless _me_ to battle alone. It is a shame. Such a lady as _I
might_ be _spared_ to _rock cradles_, but it is a crime for _you_ and
_Lucy_ and _Nette_."[93]
On a separate page she outlined for Mrs. Stanton the points she wanted
to make. Her title was affirmative, "Why the Sexes Should be Educated
Together." "Because," she reasoned, "by such education they get true
ideas of each other.... Because the endowment of both public and
private funds is ever for those of the male sex, while all the
Seminaries and Boarding Schools for Females are left to
maintain themselves as best they may by means of their tuition
fees--consequently cannot afford a faculty of first-class
professors.... Not a school in the country gives to the girl equal
privileges with the boy.... No school _requires_ and but very few
allow the _girls_ to declaim and discuss side by side with the boys.
Thus they are robbed of half of education. The grand thing that is
needed is to give the sexes _like motives_ for acquirement. Very
rarely a person studies closely, without hope of making that knowledge
useful, as a means of support...."[94]
Mrs. Stanton wrote her at once, "Come here and I will do what I can to
help you with your address, if you will hold the baby and make the
puddings."[95] Gratefully Susan hurried to Seneca Falls and together
they "loaded her gun," not only for the teachers' convention but for
all the summer meetings.
Addressing the large teachers' meeting in Troy, Susan declared that
mental sex-differences did not exist. She called attention to the
ever-increasing variety of occupations which women were carrying on
with efficiency. There were women typesetters, editors, publishers,
authors, clerks, engravers, watchmakers, bookkeepers, sculptors,
painters, farmers, and machinists. Two hundred and fifty women were
serving as postmasters. Girls, she insisted, must be educated to earn
a living and more vocations must be opened to them as an incentive to
study. "A woman," she added, "needs no particular kind of education to
be a wife and mother anymore than a man does to be a husband and
father. A man cannot make a living out of these relations. He must
fill them with something more and so must women."[96]
Her advanced ideas did not cause as much consternation as she had
expected and she was asked to repeat her speech at the Massachusetts
teachers' convention; but the thoughts of many in that audience were
echoed by the president when he said to her after the meeting, "Madam,
that was a splendid production and well delivered. I could not have
asked for a single thing different either in matter or manner; but I
would rather have followed my wife or daughter to Greenwood cemetery
than to have had her stand here before this promiscuous audience and
deliver that address."[97]
It was one thing to talk about coeducation but quite another to offer
a resolution putting the New York State Teachers' Association on
record as asking all schools, colleges, and universities to open their
doors to women. This Susan did at their next convention, and while
there were enough women present to carry the resolution, most of them
voted against it, listening instead to the emotional arguments of a
group of conservative men who prophesied that coeducation would
coarsen women and undermine marriage. Nor did she forget the Negro at
these conventions, but brought much criticism upon herself by offering
resolutions protesting the exclusion of Negroes from public schools,
academies, colleges, and universities.
Such controversial activities were of course eagerly reported in the
press, and Henry Stanton, reading his newspaper, pointed them out to
his wife, remarking drily, "Well, my dear, another notice of Susan.
You stir up Susan and she stirs up the world."[98]
* * * * *
The best method of arousing women and spreading new ideas, Susan
decided, was holding woman's rights conventions, for the discussions
at these conventions covered a wide field and were not limited merely
to women's legal disabilities. The feminists of that day extolled
freedom of speech, and their platform, like that of antislavery
conventions, was open to anyone who wished to express an opinion.
Always the limited educational opportunities offered to women were
pointed out, and Oberlin College and Antioch, both coeducational, were
held up as patterns for the future. Resolutions were passed, demanding
that Harvard and Yale admit women. Women's low wages and the very few
occupations open to them were considered, and whether it was fitting
for women to be doctors and ministers. At one convention Lucy Stone
made the suggestion that a prize be offered for a novel on women,
like _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, to arouse the whole nation to the unjust
situation of women whose slavery, she felt, was comparable to that of
the Negro. At another, William Lloyd Garrison maintained that women
had the right to sit in the Congress and in state legislatures and
that there should be an equal number of men and women in all national
councils. Inevitably Scriptural edicts regarding woman's sphere were
thrashed out with Antoinette Brown, in her clerical capacity, setting
at rest the minds of questioning women and quashing the protests of
clergymen who thought they were speaking for God. Usually Ernestine
Rose was on hand, ready to speak when needed, injecting into the
discussions her liberal clear-cut feminist views. Nor was the
international aspect of the woman's rights movement forgotten. The
interest in Great Britain in the franchise for women of such men as
Lord Brougham and John Stuart Mill was reported as were the efforts
there among women to gain admission to the medical profession.
Distributed widely as a tract was the "admirable" article in the
_Westminster Review_, "The Enfranchisement of Women," by Harriet
Taylor, now Mrs. John Stuart Mill.
In New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, where
state conventions were held annually, women carried back to their
homes and their friends new and stimulating ideas. National
conventions, which actually represented merely the northeastern states
and Ohio and occasionally attracted men and women from Indiana,
Missouri, and Kansas, were scheduled by Susan to meet every year in
New York, simultaneously with antislavery conventions. Thus she was
assured of a brilliant array of speakers, for the Garrisonian
abolitionists were sincere advocates of woman's rights.
Both Elizabeth Stanton and Lucy Stone were a great help to Susan in
preparing for these national gatherings for which she raised the
money. Elizabeth wrote the calls and resolutions, while Lucy could not
only be counted upon for an eloquent speech, but through her wide
contacts brought new speakers and new converts to the meetings.
However, national woman's rights conventions would probably have
lapsed completely during the troubled years prior to the Civil War,
had it not been for Susan's persistence. She was obliged to omit the
1857 convention because all of her best speakers were either having
babies or were kept at home by family duties. Lucy's baby, Alice Stone
Blackwell, was born in September 1857, then Antoinette Brown's first
child, and Mrs. Stanton's seventh.
[Illustration: Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell]
Impatient to get on with the work, Susan chafed at the delay and when
Lucy wrote her, "I shall not assume the responsibility for another
convention until I have had my ten daughters,"[99] Susan was beside
herself with apprehension. When Lucy told her that it was harder to
take care of a baby day and night than to campaign for woman's rights,
she felt that Lucy regarded as unimportant her "common work" of hiring
halls, engaging speakers, and raising money. This rankled, for
although Susan realized it was work without glory, she did expect Lucy
to understand its significance.
Mrs. Stanton sensed the makings of a rift between Susan and these
young mothers, Lucy and Antoinette, and knowing from her own
experience how torn a woman could be between rearing a family and work
for the cause, she pleaded with Susan to be patient with them. "Let
them rest a while in peace and quietness, and think great thoughts for
the future," she wrote Susan. "It is not well to be in the excitement
of public life all the time. Do not keep stirring them up or mourning
over their repose. You need rest too. Let the world alone a while. We
cannot bring about a moral revolution in a day or a year."[100]
But Susan could not let the world alone. There was too much to be
done. In addition to her woman's rights and antislavery work, she gave
a helping hand to any good cause in Rochester, such as a protest
meeting against capital punishment, a series of Sunday evening
lectures, or establishing a Free Church like that headed by Theodore
Parker in Boston where no one doctrine would be preached and all would
be welcome. There were days when weariness and discouragement hung
heavily upon her. Then impatient that she alone seemed to be carrying
the burden of the whole woman's rights movement, she complained to
Lydia Mott, "There is not one woman left who may be relied on. All
have first to please their husbands after which there is little time
or energy left to spend in any other direction.... How soon the last
standing monuments (yourself and myself, Lydia) will lay down the
individual 'shovel and de hoe' and with proper zeal and spirit grasp
those of some masculine hand, the mercies and the spirits only know. I
declare to you that I distrust the powers of any woman, even of myself
to withstand the mighty matrimonial maelstrom!"[101]
To Elizabeth Stanton she confessed, "I have very weak moments and long
to lay my weary head somewhere and nestle my full soul to that of
another in full sympathy. I sometimes fear that _I too_ shall faint by
the wayside and drop out of the ranks of the faithful few."[102]
* * * * *
Susan thought a great deal about marriage at this time, about how it
interfered with the development of women's talents and their careers,
how it usually dwarfed their individuality. Nor were these thoughts
wholly impersonal, for she had attentive suitors during these years.
Her diary mentions moonlight rides and adds, "Mr.--walked home with
me; marvelously attentive. What a pity such powers of intellect should
lack the moral spine."[103] Her standards of matrimony were high, and
she carefully recorded in her diary Lucretia Mott's wise words, "In
the true marriage relation, the independence of the husband and wife
is equal, their dependence mutual, and their obligations
reciprocal."[104]
Marriage and the differences of the sexes were often discussed at the
many meetings she attended, and when remarks were made which to her
seemed to limit in any way the free and full development of woman, she
always registered her protest. She had no patience with any
unrealistic glossing over of sex attraction and spurned the theory
that woman expressed love and man wisdom, that these two qualities
reached out for each other and blended in marriage. Because she spoke
frankly for those days and did not soften the impact of her words with
sentimental flowery phrases, her remarks were sometimes called
"coarse" and "animal," but she justified them in a letter to Mrs.
Stanton, who thought as she did, "To me it [sex] is not coarse or
gross. If it is a fact, there it is."[105]
She was reading at this time Elizabeth Barrett Browning's _Aurora
Leigh_, called by Ruskin the greatest poem in the English language,
but criticized by others as an indecent romance revolting to the
purity of many women. Susan had bought a copy of the first American
edition and she carried it with her wherever she went. After a hard
active day, she found inspiration and refreshment in its pages. No
matter how dreary the hotel room or how unfriendly the town, she no
longer felt lonely or discouraged, for Aurora Leigh was a companion
ever at hand, giving her confidence in herself, strengthening her
ambition, and helping her build a satisfying, constructive philosophy
of life. On the flyleaf of her worn copy, which in later years she
presented to the Library of Congress, she wrote, "This book was
carried in my satchel for years and read and reread. The noble words
of Elizabeth Barrett, as Wendell Phillips always called her, sunk deep
into my heart. I have always cherished it above all other books. I now
present it to the Congressional Library with the hope that women may
more and more be like Aurora Leigh."
The beauty of its poetry enchanted her, and Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's feminism found an echo in her own. She pencil-marked the
passages she wanted to reread. When her "common work" of hiring halls
and engaging speakers seemed unimportant and even futile, she found
comfort in these lines:
"Be sure no earnest work
Of any honest creature, howbeit weak
Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much,
It is not gathered as a grain of sand
To enlarge the sum of human action used
For carrying out God's end....
... let us be content in work,
To do the thing we can, and not presume
To fret because it's little."[106]
Glorying in work, she read with satisfaction:
"The honest earnest man must stand and work:
The woman also, otherwise she drops
At once below the dignity of man,
Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work;
Who ever fears God, fears to sit at ease."
Could she have written poetry, these words, spoken by Aurora, might
well have been her own:
"You misconceive the question like a man,
Who sees a woman as the complement
Of his sex merely. You forget too much
That every creature, female as the male,
Stands single in responsible act and thought,
As also in birth and death. Whoever says
To a loyal woman, 'Love and work with me,'
Will get fair answers, if the work and love
Being good of themselves, are good for her--the best
She was born for."
Inspired by _Aurora Leigh_, Susan planned a new lecture, "The True
Woman," and as she wrote it out word for word, her thoughts and
theories about women, which had been developing through the years,
crystallized. In her opinion, the "true woman" could no more than
Aurora Leigh follow the traditional course and sacrifice all for the
love of one man, adjusting her life to his whims. She must, instead,
develop her own personality and talents, advancing in learning, in the
arts, in science, and in business, cherishing at the same time her
noble womanly qualities. Susan hoped that some day the full
development of woman's individuality would be compatible with
marriage, and she held up as an ideal the words which Elizabeth
Barrett Browning put into the mouth of Aurora Leigh:
"The world waits
For help. Beloved, let us work so well,
Our work shall still be better for our love
And still our love be sweeter for our work
And both, commended, for the sake of each,
By all true workers and true lovers born."
She expressed this hope in her own practical words to Lydia Mott:
"Institutions, among them marriage, are justly chargeable with many
social and individual ills, but after all, the whole man or woman will
rise above them. I am sure my 'true woman' will never be crushed or
dwarfed by them. Woman must take to her soul a purpose and then make
circumstances conform to this purpose, instead of forever singing the
refrain, 'if and if and if.'"[107]
* * * * *
Late in 1858, Susan received a letter from Wendell Phillips which put
new life into all her efforts for women. He wrote her that an
anonymous donor had given him $5,000 for the woman's rights cause and
that he, Lucy Stone, and Susan had been named trustees to spend it
wisely and effectively.
The man who felt that the woman's rights cause was important enough to
rate a gift of that size proved to be wealthy Francis Jackson of
Boston, in whose home Susan had visited a few years before with Lucy
and Antoinette. Jubilant over the prospects, she at once began to make
plans. She wanted to use all of the fund for lectures, conventions,
tracts, and newspaper articles; Lucy thought part of the money should
be spent to prove unconstitutional the law which taxed women without
representation and Antoinette was eager for a share to establish a
church in which she could preach woman's rights with the Gospel.
Both Wendell Phillips and Lucy Stone agreed that Susan should have
$1,500 for the intensive campaign she had planned for New York, and
for once in her life she started off without a financial worry, with
money in hand to pay her speakers. She held meetings in all of the
principal towns of the state, making them at least partially pay for
themselves. Her lecturers each received $12 a week and she kept a
like amount for herself, for planning the tour, organizing the
meetings, and delivering her new lecture, "The True Woman."
"I am having fine audiences of thinking men and women," she wrote Mary
Hallowell. "Oh, if we could but make our meetings ring like those of
the antislavery people, wouldn't the world hear us? But to do that we
must have souls baptized into the work and consecrated to it."[108]
Some souls were deeply stirred by the woman's rights gospel. One of
these was the wealthy Boston merchant, Charles F. Hovey, who in his
will left $50,000 in trust to Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd
Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, Abby Kelley Foster, and others, to be
spent for the "promotion of the antislavery cause and other reforms,"
among them woman's rights, and not less than $8,000 a year to be spent
to promote these reforms. With all this financial help available,
Susan expected great things to happen.
* * * * *
During the winter of 1860 while the legislature was in session, Susan
spent six weeks in Albany with Lydia Mott, and day after day she
climbed the long hill to the capitol to interview legislators on
amendments to the married women's property laws. When these amendments
were passed by the Senate, Assemblyman Anson Bingham urged her to
bring their mutual friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to Albany to speak
before his committee to assure passage by the Assembly.
Once again Susan hurried to Seneca Falls, and unpacking her little
portmanteau stuffed with papers and statistics, discussed the subject
with Mrs. Stanton in front of the open fire late into the night. Then
the next morning while Mrs. Stanton shut herself up in the quietest
room in the house to write her speech, Susan gave the children their
breakfast, sent the older ones off to school, watched over the babies,
prepared the desserts, and made herself generally useful. By this time
the children regarded her affectionately as "Aunt Thusan," and they
knew they must obey her, for she was a stern disciplinarian whom even
the mischievous Stanton boys dared not defy.
These visits of Susan's were happy, satisfying times for both these
young women. A few days' respite from travel in a well-run home with
a friend she admired did wonders for Susan, giving her perspective on
the work she had already done and courage to tackle new problems,
while for Mrs. Stanton this short period of stimulating companionship
and freedom from household cares was a godsend. "Miss Anthony" had
long ago become Susan to Elizabeth, but Susan all through her life
called her very best friend "Mrs. Stanton," playfully to be sure, but
with a remnant of that formality which it was hard for her to cast
off.
The speech was soon finished. Mrs. Stanton's imagination, fired by her
sympathetic understanding of women's problems, had turned Susan's cold
hard facts into moving prose, while Susan, the best of critics,
detected every weak argument or faltering phrase. They both felt they
had achieved a masterpiece.
Mrs. Stanton delivered this address before a joint session of the New
York legislature in March 1860. Susan beamed with pride as she watched
the large audience crowd even the galleries and heard the long loud
applause for the speech which she was convinced could not have been
surpassed by any man in the United States.
The next day the Assembly passed the Married Women's Property Bill,
and when shortly it was signed by the governor, Susan and Mrs. Stanton
scored their first big victory, winning a legal revolution for the
women of New York State. This new law was a challenge to women
everywhere. Under it a married woman had the right to hold property,
real and personal, without the interference of her husband, the right
to carry on any trade or perform any service on her own account and to
collect and use her own earnings; a married woman might now buy, sell,
and make contracts, and if her husband had abandoned her or was
insane, a convict, or a habitual drunkard, his consent was
unnecessary; a married woman might sue and be sued, she was the joint
guardian with her husband of her children, and on the decease of her
husband the wife had the same rights that her husband would have at
her death.
Susan did not then realize the full significance of what she had
accomplished--that she had unleashed a new movement for freedom which
would be the means of strengthening the democratic government of her
country.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 173-174, 198.
[91] _Ibid._, p. 160.
[92] May 26, 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Vassar College
Library.
[93] _Ibid._, June 5, 1856. Antoinette Brown Blackwell was often
called Nette.
[94] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[95] 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.
[96] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress. A notation on
this ms. reads, "Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton--Delivered by Susan
B. Anthony."
[97] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 143.
[98] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, p. 71.
[99] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 162.
[100] June 10, 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[101] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 171.
[102] Sept. 27, 1857, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[103] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 175.
[104] Ms., Diary, 1855.
[105] Sept. 27, 1857, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[106] Elizabeth Barrett Browning, _Aurora Leigh_ (New York, 1857), p.
316; quotations following, pp. 53-54, pp. 364-365.
[107] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 170.
[108] _Ibid._, p. 177. Mary Hallowell, a liberal Rochester Quaker,
always interested in Susan B. Anthony and her work.
THE ZEALOT
With a spirit of confidence inspired by her victory in New York State,
Susan looked forward to the tenth national woman's rights convention
in New York City in May 1860. At this convention she reported progress
everywhere. Four thousand dollars from the Jackson and Hovey funds had
been spent in the successful New York campaign, and similar work was
scheduled for Ohio. In Kansas, women had won from the constitutional
convention equal rights and privileges in state-controlled schools and
in the management of the public schools, including the right to vote
for members of school boards; mothers had been granted equal rights
with fathers in the control and custody of their children, and married
women had been given property rights. In Indiana, Maine, Missouri, and
Ohio, married women could now control their own earnings.
"Each year we hail with pleasure," she continued, "new accessions to
our faith. Brave men and true from the higher walks of literature and
art, from the bar, the bench, the pulpit, and legislative halls are
now ready to help woman wherever she claims to stand." She was
thinking of the aid given her by Andrew J. Colvin and Anson Bingham of
the New York legislature, of the young journalist, George William
Curtis, just recently speaking for women, of Samuel Longfellow at his
first woman's rights convention, and of the popular Henry Ward Beecher
who, just a few months before, had delivered his great woman's rights
speech, thereby identifying himself irrevocably with the cause. She
announced with great satisfaction the news, which the papers had
carried a few days before, that Matthew Vassar of Poughkeepsie had set
aside $400,000 to found a college for women equal in all respects to
Harvard and Yale.[109]
Progress and good feeling were in the air, and the speakers were not
heckled as in past years by the rowdies who had made it a practice to
follow abolitionists into woman's rights meetings to bait them. Into
this atmosphere of good will and rejoicing, Susan and Elizabeth
Stanton now injected a more serious note, bringing before the
convention the controversial question of marriage and divorce which
heretofore had been handled with kid gloves at all woman's rights
meetings, but which they sincerely believed demanded solution.
* * * * *
Divorce had been much in the news because several leading families in
America and in England were involved in lawsuits complicated by
stringent divorce laws. Invariably the wife bore the burden of censure
and hardship, for no matter how unprincipled her husband might be, he
was entitled to her children and her earnings under the property laws
of most states.
In New York efforts were now being made to gain support for a liberal
divorce bill, patterned after the Indiana law, and a variety of
proposals were before the legislature, making drunkenness, insanity,
desertion, and cruel and abusive treatment grounds for divorce. Horace
Greeley in his _Tribune_ had been vigorously opposing a more liberal
law for New York, while Robert Dale Owen of Indiana wrote in its
defense. Everywhere people were reading the Greeley-Owen debates in
the _Tribune_. Through his widely circulated paper, Horace Greeley had
in a sense become an oracle for the people who felt he was safe and
good; while Robert Dale Owen, because of his youthful association with
the New Harmony community and Frances Wright, was branded with
radicalism which even his valuable service in the Indiana legislature
and his two terms in Congress could not blot out.
Susan and Mrs. Stanton had no patience with Horace Greeley's smug
old-fashioned opinions on marriage and divorce. In fact these
Greeley-Owen debates in the _Tribune_ were the direct cause of their
decision to bring this subject before the convention, where they hoped
for support from their liberal friends. They counted especially on
Lucy Stone, who seemed to give her approval when she wrote, "I am glad
you will speak on the divorce question, provided you yourself are
clear on the subject. It is a great grave topic that one shudders to
grapple, but its hour is coming.... God touch your lips if you speak
on it."[110]
Neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton shuddered to grapple with any subject
which they believed needed attention. In fact, the discussion of
marriage and divorce in woman's rights conventions had been on their
minds for some time. Three years before Susan had written Lucy, "I
have thought with you until of late that the Social Question must be
kept separate from Woman's Rights, but we have always claimed that our
movement was _Human Rights_, not Woman's specially.... It seems to me
we have played on the surface of things quite long enough. Getting the
right to hold property, to vote, to wear what dress we please, etc.,
are all to the good, but _Social Freedom_, after all, lies at the
bottom of all, and unless woman gets that she must continue the slave
of man in all other things."[111]
* * * * *
Consternation spread through the genial ranks of the convention as
Mrs. Stanton now offered resolutions calling for more liberal divorce
laws. Quick to sense the temper of an audience, Susan felt its
resistance to being jolted out of the pleasant contemplation of past
successes to the unpleasant recognition that there were still
difficult ugly problems ahead. She was conscious at once of a stir of
astonishment and disapproval when Mrs. Stanton in her clear compelling
voice read, "Resolved, That an unfortunate or ill-assorted marriage is
ever a calamity, but not ever, perhaps never a crime--and when society
or government, by its laws or customs, compels its continuance, always
to the grief of one of the parties, and the actual loss and damage of
both, it usurps an authority never delegated to man, nor exercised by
God, Himself...."[112]
Listening to Mrs. Stanton's speech in defense of her ten bold
resolutions on marriage and divorce, Susan felt that her brave
colleague was speaking for women everywhere, for wives of the present
and the future. As the hearty applause rang out, she concluded that
even the disapproving admired her courage; but before the applause
ceased, she saw Antoinette Blackwell on her feet, waiting to be heard.
She knew that Antoinette, like Horace Greeley, preferred to think of
all marriages as made in heaven, and true to form Antoinette contended
that the marriage relation "must be lifelong" and "as permanent and
indissoluble as the relation of parent and child."[113] At once
Ernestine Rose came to the rescue in support of Mrs. Stanton.
Then Wendell Phillips showed his displeasure by moving that Mrs.
Stanton's resolutions be laid on the table and expunged from the
record because they had no more to do with this convention than
slavery in Kansas or temperance. "This convention," he asserted, "as I
understand it, assembles to discuss the laws that rest unequally upon
men and women, not those that rest equally on men and women."[114]
Aghast at this statement, Susan was totally unprepared to have his
views supported by that other champion of liberty, William Lloyd
Garrison, who, however, did not favor expunging the resolutions from
the record.
It was incomprehensible to Susan that neither Garrison nor Phillips
recognized woman's subservient status in marriage under prevailing
laws and traditions, and she now stated her own views with firmness:
"As to the point that this question does not belong to this
platform--from that I totally dissent. Marriage has ever been a
one-sided matter, resting most unequally upon the sexes. By it, man
gains all--woman loses all; tyrant law and lust reign supreme with
him--meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her."[115]
Warming to the subject, she continued, "By law, public sentiment, and
religion from the time of Moses down to the present day, woman has
never been thought of other than as a piece of property, to be
disposed of at the will and pleasure of man. And this very hour, by
our statute books, by our so-called enlightened Christian
civilization, she has no voice in saying what shall be the basis of
the relation. She must accept marriage as man proffers it or not at
all...."
When finally the vote was taken, Mrs. Stanton's resolutions were laid
on the table, but not expunged from the record, and the convention
adjourned with much to talk about and think about for some time to
come.
The newspapers, of course, could not overlook such a piece of news as
this heated argument on divorce in a woman's rights convention, and
fanned the flames pro and con, most of them holding up Miss Anthony
and Mrs. Stanton as dangerous examples of freedom for women. The Rev.
A. D. Mayo, Unitarian clergyman of Albany, heretofore Susan's loyal
champion, now made a point of reproving her. "You are not married," he
declared with withering scorn. "You have no business to be discussing
marriage." To this she retorted, "Well, Mr. Mayo, you are not a
slave. Suppose you quit lecturing on slavery."[116]
Both Susan and Mrs. Stanton, amazed at the opposition and the
disapproval they had aroused, were grateful for Samuel Longfellow's
comforting words of commendation[117] and for the letters of approval
which came from women from all parts of the state. Most satisfying of
all was this reassurance from Lucretia Mott, whose judgment they so
highly valued: "I was rejoiced to have such a defense of the
resolutions as yours. I have the fullest confidence in the united
judgment of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony and I am glad they are
so vigorous in the work."[118]
Hardest to bear was the disapproval of Wendell Phillips whom they both
admired so much. Difficult to understand and most disappointing was
Lucy Stone's failure to attend the convention or come to their
defense. Thinking over this first unfortunate difference of opinion
among the faithful crusaders for freedom to whom she had always felt
so close in spirit, Susan was sadly disillusioned, but she had no
regrets that the matter had been brought up, and she defied her
critics by speaking before a committee of the New York legislature in
support of a liberal divorce bill. Nor was she surprised when a group
of Boston women, headed by Caroline H. Dall, called a convention which
they hoped would counteract this radical outbreak in the woman's
rights movement by keeping to the safe subjects of education,
vocation, and civil position.
Having learned by this time through the hard school of experience that
the bona-fide reformer could not play safe and go forward, Susan
thoughtfully commented, "Cautious, careful people, always casting
about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can
bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing
to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and
privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and
persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."[119]
* * * * *
The repercussions of the divorce debates were soon drowned out by the
noise and excitement of the presidential campaign of 1860. With four
candidates in the field, Breckenridge, Bell, Douglas, and Lincoln,
each offering his party's solution for the nation's critical problems,
there was much to think about and discuss, and Susan found woman's
rights pushed into the background. At the same time antagonism toward
abolitionists was steadily mounting for they were being blamed for the
tensions between the North and the South.
Dedicated to the immediate and unconditional emancipation of slavery,
Susan saw no hope in the promises of any political party. Even the
Republicans' opposition to the extension of slavery in the
territories, which had won over many abolitionists, including Henry
and Elizabeth Stanton, seemed to her a mild and ineffectual answer to
the burning questions of the hour. For her to further the election of
Abraham Lincoln was unthinkable, since he favored the enforcement of
the Fugitive Slave Law and had stated he was not in favor of Negro
citizenship.
At heart she was a nonvoting Garrisonian abolitionist and would not
support a political party which in any way sanctioned slavery. Had she
been eligible as a voter she undoubtedly would have refused to cast
her ballot until a righteous antislavery government had been
established. As she expressed it in a letter to Mrs. Stanton, she
could not, if she were a man, vote for "the least of two evils, one of
which the Nation must surely have in the presidential chair."[120]
She saw no possibility at this time of wiping out slavery by means of
political abolition, because in spite of the fact that slavery had for
years been one of the most pressing issues before the American people,
no great political party had yet endorsed abolition, nor had a single
prominent practical statesman[121] advocated immediate unconditional
emancipation. As the Liberty party experiment had proved, an
abolitionist running for office on an antislavery platform was doomed
to defeat. Therefore the gesture made in this critical campaign by a
small group of abolitionists in nominating Gerrit Smith for president
appeared utterly futile to Susan. Abolitionists, she believed,
followed the only course consistent with their principles when they
eschewed politics, abstained from voting, and devoted their energies
with the fervor of evangelists to a militant educational campaign.
So, whenever she could, she continued to hold antislavery meetings.
"Crowded house at Port Byron," her diary records. "I tried to say a
few words at opening, but soon curled up like a sensitive plant. It is
a terrible martyrdom for me to speak."[122] Yet so great was the need
to enlighten people on the evils of slavery that she endured this
martyrdom, stepping into the breach when no other speaker was
available. Taking as her subject, "What Is American Slavery?" she
declared, "It is the legalized, systematic robbery of the bodies and
souls of nearly four millions of men, women, and children. It is the
legalized traffic in God's image."[123]
She asked for personal liberty laws to protect the human rights of
fugitive slaves, adding that the Dred Scott decision had been possible
only because it reflected the spirit and purpose of the American
people in the North as well as the South. She heaped blame on the
North for restricting the Negro's educational and economic
opportunities, for barring him from libraries, lectures, and theaters,
and from hotels and seats on trains and buses.
"Let the North," she urged, "prove to the South by her acts that she
fully recognizes the humanity of the black man, that she respects his
rights in all her educational, industrial, social, and political
associations...."
This was asking far more than the North was ready to give, but to
Susan it was justice which she must demand. No wonder free Negroes in
the North honored and loved her and expressed their gratitude whenever
they could. "A fine-looking colored man on the train presented me with
a bouquet," she wrote in her diary. "Can't tell whether he knew me or
only felt my sympathy."[124]
* * * * *
The threats of secession from the southern states, which followed
Lincoln's election, brought little anxiety to Susan or her
fellow-abolitionists, for they had long preached, "No Union with
Slaveholders," believing that dissolution of the Union would prevent
further expansion of slavery in the new western territories, and not
only lessen the damaging influence of slavery on northern
institutions, but relieve the North of complicity in maintaining
slavery. Garrison in his _Liberator_ had already asked, "Will the
South be so obliging as to secede from the Union?" When, in December
1860, South Carolina seceded, Horace Greeley, who only a few months
before had called the disunion abolitionists "a little coterie of
common scolds," now wrote in the _Tribune_, "If the cotton states
shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we
insist in letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a
revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless."[125]
[Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison]
What abolitionists feared far more than secession was that to save the
Union some compromise would be made which would fasten slavery on the
nation. Susan agreed with Garrison when he declared in the
_Liberator_, "All Union-saving efforts are simply idiotic. At last
'the covenant with death' is annulled, 'the agreement with Hell'
broken--at least by the action of South Carolina and ere long by all
the slave-holding states, for their doom is one."[126]
Compromise, however, was in the air. The people were appalled and
confused by the breaking up of the Union and the possibility of civil
war, and the government fumbled. Powerful Republicans, among them
Thurlow Weed, speaking for eastern financial interests, favored the
Crittenden Compromise which would re-establish the Mason-Dixon line,
protect slavery in the states where it was now legal, sanction the
domestic slave trade, guarantee payment by the United States for
escaped slaves, and forbid Congress to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia without the consent of Virginia and Maryland.
Even Seward suggested a constitutional amendment guaranteeing
noninterference with slavery in the slave states for all time. In such
an atmosphere as this, Susan gloried in Wendell Phillips's impetuous
declarations against compromise.
While the whole country marked time, waiting for the inauguration of
President Lincoln, abolitionists sent out their speakers, Susan
heading a group in western New York which included Samuel J. May,
Stephen S. Foster, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. "All are united," she
wrote William Lloyd Garrison, "that good faith and honor demand us to
go forward and leave the responsibility of free speech or its
suppression with the people of the places we visit." Then showing that
she well understood the temper of the times, she added, "I trust ...
no personal harm may come to you or Phillips or any of the little band
of the true and faithful who shall defend the right...."[127]
Feeling was running high in Buffalo when Susan arrived with her
antislavery contingent in January 1861, expecting disturbances but
unprepared for the animosity of audiences which hissed, yelled, and
stamped so that not a speaker could be heard. The police made no
effort to keep order and finally the mob surged over the platform and
the lights went out. Nevertheless, Susan who was presiding held her
ground until lights were brought in and she could dimly see the
milling crowd.
In small towns they were listened to with only occasional catcalls and
boos of disapproval, but in every city from Buffalo to Albany the mobs
broke up their meetings. Even in Rochester, which had never before
shown open hostility to abolitionists, Susan's banner, "No Union with
Slaveholders" was torn down and a restless audience hissed her as she
opened her meeting and drowned out the speakers with their shouting
and stamping until at last the police took over and escorted the
speakers home through the jeering crowds.
All but Susan now began to question the wisdom of holding more
meetings, but her determination to continue, and to assert the right
of free speech, shamed her colleagues into acquiescence. Cayenne
pepper, thrown on the stove, broke up their meeting at Port Byron. In
Rome, rowdies bore down upon Susan, who was taking the admission fee
of ten cents, brushed her aside, "big cloak, furs, and all,"[128] and
rushed to the platform where they sang, hooted, and played cards until
the speakers gave up in despair. Syracuse, well known for its
tolerance and pride in free speech, now greeted them with a howling
drunken mob armed with knives and pistols and rotten eggs. Susan on
the platform courageously faced their gibes until she and her
companions were forced out into the street. They then took refuge in
the home of fellow-abolitionists while the mob dragged effigies of
Susan and Samuel J. May through the streets and burned them in the
square.
Not even this kept Susan from her last advertised meeting in Albany
where Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Gerrit Smith, and Frederick
Douglass joined her. Here the Democratic mayor, George H. Thatcher,
was determined to uphold free speech in spite of almost overwhelming
opposition, and calling at the Delavan House for the abolitionists,
safely escorted them to their hall. Then, with a revolver across his
knees, he sat on the platform with them while his policemen, scattered
through the hall, put down every disturbance; but at the end of the
day, he warned Susan that he could no longer hold the mob in check and
begged her as a personal favor to him to call off the rest of the
meetings. She consented, and under his protection the intrepid little
group of abolitionists walked back to their hotel with the mob
trailing behind them.
Looking back upon the tense days and nights of this "winter of
mobs,"[129] Susan was proud of her group of abolitionists who so
bravely had carried out their mission. In comparison, the Republicans
had shown up badly, not a Republican mayor having the courage or
interest to give them protection. In fact, she found little in the
attitude of the Republicans to offer even a glimmer of hope that they
were capable of governing in this crisis. Lincoln's inaugural address
prejudiced her at once, for he said, "I have no purpose directly or
indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have
no inclination to do so."[130] To her the future looked dark when
statesmen would save the Union at such a price.
"No Compromise" was Susan's watchword these days, as a feminist as
well as an abolitionist, even though this again set her at odds with
Garrison and Phillips, the two men she respected above all others.
They were now writing her stern letters urging her to reveal the
hiding place of a fugitive wife and her daughter. Just before she had
started on her antislavery crusade and while she was in Albany with
Lydia Mott, a heavily veiled woman with a tragic story had come to
them for help. She was the wife of Dr. Charles Abner Phelps, a highly
respected member of the Massachusetts Senate, and the mother of three
children. She had discovered, she told them, that her husband was
unfaithful to her, and when she confronted him with the proof, he had
insisted that she suffered from delusions and had her committed to an
insane asylum. For a year and a half she had not been allowed to
communicate with her children, but finally her brother, a prominent
Albany attorney, obtained her release through a writ of habeas corpus,
took her to his home, and persuaded Dr. Phelps to allow the children
to visit her for a few weeks. Now she was desperate as she again faced
the prospect of being separated from her children by Massachusetts law
which gave even an unfaithful husband control of his wife's person and
their children.
Well aware of how often her friends of the Underground Railroad had
defied the Fugitive Slave Law and hidden and transported fugitive
slaves, Susan decided she would do the same for this cultured
intelligent woman, a slave to her husband under the law. Without a
thought of the consequences, she took the train on Christmas Day for
New York with Mrs. Phelps and her thirteen-year-old daughter, both in
disguise, hoping that in the crowded city they could hide from Dr.
Phelps and the law. Arriving late at night, they walked through the
snow and slush to a hotel, only to be refused a room because they were
not accompanied by a gentleman. They tried another hotel, with the
same result, and then Susan, remembering a boarding house run by a
divorced woman she knew, hopefully rang her doorbell. She too refused
them, claiming all her boarders would leave if she harbored a runaway
wife. By this time it was midnight. Cold and exhausted, they braved a
Broadway hotel, where they were told there was no vacant room; but
Susan, convinced this was only an excuse, said as much to the clerk,
adding, "You can give us a place to sleep or we will sit in this
office all night." When he threatened to call the police, she
retorted, "Very well, we will sit here till they come to take us to
the station."[131] Finally he relented and gave them a room without
heat. Early the next morning, Susan began making the rounds of her
friends in search of shelter for Mrs. Phelps and her daughter, and
finally at the end of a discouraging day, Abby Hopper Gibbons, the
Quaker who had so often hidden fugitive slaves, took this fugitive
wife into her home.
Returning to Albany, Susan found herself under suspicion and
threatened with arrest by Dr. Phelps and Mrs. Phelps's brothers,
because she had broken the law by depriving a father of his child.
Letters and telegrams, demanding that she reveal Mrs. Phelps's hiding
place, followed her to Rochester and on her antislavery tour through
western New York. Refusing to be intimidated, she ignored them all.
When Garrison wrote her long letters in his small neat hand, begging
her not to involve the woman's rights and antislavery movements in any
"hasty and ill-judged, no matter how well-meant" action, it was hard
for her to reconcile this advice with his impetuous, undiplomatic, and
dangerous actions on behalf of Negro slaves. "I feel the strongest
assurance," she told him, "that what I have done is wholly right. Had
I turned my back upon her I should have scorned myself.... That I
should stop to ask if my act would injure the reputation of any
movement never crossed my mind, nor will I allow such a fear to stifle
my sympathies or tempt me to expose her to the cruel inhuman treatment
of her own household. Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the
slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman."[132]
When later they met at an antislavery convention, Garrison, renewing
his efforts on behalf of Dr. Phelps, put this question to Susan,
"Don't you know that the law of Massachusetts gives the father the
entire guardianship and control of the children?"
"Yes, I know it," she answered. "Does not the law of the United States
give the slaveholder the ownership of the slave? And don't you break
it every time you help a slave to Canada? Well, the law which gives
the father the sole ownership of the children is just as wicked and
I'll break it just as quickly. You would die before you would deliver
a slave to his master, and I will die before I will give up that child
to its father."
Susan escaped arrest as she thought she would, for Dr. Phelps could
not afford the unfavorable publicity involved. He managed to kidnap
his child on her way to Sunday School, but his wife eventually won a
divorce through the help of her friends.
The most trying part of this experience for Susan was the attitude of
Garrison and Phillips, who, had now for the second time failed to
recognize that the freedom they claimed for the Negro was also
essential for women. They believed in woman's rights, to be sure, but
when these rights touched the institution of marriage, their vision
was clouded. Just a year before, they had fought Mrs. Stanton's
divorce resolutions because they were unable to see that the existing
laws of marriage did not apply equally to men and women. Now they
sustained the father's absolute right over his child. What was it,
Susan wondered, that kept them from understanding? Was it loyalty to
sex, was it an unconscious clinging to dominance and superiority, or
was it sheer inability to recognize women as human beings like
themselves? "Very many abolitionists," she wrote in her diary, "have
yet to learn the ABC of woman's rights."[133]
FOOTNOTES:
[109] _History of Woman Suffrage_, I. p. 689. Henry Ward Beecher's
speech, _The Public Function of Women_, delivered at Cooper Union,
Feb. 2, 1860, was widely distributed as a tract.
[110] April 16, 1860, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[111] June 16, 1857, Blackwell Papers, Edna M. Stantial Collection.
[112] _History of Woman Suffrage_, I, p. 717.
[113] _Ibid._, p. 725.
[114] _Ibid._, p. 732.
[115] _Ibid._, p. 735.
[116] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 196.
[117] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, _Eighty Years and More_ (New York,
1898), p. 219. Samuel Longfellow whispered to Mrs. Stanton in the
midst of the debate, "Nevertheless you are right and the convention
will sustain you."
[118] Harper, _Anthony_, I. p. 195.
[119] _Ibid._, p. 197.
[120] Aug. 25, 1860, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Vassar College
Library.
[121] Charles Sumner was the First prominent statesman to speak for
emancipation, Oct., 1861, at the Massachusetts Republican Convention.
[122] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 198.
[123] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[124] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 198.
[125] Garrisons, _Garrison_, III, p. 504; Beards, _The Rise of
American Civilization_, II, p. 63.
[126] Garrisons, _Garrison_, III, p. 508.
[127] Jan. 18, 1861, Antislavery Papers, Boston Public Library.
[128] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 210.
[129] Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, 1861, Library of Congress.
[130] Carl Sandburg, _Abraham Lincoln, The War Years_ (New York,
1939), I, p. 125.
[131] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 202. Mrs. Phelps later found a more
permanent home with the author, Elizabeth Ellet.
[132] _Ibid._, pp. 203-204.
[133] _Ibid._, p. 198.
A WAR FOR FREEDOM
Six more southern states, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas, following the lead of South Carolina, seceded
early in 1861 and formed the Confederate States of America. This
breaking up of the Union disturbed Susan primarily because it took the
minds of most of her colleagues off everything but saving the Union.
Convinced that even in a time of national crisis, work for women must
go on, she tried to prepare for the annual woman's rights convention
in New York, but none of her hitherto dependable friends would help
her. Nevertheless, she persisted, even after the fall of Fort Sumter
and the President's call for troops. Only when the abolitionists
called off their annual New York meetings did she reluctantly realize
that woman's rights too must yield to the exigencies of the hour.
Influenced by her Quaker background, she could not see war as the
solution of this or any other crisis. In fact, the majority of
abolitionists were amazed and bewildered when war came because it was
not being waged to free the slaves. Looking to their leaders for
guidance, they heard Wendell Phillips declare for war before an
audience of over four thousand in Boston. Garrison, known to all as a
nonresistant, made it clear that his sympathies were with the
government. He saw in "this grand uprising of the manhood of the
North"[134] a growing appreciation of liberty and free institutions
and a willingness to defend them. Calling upon abolitionists to stand
by their principles, he at the same time warned them not to criticize
Lincoln or the Republicans unnecessarily, not to divide the North, but
to watch events and bide their time, and he opposed those
abolitionists who wanted to withhold support of the government until
it stood openly and unequivocally for the Negro's freedom. From the
front page of the _Liberator_, he now removed his slogan, "No Union
with Slaveholders." Kindly placid Samuel J. May, usually against all
violence, now compared the sacrifices of the war to the crucifixion,
and to Susan this was blasphemy. Even Parker Pillsbury wrote her, "I
am rejoicing over Old Abe, but my voice is still for war."[135]
She was troubled, confused, and disillusioned by the attitude of these
men and by that of most of her antislavery friends. Only very few,
among them Lydia Mott, were uncompromising non-resistants. To one of
them she wrote, "I have tried hard to persuade myself that I alone
remained mad, while all the rest had become sane, because I have
insisted that it is our duty to bear not only our usual testimony but
one even louder and more earnest than ever before.... The
Abolitionists, for once, seem to have come to an agreement with all
the world that they are out of tune and place, hence should hold their
peace and spare their rebukes and anathemas. Our position to me seems
most humiliating, simply that of the politicians, one of expediency,
not principle. I have not yet seen one good reason for the abandonment
of all our meetings, and am more and more ashamed and sad that even
the little Apostolic number have yielded to the world's motto--'the
end justifies the means.'"[136]
Now the farm home was a refuge. Her father, leaving her in charge,
traveled West for his long-dreamed-of visit with his sons in Kansas,
with Daniel R., now postmaster at Leavenworth, and with Merritt and
his young wife, Mary Luther, in their log cabin at Osawatomie. As a
release from her pent-up energy, Susan turned to hard physical work.
"Superintended the plowing of the orchard," she recorded in her diary.
"The last load of hay is in the barn; and all in capital order....
Washed every window in the house today. Put a quilted petticoat in the
frame.... Quilted all day, but sewing seems no longer to be my
calling.... Fitted out a fugitive slave for Canada with the help of
Harriet Tubman."[137]
Although she filled her days, life on the farm in these stirring times
seemed futile to her. She missed the stimulating exchange of ideas
with fellow-abolitionists and confessed to her diary, "The all-alone
feeling will creep over me. It is such a fast after the feast of great
presences to which I have been so long accustomed."
The war was much on her mind. Eagerly she read Greeley's _Tribune_ and
the Rochester _Democrat_. The news was discouraging--the tragedy of
Bull Run, the call for more troops, defeat after defeat for the Union
armies. General Frémont in Missouri freeing the slaves of rebels only
to have Lincoln cancel the order to avert antagonizing the border
states.
"How not to do it seems the whole study of Washington," she wrote in
her diary. "I wish the government would move quickly, proclaim freedom
to every slave and call on every able-bodied Negro to enlist in the
Union Army.... To forever blot out slavery is the only possible
compensation for this merciless war."[138]
To satisfy her longing for a better understanding of people and
events, she turned to books, first to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
_Casa Guidi Windows_, which she called "a grand poem, so fitting to
our terrible struggle," then to her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, and
George Eliot's popular _Adam Bede_, recently published. More serious
reading also absorbed her, for she wanted to keep abreast of the most
advanced thought of the day. "Am reading Buckle's _History of
Civilization_ and Darwin's _Descent of Man_," she wrote in her diary.
"Have finished _Origin of the Species_. Pillsbury has just given me
Emerson's poems."[139]
Eager to thrash out all her new ideas with Elizabeth Stanton, she went
to Seneca Falls for a few days of good talk, hoping to get Mrs.
Stanton's help in organizing a woman's rights convention in 1862; but
not even Mrs. Stanton could see the importance of such work at this
time, believing that if women put all their efforts into winning the
war, they would, without question, be rewarded with full citizenship.
Susan was skeptical about this and disappointed that even the best
women were so willing to be swept aside by the onrush of events.
Although opposed to war, Susan was far from advocating peace at any
price, and was greatly concerned over the confusion in Washington
which was vividly described in the discouraging letters Mrs. Stanton
received from her husband, now Washington correspondent for the New
York _Tribune_. Both she and Mrs. Stanton chafed at inaction. They had
loyalty, intelligence, an understanding of national affairs, and
executive ability to offer their country, but such qualities were not
sought after among women.
* * * * *
In the spring of 1862, Susan helped Mrs. Stanton move her family to a
new home in Brooklyn, and spent a few weeks with her there, getting
the feel of the city in wartime. She then had the satisfaction of
discovering that at least one woman was of use to her country, young
eloquent Anna E. Dickinson.[140] Susan listened with pride and joy
while Anna spoke to an enthusiastic audience at Cooper Union on the
issues of the war. She took Anna to her heart at once. Anna's youth,
her fervor, and her remarkable ability drew out all of Susan's
motherly instincts of affection and protectiveness. They became
devoted friends, and for the next few years carried on a voluminous
correspondence.
Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur also helped restore Susan's confidence
in women during these difficult days when, forced to mark time, she
herself seemed at loose ends. Visiting the Academy of Design, she
studied "in silent reverential awe," the marble face of Harriet
Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci, and declared, "Making that cold marble
breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to ennoble and
elevate woman than she could possibly have done by mere words...." Of
Rosa Bonheur, the first woman to venture into the field of animal
painting, she said, "Her work not only surpasses anything ever done by
a woman, but is a bold and successful step beyond all other
artists."[141]
This confidence was soon dispelled, however, when a letter came from
Lydia Mott containing the crushing news that the New York legislature
had amended the newly won Married Woman's Property Law of 1860, while
women's attention was focused on the war, and had taken away from
mothers the right to equal guardianship of their children and from
widows the control of the property left at the death of their
husbands.
"We deserve to suffer for our confidence in 'man's sense of justice,'"
she confessed to Lydia. " ... All of our reformers seem suddenly to
have grown politic. All alike say, 'Have no conventions at this
crisis!' Garrison, Phillips, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Stanton,
etc. say, 'Wait until the war excitement abates....' I am sick at
heart, but cannot carry the world against the wish and will of our
best friends...."[142]
Unable to arouse even a glimmer of interest in woman's rights at this
time, Susan started off on a lecture tour of her own, determined to
make people understand that this war, so abhorrent to her, must be
fought for the Negroes' freedom. "I cannot feel easy in my conscience
to be dumb in an hour like this," she explained to Lydia, adding, "It
is so easy to feel your power for public work slipping away if you
allow yourself to remain too long snuggled in the Abrahamic bosom of
home. It requires great will power to resurrect one's soul.[143]
"I am speaking now extempore," she continued, "and more to my
satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not
do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely
off old antislavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war."
Feeling particularly close to Lydia at this time, she gratefully
added, "What a stay, counsel, and comfort you have been to me, dear
Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance meeting in that
cold, smoky chapel in 1852. How you have compelled me to feel myself
competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and distrust. I can
never express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you."
In the small towns of western New York, people were willing to listen
to Susan, for they were troubled by the defeats northern armies had
suffered and by the appalling lack of unity and patriotism in the
North. They were beginning to see that the problem of slavery had to
be faced and were discussing among themselves whether Negroes were
contraband, whether army officers should return fugitive slaves to
their masters, whether slaves of the rebels should be freed, whether
Negroes should be enlisted in the army.
Susan had an answer for them. "It is impossible longer to hold the
African race in bondage," she declared, "or to reconstruct this
Republic on the old slaveholding basis. We can neither go back nor
stand still. With the nation as with the individual, every new
experience forces us into a new and higher life and the old self is
lost forever. Hundreds of men who never thought of emancipation a year
ago, talk it freely and are ready to vote for it and fight for it
now.[144]
"Can the thousands of Northern soldiers," she asked, "who in their
march through Rebel States have found faithful friends and generous
allies in the slaves ever consent to hurl them back into the hell of
slavery, either by word, or vote, or sword? Slaves have sought shelter
in the Northern Army and have tasted the forbidden fruit of the Tree
of Liberty. Will they return quietly to the plantation and patiently
endure the old life of bondage with all its degradation, its
cruelties, and wrong? No, No, there can be no reconstruction on the
old basis...." Far less degrading and ruinous, she earnestly added,
would be the recognition of the independence of the southern
Confederacy.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony]
To the question of what to do with the emancipated slaves, her quick
answer was, "Treat the Negroes just as you do the Irish, the Scotch,
and the Germans. Educate them to all the blessings of our free
institutions, to our schools and churches, to every department of
industry, trade, and art.
"What arrogance in _us_," she continued, "to put the question, What
shall _we_ do with a race of men and women who have fed, clothed, and
supported both themselves and their oppressors for centuries...."
Often she spoke against Lincoln's policy of gradual, compensated
emancipation, which to an eager advocate of "immediate, unconditional
emancipation" seemed like weakness and appeasement. She had to admit,
however, that there had been some progress in the right direction, for
Congress had recently forbidden the return of fugitive slaves to their
masters, had decreed immediate emancipation in the District of
Columbia, and prohibited slavery in the territories.
President Lincoln's promise of freedom on January 1, 1863, to slaves
in all states in armed rebellion against the government, seemed wholly
inadequate to her and to her fellow-abolitionists, because it left
slavery untouched in the border states, but it did encourage them to
hope that eventually Lincoln might see the light. Horace Greeley wrote
Susan, "I still keep at work with the President in various ways and
believe you will yet hear him proclaim universal freedom. Keep this
letter and judge me by the event."[145]
It troubled her that public opinion in the North was still far from
sympathetic to emancipation. Northern Democrats, charging Lincoln with
incompetence and autocratic control, called for "The Constitution as
it is, the Union as it was." They had the support of many northern
businessmen who faced the loss of millions of credit given to
southerners and the support of northern workmen who feared the
competition of free Negroes. They had elected Horatio Seymour governor
of New York, and had gained ground in many parts of the country. A
militant group in Ohio, headed by Congressman Vallandigham, continued
to oppose the war, asking for peace at once with no terms unfavorable
to the South.
All these developments Susan discussed with her father, for she
frequently came home between lectures. He was a tower of strength to
her. When she was disillusioned or when criticism and opposition were
hard to bear, his sympathy and wise counsel never failed her. There
was a strong bond of understanding and affection between them.
His sudden illness and death, late in November 1862, were a shock from
which she had to struggle desperately to recover. Her life was
suddenly empty. The farm home was desolate. She could not think of
leaving her mother and her sister Mary there all alone. Nor could she
count on help from Daniel or Merritt, both of whom were serving in the
army in the West, Daniel, as a lieutenant colonel, and Merritt as a
captain in the 7th Kansas Cavalry. For many weeks she had no heart for
anything but grief. "It seemed as if everything in the world must
stop."[146]
Not even President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued January
1, 1863, roused her. It took a letter from Henry Stanton from
Washington to make her see that there was war work for her to do. He
wrote her, "The country is rapidly going to destruction. The Army is
almost in a state of mutiny for want of its pay and lack of a leader.
Nothing can carry through but the southern Negroes, and nobody can
marshal them into the struggle except the abolitionists.... Such men
as Lovejoy, Hale, and the like have pretty much given up the struggle
in despair. You have no idea how dark the cloud is which hangs over
us.... We must not lay the flattering unction to our souls that the
proclamation will be of any use if we are beaten and have a
dissolution of the Union. Here then is work for you, Susan, put on
your armor and go forth."[147]
* * * * *
A month later, Susan went to New York for a visit with Elizabeth
Stanton, confident that if they counseled together, they could find a
way to serve their country in its hour of need.
She was well aware that all through the country women were responding
magnificently in this crisis, giving not only their husbands and sons
to the war, but carrying on for them in the home, on the farm, and in
business. Many were sewing and knitting for soldiers, scraping lint
for hospitals, and organizing Ladies' Aid Societies, which, operating
through the United States Sanitary Commission, the forerunner of the
Red Cross, sent clothing and nourishing food to the inadequately
equipped and poorly fed soldiers in the field. In the large cities
women were holding highly successful "Sanitary Fairs" to raise funds
for the Sanitary Commission. In fact, through the women, civilian
relief was organized as never before in history. Individual women too,
Susan knew, were making outstanding contributions to the war. Lucy
Stone's sister-in-law, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell,[148] a friend and
admirer of Florence Nightingale, was training much-needed nurses,
while Dr. Mary Walker, putting on coat and trousers, ministered
tirelessly to the wounded on the battlefield. Dorothea Dix, the
one-time schoolteacher who had awakened the people to their barbarous
treatment of the insane, had offered her services to the
Surgeon-General and was eventually appointed Superintendent of Army
Nurses, with authority to recruit nurses and oversee hospital
housekeeping. Clara Barton, a government employee, and other women
volunteers were finding their way to the front to nurse the wounded
who so desperately needed their help; and Mother Bickerdyke, living
with the armies in the field, nursed her boys and cooked for them,
lifting their morale by her motherly, strengthening presence. Through
the influence of Anna Ella Carroll, Maryland had been saved for the
Union and she, it was said, was ably advising President Lincoln.
Susan herself had felt no call to nurse the wounded, although she had
often skillfully nursed her own family; nor had she felt that her
qualifications as an expert housekeeper and good executive demanded
her services at the front to supervise army housekeeping. Instead she
looked for some important task to which other women would not turn in
these days when relief work absorbed all their attention. It was not
enough, she felt, for women to be angels of mercy, valuable and
well-organized as this phase of their work had become. A spirit of
awareness was lacking among them, also a patriotic fervor, and this
led her to believe that northern women needed someone to stimulate
their thinking, to force them to come to grips with the basic issues
of the war and in so doing claim their own freedom. Women, she
reasoned, must be aroused to think not only in terms of socks, shirts,
and food for soldiers or of bandages and nursing, but in terms of the
traditions of freedom upon which this republic was founded. Women must
have a part in molding public opinion and must help direct policy as
Anna Ella Carroll was proving women could do. Here was the best
possible training for prospective women voters. To all this Mrs.
Stanton heartily agreed.
As they sat at the dining-room table with Mrs. Stanton's two
daughters, Maggie and Hattie, all busily cutting linen into small
squares and raveling them into lint for the wounded, they discussed
the state of the nation. They were troubled by the low morale of the
North and by the insidious propaganda of the Copperheads, an antiwar,
pro-Southern group, which spread discontent and disrespect for the
government. Profiteering was flagrant, and through speculation and war
contracts, large fortunes were being built up among the few, while the
majority of the people not only found their lives badly disrupted by
the war but suffered from high prices and low wages. So far no
decisive victory had encouraged confidence in ultimate triumph over
the South. In newspapers and magazines, women of the North were being
unfavorably compared with southern women and criticized because of
their lack of interest in the war. Writing in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
March, 1863, Gail Hamilton, a rising young journalist, accused
northern women of failing to come up to the level of the day. "If you
could have finished the war with your needles," she chided them, "it
would have been finished long ago, but stitching does not crush
rebellion, does not annihilate treason...."
Thinking along these same lines, Susan and Mrs. Stanton now decided to
go a step further. They would act to bring women abreast of the issues
of the day, Susan with her flare for organizing women, Mrs. Stanton
with her pen and her eloquence. They would show women that they had an
ideal to fight for. They would show them the uselessness of this
bloody conflict unless it won freedom for all of the slaves. Freedom
for all, as a basic demand of the republic, would be their watchword.
Men were forming Union Leagues and Loyal Leagues to combat the
influence of secret antiwar societies, such as the Knights of the
Golden Circle. "Why not organize a Women's National Loyal League?"
Susan and Mrs. Stanton asked each other.
They talked their ideas over first with the New York abolitionists,
then with Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and his dashing young
friend, Theodore Tilton, and with Robert Dale Owen, now in the city as
the recently appointed head of the Freedman's Inquiry Commission.
These men were in touch with Charles Sumner and other antislavery
members of Congress. All agreed that the Emancipation Proclamation
must be implemented by an act of Congress, by an amendment to the
Constitution, and that public opinion must be aroused to demand a
Thirteenth Amendment. If women would help, so much the better.
Susan at once thought of petitions. If petitions had won the Woman's
Property Law in New York, they could win the Thirteenth Amendment. The
largest petition ever presented to Congress was her goal.
* * * * *
Carefully Susan and Mrs. Stanton worked over an _Appeal to the Women
of the Republic_, sending it out in March 1863 with a notice of a
meeting to be held in New York. It left no doubt in the minds of those
who received it that women had a responsibility to their country
beyond services of mercy to the wounded and disabled.
From all parts of the country, women responded to their call. The
veteran antislavery and woman's rights worker, Angelina Grimké Weld,
came out of her retirement for the meeting. Ernestine Rose, the ever
faithful, was on hand. Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell were
there, and the popular Hutchinson family, famous for their stirring
abolition songs. They helped Susan and Mrs. Stanton steer the course
of the meeting into the right channels, to show the women assembled
that the war was being fought not merely to preserve the Union, but
also to preserve the American way of life, based on the principle of
equal rights and freedom for all, to save it from the encroachments of
slavery and a slaveholding aristocracy. Susan proposed a resolution
declaring that there can never be a true peace until the civil and
political rights of all citizens are established, including those of
Negroes and women. The introduction of the woman's rights issue into a
war meeting with an antislavery program was vigorously opposed by
women from Wisconsin, but the faithful feminists came to the rescue
and the controversial resolution was adopted.
Although she always instinctively related all national issues to
woman's rights and vice versa, Susan did not allow this subject to
overshadow the main purpose of the meeting. Instead she analyzed the
issue of the war and reproached Lincoln for suppressing the fact that
slavery was the real cause of the war and for waiting two long years
before calling the four million slaves to the side of the North.
"Every hour's delay, every life sacrificed up to the proclamation that
called the slave to freedom and to arms," she declared, "was nothing
less than downright murder by the government.... I therefore hail the
day when the government shall recognize that it is a war for
freedom."[149]
A Women's National Loyal League was organized, electing Susan
secretary and Mrs. Stanton president. They sent a long letter to
President Lincoln thanking him for the Emancipation Proclamation,
especially for the freedom it gave Negro women, and assuring him of
their loyalty and support in this war for freedom. Their own immediate
task, they decided, was to circulate petitions asking for an act of
Congress to emancipate "all persons of African descent held in
involuntary servitude." As Susan so tersely expressed it, they would
"canvass the nation for freedom."
* * * * *
All the oratory over, Susan now undertook the hard work of making the
Women's National Loyal League a success, assuming the initial
financial burden of printing petitions and renting an office, Room 20,
at Cooper Institute, where she was busy all day and where New York
members met to help her. To each of the petitions sent out, she
attached her battle cry, "There must be a law abolishing slavery....
Women, you cannot vote or fight for your country. Your only way to be
a power in the government is through the exercise of this one, sacred,
constitutional 'right of petition,' and we ask you to use it now to
the utmost...." She also asked those signing the petitions to
contribute a penny to help with expenses and in this way she slowly
raised $3,000.[150]
At first the response was slow, although both Republican and
antislavery papers were generous in their praise of this undertaking,
but when the signed petitions began to come in, she felt repaid for
all her efforts, and when the Hovey Fund trustees appropriated twelve
dollars a week for her salary, the financial burden lifted a little.
Yet it was ever present. For herself she needed little. She wrote her
mother and Mary, "I go to a little restaurant nearby for lunch every
noon. I always take strawberries with two tea rusks. Today I said,
'all this lacks is a glass of milk from my mother's cellar,' and the
girl replied, 'We have very nice Westchester milk.' So tomorrow I
shall add that to my bill of fare. My lunch costs, berries five cents,
rusks five, and tomorrow the milk will be three."[151]
The cost of postage mounted as the petitions continued to go out to
all parts of the country. In dire need of funds, Susan decided to
appeal to Henry Ward Beecher; and wearily climbing Columbia Heights to
his home, she suddenly felt a strong hand on her shoulder and a
familiar voice asking, "Well, old girl, what do you want now?" He took
up a collection for her in Plymouth Church, raising $200. Gerrit Smith
sent her $100, when she had hoped for $1,000, and Jessie Benton
Frémont, $50. Before long, her "war of ideas" won the support of
Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Horace Greeley, George William
Curtis, and other popular lecturers who spoke for her at Cooper Union
to large audiences whose admission fees swelled her funds; and
eventually Senator Sumner, realizing how important the petitions could
be in arousing public opinion for the Thirteenth Amendment, saved her
the postage by sending them out under his frank.[152]
She made her home with the Stantons, who had moved from Brooklyn to 75
West 45th Street, New York, and the comfortable evenings of good
conversation and her busy days at the office helped mightily to heal
her grief for her father. In the bustling life of the city she felt
she was living more intensely, more usefully, as these critical days
of war demanded. Henry Stanton, now an editorial writer for Greeley's
_Tribune_, brought home to them the inside story of the news and of
politics. All of them were highly critical of Lincoln, impatient with
his slowness and skeptical of his plans for slaveholders and slaves in
the border states. They questioned Garrison's wisdom in trusting
Lincoln. Susan could not feel that Lincoln was honest when he
protested that he did not have the power to do all that the
abolitionists asked. "The pity is," she wrote Anna E. Dickinson, "that
the vast mass of people really believe the man _honest_--that he
believes he has not the power--I wish I could...."[153]
New York seethed with unrest as time for the enforcement of the draft
drew near. Indignant that rich men could avoid the draft by buying a
substitute, workingmen were easily incited to riot, and the city was
soon overrun by mobs bent on destruction. The lives of all Negroes and
abolitionists were in danger. The Stanton home was in the thick of the
rioting, and when Susan and Henry Stanton came home during a lull,
they all decided to take refuge for the night at the home of Mrs.
Stanton's brother-in-law, Dr. Bayard. Here they also found Horace
Greeley hiding from the mob, for hoodlums were marching through the
streets shouting, "We'll hang old Horace Greeley to a sour apple
tree."
The next morning Susan started for the office as usual, thinking the
worst was over, but as not a single horsecar or stage was running, she
took the ferry to Flushing to visit her cousins. Here too there was
rioting, but she stayed on until order was restored by the army. She
returned to the city to find casualties mounting to over a thousand
and a million dollars' worth of property destroyed. Negroes had been
shot and hung on lamp posts, Horace Greeley's _Tribune_ office had
been wrecked and the homes of abolitionist friends burned. "These are
terrible times," she wrote her family, and then went back to work,
staying devotedly at it through all the hot summer months.[154]
By the end of the year, she had enrolled the signatures of 100,000 men
and women on her petitions, and assured by Senator Sumner that these
petitions were invaluable in creating sentiment for the Thirteenth
Amendment, she raised the number of signatures in the next few months
to 400,000.
In April 1864, the Thirteenth Amendment passed the Senate and the
prospects for it in the House were good. This phase of her work
finished, Susan disbanded the Women's National Loyal League and
returned to her family in Rochester.
* * * * *
In despair over the possible re-election of Abraham Lincoln, Susan had
joined Henry and Elizabeth Stanton in stirring up sentiment for John
C. Frémont. Abolitionists were sharply divided in this presidential
campaign. Garrison and Phillips disagreed on the course of action,
Garrison coming out definitely for Lincoln in the _Liberator_, while
Phillips declared himself emphatically against four more years of
Lincoln. Susan, the Stantons, and Parker Pillsbury were among those
siding with Phillips because they feared premature reconstruction
under Lincoln. They cited Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation as an example
of his leniency toward the rebels. They saw danger in leaving free
Negroes under the control of southerners embittered by war, and called
for Negro suffrage as the only protection against oppressive laws.
They opposed the readmission of Louisiana without the enfranchisement
of Negroes. Lincoln, they knew, favored the extension of suffrage only
to literate Negroes and to those who had served in the military
forces. In fact, Lincoln held back while they wanted to go ahead under
full steam and they looked to Frémont to lead them.
Following the presidential campaign anxiously from Rochester, Susan
wrote Mrs. Stanton, "I am starving for a full talk with somebody
posted, not merely pitted for Lincoln...." The persistent cry of the
_Liberator_ and the _Antislavery Standard_ to re-elect Lincoln and not
to swap horses in midstream did not ring true to her. "We read no more
of the good old doctrine 'of two evils choose neither,'" she wrote
Anna E. Dickinson. She confessed to Anna, "It is only safe to seek and
act the truth and to profess confidence in Lincoln would be a lie in
me."[155]
As the war dragged on through the summer without decisive victories
for the North, Lincoln's prospects looked bleak, and to her dismay,
Susan saw the chances improving for McClellan, the candidate of the
northern Democrats who wanted to end the war, leave slavery alone, and
conciliate the South. The whole picture changed, however, with the
capture of Atlanta by General Sherman in September. The people's
confidence in Lincoln revived and Frémont withdrew from the contest.
One by one the anti-Lincoln abolitionists were converted; and Susan,
anxiously waiting for word from Mrs. Stanton, was relieved to learn
that she was not one of them, nor was Wendell Phillips whose judgment
and vision both of them valued above that of any other man. With
approval she read these lines which Phillips had just written Mrs.
Stanton, "I would cut off both hands before doing anything to aid
Mac's [McClellan's] election. I would cut oft my right hand before
doing anything to aid Abraham Lincoln's election. I wholly distrust
his fitness to settle this thing and indeed his purpose."[156]
There is nothing to indicate any change of opinion on Susan's part
regarding Lincoln's unfitness for a second term. That he was the
lesser of two evils, she of course acknowledged. For her these
pre-election days were discouraging and frustrating. She had very
definite ideas on reconstruction which she felt in justice to the
Negro must be carried out, and Lincoln did not meet her requirements.
After Lincoln's re-election, she again looked to Wendell Phillips for
an adequate policy at this juncture, and she was not disappointed.
"Phillips has just returned from Washington," Mrs. Stanton wrote her.
"He says the radical men feel they are powerless and checkmated....
They turn to such men as Phillips to say what politicians dare not
say.... We say now, as ever, 'Give us immediately unconditional
emancipation, and let there be no reconstruction except on the
broadest basis of justice and equality!...' Phillips and a few others
must hold up the pillars of the temple.... I cannot tell you how happy
I am to find Douglass on the same platform with us. Keep him on the
right track. Tell him in this revolution, he, Phillips, and you and I
must hold the highest ground and truly represent the best type of the
white man, the black man, and the woman."[157]
Susan, holding "the highest ground," found it difficult to mark time
until she could find her place in the reconstruction. "The work of the
hour," she wrote Anna E. Dickinson, "is not alone to put down the
Rebels in arms, but to educate Thirty Millions of People into the idea
of a True Republic. Hence every influence and power that both men and
women can bring to bear will be needed in the reconstruction of the
Nation on the broad basis of justice and equality."[158]
FOOTNOTES:
[134] Garrisons, _Garrison_, IV, pp. 30-31.
[135] Lydia Mott to W. L. Garrison, May 8, 1861, Boston Public
Library; Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, p. 89.
[136] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 215.
[137] _Ibid._, p. 216. Harriet Tubman, a fugitive slave, was often
called the Moses of her people because she led so many of them into
the promised land of freedom.
[138] _Ibid._
[139] _Ibid._, p. 198.
[140] Anna E. Dickinson was born in Philadelphia in 1842. The death of
her father, two years later, left the family in straightened
circumstances, and Anna, after attending a Friends school, began very
early to support herself by copying in lawyers' offices and by working
at the U.S. Mint. Speaking extemporaneously at Friends and antislavery
meetings, she discovered she had a gift for oratory and was soon in
demand as a speaker.
[141] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 219.
[142] April, 1862. _History of Woman Suffrage_, I, p. 748.
[143] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 218, 222.
[144] _Emancipation, the Duty of Government_, Ms., Lucy E. Anthony
Collection. Reading that General Grant had returned 13 slaves to their
masters, an indignant Susan B. Anthony wrote Mrs. Stanton, "Such
gratuitous outrage should be met with instant death--without judge or
jury--if any offense may." Feb. 27, 1862, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Papers, Library of Congress.
[145] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 221.
[146] Jan. 24, 1904, Anna Dann Mason Collection.
[147] Harper, _Anthony_, p. 226.
[148] The first woman in the United States to obtain a medical degree,
1849.
[149] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 57-58.
[150] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 230. Members of the Women's National
Loyal League wore a silver pin showing a slave breaking his last
chains and bearing the inscription, "In emancipation is national
unity." Susan B. Anthony to Mrs. Drake, Sept. 18, 1863, Alma Lutz
Collection.
[151] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 234.
[152] _Ibid._, To Samuel May, Jr., Sept. 21, 1863, Alma Lutz
Collection.
[153] April 14, 1864, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
[154] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 230.
[155] June 12, 1864, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, July 1, 1864, Anna
E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress. About this time, a friend of
Susan B. Anthony's youth, now a widower living in Ohio in comfortable
circumstances, unsuccessfully urged her to marry him.
[156] Sept. 23, 1864, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[157] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, pp. 103-104.
[158] March 14, 1864, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
THE NEGRO'S HOUR
Susan's thoughts now turned to Kansas, as they had many times since
her brothers had settled there. Daniel and Annie, his young wife from
the East, urged her to visit them.[159] Daniel was well established in
Kansas, the publisher of his own newspaper and the mayor of
Leavenworth. He had served a little over a year in the Union army in
the First Kansas Cavalry. She longed to see him and the West that he
loved.
Now for the first time she felt free to make the long journey, for her
mother and Mary had sold the farm on the outskirts of Rochester and
had moved into the city, buying a large red brick house shaded by
maples and a beautiful horse chestnut. It had been a wrench for Susan
to give up the farm with its memories of her father, but there were
compensations in the new home on Madison Street, for Guelma, her
husband, Aaron McLean, and their family lived with them there. Hannah
and her family had also settled in Rochester, and when they bought the
house next door, Susan had the satisfaction of living again in the
midst of her family.[160]
She was particularly devoted to Guelma's twenty-three-year-old
daughter, Ann Eliza, whose "merry laugh" and "bright, joyous presence"
brought new life into the household. Ann Eliza was a stimulating
intelligent companion, and Susan looked forward to seeing many of her
own dreams fulfilled in her niece. Then suddenly in the fall of 1864,
Ann Eliza was taken ill, and her death within a few days left a great
void.[161]
In the midst of this sorrow, Daniel sent Susan a ticket and a check
for a trip to Kansas. Hesitating no longer, she waited only until her
"tip-top Rochester dressmaker" made up "the new, five-dollar silk"
which she had bought in New York.[162]
Before leaving for Kansas, in January, 1865, she pasted on the first
page of her diary a clipping of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"Something Left Undone," which seemed so perfectly to interpret her
own feelings:
Labor with what zeal we will
Something still remains undone
Something uncompleted still
Waits the rising of the sun....
Till at length it is or seems
Greater than our strength can bear
As the burden of our dreams
Pressing on us everywhere....[163]
With "the burden of her dreams" pressing on her, Susan traveled
westward. The future of the Negro was much on her mind, for the
Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery had just been sent to the
states for ratification. That it would be ratified she had no doubt,
but she recognized the responsibility facing the North to provide for
the education and rehabilitation of thousands of homeless bewildered
Negroes trying to make their way in a still unfriendly world, and she
looked forward to taking part in this work.
Beyond Chicago, where she stopped over to visit her uncle Albert
Dickinson and his family, her journey was rugged, and when she reached
Leavenworth she reveled in the comfort of Daniel's "neat, little,
snow-white cottage with green blinds." She liked Daniel's wife, Annie,
at once, admired her gaiety and the way she fearlessly drove her
beautiful black horse across the prairie. "They have a real 'Aunt
Chloe' in the kitchen," she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "and a little Darkie
boy for errands and table waiter. I never saw a girl to match. The
more I see of the race, the more wonderful they are to me."[164]
There was always good companionship in Daniel's home, for friends from
both the East and the West found it a convenient stopping place, and
there was much discussion of politics, the Negro question, and the
future of the West. Business was booming in Leavenworth, then the most
thriving town between St. Louis and San Francisco. Eight years before,
when Daniel had first settled there, it boasted a population of 4,000.
Now it had grown to 22,000, was lighted with gas, and was building its
business blocks of brick. As Susan drove through the busy streets with
Annie, she saw emigrants coming in by steamer and train to settle in
Kansas and watched for the covered wagons that almost every day
stopped in Leavenworth for supplies before moving on to the far West.
Driving over the wide prairie, sometimes a warm brown, then again
white with snow under a wider expanse of deep blue sky than she had
ever seen before, she relaxed as she had not in many a year and began
to feel the call of the West. She even thought she might like to
settle in Kansas until she was caught up by the sharp realization of
how she would miss the stimulating companionship of her friends in the
East.
[Illustration: Daniel Anthony, brother of Susan B. Anthony]
When Daniel was busy with his campaign for his second term as mayor,
she helped him edit the _Bulletin_. He warned her not to fill his
paper up with woman's rights, and in spite of his sympathy for the
Negro, forbade her to advocate Negro suffrage in his paper.
"I wish I could talk through it the things I'd like to say to the
young martyr state ..." she wrote Mrs. Stanton. "The Legislature gave
but six votes for Negro suffrage the other day.... The idea of Kansas
refusing her loyal Negroes."
Again and again she was shocked at the prejudice against Negroes in
Kansas, as when Daniel employed a Negro typesetter and the printers,
refusing to admit him to their union, went out on strike until he was
discharged.
"In this city," she reported to Mrs. Stanton, "there are four thousand
ex-Missouri slaves who have sought refuge here within the three past
years." Making it her business to learn what was being done to help
them and educate them, she visited their schools, their Sunday
schools, and the Colored Home, and gave much of her time to them. To
encourage them to demand their rights, she organized an Equal Rights
League among them. This was one thing she could do, even if she could
not plead for Negro suffrage in Daniel's newspaper.[165]
Then one breath-taking piece of news followed another--Lee's
surrender, April 9, 1865, and in less than a week, Lincoln's
assassination, his death, and Andrew Johnson's succession to the
Presidency.
Susan looked upon Lincoln's assassination and death as an act of God.
She wrote to Mrs. Stanton, "Was there ever a more terrific command to
a Nation to 'stand still and know that I am God' since the world
began? The Old Book's terrible exhibitions of God's wrath sink into
nothingness. And this fell blow just at the very hour he was declaring
his willingness to consign those five million faithful, brave, and
loving loyal people of the South to the tender mercies of the ex-slave
lords of the lash."[166]
She longed "to go out and do battle for the Lord once more," but when
she could have expressed her opinions at the big mass meeting held in
memory of Lincoln, she remained silent. "My soul was full," she
confessed to Mrs. Stanton, "but the flesh not equal to stemming the
awful current, to do what the people have called make an exhibition of
myself. So quenched the spirit and came home ashamed of myself."
Then she added, "Dear-a-me--how overfull I am, and how I should like
to be nestled into some corner away from every chick and child with
you once more."
* * * * *
Disturbing news came from the East of dissension in the antislavery
ranks, of Garrison's desire to dissolve the American Antislavery
Society after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, and of
Phillips' insistence that it continue until freedom for the Negro was
firmly established. While Garrison maintained that northern states,
denying the ballot to the Negro, could not consistently make Negro
suffrage a requirement for readmitting rebel states to the Union,
Phillips demanded Negro suffrage as a condition of readmission.
Immediately abolitionists took sides. Parker Pillsbury, Lydia and
Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, Anna E. Dickinson, the Stantons,
and others lined up with Phillips, whose vehement and scathing
criticism of reconstruction policies seemed to them the need of the
hour. Susan also took sides, praising "dear ever glorious Phillips"
and writing in her diary, "The disbanding of the American Antislavery
Society is fully as untimely as General Grant's and Sherman's granting
parole and pardon to the whole Rebel armies."[167]
To her friends in the East, she wrote, "How can anyone hold that
Congress has no right to demand Negro suffrage in the returning Rebel
states because it is not already established in all the loyal ones?
What would have been said of Abolitionists ten or twenty years ago,
had they preached to the people that Congress had no right to vote
against admitting a new state with slavery, because it was not already
abolished in all the old States? It is perfectly astounding, this
seeming eagerness of so many of our old friends to cover up and
apologize for the glaring hate toward the equal recognition of the
manhood of the black race."[168]
She rejoiced when word came that the American Antislavery Society
would continue under the presidency of Phillips, with Parker Pillsbury
as editor of the _Antislavery Standard_; but she was saddened by the
withdrawal of Garrison, whom she had idolized for so many years and
whose editorials in the _Liberator_ had always been her
inspiration.[169]
As she read the weekly New York _Tribune_, which came regularly to
Daniel, she grew more and more concerned over President Johnson's
reconstruction policy and more and more convinced of the need of a
crusade for political and civil rights for the Negro. Asked to deliver
the Fourth of July oration at Ottumwa, Kansas, she decided to put into
it all her views on the controversial subject of reconstruction.
Traveling by stage the 125 miles to Ottumwa, she found good company
en route and "great talk on politics, Negro equality, and temperance,"
and thought the "grand old prairies ... perfectly splendid and the
timber-skirted creeks ... delightful."[170]
Before a large gathering of Kansas pioneers, many of whom had driven
forty or fifty miles to hear her, she stood tall, straight, and
earnest, as she reminded them of the noble heritage of Kansas, of the
bloody years before the war when in the free-state fight, Kansas men
and women "taught the nation anew" the principles of the Declaration
of Independence. Lashing out with the vehemence of Phillips against
President Johnson's reconstruction policy, she warned, "There has been
no hour fraught with so much danger as the present.... To be foiled
now in gathering up the fruits of our blood-bought victories and to
re-enthrone slavery under the new guise of Negro disfranchisement ...
would be a disaster, a cruelty and crime, which would surely bequeath
to coming generations a legacy of wars and rumors of wars...."[171]
She then cited the results of the elections in Virginia, South
Carolina, and Tennessee to prove her point that unless Negroes were
given the vote, rebels would be put in office and a new code of laws
apprenticing Negroes passed, establishing a new form of slavery.
She urged her audience to be awake to the politicians who were using
the peoples' reverence and near idolatry of Lincoln to push through
anti-Negro legislation under the guise of carrying out his policies.
Then putting behind her the prejudice and impatience with Lincoln
which she had felt during his lifetime, she added, "If the
administration of Abraham Lincoln taught the American people one
lesson above another, it was that they must think and speak and
proclaim, and that he as their President was bound to execute their
will, not his own. And if Lincoln were alive today, he would say as he
did four years ago, 'I wait the voice of the people.'"
In her special pleading for the Negro, she did not forget women.
Calling attention to the fact that our nation had never been a true
republic because the ballot was exclusively in the hands of the "free
white male," she asked for a government "of the people," men and
women, white and black, with Negro suffrage and woman suffrage as
basic requirements.
[Illustration: Wendell Phillips]
So enthusiastic were the Republicans over her speech that they urged
her to prepare it for publication, suggesting, however, that she
delete the passage on woman suffrage. This was her first intimation
that Republicans might balk at enfranchising women. So great had been
women's contribution to the winning of the war and so indebted were
the Republicans to women for creating sentiment for the Thirteenth
Amendment, that she had come to expect, along with Mrs. Stanton, that
the ballot would without question be given them as a reward.
* * * * *
It was soon obvious to Susan that politicians in the East as well as
in Kansas were shying away from woman suffrage. Mrs. Stanton reported
that even Wendell Phillips was backsliding, not wishing to campaign
for Negro suffrage and woman suffrage at the same time. "While I could
continue as heretofore, arguing for woman's rights, just as I do for
temperance every day," he had written, "still I would not mix the
movements.... I think such mixture would lose for the Negro far more
than we should gain for the woman. I am now engaged in abolishing
slavery in a land where the abolition of slavery means conferring or
recognizing citizenship, and where citizenship supposes the ballot for
all men."[172]
Such reasoning filled Susan with despair, for she firmly believed that
women who had been asking for full citizenship for seventeen years
deserved precedence over the Negro. Mrs. Stanton agreed. To them,
Negro suffrage without woman suffrage was unthinkable, an unbearable
humiliation. Half of the Negroes were women, and manhood suffrage
would fasten upon them a new form of slavery. How could Wendell
Phillips, they asked each other, fail to recognize not only the
timeliness of woman suffrage, but the fact that women were better
qualified for the ballot than the majority of Negroes, who, because of
their years in slavery, were illiterate and the easy prey of
unscrupulous politicians? By all means enfranchise Negroes, they
argued with him, but enfranchise women as well, and if there must be a
limitation on suffrage, let it be on the basis of literacy, not on the
basis of sex.
Among Republican members of Congress and abolitionists, there was
serious discussion of a Fourteenth Amendment to extend to the Negro
civil rights and the ballot. Susan, reading about this in Kansas, and
Mrs. Stanton, discussing it in New York with her husband, Wendell
Phillips, and Robert Dale Owen, saw in such a revision of the
Constitution a just and logical opportunity to extend woman's rights
at the same time. Previously committed to state action on woman
suffrage but only because it had then seemed the necessary first step,
both women welcomed the more direct road offered by an amendment to
the Constitution. Only they of all the old woman's rights workers were
awake to this opportunity.
Throughout the United States, people were thinking about the
Constitution as Americans had not done since the Bill of Rights was
ratified in 1791. Not only were amendments to the federal Constitution
in the air, not only were rebel states being readmitted to the Union
with new constitutions, but state constitutions in the North were
being revised, and western territories sought statehood. In Susan's
opinion the time was ripe to proclaim equal rights for all. This
clearly was woman's hour.
* * * * *
"Come back and help," pleaded Elizabeth Stanton, who grew more and
more alarmed as she saw all interest in woman suffrage crowded out of
the minds of reformers by their zeal for the Negro. "I have argued
constantly with Phillips and the whole fraternity, but I fear one and
all will favor enfranchising the Negro without us. Woman's cause is in
deep water.... There is pressing need of our woman's rights
convention...."[173]
Susan's spirits revived at the prospect of holding a woman's rights
convention, and plans for the future began to take shape as she read
the closing lines of Mrs. Stanton's letter: "I hope in a short time to
be comfortably located in a new house where we will have a room ready
for you.... I long to put my arms about you once more and hear you
scold me for all my sins and shortcomings.... Oh, Susan, you are very
dear to me. I should miss you more than any other living being on this
earth. You are entwined with much of my happy and eventful past, and
all my future plans are based on you as coadjutor. Yes, our work is
one, we are one in aim and sympathy and should be together. Come
home."
Parker Pillsbury also added his plea, "Why have you deserted the field
of action at a time like this, at an hour unparalleled in almost
twenty centuries?... It is not for me to decide your field of labor.
Kansas needed John Brown and may need you ... but New York is to
revise her constitution next year and, if you are absent, who is to
make the plea for woman?"
Reading her newspaper a few days later, she found that the politicians
had made their first move, introducing in the House of Representatives
a resolution writing the word "male" into the qualifications of voters
in the second section of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment. She
started at once for the East.
* * * * *
On the long journey back, in the heat of August, traveling by stage
and railroad with many stops to make the necessary connections, Susan
not only visited her many relatives who had moved to the West, but
also called on antislavery and woman suffrage workers, and held
meetings to plead for free schools for Negroes and for the ballot for
Negroes and women. She found people relieved to have the war over and
busy with their own affairs, but with prejudices smoldering. Public
speaking was still an ordeal for her and she confessed to her diary,
"Made a labored talk.... Had a struggle to get through with speech,"
and again, "Had a hard time. Thoughts nor words would come--Staggered
through."[174] However, she was a determined woman. The message must
be carried to the people and she would do it whether she suffered in
the process or not.
Late in September, she reached her own comfortable home in Rochester,
but she had too much on her mind to stay there long, and within a few
weeks was in New York with Elizabeth Stanton, deep in a serious
discussion of how to create an overwhelming demand for woman suffrage
at this crucial time. Again they decided to petition Congress, this
time for the vote for both women and Negroes. Five years had now
passed since the last national woman's rights convention, and the
workers were scattered; some had lost interest and others thought only
of the need of the Negro. Lucretia Mott, Lydia Mott, and Parker
Pillsbury responded at once. Susan sought out Lucy Stone in spite of
the differences that had grown up between them, and after talking with
Lucy, confessed to herself that she had been unjustly impatient with
her.[175]
Hoping for aid from the Jackson or Hovey Fund, she went to New England
to revive interest there and in Concord talked with the Emersons,
Bronson Alcott, and Frank Sanborn. When she asked Emerson whether he
thought it wise to demand woman suffrage at this time, he replied,
"Ask my wife. I can philosophize, but I always look to her to decide
for me in practical matters." Unhesitatingly Mrs. Emerson agreed with
Susan that Congress must be petitioned immediately to enfranchise
women either before Negroes were granted the vote or at the same
time.[176]
Even Wendell Phillips, who did not want to mix Negro and woman
suffrage, gave Susan $500 from the Hovey Fund to finance the
petitions, but many of the friends upon whom she had counted needed a
verbal lashing to rouse them out of their apathy. Very soon she had to
face the unpleasant fact that by pressing for woman suffrage now, she
was estranging many abolitionists. Nevertheless she and Mrs. Stanton
went ahead undaunted, determined that a petition for woman suffrage
would go to Congress even if it carried only their own two signatures.
However, petitions with many signatures were reaching Congress in
January 1866--the very first demand ever made for Congressional action
on woman suffrage. Senator Sumner, for whom women had rolled up
400,000 signatures for the Thirteenth Amendment, now presented under
protest "as most inopportune" a petition headed by Lydia Maria Child,
who for years had been his valiant aid in antislavery work; and
Thaddeus Stevens, heretofore friendly to woman suffrage and ever
zealous for the Negro, ignored a petition from New York headed by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.[177]
By this time it was clear to Susan that since the two powerful
Republicans, Senator Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, both basically
friendly to woman suffrage, were determined to devote themselves
wholly to Negro suffrage and to the extension of their party's
influence, she could expect no help from lesser party members. Her
only alternative was to appeal to the Democrats or to an occasional
recalcitrant Republican, and she allowed nothing to stand in her way,
not even the frenzied pleas of her abolitionist friends. She found
James Brooks of New York, Democratic leader of the House, willing to
present her petitions, and she made use of him, although he was
regarded by abolitionists as a Copperhead and although he was now
advocating conciliatory reconstruction for the South of which she
herself disapproved. Other Democrats came to the rescue in the Senate
as well as in the House--a few because they saw justice in the demands
of the women, others because they believed white women should have
political precedence over Negroes, and still others because they saw
in their support of woman suffrage an opportunity to harass the
Republicans. During 1866, petitions for woman suffrage with 10,000
signatures were presented by Democrats and irregular Republicans.
In the meantime, conferences in New York with Henry Ward Beecher and
Theodore Tilton were encouraging, and for a time Susan thought she had
found an enthusiastic ally in Tilton, the talented popular young
editor of the _Independent_. Theodore Tilton, with his long hair and
the soulful face of a poet, with his eloquence as a lecturer and his
flare for journalism, was at the height of his popularity. He had
winning ways and was full of ideas. After the ratification of the
Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, in December 1865, he had
proposed that the American Antislavery Society and the woman's rights
group merge to form an American Equal Rights Association which would
fight for equal rights for all, for Negro and woman suffrage. Wendell
Phillips he suggested for president, and the _Antislavery Standard_
as the paper of the new organization.
This sounded reasonable and hopeful to Susan, and she hurried to
Boston with a group from New York, including Lucy Stone, to consult
Wendell Phillips and his New England colleagues. Wendell Phillips,
however, was cool to the proposition, pointing out the necessity of
amending the constitution of the American Antislavery Society before
any such action could be taken. Never dreaming that he would actually
oppose their plan, Susan expected this would be taken care of; but
when she convened her woman's rights convention in New York in May
1866, simultaneously with that of the American Antislavery Society,
she found to her dismay that no formal notice of the proposed union
had been given to the members of the antislavery group and therefore
there was no way for them to vote their organization into an Equal
Rights Association. Not to be sidetracked, she then asked the woman's
rights convention to broaden its platform to include rights for the
Negro. To her this seemed a natural development as she had always
thought of woman's rights as part of the larger struggle for human
rights.
"For twenty years," she declared, "we have pressed the claims of women
to the right of representation in the government.... Up to this hour
we have looked only to State action for the recognition of our rights;
but now by the results of the war, the whole question of suffrage
reverts back to the United States Constitution. The duty of Congress
at this moment is to declare what shall be the basis of representation
in a republican form of government.
"There is, there can be, but one true basis," she continued. "Taxation
and representation must be inseparable; hence our demand must now go
beyond woman.... We therefore wish to broaden our woman's rights
platform and make it in name what it has ever been in spirit, a human
rights platform."[178]
The women, so often accused in later years of fighting only for their
own rights, had the courage at this time to attempt a practical
experiment in generosity. Susan and Mrs. Stanton with all their hearts
wanted this experiment to succeed, and yet as they resolved their
woman's rights organization into the American Equal Rights
Association, they were apprehensive.
They did not have to wait long for disillusionment. Meeting Wendell
Phillips and Theodore Tilton in the office of the _Antislavery
Standard_ to plan a campaign for the Equal Rights Association, they
discussed with them what should be done in New York, preparatory to
the revision of the state constitution. Emphatically Wendell Phillips
declared that the time was ripe for striking the word "white" out of
the constitution, but not the word "male." That could come, he added,
when the constitution was next revised, some twenty or thirty years
later. To their astonishment, Theodore Tilton heartily agreed. Then he
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."
Completely unprepared for such an attitude on Tilton's part, Susan
retorted with indignation, "I would sooner cut off my right hand than
ask for the ballot for the black man and not for woman." Then telling
the two men just what she thought of them for their betrayal of women,
she swept out of the office to keep another appointment.[179]
Equally exasperated with these men, Mrs. Stanton stayed on, hoping to
heal the breach, but when Susan returned to the Stanton home that
evening, she found her highly indignant, declaring she was through
boosting the Negro over her own head. Then and there they vowed that
they would devote themselves with all their might and main to woman
suffrage and to that alone.
* * * * *
By this time, Congress had passed a civil rights bill over President
Johnson's veto, conferring the rights of citizenship upon freedmen,
and a Fourteenth Amendment to make these rights permanent was now
before Congress. The latest developments regarding the various drafts
of the Fourteenth Amendment were passed along to Susan and Mrs.
Stanton by Robert Dale Owen. Senator Sumner, he reported, had yielded
to party pressure and now supported the Fourteenth Amendment, although
in the past he had always maintained such an amendment wholly
unnecessary since there was already enough justice, liberty, and
equality in the Constitution to protect the humblest citizen. Senator
Sumner opposed and defeated a clause in the amendment referring to
"race" and "color," words which had never previously been mentioned
in the Constitution, but he raised no serious objection to the
introduction of the word "male" as a qualification for suffrage, which
was also unprecedented. That he tried time and time again to avoid the
word "male" when he was redrafting the amendment or that Thaddeus
Stevens tried to substitute "legal voters" for "male citizens" was no
comfort to Susan and Mrs. Stanton, as they saw the Fourteenth
Amendment writing discrimination against women into the federal
Constitution for the first time.[180]
As they carefully read over the first section of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which conferred citizenship on every person born or
naturalized in the United States, women's rights seemed assured:
"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. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Then in the controversial second section which provided the penalty of
reduction of representation in Congress for states depriving Negroes
of the ballot, they saw themselves written out of the Constitution by
the words, "male inhabitants" and "male citizens," used to define
legal voters. It was baffling to be kept from their goal by a single
word in a provision which at best was the unsatisfactory compromise
arrived at by radical and conservative Republicans and which sincere
abolitionists felt was unfair to the Negro. That it was unfair to
women, there was no doubt.
With determination, Susan and Mrs. Stanton fought this injustice. Were
they not "persons born ... in the United States," they asked. Were
they forever to be regarded as children or as lower than persons,
along with criminals, idiots, and the insane? Were women not counted
in the basis of representation and should they not have a voice in the
election of those representatives whose office their numbers helped to
establish?
As Susan studied the Constitution, she saw that the question of
suffrage had up to this time been left to the states and that there
were no provisions defining suffrage or citizenship or limiting the
right of suffrage. Only now was the precedent being broken by the
Fourteenth Amendment which conferred citizenship on Negroes and
limited suffrage to males. How could this be constitutional, she
reasoned, when the first lines of the Constitution read, "We, the
people of the United States, in order to ... establish justice ... and
secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America." Of course "the people" must include women, if the English
language meant what it said.
The Fourteenth Amendment with the limiting word "male" was passed by
Congress and referred to the states for ratification in June 1866. As
never before, Susan felt the curse of the tradition of the
unimportance of women. Once more politicians and reformers had ignored
women's inherent rights as human beings. In spite of women's
intelligence and their wartime service to their country, no statesman
of power or vision felt it at all necessary to include women under the
Fourteenth Amendment's broad term of "persons." Yet according to
statements made in later years by John A. Bingham and Roscoe Conkling,
both sponsors of the amendment and concerned with its drafting, the
possibility was considered of protecting corporations and the property
of individuals from the interference of state and municipal
legislation, through the federal control extended by this amendment.
At any rate, they wrought well for the corporations which have
received abundant protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, along
with all male citizens, while women were left outside the pale.[181]
Tactfully the Republicans explained to women that even Negro suffrage
could not be definitely spelled out in the Fourteenth Amendment, if it
were to be accepted by the people; and added that Negro suffrage was
all the strain that the Republican party could bear at this time; but
neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton were fooled by this sophistry. They
knew that Republican politicians saw in the Negro vote in the South
the means of keeping their party in power for a long time to come, and
could entirely overlook justice to Negro women since they were assured
of enough votes without them. The women of the North need not be
considered, since they had nothing to offer politically. They would
vote, it was thought, just as their husbands voted.
Completely deserted by all their former friends in the Republican
party, Susan and Mrs. Stanton now made use of an irregular Republican,
Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania, whom the abolitionists had labeled "the
watchdog of slavery." When Benjamin Wade's bill "to enfranchise each
and every male person" in the District of Columbia "without any
distinction on account of color or race," was discussed on the Senate
floor in December 1866, Senator Cowan offered an amendment striking
out the word "male" and thus leaving the door open for women. He
stated the case for woman suffrage well and with eloquence, and
although he was accused of being insincere and wishing merely to cloud
the issue, he forced the Republicans to show their hands. In the
three-day debate which followed, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts
declared emphatically that he was opposed to connecting the two
issues, woman and Negro suffrage, but would at any time support a
separate bill for woman's enfranchisement. Senator Pomeroy of Kansas
objected to jeopardizing the chances of Negro suffrage by linking it
with woman suffrage, but Senator Wade of Ohio boldly expressed his
approval of woman suffrage, even casting a vote for Senator Cowan's
amendment, as did B. Gratz Brown of Missouri. In the final vote, nine
votes were counted for woman suffrage and thirty-seven against.[182]
Susan recorded even this defeat as progress, for woman suffrage had
for the first time been debated in Congress and prominent Senators had
treated it with respect. The Republican press, however, was showing
definite signs of disapproval, even Horace Greeley's New York
_Tribune_. Almost unbelieving, she read Greeley's editorial, "A Cry
from the Females," in which he said, "Talk of a true woman needing the
ballot as an accessory of power when she rules the world with the
glance of an eye." With the Democratic press as always solidly against
woman suffrage and the _Antislavery Standard_ avoiding the subject as
if it did not exist, no words favorable to votes for women now reached
the public.[183]
It was hard for Susan to forgive the _Antislavery Standard_ for what
she regarded as a breach of trust. Financed by the Hovey Fund, it owed
allegiance, she believed, to women as well as the Negro. In protest
Parker Pillsbury resigned his post as editor, but among the leading
men in the antislavery ranks, only he, Samuel J. May, James Mott, and
Robert Purvis, the cultured, wealthy Philadelphia Negro, were willing
to support Susan and Mrs. Stanton in their campaign for woman suffrage
at this time. The rest aligned themselves unquestioningly with the
Republicans, although in the past they had always been distrustful of
political parties.
Discouraging as this was for Susan, their influence upon the
antislavery women was far more alarming. These women one by one
temporarily deserted the woman's rights cause, persuaded that this was
the Negro's hour and that they must be generous, renounce their own
claims, and work only for the Negroes' civil and political rights.
Less than a dozen remained steadfast, among them Lucretia Mott, Martha
C. Wright, Ernestine Rose, and for a time Lucy Stone, who wrote John
Greenleaf Whittier in January 1867, "You know Mr. Phillips takes the
ground that this is 'the Negro's hour,' and that the women, if not
criminal, are at least, not wise to urge their own claim. Now, so sure
am I that he is mistaken and that the only name given, by which the
country can be saved, is that of WOMAN, that I want to ask you ... to
use your influence to induce him to reconsider the position he has
taken. He is the only man in the nation to whom has been given the
charm which compels all men, willing or unwilling, to listen when he
speaks ... Mr. Phillips used to say, 'take your part with the perfect
and abstract right, and trust God to see that it shall prove
expedient.' Now he needs someone to help him see that point
again."[184]
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Daniel R. Anthony married Anna Osborne of Edgartown, Martha's
Vineyard, in 1864.
[160] Before buying the house on Madison Street, then numbered 7, Mrs.
Anthony and Mary lived for a time at 69 North Street, Rochester.
Hannah and Eugene Mosher bought the adjoining house on Madison Street
in 1866. Aaron McLean took over his father-in-law's profitable
insurance business.
[161] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 241.
[162] Feb. 14, 1865, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[163] Ms., Diary, April 27, 1862.
[164] Feb. 14, 1862, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[165] _Ibid._
[166] _Ibid._, April 19, 1862.
[167] Ms., Diary, April 26, 27, 1865.
[168] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 245.
[169] The _Liberator_ ceased publication, Dec. 29, 1865.
[170] Ms., Diary, June 30, July 3, 1865.
[171] Harper, _Anthony_, II, pp. 960-967.
[172] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, p. 105.
[173] _Ibid._; Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 244.
[174] Ms., Diary, Aug. 7, Sept. 5, 20, 1865.
[175] _Ibid._, Nov. 26-27, 1865.
[176] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 251.
[177] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 96-97.
[178] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 260.
[179] _Ibid._, pp. 261, 323.
[180] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 322-324. One of Thaddeus
Stevens' drafts read: "If any State shall disfranchise any of its
citizens on account of color, all that class shall be counted out of
the basis of representation." Then the question arose whether or not
disfranchising Negro women would carry this penalty and the result was
a rewording which struck out "color" and added "male."
[181] Beards, _The Rise of American Civilization_, II, pp. 111-112;
Joseph B. James, _The Framing of the Fourteenth Amendment_ (Urbana,
Ill., 1956), pp. 59, 166, 196-200.
[182] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 103. Senator Henry B.
Anthony of Rhode Island, Susan B. Anthony's cousin, spoke and voted
for woman suffrage.
[183] _Ibid._, p. 101. The New York _Post_, which had been friendly to
woman suffrage under the editorship of William Cullen Bryant, now came
out against it.
[184] John Albree, Editor, _Whittier Correspondence from Oakknoll_
(Salem, Mass., 1911), p. 158. Frances D. Gage of Ohio, Caroline H.
Dall of Massachusetts, and Clarina Nichols of Kansas also supported
woman suffrage at this time.
TIMES THAT TRIED WOMEN'S SOULS
Bitterly disillusioned, Susan as usual found comfort in action. She
carried to the New York legislature early in 1867 her objections to
the Fourteenth Amendment in a petition from the American Equal Rights
Association, signed by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, and herself. People generally were critical of the amendment,
many fearing it would too readily reinstate rebels as voters, and she
hoped to block ratification by capitalizing on this dissatisfaction.
She saw no disloyalty to Negroes in this, for she regarded the
amendment as "utterly inadequate."[185]
This protest made, she turned her attention to New York's
constitutional convention, which provided an unusual opportunity for
writing woman suffrage into the new constitution. First she sought an
interview with Horace Greeley, hoping to regain his support which was
more important than ever since he had been chosen a delegate to this
convention. When she and Mrs. Stanton asked him for space in the
_Tribune_ to advocate woman suffrage as well as Negro suffrage, he
emphatically replied, "No! You must not get up any agitation for that
measure.... Help us get the word 'white' out of the constitution. This
is the Negro's hour.... Your turn will come next."[186]
Convinced that this was also woman's hour, Susan disregarded his
opinions and his threats and circulated woman suffrage petitions in
all parts of the state. She won the support of the handsome, highly
respected George William Curtis, now editor of _Harper's Magazine_ and
also a convention delegate, and of the popular Henry Ward Beecher and
Gerrit Smith. The sponsorship of the cause by these men helped
mightily. New York women sent in petitions with hundreds of
signatures, but the Republican party was at work, cracking its whip,
and Horace Greeley was appointed chairman of the committee on the
right of suffrage.
Both Susan and Mrs. Stanton spoke at the constitutional convention's
hearing on woman suffrage, Susan with her usual forthrightness
answering the many questions asked by the delegates, spreading
consternation among them by declaring that women would eventually
serve as jurors and be drafted in time of war. Assuming women unable
to bear arms for their country, the delegates smugly linked the ballot
and the bullet together, and Horace Greeley gleefully asked the two
women, "If you vote, are you ready to fight?" Instantly, Susan
replied, "Yes, Mr. Greeley, just as you fought in the late war--at the
point of a goose quill." Then turning to the other delegates, she
reminded them that several hundred women, disguised as men, had fought
in the Civil War, and instead of being honored for their services and
paid, they had been discharged in disgrace.[187]
Confident that Horace Greeley would sooner or later fall back on his
oft-repeated, trite remark, "The best women I know do not want to
vote," Susan had asked Mrs. Greeley to roll up a big petition in
Westchester County, and believing heartily in woman suffrage she had
complied. This gave Susan and Mrs. Stanton a trump card to play,
should Horace Greeley present an adverse report as they were informed
he would do.[188]
In Albany to hear the report, these two conspirators gloated over
their plan as they surveyed the packed galleries and noted the many
reporters who would jump at a bit of spicy news to send their papers.
Just before Horace Greeley was to give his report, George William
Curtis announced with dignity and assurance, "Mr. President, I hold in
my hand a petition from Mrs. Horace Greeley and 300 other women,
citizens of Westchester, asking that the word 'male' be stricken from
the Constitution."[189]
Ripples of amusement ran through the audience, and reporters hastily
took notes, as Horace Greeley, the top of his head red as a beet,
looked up with anger at the galleries, and then in a thin squeaky
voice and with as much authority as he could muster declared, "Your
committee does not recommend an extension of the elective franchise to
women...." As a result, New York's new constitution enfranchised only
male citizens.[190]
Horace Greeley justified his opposition to woman suffrage in a letter
to Moncure D. Conway: "The keynote of my political creed is the axiom
that 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed....' I sought information from different quarters ... and
practically all agreed in the conclusion that _the women of our state
do not choose to vote_. Individuals do, at least three fourths of the
sex do not. I accepted their choice as decisive; just as I reported in
favor of enfranchising the Blacks because they do wish to vote. The
few may not; but the many do; and I think they should control the
situation.... It seems but fair to add that female suffrage seems to
me to involve the balance of the family relation as it has hitherto
existed...."[191]
Horace Greeley never forgave Susan and Mrs. Stanton for humiliating
him in the constitutional convention or for the headlines in the
evening papers which coupled his adverse report with his wife's
petition. When they met again in New York a few weeks later at one of
Alice Cary's popular evening receptions, he ignored their friendly
greeting and brusquely remarked, "You two ladies are the most
maneuvering politicians in the State of New York."[192]
* * * * *
While Susan's work in New York State was at its height, appeals for
help had reached her from Republicans in Kansas, where in November
1867 two amendments would be voted upon, enfranchising women and
Negroes. Unable to go to Kansas herself at that time or to spare
Elizabeth Stanton, she rejoiced when Lucy Stone consented to speak
throughout Kansas and when she and Lucy, as trustees of the Jackson
Fund, outvoting Wendell Phillips, were able to appropriate $1,500 for
this campaign.
Lucy was soon sending enthusiastic reports to Susan from Kansas, where
she and her husband, Henry Blackwell, were winning many friends for
the cause. "I fully expect we shall carry the State," Lucy confidently
wrote Susan. "The women here are grand, and it will be a shame past
all expression if they don't get the right to vote.... But the Negroes
are all against us.... These men _ought not to be allowed to vote
before we do_, because they will be just so much dead weight to
lift."[193]
One cloud now appeared on the horizon. Republicans in Kansas began to
withdraw their support from the woman suffrage amendment they had
sponsored. It troubled Lucy and Susan that the New York _Tribune_ and
the _Independent_, both widely read in Kansas, published not one word
favorable to woman suffrage, for these two papers with their influence
and prestige could readily, they believed, win the ballot for women
not only in Kansas but throughout the nation. Soon the temper of the
Republican press changed from indifference to outright animosity,
striking at Lucy and Henry Blackwell by calling them "free lovers,"
because Lucy was traveling with her husband as Lucy Stone and not as
Mrs. Henry B. Blackwell. Still Lucy was hopeful, believing the
Democrats were ready to take them up, but she reminded Susan, "It will
be necessary to have a good force here in the fall, and you will have
to come."
Never for a moment did the importance of this election in Kansas
escape Susan, and her estimate of it was also that of John Stuart
Mill, who wrote from England to the sponsor of the Kansas woman
suffrage amendment, Samuel N. Wood, "If your citizens next November
give effect to the enlightened views of your Legislature, history will
remember one of the youngest states in the civilized world has been
the first to adopt a measure of liberation destined to extend all over
the earth and to be looked back to ... as one of the most fertile in
beneficial consequences of all improvements yet effected in human
affairs."[194]
Susan fully expected Kansas to pioneer for woman suffrage just as it
had taken its stand against slavery when the rest of the country held
back. Her first problem, however, was to raise the money to get
herself and Elizabeth Stanton there. The grant from the Jackson Fund
had been spent by the Blackwells and Olympia Brown of Michigan, who
most providentially volunteered to continue their work when they
returned to the East. Olympia Brown, recently graduated from Antioch
College and ordained as a minister in the Universalist church, was a
new recruit to the cause. Young and indefatigable, she reached every
part of Kansas during the summer, driving over the prairies with the
Singing Hutchinsons.[195]
Olympia Brown's valiant help made waiting in New York easier for Susan
as she tried in every way to raise money. Further grants from the
Jackson Fund were cut off by an unfavorable court decision; and the
trustees of the Hovey Fund, established to further the rights of both
Negroes and women, refused to finance a woman suffrage campaign in
Kansas.
"We are left without a dollar," she wrote State Senator Samuel N.
Wood. "Every speaker who goes to Kansas must _now pay her own_
expenses out of her own private purse, unless money should come from
some unexpected source. I shall run the risk--as I told you--and draw
upon almost my last hundred to go. I tell you this that you may not
contract _debts_ under the impression that _our_ Association can pay
for them--_for it cannot_."[196]
She did find a way to finance the printing of leaflets so urgently
needed for distribution in Kansas. Soliciting advertisements up and
down Broadway during the heat of July and August, she collected enough
to pay the printer for 60,000 tracts, with the result that along with
the dignified, eloquent speeches of Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore
Parker, George William Curtis, and John Stuart Mill went
advertisements of Howe sewing machines, Mme. Demorest's millinery and
patterns, Browning's washing machines, and Decker pianofortes to
attract the people of Kansas.
* * * * *
With both New York and Kansas on her mind, Susan had had little time
to be with her family, although she had often longed to slip out to
Rochester for a visit with her mother and Guelma who had been ill for
several months. Finally she spent a few days with them on her way to
Kansas.
On the long train journey from Rochester to Kansas with such a
congenial companion as Elizabeth Stanton, she enjoyed every new
experience, particularly the new Palace cars advertised as the finest,
most luxurious in the world, costing $40,000 each. The comfortable
daytime seats transformed into beds at night and the meals served by
solicitous Negro waiters were of the greatest interest to these two
good housekeepers and the last bit of comfort they were to enjoy for
many a day.
As soon as they reached Kansas, they set out immediately on a two-week
speaking tour of the principal towns, and as usual Susan starred Mrs.
Stanton while she herself acted as general manager, advertising the
meetings, finding a suitable hall, sweeping it out if necessary,
distributing and selling tracts, and perhaps making a short speech
herself. The meetings were highly successful, but traveling by stage
and wagon was rugged; most of the food served them was green with soda
or floating in grease and the hotels were infested with bedbugs. Susan
wrote her family of sleepless nights and of picking the "tormentors"
out of their bonnets and the ruffles of their dresses.[197]
Occasionally there was an oasis of cleanliness and good food, as when
they stopped at the railroad hotel in Salina and found it run by
Mother Bickerdyke, who, marching through Georgia with General Sherman,
had nursed and fed his soldiers. At such times Kansas would take on a
rosy glow and Susan could report, "We are getting along splendidly.
Just the frame of a Methodist Church with sidings and roof, and rough
cottonwood boards for seats, was our meeting place last night ...; and
a perfect jam it was, with men crowded outside at all the windows....
Our tracts do more than half the battle; reading matter is so very
scarce that everybody clutches at a book of any kind.... All that
great trunk full were sold and given away at our first 14 meetings,
and we in return received $110 which a little more than paid our
railroad fare--eight cents per mile--and hotel bills. Our collections
thus far fully equal those at the East. I have been delightfully
disappointed for everybody said I couldn't raise money in Kansas
meetings."[198]
The reputation of both women preceded them to Kansas. Susan had to win
her way against prejudice built up by newspaper gibes of past years
which had caricatured her as a meddlesome reformer and a sour old
maid, but gradually her friendliness, hominess, and sincerity broke
down these preconceptions. Kansas soon respected this tall slender
energetic woman who, as she overrode obstacles, showed a spirit akin
to that of the frontiersman.
Mrs. Stanton, on the other hand, was welcomed at once with enthusiasm.
The fact that she was the mother of seven children as well as a
brilliant orator opened the way for her. She was good to look at, a
queenly woman at fifty-two, with a fresh rosy complexion and carefully
curled soft white hair. Her motherliness and refreshing sense of humor
built up a bond of understanding with her audiences. People were eager
to see her, hear her, talk with her, and entertain her.
This preference was obvious to Susan, but it aroused no jealousy. She
sent Mrs. Stanton out through the state by mule team to all the small
towns and settlements far from the railroad, along with their popular
and faithful Republican ally, Charles Robinson, first Free State
Governor of Kansas, counting on these two to build up good will. In
the meantime, making her headquarters in Lawrence, she reorganized the
campaign to meet the increasing opposition of the Republican machine,
against which the continued support of a few prominent Kansas
Republicans availed little. As the state was predominantly Republican,
the prospects were gloomy, for the Democrats had not yet taken them up
as Lucy Stone had predicted, but still opposed both the Negro and
woman suffrage amendments. A new liquor law, which it was thought
women would support, further complicated the situation, aligning the
liquor interests and the German and Irish settlers solidly against
votes for women.
* * * * *
While Susan was searching desperately for some way of appealing to the
Democrats, help came from an unexpected source. The St. Louis Suffrage
Association urged George Francis Train to come to the aid of women in
Kansas, and always ready to champion a new and unpopular cause, he
telegraphed his willingness to win the Democratic vote and pay his own
expenses. Knowing little about him except that he was wealthy,
eccentric, and interested in developing the Union Pacific Railroad,
Susan turned tactfully to her Kansas friends for advice, although she
herself welcomed his help. They wired him, "The people want you, the
women want you";[199] and he came into the state in a burst of glory,
speaking first in Leavenworth and Lawrence to large curious audiences.
A tall handsome man with curly brown hair and keen gray eyes, flashily
dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, white vest, black trousers,
patent-leather boots, and lavender kid gloves, he was a sight worth
driving miles to see, and he gave his audiences the best entertainment
they had had in many a day, shouting jingles at them in the midst of
his speeches and mercilessly ridiculing the Republicans. Here was none
of the boredom of most political speeches, none of the long sonorous
sentences with classical allusions which the big-name orators of the
day poured out. His bold statements, his clipped rapid-fire sentences
held the people's attention whether they agreed with him or not. When
he spoke in Leavenworth, the hall was packed with Irishmen who were
building the railroad to the West. They hissed when he mentioned woman
suffrage, but before long he had won them over and they cheered when
he shook his finger at them and shouted, "Every man in Kansas who
throws a vote for the Negro and not for women has insulted his mother,
his daughter, his sister, and his wife."[200]
[Illustration: George Francis Train]
At once the Republican press began a campaign of vilification, calling
Train a Copperhead and ridiculing his eccentricities and conceits; and
eastern Republicans, fearing they had harmed the Negro amendment in
Kansas by their opposition to woman suffrage, tried to make
last-minute amends by sending an appeal to Kansas voters to support
both amendments. Even Horace Greeley lamely supported them in a
_Tribune_ editorial which Susan read with disgust: "It is plain that
the experiment of Female Suffrage is to be tried; and, while we regard
it with distrust, we are quite willing to see it pioneered by Kansas.
She is a young State, and has a memorable history, wherein her women
have borne an honorable part.... If, then, a majority of them really
desire to vote, we, if we lived in Kansas, should vote to give them
the opportunity. Upon a full and fair trial, we believe they would
conclude that the right of suffrage for women was, on the whole,
rather a plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of
their husbands and fathers...."[201]
These halfhearted appeals were too late, for the political machine in
Kansas had already done its work; and Susan, turning her back on such
fair-weather friends, cultivated the Democrats even more sedulously.
When the Democrat who had promised to accompany George Francis Train
on a speaking tour failed him, she took his place. When Train demurred
at the strenuous task ahead, she announced she would undertake it
alone. Always the gallant gentleman, he accompanied her, and continued
with her through the long hard weeks of travel in mail and lumber
wagons over rough roads, through mud and rain, to the remotest
settlements, far from the railroads. Because it was a necessity,
traveling alone with a gentleman whom she hardly knew troubled her not
at all, unconventional though it was.
She took charge of the meetings, opening them herself with a short
sincere plea for both the woman and Negro suffrage amendments, and
then she introduced George Francis Train, who, no matter how late they
arrived or how tiring the day, had changed his wrinkled gray traveling
suit for his resplendent platform costume. The expectant crowd never
failed to respond with a gasp of surprise, and immediately the fun
began as Train with his wit and his mimicry entertained them, calling
for their support of woman suffrage and advocating as well some of his
own pet ideas, such as freeing Ireland from British oppression, paying
our national debt in greenbacks, establishing an eight-hour day in
industry, and even nominating himself for President.
Amused by his dramatics and often amazed at his conceit, Susan found
neither as objectionable as the outright falsehood circulated by
opponents of woman suffrage. As the days went by with their continued
hardships and increasing fatigue, she marveled at his unfailing
courteousness, his pluck, and good cheer, while he in turn admired her
courage, her endurance, and her zeal for her cause, and between them a
bond of respect and loyalty was built up which could not be destroyed
by the pressures of later years.
During the long hours on the road, he entertained her with the story
of his life and his travels, an adventure story of a poor boy who had
made good. Building clipper ships, introducing American goods in
Australia, traveling in India, China, and Russia, promoting street
railways in England, and now building the Union Pacific, he had a
wealth of information to impart.
Their views on the Negro differed sharply. Rating the whole race as
inferior and incapable of improvement, he naturally opposed
enfranchising Negroes before women. She, on the other hand, had always
regarded Negroes as her equals, and in campaigning with Train, she had
to make her choice between Negroes and women. She chose women, just as
her abolitionist friends in the East had chosen the Negro; and their
indifference and opposition to woman suffrage at this crucial time was
as unforgivable to her as was his valuation of the Negro to them. They
called him a Copperhead, remembering his southern wife and his hatred
of abolitionists, his vocal resistance to the draft, and his demands
for immediate unconditional peace. They ignored entirely his defense
of the Union in England during the Civil War when he publicly debated
with Englishmen who supported the Confederacy. They abused him in
their newspapers and he, not to be outdone, ridiculed them in his
speeches, shouting, "Where is Wendell Phillips, today? Lost caste
everywhere. Inconsistent in all things, cowardly in this. Where is
Horace Greeley in this Kansas war for liberty? Pitching the woman
suffrage idea out of the Convention and bailing out Jeff Davis. Where
is William Lloyd Garrison? Being patted on the shoulders by his
employers, our enemies abroad, for his faithful work in trying to
destroy our nation. Where is Henry Ward Beecher? Writing a story for
Bonner's Ledger...."[202]
They never forgave him this estimate of them, nor did they forgive
Susan for associating herself with him.
On one of the last days of the Kansas campaign, while she was driving
over the prairie with him, he suddenly asked her why the woman
suffrage people did not have a paper of their own. "Not lack of
brains, but lack of money," she tersely replied.[203]
They talked for a while about the good such a paper would do, about
the people who should edit and write for it, what name it should have.
Then he said simply, "I will give you the money."
Because a woman suffrage paper had been her cherished dream for so
many years, she did not dare regard this as more than a gallant
gesture soon to be forgotten; but to her amazement that very evening
she heard Train announce to his audience, "When Miss Anthony gets back
to New York, she is going to start a woman suffrage paper. Its name is
to be _The Revolution_: its motto, 'Men their rights, and nothing
more; women, their rights and nothing less.' This paper is to be a
weekly, price $2. per year; its editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Parker Pillsbury; its proprietor, Susan B. Anthony. Let everybody
subscribe for it!"
* * * * *
Election day brought both Susan and Mrs. Stanton back to Leavenworth,
to Daniel's home, to learn the verdict of the people of Kansas. As the
returns came in, their hope of seeing Kansas become the first woman
suffrage state quickly faded. Neither their amendment nor the Negroes'
polled enough votes for adoption. Their woman suffrage amendment,
however, received only 1,773 votes less than the Republican-sponsored
Negro amendment, and to have accomplished this in a hard-fought bitter
campaign against powerful opponents gave them confidence in themselves
and in their judgment of men and events. No longer need they depend
upon Wendell Phillips or other abolitionist leaders for guidance. From
now on they would chart their own course. This led, they believed, to
Washington, where they must gain support among members of Congress for
a federal woman suffrage amendment. Few, if any, Republicans would
help them, but already one Democrat had come forward. George Francis
Train had offered to pay their expenses if they would join him on a
lecture tour on their way East. To Susan, who had to raise every penny
spent in her work, this seemed like an answer to prayer, as did his
proposal to finance a woman suffrage paper for them.
By this time their abolitionist friends in the East were writing them
indignant letters blaming the defeat of the Negro amendment on George
Francis Train and warning them not to link woman suffrage with an
unbalanced charlatan. Even their devoted friends in Kansas, including
Governor Robinson, advised them against further association with
Train.
They did not make their decision lightly, nor was it easy to go
against the judgment of respected friends, but of this they were
confident--that with or without Train, they would estrange most of
their old friends if they campaigned for woman suffrage now. Without
him, their work, limited by lack of funds, would be ineffectual. With
his financial backing, they not only had the opportunity of spreading
their message in all the principal cities on their way back to New
York, but had the promise of a paper, now so desperately needed when
other news channels were closed to them. That Train was eccentric they
agreed, and they also admitted that possibly some of his financial
theories were unsound. They believed he was ahead of his time when he
advocated the eight-hour day and the abolition of standing armies; but
at least he looked forward, not backward. Susan had found him to be a
man of high principles. She had heard him "make speeches on woman's
suffrage that could be equalled only by John B. Gough,"[204] the
well-known temperance crusader. Train's radical ideas did not disturb
her. Her association with antislavery extremists prior to the Civil
War had made her impervious to the criticism and accusations of
conservatives. She was aware that on this proposed lecture tour Train
probably wanted to make use of her executive ability and of Mrs.
Stanton's popularity as a speaker; but on the other hand, his
generosity to them was beyond anything they had ever experienced.
For Susan there was only one choice--to work for woman suffrage with
the financial backing of Train. Mrs. Stanton agreed, and as she
expressed it, "I have always found that when we see eye to eye, we are
sure to be right, and when we pull together we are strong.... I take
my beloved Susan's judgment against the world."[205]
* * * * *
Traveling homeward with George Francis Train, Susan and Mrs. Stanton
spoke in Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland,
Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, Hartford, and other important cities where
they drew large crowds, which had never before listened to a
discussion of woman suffrage. Most of their old friends among the
suffragists and abolitionists shunned them, for they had been warned
against this folly by their colleagues in the East. The lively
meetings rated plenty of publicity, complimentary in the Democratic
papers but sarcastic and hostile in the Republican press. Usually
"Woman Suffrage" got the headlines, but sometimes it was "Woman
Suffrage and Greenbacks" or "Train for President." Handbills, the
printing of which Susan supervised, scattered Train's rhymes and
epigrams far and wide and carried a notice that the proceeds of all
meetings would be turned over to the woman's rights cause. Susan also
arranged for the printing of Train's widely distributed pamphlet, _The
Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, with this jingle, so
uncomplimentary to the eastern abolitionists, on its cover:
The Garrisons, Phillipses, Greeleys, and Beechers,
False prophets, false guides, false teachers and preachers,
Left Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Brown, and Stone,
To fight the Kansas battle alone;
While your Rosses, Pomeroys, and your Clarkes
Stood on the fence, or basely fled,
While woman was saved by a Copperhead.
Even more unforgivable than this to the abolitionist suffragists were
the back-page advertisements of a new woman-suffrage paper, _The
Revolution_, and of woman's rights tracts which could be purchased
from Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of the American Equal Rights
Association. That Susan would presume to line up this organization in
any way with George Francis Train aroused the indignation of Lucy
Stone, who felt the cause was being trailed in the dust. While Susan
and Mrs. Stanton traveled homeward, enjoying the comfort of the best
hotels and the applause of enthusiastic audiences, a coalition against
them was being formed in the East.
"All the old friends with scarce an exception are sure we are wrong,"
Susan wrote in her diary, January 1, 1868. "Only time can tell, but I
believe we are right and hence bound to succeed."[206]
FOOTNOTES:
[185] Ms., Petition, Jan. 9, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection
[186] Ms., note, 1893, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of
Congress.
[187] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 278; _History of Woman Suffrage_, II,
p. 284.
[188] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 279.
[189] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287. Petitions with 20,000
signatures were presented.
[190] _Ibid._, p. 285.
[191] Aug. 25, 1867, Alma Lutz Collection.
[192] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 287.
[193] _Ibid._, pp. 234-235, 239.
[194] _Ibid._, p. 252.
[195] A famous family of singers who enlivened woman's rights,
antislavery, and temperance meetings with their songs.
[196] July 9, 1867, Anthony Papers, Kansas State Historical Society,
Topeka, Kansas.
[197] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 284.
[198] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 242.
[199] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 287. George Francis Train on his own
initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the New York Constitutional
Convention.
[200] George Francis Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_
(Leavenworth, Kansas, 1867), p. 68.
[201] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 248-249.
[202] Train, _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, p. 40.
[203] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 290.
[204] Inscription by Susan B. Anthony on copy of Train's _The Great
Epigram Campaign of Kansas_, Library of Congress.
[205] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 293.
[206] _Ibid._, p. 295.
THE ONE WORD OF THE HOUR
"If we women fail to speak the _one word_ of the hour," Susan wrote
Anna E. Dickinson, "who shall do it? No man is able, for no man sees
or feels as we do. To whom God gives the word, to him or her he says,
'Go preach it.'"[207]
This is just what Susan aimed to do in her new paper, _The
Revolution_. It's name, she believed, expressed exactly the stirring
up of thought necessary to establish justice for all--for women,
Negroes, workingmen and-women, and all who were oppressed. Her two
editors, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, reliable friends
as well as vivid forceful writers, were completely in sympathy with
her own liberal ideas and could be counted on to crusade fearlessly
for every righteous cause. What did it matter if George Francis Train
wanted space in the paper to publish his views and for a financial
column, edited by David M. Melliss of the New York _World_? Brought up
on the antislavery platform where free speech was the watchword and
where all, even long-winded cranks, were allowed to express their
opinions, Susan willingly opened the pages of _The Revolution_ to
Train and to Melliss in return for financial backing.
When on January 8, 1868, the first issue of her paper came off the
press, her heart swelled with pride and satisfaction as she turned
over its pages, read its good editorials, and under the frank of
Democratic Congressman James Brooks of New York, sent out ten thousand
copies to all parts of the country.
_The Revolution_ promised to discuss not only subjects which were of
particular concern to her and to Elizabeth Stanton, such as "educated
suffrage, irrespective of sex or color," equal pay for women for equal
work, and practical education for girls as well as boys, but also the
eight-hour day, labor problems, and a new financial policy for
America. This new financial policy, the dream of George Francis Train,
advocated the purchase of American goods only; the encouragement of
immigration to rebuild the South and to settle the country from ocean
to ocean; the establishment of the French financing systems, the
Crédit Foncier and Crédit Mobilier, to develop our mines and
railroads; the issuing of greenbacks; and penny ocean postage "to
strengthen the brotherhood of Labor."
All in all it was not a program with wide appeal. Dazzled by the
opportunities for making money in this new undeveloped country, people
were in no mood to analyze the social order, or to consider the needs
of women or labor or the living standards of the masses. Unfamiliar
with the New York Stock Exchange, they found little to interest them
in the paper's financial department, while speculators and promoters,
such as Jay Gould and Jim Fiske, wanted no advice from the lone eagle,
George Francis Train, and resented Melliss's columns of Wall Street
gossip which often portrayed them in an unfavorable light. Nor did a
public-affairs paper edited and published by women carry much weight.
None of this, however, mattered much to Susan, who did not aim for a
popular paper but "to make public sentiment." It was her hope that
just as the _Liberator_ under William Lloyd Garrison had been "the
pillar of light and of fire to the slave's emancipation," so _The
Revolution_ would become "the guiding star to the enfranchisement of
women."[208]
* * * * *
Upon Susan fell the task of building up subscriptions, soliciting
advertisements, and getting copy to the printer. As her office in the
New York _World_ building, 37 Park Row, was on the fourth floor and
the printer was several blocks away on the fifth floor of a building
without an elevator, her job proved to be a test of physical
endurance. To this was added an ever-increasing financial burden, for
Train had sailed for England when the first number was issued, had
been arrested because of his Irish sympathies, and had spent months in
a Dublin jail, from which he sent them his thoughts on every
conceivable subject but no money for the paper. He had left $600 with
Susan and had instructed Melliss to make payments as needed, but this
soon became impossible, and she had to face the alarming fact that, if
the paper were to continue, she must raise the necessary money
herself. Because the circulation was small, it was hard to get
advertisers, particularly as she was firm in her determination to
accept only advertisements of products she could recommend. Patent
medicines and any questionable products were ruled out. Subscriptions
came in encouragingly but in no sense met the deficit which piled up
unrelentingly. Her goal was 100,000 subscribers.
She had gone to Washington at once to solicit subscriptions personally
from the President and members of Congress. Ben Wade of Ohio headed
the list of Senators who subscribed, and loyal as always to woman
suffrage, encouraged her to go ahead and push her cause. "It has got
to come," he added, "but Congress is too busy now to take it up."
Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts greeted her gruffly, telling her
that she and Mrs. Stanton had done more to block reconstruction in the
last two years than all others in the land, but he subscribed because
he wanted to know what they were up to. Although Senator Pomeroy was
"sore about Kansas" and her alliance with the Democrats, he
nevertheless subscribed, but Senator Sumner was not to be seen. The
first member of the House to put his name on her list was her
dependable understanding friend, George Julian of Indiana, and many
others followed his lead. For two hours she waited to see President
Johnson, in an anteroom "among the huge half-bushel-measure spittoons
and terrible filth ... where the smell of tobacco and whiskey was
powerful." When she finally reached him, he immediately refused her
request, explaining that he had a thousand such solicitations every
day. Not easily put off, she countered at once by remarking that he
had never before had such a request in his life. "You recognize, Mr.
Johnson," she continued, "that Mrs. Stanton and myself for two years
have boldly told the Republican party that they must give ballots to
women as well as to Negroes, and by means of _The Revolution_ we are
bound to drive the party to this logical conclusion or break it into a
thousand pieces as was the old Whig party, unless we get our rights."
This "brought him to his pocketbook," she triumphantly reported, and
in a bold hand he signed his name, Andrew Johnson, as much as to say,
"Anything to get rid of this woman and break the radical party."[209]
She was proud of her paper, proud of its typography which was far more
readable than the average news sheets of the day with their miserably
small print. The larger type and less crowded pages were inviting, the
articles stimulating.
Parker Pillsbury, covering Congressional and political developments
and the impeachment trial of President Johnson with which he was not
in sympathy, was fearless in his denunciations of politicians, their
ruthless intrigue and disregard of the public. During the turbulent
days when the impeachment trial was front-page news everywhere, _The
Revolution_ proclaimed it as a political maneuver of the Republicans
to confuse the people and divert their attention from more important
issues, such as corruption in government, high prices, taxation, and
the fabulous wealth being amassed by the few. This of course roused
the intense disapproval of Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and
Horace Greeley, all of whom regarded Johnson as a traitor and shouted
for impeachment. It ran counter to the views of Susan's brother
Daniel, who telegraphed Senator Ross of Kansas demanding his vote for
impeachment. Although no supporter of President Johnson, Susan was now
completely awake to the political manipulations of the radical
Republicans and what seemed to her their readiness to sacrifice the
good of the nation for the success of their party. She repudiated them
all--all but the rugged Ben Wade, always true to woman suffrage, and
the tall handsome Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, who, she believed,
stood for justice and equality.
Both of these men Susan regarded as far better qualified for the
Presidency than General Grant, who now was the obvious choice of the
Republicans for 1868. "Why go pell-mell for Grant," asked _The
Revolution_, "when all admit that he is unfit for the position? It is
not too late, if true men and women will do their duty, to make an
honest man like Ben Wade, President. Let us save the Nation. As to the
Republican party the sooner it is scattered to the four winds of
Heaven the better."[210] Later when Chase was out of the running among
Republicans and not averse to overtures from the Democrats, _The
Revolution_ urged him as the Democratic candidate with universal
suffrage as his slogan.
Susan demanded civil rights, suffrage, education, and farms for the
Negroes as did the Republicans, but she could not overlook the
political corruption which was flourishing under the military control
of the South, and she recognized that the Republicans' insistence on
Negro suffrage in the South did not stem solely from devotion to a
noble principle, but also from an overwhelming desire to insure
victory for their party in the coming election. These views were
reflected editorially in _The Revolution_, which, calling attention
to the fact that Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania had refused to enfranchise their Negroes, asked why Negro
suffrage should be forced on the South before it was accepted in the
North.
The Fourteenth Amendment was having hard sledding and _The Revolution_
repudiated it, calling instead for an amendment granting universal
suffrage, or in other words, suffrage for women and Negroes. _The
Revolution_ also discussed in editorials by Mrs. Stanton other
subjects of interest to women, such as marriage, divorce,
prostitution, and infanticide, all of which Susan agreed needed frank
thoughtful consideration, but which other papers handled with kid
gloves.
In still another unpopular field, that of labor and capital, _The
Revolution_ also pioneered fearlessly, asking for shorter hours and
lower wages for workers, as it pointed out labor's valuable
contribution to the development of the country. It also called
attention to the vicious contrasts in large cities, where many lived
in tumbledown tenements in abject poverty while the few, with more
wealth than they knew what to do with, spent lavishly and built
themselves palaces.
Sentiments such as these increased the indignation of Susan's critics,
but she gloried in the output of her two courageous editors just as
she had gloried in the evangelistic zeal of the antislavery crusaders.
Wisely, however, she added to her list of contributors some of the
popular women writers of the day, among them Alice and Phoebe Cary.
She ran a series of articles on women as farmers, machinists,
inventors, and dentists, secured news from foreign correspondents,
mostly from England, and published a Washington letter and woman's
rights news from the states. Believing that women should become
acquainted with the great women of the past, especially those who
fought for their freedom and advancement, she printed an article on
Frances Wright and serialized Mary Wollstonecraft's _A Vindication of
the Rights of Women_.
* * * * *
Eagerly Susan looked for favorable notices of her new paper in the
press. Much to her sorrow, Horace Greeley's New York _Tribune_
completely ignored its existence, as did her old standby, the
_Antislavery Standard_. The New York _Times_ ridiculed as usual
anything connected with woman's rights or woman suffrage. The New York
_Home Journal_ called it "plucky, keen, and wide awake, although some
of its ways are not at all to our taste." Theodore Tilton in the
Congregationalist paper, _The Independent_, commented in his usual
facetious style, which pinned him down neither to praise nor
unfriendliness, but Susan was grateful to read, "_The Revolution_ from
the start will arouse, thrill, edify, amuse, vex, and non-plus its
friends. But it will command attention: it will conquer a hearing."
Newspapers were generally friendly. "Miss Anthony's woman's rights
paper," declared the Troy (New York) _Times_, "is a realistic,
well-edited, instructive journal ... and its beautiful mechanical
execution renders its appearance very attractive." The Chicago
_Workingman's Advocate_ observed, "We have no doubt it will prove an
able ally of the labor reform movement." Nellie Hutchinson of the
Cincinnati _Commercial_, one of the few women journalists, described
sympathetically for her readers the neat comfortable _Revolution_
office and Susan with her "rare" but "genial smile," Susan, "the
determined--the invincible ... destined to be Vice-President or
Secretary of State...," adding, "The world is better for thee,
Susan."[211]
While new friends praised, old friends pleaded unsuccessfully with
Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury to free themselves from Susan's
harmful influence. William Lloyd Garrison wrote Susan of his regret
and astonishment that she and Mrs. Stanton had so taken leave of their
senses as to be infatuated with the Democratic party and to be
associated with that "crack-brained harlequin and semi-lunatic,"
George Francis Train. She published his letter in _The Revolution_
with an answer by Mrs. Stanton which not only pointed out how often
the Republicans had failed women but reminded Garrison how he had
welcomed into his antislavery ranks anyone and everyone who believed
in his ideas, "a motley crew it was." She recalled the label of
fanatic which had been attached to him, how he had been threatened and
pelted with rotten eggs for expressing his unpopular ideas and for
burning the Constitution which he declared sanctioned slavery. With
such a background, she told him, he should be able to recognize her
right and Susan's to judge all parties and all men on what they did
for woman suffrage.[212]
None of these arguments made any impression upon Garrison, or upon
Lucy Stone, whose bitter criticism and distrust of Susan's motives
wounded Susan deeply. Only a few of her old friends seemed able to
understand what she was trying to do, among them Martha C. Wright,
who, at first critical of her association with Train, now wrote of
_The Revolution_, "Its vigorous pages are what we need. Count on me
now and ever as your true and unswerving friend."[213]
[Illustration: Anna E. Dickinson]
Another bright spot was Susan's friendship with Anna E. Dickinson,
with whom she carried on a lively correspondence, scratching oft
hurried notes to her on the backs of old envelopes or any odd scraps
of paper that came to hand. Whenever Anna was in New York, she usually
burst into the _Revolution_ office, showered Susan with kisses, and
carried on such an animated conversation about her experiences that
the whole office force was spellbound, admiring at the same time her
stylish costume and jaunty velvet cap with its white feather, very
becoming on her short black curls.
Repeatedly Susan urged Anna to stay with her in her "plain quarters"
at 44 Bond Street or in her "nice hall bedroom" at 116 East
Twenty-third Street. That Anna could have risen out of the hardships
of her girlhood to such popularity as a lecturer and to such
financial success was to Susan like a fairy tale come true. Scarcely
past twenty, Anna not only had moved vast audiences to tears, but was
sought after by the Republicans as one of their most popular campaign
speakers and had addressed Congress with President Lincoln in
attendance. Susan had been sadly disappointed that Anna had not seen
her way clear to speak a strong word for women in the Kansas campaign,
but she hoped that this vivid talented young woman would prove to be
"the evangel" who would lead women "into the kingdom of political and
civil rights." It never occurred to her that she herself might even
now be that "evangel."[214]
* * * * *
By this time Susan had been called on the carpet by some of the
officers of the American Equal Rights Association because she had used
the Association's office as a base for business connected with the
Train lecture tour and the establishment of _The Revolution_. She was
also accused of spending the funds of the Association for her own
projects and to advertise Train. Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and
Stephen Foster were particularly suspicious of her. Her accounts were
checked and rechecked by them and found in good order. However, at the
annual meeting of the Association in May 1868, Henry Blackwell again
brought the matter up. Deeply hurt by his public accusation, she once
more carefully explained that because there had been no funds except
those which came out of her own pocket or had been raised by her, she
had felt free to spend them as she thought best. This obviously
satisfied the majority, many of whom expressed appreciation of her
year of hard work for the cause. She later wrote Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, "Even if not one old friend had seemed to have remembered
the past and it had been swallowed up, overshadowed by the Train
cloud, I should still have rejoiced that I have done the work--for no
_human_ prejudice or power can rob me of the joy, the compensation, I
have stored up therefrom. That it is wholly spiritual, I need but tell
you that this day, I have not two hundred dollars more than I had the
day I entered upon the public work of woman's rights and
antislavery."[215]
What troubled her most at these meetings was not the animosity
directed against her by Henry Blackwell and Lucy Stone, but the
assertion, made by Frederick Douglass and agreed to by all the men
present, that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman suffrage. When
Lucy Stone came to the defense of woman suffrage in a speech whose
content and eloquence Susan thought surpassed that of "any other
mortal woman speaker," she was willing to forgive Lucy anything, and
wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "I want you to _know_ that it is
impossible for me to lay a straw in the way of anyone who _personally
wrongs me_, if only that one will work nobly in the _cause_ in their
own way and time. They may try to hinder my success but I _never_
theirs."
Realizing that it would be futile for her to spend any more time
trying to persuade the American Equal Rights Association to help her
with her woman suffrage campaign, she now formed a small committee of
her own, headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It included Elizabeth Smith
Miller, the liberal wealthy daughter of Gerrit Smith, Abby Hopper
Gibbons, the Quaker philanthropist and social worker; and Mary Cheney
Greeley, the wife of Horace Greeley, who, in spite of the fact that
her husband now opposed woman suffrage, continued to take her stand
for it. This committee, with _The Revolution_ as its mouthpiece, was
soon acting as a clearing house for woman suffrage organizations
throughout the country and called itself the Woman's Suffrage
Association of America.
To the national Republican convention in Chicago which nominated
General Grant for President, these women sent a carefully worded
memorial asking that the rights of women be recognized in the
reconstruction. It was ignored. Thereupon Susan turned to the
Democrats, attending with Mrs. Stanton a preconvention rally in New
York, addressed by Governor Horatio Seymour. Given seats of honor on
the platform, they attracted considerable attention and the New York
_Sun_ commented editorially that this honor conferred upon them by the
Democrats not only committed Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to Governor
Seymour's views but also committed the Democrats to incorporate a
woman suffrage plank in their platform.
This was too much for some of the officers of the American Equal
Rights Association, whose executive committee now adopted a sarcastic
resolution proposing that Susan attend the national Democratic
convention and prove her confidence in the Democrats by securing a
plank in their platform.
Ignoring the unfriendly implications of this resolution and the
ridicule heaped upon her by the New York City papers, Susan made plans
to attend the Democratic convention, which for the first time since
the war was bringing northern and southern Democrats together for the
dedication of their new, imposing headquarters, Tammany Hall, and
which was also attracting many liberals who, disgusted by the
corruption of the Republicans, were looking for a "new departure" from
the Democrats. To the amazement of the delegates, Susan with Mrs.
Stanton and several other women walked into the convention when it was
well under way and sent a memorial up to Governor Seymour who was
presiding. He received it graciously, announcing that he held in his
hand a memorial of the women of the United States signed by Susan B.
Anthony, and then turned it over to the secretary to be read while the
audience shouted and cheered. The sonorous passages demanding the
enfranchisement of women rang out through and above the bedlam: "We
appeal to you because ... you have been the party heretofore to extend
the suffrage. It was the Democratic party that fought most valiantly
for the removal of the 'property qualification' from all white men and
thereby placed the poorest ditch digger on a political level with the
proudest millionaire.... And now you have an opportunity to confer a
similar boon on the women of the country and thus ... perpetuate your
political power for decades to come...."[216]
To hear these words read in a national political convention was to
Susan worth any ridicule she might be forced to endure. She was not
allowed to speak to the convention as she had requested, and shouts
and jeers continued as her memorial was hurriedly referred to the
Resolutions committee where it could be conveniently overlooked.
The Republican press reported the incident with sarcasm and animosity,
the _Tribune_ deeply wounding her: "Miss Susan B. Anthony has our
sincere pity. She has been an ardent suitor of democracy, and they
rejected her overtures yesterday with screams of laughter."[217]
The Democrats' nomination of Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair was as
reactionary and unpromising of a "new departure" as was the choice of
General Grant and Schuyler Colfax by the Republicans. Thereupon _The
Revolution_ called for a new party, a people's party which would be
sincerely devoted to the welfare of all the people. So strongly did
Susan feel about this that in one of her few signed editorials she
declared, "Both the great political parties pretending to save the
country are only endeavoring to save themselves.... In their hands
humanity has no hope.... The sooner their power is broken as parties
the better.... _The Revolution_ calls for construction, not
reconstruction.... Who will aid us in our grand enterprise of a
nation's salvation?"[218]
To "darling Anna" she wrote more specifically, "Both parties are owned
body and soul by the _Gold Gamblers_ of the Nation--and so far as the
honest working men and women of the country are concerned, it matters
very little which succeeds. Oh that the Gods would inspire men of
influence and money to move for a third party--universal suffrage and
anti-monopolist of land and gold."[219]
FOOTNOTES:
[207] July 6, 1866, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
[208] _The Revolution_, I, Jan. 8, 1868, pp. 1-12.
[209] _Ibid._
[210] _Ibid._, April 23, June 25, 1868, pp. 49, 392.
[211] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 296-297, 302-303; _The Revolution_, I,
Jan. 22, 1868, p. 34.
[212] _The Revolution_, I, Jan. 29, 1868, p. 243.
[213] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 301.
[214] March 18, May 4, 1868, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of
Congress. Susan had a room at the Stantons until they prepared to move
to their new home in Tenafly, New Jersey.
[215] Aug. 20, 1868, Higginson Papers, Boston Public Library.
[216] _The Revolution_, II, July 9, 1868, p. 1.
[217] _Ibid._, July 16, 1868, p. 17.
[218] _Ibid._, Aug. 6, 1868, p. 72.
[219] July 10, 1868, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
WORK, WAGES, AND THE BALLOT
In her zeal to promote the welfare of all the people, Susan now turned
her attention to the workingwomen of New York, whose low wages, long
hours, and unhealthy working and living conditions had troubled her
for a long time. Women were being forced out of the home into the
factory by a changing and expanding economy, and at last were being
paid for their work. However, the women she met on the streets of New
York, hurrying to work at dawn and returning late at night, weary,
pale, and shabbily dressed, had none of the confidence of the
economically independent. They had merely exchanged one form of
slavery for another. She saw the ballot as their most powerful ally,
and as she told the factory girls of Cohoes, New York, they could
compel their employers to grant them a ten-hour day, equal opportunity
for advancement, and equal pay, the moment they held the ballot in
their hands.[220]
As yet labor unions were few and short-lived. The women tailors of New
York had formed a union as early as 1825, but it had not survived, and
later attempts to form women's unions had rarely been successful. A
few men's unions had weathered the years, but they had not enrolled
women, fearing their competition. Women were welcomed only by the
National Labor Union, established in Baltimore in 1866 for the purpose
of federating all unions.
When the National Labor Union Congress met in New York in September
1868, Susan saw an opportunity for women to take part, and in
preparation she called a group of workingwomen together in _The
Revolution_ office to form a Workingwomen's Association which she
hoped would eventually represent all of the trades. At this meeting,
the majority were from the printing trade, typesetters operating the
newly invented typesetting machines, press feeders, bookbinders, and
clerks, in whom she had become interested through her venture in
publishing. She wanted them to call their organization the
Workingwomen's Suffrage Association, but they refused, because they
feared the public's disapproval of woman suffrage and were convinced
they should not seek political rights until they had improved their
working conditions. She could not make them see that they were
putting the cart before the horse. They did, however, form
Workingwomen's Association No. 1, electing her their delegate to the
National Labor Congress.
Next she called a meeting of the women in the sewing trades, and with
the help of men from the National Labor Union, persuaded a hundred of
them to form Workingwomen's Association No. 2. Most of these women
were seamstresses making men's shirts, women's coats, vests, lace
collars, hoop skirts, corsets, fur garments, and straw hats, but also
represented were women from the umbrella, parasol, and paper collar
industry, metal burnishers, and saleswomen. Most of them were young
girls who worked from ten to fourteen hours a day, from six in the
morning until eight at night, and earned from $4 to $8 a week.
"You must not work for these starving prices any longer ...," Susan
told them. "Have a spirit of independence among you, 'a wholesome
discontent,' as Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, and you will get better
wages for yourselves. Get together and discuss, and meet again and
again.... I will come and talk to you...."[221] They elected Mrs. Mary
Kellogg Putnam to represent them at the National Labor Congress.
With Mrs. Putnam and Kate Mullaney, the able president of the Collar
Laundry Union of Troy, New York, with Mary A. MacDonald of the Women's
Protective Labor Union of Mt. Vernon, New York, and Mrs. Stanton,
representing the Woman's Suffrage Association of America, Susan
knocked at the door of the National Labor Congress. All were welcomed
but Mrs. Stanton, who represented a woman suffrage organization and
whose acceptance the rank and file feared might indicate to the public
that the Labor Congress endorsed votes for women.
The women had a friend in William H. Sylvis of the Iron Molders'
Union, who was the driving force behind the National Labor Congress,
and he made it clear at once that he welcomed Mrs. Stanton and
everyone else who believed in his cause. So strong, however, was the
opposition to woman suffrage among union men that eighteen threatened
to resign if Mrs. Stanton were admitted as a delegate. The debate
continued, giving Susan an opportunity to explain why the ballot was
important to workingwomen. "It is the power of the ballot," she
declared, "that makes men successful in their strikes."[222] She
recommended that both men and women be enrolled in unions, pointing
out that had this been done, women typesetters would not have replaced
men at lower wages in the recent strike of printers on the New York
_World_. Finally a resolution was adopted, making it clear that Mrs.
Stanton's acceptance in no way committed the National Labor Congress
to her "peculiar ideas" or to "Female Suffrage."
A committee on female labor was then appointed with Susan as one of
its members. At once she tried to show the committee how the vote
would help women in their struggle for higher wages. She had at hand a
perfect example in the unsuccessful strike of Kate Mullaney's strong,
well-organized union of 500 collar laundry workers in Troy, New York.
Aware that Kate blamed their defeat on the ruthless newspaper
campaign, inspired and paid for by employers, Susan asked her, "If you
had been 500 carpenters or 500 masons, do you not think you would have
succeeded?"[223]
"Certainly," Kate Mullaney replied, adding that the striking
bricklayers had won everything they demanded. Susan then reminded her
that because the bricklayers were voters, newspapers respected them
and would hesitate to arouse their displeasure, realizing that in the
next election they would need the votes of all union men for their
candidates. "If you collar women had been voters," she told them, "you
too would have held the balance of political power in that little city
of Troy."
Susan convinced the committee on female labor, and in their strong
report to the convention they urged women "to secure the ballot" as
well as "to learn the trades, engage in business, join labor unions or
form protective unions of their own, ... and use every other honorable
means to persuade or force employers to do justice to women by paying
them equal wages for equal work." These women also called upon the
National Labor Congress to aid the organization of women's unions, to
demand the eight-hour day for women as well as men, and to ask
Congress and state legislatures to pass laws providing equal pay for
women in government employ. The phrase, "to secure the ballot," was
quickly challenged by some of the men and had to be deleted before the
report was accepted; but this setback was as nothing to Susan in
comparison with the friends she had made for woman suffrage among
prominent labor leaders and with the fact that a woman, Kate Mullaney
of Troy, had been chosen assistant secretary of the National Labor
Union and its national organizer of women.[224]
The National Labor Union Congress won high praise in _The Revolution_
as laying the foundation of the new political party of America which
would be triumphant in 1872. "The producers, the working-men, the
women, the Negroes," _The Revolution_ declared, "are destined to form
a triple power that shall speedily wrest the sceptre of government
from the non-producers, the land monopolists, the bondholders, and the
politicians."[225]
* * * * *
One of the most encouraging signs at this time was the friendliness of
the New York _World_, whose reporters covered the meetings of the
Workingwomen's Association with sympathy, arousing much local
interest. Reprinting these reports and supplementing them, _The
Revolution_ carried their import farther afield, bringing to the
attention of many the wisdom and justice of equal pay for equal work,
and the need to organize workingwomen and to provide training and
trade schools for them. _The Revolution_ continually spurred women on
to improve themselves, to learn new skills, and actually to do equal
work if they expected equal pay.
When reports reached Susan that women in the printing trade were
afraid of manual labor, of getting their hands and fingers dirty, and
of lifting heavy galleys, she quickly let them know that she had no
patience with this. "Those who stay at home," she told them, "have to
wash kettles and lift wash tubs and black stoves until their hands are
blackened and hardened. In this spirit, you must go to work on your
cases of type. Are these cases heavier than a wash tub filled with
water and clothes, or the old cheese tubs?... The trouble is either
that girls are not educated to have physical strength or else they do
not like to use it. If a union of women is to succeed, it must be
composed of strength, nerve, courage, and persistence, with no fear of
dirtying their white fingers, but with a determination that when they
go into an office they would go through all that was required of them
and demand just as high wages as the men....
"Make up your mind," she continued, "to take the 'lean' with the
'fat,' and be early and late at the case precisely as the men are. I
do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in
value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand
that you are in their service as workers, not as women."[226]
Workingwomen's associations now existed in Boston, St. Louis, Chicago,
San Francisco and other cities, encouraged and aroused by the efforts
at organization in New York. These associations occasionally exchanged
ideas, and news of all of them was published in _The Revolution_. The
groups in Boston and in the outlying textile mills were particularly
active, and Susan brought to her next suffrage convention in
Washington in 1870 Jennie Collins of Lowell who was ably leading a
strike against a cut in wages. The newspapers, too, began to notice
workingwomen, publishing articles about their working and living
conditions.
Trying to amalgamate the various groups in New York, Susan now formed
a Workingwomen's Central Association, of which she was elected
president. To its meetings she brought interesting speakers and
practical reports on wages, hours, and working conditions. She herself
picked up a great deal of useful information in her daily round as she
talked with this one and that one. On her walks to and from work, in
all kinds of weather, she met poorly clad women carrying sacks and
baskets in which they collected rags, scraps of paper, bones, old
shoes, and anything worth rescuing from "garbage boxes." With
friendliness and good cheer, she greeted these ragpickers, sometimes
stopping to talk with them about their work, and through her interest
brought several into the Workingwomen's Association. Looking forward
to surveys on all women's occupations, she started out by appointing a
committee to investigate the ragpickers, many of whom lived in
tumbledown slab shanties on the rocky land which is now a part of
Central Park.
This investigation revealed that more than half of the 1200 ragpickers
were women and that it was the one occupation in which women had equal
opportunity with men and received equal compensation for their day's
work. Average earnings ranged from forty cents a day to ten dollars a
week. The report, highly sentimental in the light of today's
scientific approach, was a promising beginning, a survey made by women
themselves in their own interest--the forerunner of the reports of the
Labor Department's Women's Bureau.
Cooperatives appealed to Susan as they did to many labor leaders as
the best means of freeing labor. When the Sewing Machine Operators
Union tried to establish a shop where their members could share the
profits of their labor, she did her best to help them, hoping to see
them gain economic independence in a light airy clean shop where
wealthy women, eager to help their sisters, would patronize them.
However, the wealthy women to whom she appealed to finance this
project did not respond, looking upon a cooperative as a first step
toward socialism and a threat to their own profits. She was able,
however, to arouse a glimmer of interest among the members of the
newly formed literary club, Sorosis, in the problems of working women.
She had the satisfaction of seeing women typesetters form their own
union in 1869, and this was, according to the Albany _Daily
Knickerbocker_, "the first move of the kind ever made in the country
by any class of labor, to place woman on a par with man as regards
standing, intelligence, and manual ability."[227] _The Revolution_
encouraged this union by printing notices of its meetings and urging
all women compositors to join. In signed articles, Susan pointed out
how wages had improved since the union was organized. "A little more
Union, girls," she said, "and soon all employers will come up to 45
cents, the price paid men.... So join the Union, girls, and together
say _Equal Pay for Equal Work_."[228]
Eager to bring more women into the printing trade where wages were
higher, she tried in every possible way to establish trade schools for
them. She looked forward to a printing business run entirely by women,
giving employment to hundreds. So obsessed was she by the idea of a
trade school for women compositors that when printers in New York went
on a strike, she saw an opportunity for women to take their places and
appealed by letter and in person to a group of employers "to
contribute liberally for the purpose of enabling us to establish a
training school for girls in the art of typesetting." Explaining that
hundreds of young women, now stitching at starvation wages, were ready
and eager to learn the trade, she added, "Give us the means and we
will soon give you competent women compositors."[229] Having learned
by experience that men always kept women out of their field of labor
unless forced by circumstances to admit them, she also urged young
women to take the places of striking typesetters at whatever wage
they could get.
It never occurred to her in her eagerness to bring women into a new
occupation that she might be breaking the strike. She saw only women's
opportunity to prove to employers that they were able to do the work
and to show the Typographical Union that they should admit women as
members. Labor men, however, soon let her know how much they
disapproved of her strategy. She tried to explain her motives to them,
that she was trying to fit these women to earn equal wages with men.
She reminded these men of how hard it was for women to get into the
printing trade and how they had refused to admit women to their union;
and she called their attention to her whole-hearted support of the
lately formed Women's Typographical Union.
Some of the men were never convinced and never forgot this misstep,
bringing it up at the National Labor Union Congress in Philadelphia in
1869, which Susan attended as a delegate of the New York
Workingwomen's Association. Here she found herself facing an
unfriendly group without the support of William H. Sylvis, who had
recently died. For three days they debated her eligibility as a
delegate, first expressing fear that her admission would commit the
Labor Congress to woman suffrage. When she won 55 votes against 52 in
opposition, Typographical Union No. 6 of New York brought accusations
against her which aroused suspicion in the minds of many union
members. They pointed out that she belonged to no union, and they
called her an enemy of labor because she had encouraged women to take
men's jobs during the printers' strike. They could not or would not
understand that in urging women to take men's jobs, she had been
fighting for women just as they fought for their union, and they
completely overlooked how continuously and effectively she had
supported the Women's Typographical Union. Her _Revolution_, they
claimed, was printed at less than union rates in a "rat office" and
her explanation was not satisfactory. That it was printed on contract
outside her office was no answer to satisfy union men who could not
realize on what a scant margin her paper operated or how gladly she
would have set up a union shop had the funds been available.
Not only were these accusations repeated again and again, they were
also carried far and wide by the press, with the result that Susan was
not only kept out of the Labor Congress but was even sharply
criticized by some members of her Workingwomen's Association.
"As to the charges which were made by Typographical Union No. 6," she
reported to this Association, "no one believes them; and I don't think
they are worth answering. I admit that this Workingwomen's Association
is not a _trade_ organization; and while I join heart and hand with
the working people in their trades unions, and in everything else by
which they can protect themselves against the oppression of
capitalists and employers, I say that this organization of ours is
more upon the broad platform of philosophizing on the general
questions of labor, and to discuss what can be done to ameliorate the
condition of working people generally."[230]
She was not without friends in the ranks of labor, however, the New
England delegates giving her their support. The New York _World_, very
fair in its coverage of the heated debates, declared, "Of her devotion
to the cause of workingwomen, there can be no question."[231]
* * * * *
The activities of the Workingwomen's Association had by this time
begun to irk employers, and some of them threatened instant dismissal
of any employee who reported her wages or hours to these meddling
women. Fear of losing their jobs now hung over many while others were
forbidden by their fathers, husbands, and brothers to have anything to
do with strong-minded Susan B. Anthony.
To counteract this disintegrating influence and to bring all classes
of women together in their fight for equal rights, Susan persuaded the
popular lecturer, Anna E. Dickinson, to speak for the Workingwomen's
Association at Cooper Union. This, however, only added fuel to the
flames, for Anna, in an emotional speech, "A Struggle for Life," told
the tragic story of Hester Vaughn, a workingwoman who had been accused
of murdering her illegitimate child. Found in a critical condition
with her dead baby beside her, Hester Vaughn had been charged with
infanticide, tried without proper defense, and convicted by a
prejudiced court, although there was no proof that she had
deliberately killed her child. At Susan's instigation, the
Workingwomen's Association sent a woman physician, Dr. Clemence
Lozier, and the well-known author, Eleanor Kirk, to Philadelphia to
investigate the case. Both were convinced of Hester Vaughn's
innocence.
With the aid of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's courageous editorials in _The
Revolution_, Susan made such an issue of the conviction of Hester
Vaughn that many newspapers accused her of obstructing justice and
advocating free love, and this provided a moral weapon for her critics
to use in their fight against the growing independence of women.
Eventually her efforts and those of her colleagues won a pardon for
Hester Vaughn. At the same time the publicity given this case served
to educate women on a subject heretofore taboo, showing them that
poverty and a double standard of morals made victims of young women
like Hester Vaughn. Susan also made use of this case to point out the
need for women jurors to insure an unprejudiced trial. She even
suggested that Columbia University Law School open its doors to women
so that a few of them might be able to understand their rights under
the law and bring aid to their less fortunate sisters.
* * * * *
Under Susan's guidance, the Workingwomen's Association continued to
hold meetings as long as she remained in New York. In its limited way,
it carried on much-needed educational work, building up self-respect
and confidence among workingwomen, stirring up "a wholesome
discontent," and preparing the way for women's unions. The public
responded. At Cooper Union, telegraphy courses were opened to women;
the New York Business School, at Susan's instigation, offered young
women scholarships in bookkeeping; and there were repeated requests
for the enrollment of women in the College of New York.
Living in the heart of this rapidly growing, sprawling city, Susan saw
much to distress her and pondered over the disturbing social
conditions, looking for a way to relieve poverty and wipe out crime
and corruption. She saw luxury, extravagance, and success for the few,
while half of the population lived in the slums in dilapidated houses
and in damp cellars, often four or five to a room. Immigrants,
continually pouring in from Europe, overtaxed the already inadequate
housing, and unfamiliar with our language and customs, were the easy
prey of corrupt politicians. Many were homeless, sleeping in the
streets and parks until the rain or cold drove them into police
stations for warmth and shelter. Susan longed to bring order and
cleanliness, good homes and good government to this overcrowded city,
and again and again she came to the conclusion that votes for women,
which meant a voice in the government, would be the most potent factor
for reform.
Yet she did not close her mind to other avenues of reform. Seeing
reflected in the life of the city the excesses, the injustice, and the
unsoundness of laissez-faire capitalism, she spoke out fearlessly in
_The Revolution_ against its abuses, such as the fortunes made out of
the low wages and long hours of labor, or the Wall Street speculation
to corner the gold market, or the efforts to take over the public
lands of the West through grants to the transcontinental railroads.
Her active mind also sought a solution of the complicated currency
problem. In fact there was no public question which she hesitated to
approach, to think out or attempt to solve. She did not keep her
struggle for woman suffrage aloof from the pressing problems of the
day. Instead she kept it abreast of the times, keenly alive to social,
political, and economic issues, and involved in current public
affairs.
FOOTNOTES:
[220] Feb. 18, 1868, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
[221] _The Revolution_, II, Sept. 24, 1868, p. 198. L. A. Hines of
Cincinnati, publisher of Hine's Quarterly, assisted Miss Anthony in
organizing women in the sewing trades.
[222] _Ibid._, p. 204.
[223] Harper, _Anthony_, II, pp. 999-1000.
[224] _The Revolution_, II, Oct. 1, 1868, p. 204.
[225] _Ibid._, p. 200.
[226] _Ibid._, Oct. 8, 1868, p. 214. A Woman's Exchange was also
initiated by the Workingwomen's Association.
[227] _Ibid._, June 24, 1869, p. 394.
[228] _Ibid._, March 18, 1869, p. 173.
[229] _Ibid._, Feb. 4, 1869, p. 73.
[230] _Ibid._, Sept. 9, 1869, p. 154.
[231] _Ibid._, Aug. 26, 1869, p. 120.
THE INADEQUATE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
The Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified in July 1868, but
Republicans found it inadequate because it did not specifically
enfranchise Negroes. More than ever convinced that they needed the
Negro vote in order to continue in power, they prepared to supplement
it by a Fifteenth Amendment, which Susan hoped would be drafted to
enfranchise women as well as Negroes. Immediately through her Woman's
Suffrage Association of America, she petitioned Congress to make no
distinction between men and women in any amendment extending or
regulating suffrage.
She and Elizabeth Stanton also persuaded their good friends, Senator
Pomeroy of Kansas and Congressman Julian of Indiana, to introduce in
December 1868 resolutions providing that suffrage be based on
citizenship, be regulated by Congress, and that all citizens, native
or naturalized, enjoy this right without distinction of race, color,
or sex. Before the end of the month, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts
and Congressman Julian had introduced other resolutions to enfranchise
women in the District of Columbia and in the territories. Even the New
York _Herald_ could see no reason why "the experiment" of woman
suffrage should not be tried in the District of Columbia.[232]
To focus attention on woman suffrage at this crucial time, Susan, in
January 1869, called together the first woman suffrage convention ever
held in Washington. No only did it attract women from as far west as
Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, but Senator Pomeroy lent it importance
by his opening speech, and through the detailed and respectful
reporting of the New York _World_ and of Grace Greenwood of the
Philadelphia _Press_ it received nationwide notice.
Congress, however, gave little heed to women's demands. "The
experiment" of woman suffrage in the District of Columbia was not
tried and nothing came of the resolutions for universal suffrage
introduced by Pomeroy, Julian, and Wilson. In spite of all Susan's
efforts to have the word "sex" added to the Fifteenth Amendment, she
soon faced the bitter disappointment of seeing a version ignoring
women submitted to the states for ratification: "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."
The blatant omission of the word "sex" forced Susan and Mrs. Stanton
to initiate an amendment of their own, a Sixteenth Amendment, and
again Congressman Julian came to their aid, although he too regarded
Negro suffrage as more "immediately important and absorbing"[233] than
suffrage for women. On March 15, 1869, at one of the first sessions of
the newly elected Congress, he introduced an amendment to the
Constitution, providing that the right of suffrage be based on
citizenship without any distinction or discrimination because of sex.
This was the first federal woman suffrage amendment ever proposed in
Congress.
Opportunity to campaign for this amendment was now offered Susan and
Elizabeth Stanton as they addressed a series of conventions in Ohio,
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri. Press notices were good, a
Milwaukee paper describing Susan as "an earnest enthusiastic, fiery
woman--ready, apt, witty and what a politician would call sharp ...
radical in the strongest sense," making "radical everything she
touches."[234] She found woman suffrage sentiment growing by leaps and
bounds in the West and western men ready to support a federal woman
suffrage amendment.
* * * * *
With a lighter heart than she had had in many a day and with new
subscriptions to _The Revolution_, Susan returned to New York. She
moved the _Revolution_ office to the first floor of the Women's
Bureau, a large four-story brownstone house at 49 East Twenty-third
Street, near Fifth Avenue, which had been purchased by a wealthy New
Yorker, Mrs. Elizabeth Phelps, who looked forward to establishing a
center where women's organizations could meet and where any woman
interested in the advancement of her sex would find encouragement and
inspiration. Susan's hopes were high for the Women's Bureau, and in
this most respectable, fashionable, and even elegant setting, she
expected her _Revolution_, in spite of its inflammable name, to live
down its turbulent past and win new friends and subscribers.[235]
She made one last effort to resuscitate the American Equal Rights
Association, writing personal letters to old friends, urging that past
differences be forgotten and that all rededicate themselves to
establishing universal suffrage by means of the Sixteenth Amendment.
She was optimistic as she prepared for a convention in New York,
particularly as one obstacle to unity had been removed. George Francis
Train had voluntarily severed all connections with _The Revolution_ to
devote himself to freeing Ireland. She soon found, however, that the
misunderstandings between her and her old antislavery friends were far
deeper than George Francis Train, although he would for a long time be
blamed for them. The Fifteenth Amendment was still a bone of
contention and _The Revolution's_ continued editorials against it
widened the breach.
The fireworks were set off in the convention of the American Equal
Rights Association by Stephen S. Foster, who objected to the
nomination of Susan and Mrs. Stanton as officers of the Association
because they had in his opinion repudiated its principles. When asked
to explain further, he replied that not only had they published a
paper advocating educated suffrage while the Association stood for
universal suffrage but they had shown themselves unfit by
collaboration with George Francis Train who ridiculed Negroes and
opposed their enfranchisement.
Trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, Mary Livermore, the popular
new delegate from Chicago, asked whether it was quite fair to bring up
George Francis Train when he had retired from _The Revolution_.
To this Stephen Foster sternly replied, "If _The Revolution_ which has
so often endorsed George Francis Train will repudiate him because of
his course in respect to the Negro's rights, I have nothing further to
say. But they do not repudiate him. He goes out; but they do not cast
him out."[236]
"Of course we do not," Susan instantly protested.
Mr. Foster then objected to the way Susan had spent the funds of the
Association, accusing her of failing to keep adequate accounts.
This she emphatically denied, explaining that she had presented a full
accounting to the trust fund committee, that it had been audited, and
she had been voted $1,000 to repay her for the amount she had
personally advanced for the work.
Unwilling to accept her explanation and calling it unreliable, he
continued his complaints until interrupted by Henry Blackwell who
corroborated Susan's statement, adding that she had refused the $1,000
due her because of the dissatisfaction expressed over her management.
Declaring himself completely satisfied with the settlement and
confident of the purity of Susan's motives even if some of her
expenditures were unwise, Henry Blackwell continued, "I will agree
that many unwise things have been written in _The Revolution_ by a
gentleman who furnished part of the means by which the paper has been
carried on. But that gentleman has withdrawn, and you, who know the
real opinions of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton on the question of
Negro suffrage, do not believe that they mean to create antagonism
between the Negro and woman question...."
To Susan's great relief Henry Blackwell's explanation satisfied the
delegates, who gave her and Mrs. Stanton a vote of confidence. Not so
easily healed, however, were the wounds left by the accusations of
mismanagement and dishonesty.
The atmosphere was still tense, for differences of opinion on policy
remained. Most of the old reliable workers stood unequivocally for the
Fifteenth Amendment, which they regarded as the crowning achievement
of the antislavery movement, and they heartily disapproved of forcing
the issue of woman suffrage on Congress and the people at this time.
Although they had been deeply moved by the suffering of Negro women
under slavery and had used this as a telling argument for
emancipation, they now gave no thought to Negro women, who, even more
than Negro men, needed the vote to safeguard their rights. Believing
with the Republicans that one reform at a time was all they could
expect, they did not want to hear one word about woman suffrage or a
Sixteenth Amendment until male Negroes were safely enfranchised by the
Fifteenth Amendment.
Offering a resolution endorsing the Fifteenth Amendment, Frederick
Douglass quoted Julia Ward Howe as saying, "I am willing that the
Negro shall get the ballot before me," and he added, "I cannot see how
anyone can pretend that there is the same urgency in giving the ballot
to women as to the Negro."
Quick as a flash, Susan was on her feet, challenging his statements,
and as the dauntless champion of women debated the question with the
dark-skinned fiery Negro, the friendship and warm affection built up
between them over the years occasionally shone through the sharp words
they spoke to each other.
"The old antislavery school says that women must stand back," declared
Susan, "that they must wait until male Negroes are voters. But we say,
if you will not give the whole loaf of justice to an entire people,
give it to the most intelligent first."
Here she was greeted with applause and continued, "If intelligence,
justice, and morality are to be placed in the government, then let the
question of woman be brought up first and that of the Negro last....
Mr. Douglass talks about the wrongs of the Negro, how he is hunted
down ..., but with all the wrongs and outrages that he today suffers,
he would not exchange his sex and take the place of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton."
"I want to know," shouted Frederick Douglass, "if granting you the
right of suffrage will change the nature of our sexes?"
"It will change the pecuniary position of woman," Susan retorted
before the shouts of laughter had died down. "She will not be
compelled to take hold of only such employments as man chooses for
her."
Lucy Stone, who so often in her youth had pleaded with Susan and
Frederick Douglass for both the Negro and women, now entered the
argument. She had matured, but her voice had lost none of its
conviction or its power to sway an audience. Disagreeing with
Douglass's assertion that Negro suffrage was more urgent than woman
suffrage, she pointed out that white women of the North were robbed of
their children by the law just as Negro women had been by slavery.
This was balm to Susan's soul, but with Lucy's next words she lost all
hope that her old friend would cast her lot wholeheartedly with women
at this time. "Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet,"
Lucy continued, "and the Negro too has an ocean of wrongs that cannot
be fathomed. But I thank God for the Fifteenth Amendment, and hope
that it will be adopted in every state. I will be thankful in my soul
if anybody can get out of the terrible pit....
"I believe," she admitted, "that the national safety of the government
would be more promoted by the admission of women as an element of
restoration and harmony than the other. I believe that the influence
of woman will save the country before every other influence. I see the
signs of the times pointing to this consummation. I believe that in
some parts of the country women will vote for the President of these
United States in 1872."
Susan grew impatient as Lucy shifted from one side to the other,
straddling the issue. Her own clear-cut approach, earning for her the
reputation of always hitting the nail on the head, made Lucy's seem
like temporizing.
The men now took control, criticizing the amount of time given to the
discussion of woman's rights, and voted endorsement of the Fifteenth
Amendment. Nevertheless, a small group of determined women continued
their fight, Susan declaring with spirit that she protested against
the Fifteenth Amendment because it was not Equal Rights and would put
2,000,000 more men in the position of tyrants over 2,000,000 women who
until now had been the equals of the Negro men at their side.[237]
* * * * *
It was now clear to Susan and to the few women who worked closely with
her that they needed a strong organization of their own and that it
was folly to waste more time on the Equal Rights Association. Western
delegates, disappointed in the convention's lack of interest in woman
suffrage, expressed themselves freely. They had been sorely tried by
the many speeches on extraneous subjects which cluttered the meetings,
the heritage of a free-speech policy handed down by antislavery
societies.
"That Equal Rights Association is an awful humbug," exploded Mary
Livermore to Susan. "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."[238]
At a reception for all the delegates held at the Women's Bureau at the
close of the convention, this dissatisfaction culminated in a
spontaneous demand for a new organization which would concentrate on
woman suffrage and the Sixteenth Amendment. Alert to the
possibilities, Susan directed this demand into concrete action by
turning the reception temporarily into a business meeting. The result
was the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association by women
from nineteen states, with Mrs. Stanton as president and Susan as a
member of the executive committee. The younger women of the West,
trusting the judgment of Susan and Mrs. Stanton, looked to them for
leadership, as did a few of the old workers in the East--Ernestine
Rose, always in the vanguard, Paulina Wright Davis, Elizabeth Smith
Miller, Lucretia Mott, who although holding no office in the new
organization gave it her support, Martha C. Wright, and Matilda Joslyn
Gage who never wavered in her allegiance. Lucy Stone, who would have
found it hard even to step into the _Revolution_ office, did not
attend the reception at the Women's Bureau or take part in the
formation of the new woman suffrage organization.
[Illustration: Paulina Wright Davis]
Aided and abetted by her new National Woman Suffrage Association,
Susan continued her opposition in _The Revolution_ to the Fifteenth
Amendment until it was ratified in 1870.
So incensed was the Boston group by _The Revolution's_ opposition to
the Fifteenth Amendment, so displeased was Lucy Stone by the formation
of the National Woman Suffrage Association without consultation with
her, one of the oldest workers in the field, that they began to talk
of forming a national woman suffrage organization of their own. They
charged Susan with lust for power and autocratic control. Mrs. Stanton
they found equally objectionable because of her radical views on sex,
marriage, and divorce, expressed in _The Revolution_ in connection
with the Hester Vaughn case. They sincerely felt that the course of
woman suffrage would run more smoothly, arouse less antagonism, and
make more progress without these two militants who were forever
stirring things up and introducing extraneous subjects.
* * * * *
During these trying days of accusations, animosity, and rival
factions, Mrs. Stanton's unwavering support was a great comfort to
Susan as was the joy of having a paper to carry her message.
In addition to all the responsibilities connected with publishing her
weekly paper, advertising, subscriptions, editorial policy, and
raising the money to pay the bills, Susan was also holding successful
conventions in Saratoga and Newport where men and women of wealth and
influence gathered for the summer; she was traveling out to St. Louis,
Chicago, and other western cities to speak on woman suffrage, making
trips to Washington to confer with Congressmen, getting petitions for
the Sixteenth Amendment circulated, and through all this, building up
the National Woman Suffrage Association.
The _Revolution_ office became the rallying point for a
forward-looking group of women, many of whom contributed to the
hard-hitting liberal sheet. Elizabeth Tilton, the lovely dark-haired
young wife of the popular lecturer and editor of the _Independent_,
selected the poetry. Alice and Phoebe Cary gladly offered poems and a
novel; and when Susan was away, Phoebe Cary often helped Mrs. Stanton
get out the paper. Elizabeth Smith Miller gave money, encouragement,
and invaluable aid with her translations of interesting letters which
_The Revolution_ received from France and Germany. Laura Curtis
Bullard, the heir to the Dr. Winslow-Soothing-Syrup fortune, who
traveled widely in Europe, sent letters from abroad and took a lively
interest in the paper. Another new recruit was Lillie Devereux Blake,
who was gaining a reputation as a writer and who soon proved to be a
brilliant orator and an invaluable worker in the New York City
suffrage group. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, unfailingly gave her support,
and her calm assurance strengthened Susan. The wealthy Paulina Wright
Davis of Providence, Rhode Island, who followed Parker Pillsbury as
editor, when he felt obliged to resign for financial reasons, gave the
paper generous financial backing.
[Illustration: Isabella Beecher Hooker]
It was Mrs. Davis who brought into the fold the half sister of Henry
Ward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a queenly woman, one of the
elect of Hartford, Connecticut. Hoping to break down Mrs. Hooker's
prejudice against Susan and Mrs. Stanton, which had been built up by
New England suffragists, Mrs. Davis invited the three women to spend a
few days with her. After this visit, Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in
Boston, "I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a
week.... 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 standards of
others, but in right intentions never, nor in faithfulness to her
friends.... 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.... I hand in
my allegiance to both as leaders and representatives of the great
movement."[239]
From then on, Mrs. Hooker did her best to reconcile the Boston and New
York factions, hoping to avert the formation of a second national
woman suffrage organization.
FOOTNOTES:
[232] _The Revolution_, II, Dec. 24, 1868, p. 385.
[233] George W. Julian, _Political Recollections_, 1840-1872 (Chicago,
1884), pp. 324-325.
[234] _The Revolution_, III, March 11, 1869, p. 148.
[235] The very proper Sorosis would not meet at the Women's Bureau
while it housed the radical _Revolution_, and as women showed so
little interest in her project, Mrs. Phelps gave it up after a year's
trial.
[236] _The Revolution_, III, May 20, 1869, pp. 305-307.
[237] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 392.
[238] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 327-328.
[239] _Ibid._, p. 332.
A HOUSE DIVIDED
"I think we need two national associations for woman suffrage so that
those who do not oppose the Fifteenth Amendment, nor take the tone of
_The Revolution_ may yet have an organization with which they can work
in harmony."[240] So wrote Lucy Stone to many of her friends during
the summer of 1869, and some of these letters fell into Susan's hands.
"The radical abolitionists and the Republicans could never have worked
together but in separate organizations both did good service," Lucy
further explained. "There are just as distinctly two parties to the
woman movement.... Each organization will attract those who naturally
belong to it--and there will be harmonious work."
When the ground had been prepared by these letters, Lucy asked old
friends and new to sign a call to a woman suffrage convention, to be
held in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1869, "to unite those who cannot
use the methods which Mrs. Stanton and Susan use...."[241]
Those feeling as she did eagerly signed the call, while others who
knew little about the controversy in the East added their names
because they were glad to take part in a convention sponsored by such
prominent men and women as Julia Ward Howe, George William Curtis,
Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and William Lloyd
Garrison. Still others who did not understand the insurmountable
differences in temperament and policy between the two groups hoped
that a new truly national organization would unite the two factions.
Even Mary Livermore, who had been active in the formation of the
National Woman Suffrage Association, was by this time responding to
overtures from the Boston group, writing William Lloyd Garrison, "I
have been repelled by some of the idiosyncrasies of our New York
friends, as have others. Their opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment,
the buffoonery of George F. Train, the loose utterances of the
_Revolution_ on the marriage and dress questions--and what is equally
potent hindrance to the cause, the fearful squandering of money at
the New York headquarters--all this has tended to keep me on my own
feet, apart from those to whom I was at first attracted.... I am glad
at the prospect of an association that will be truly national and
which promises so much of success and character."[242]
Neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton received a notice of the Cleveland
convention, but Susan, scanning a copy of the call sent her by a
solicitous friend, was deeply disturbed when she saw the signatures of
Lydia Mott, Amelia Bloomer, Myra Bradwell, Gerrit Smith, and other
good friends.
The New York _World_, at once suspecting a feud, asked, "Where are
those well-known American names, Susan B. Anthony, Parker Pillsbury,
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton? It is clear that there is a division in
the ranks of the strong-minded and that an effort is being made to
ostracize _The Revolution_ which has so long upheld the cause of
Suffrage, through evil report and good...."[243]
The Rochester _Democrat_, loyal to Susan, put this question, "Can it
be possible that a National Woman's Suffrage Convention is called
without Susan's knowledge or consent?... A National Woman's Suffrage
Association without speeches from Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton
will be a new order of things. The idea seems absurd."[244]
To Susan it also seemed both absurd and unrealistic, for she
remembered how almost single-handed she had held together and built up
the woman suffrage movement during the years when her colleagues had
been busy with family duties. She was appalled at the prospect of a
division in the ranks at this time when she believed victory possible
through the action of a strong united front.
Confident that many who signed the call were ignorant of or blind to
the animus behind it, she did her best to bring the facts before them.
She put the blame for the rift entirely upon Lucy Stone, believing
that without Lucy's continual stirring up, past differences in policy
would soon have been forgotten. The antagonism between the two burned
fiercely at this time. Susan was determined to fight to the last ditch
for control of the movement, convinced that her policies and Mrs.
Stanton's were forward-looking, unafraid, and always put women first.
Susan now also had to face the humiliating possibility that she might
be forced to give up _The Revolution_. Not only was the operating
deficit piling up alarmingly, but there were persistent rumors of a
competitor, another woman suffrage paper to be edited by Lucy Stone
and Julia Ward Howe.
Susan had assumed full financial responsibility for _The Revolution_
because Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, both with families to
consider, felt unable to share this burden. Mrs. Stanton had always
contributed her services and Parker Pillsbury had been sadly
underpaid, while Susan had drawn out for her salary only the most
meager sums for bare living expenses.
With a maximum of 3,000 subscribers, the paper could not hope to pay
its way even though she had secured a remarkably loyal group of
advertisers.[245] Reluctantly she raised the subscription price from
$2 to $3 a year. Her friends and family were generous with gifts and
loans, but these only met the pressing needs of the moment and in no
way solved the overall financial problem of the paper.
Appealing once again to her wealthy and generous Quaker cousin, Anson
Lapham, she wrote him in desperation, "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 43 subscribers from Illinois and 20 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 only I could die, and thereby fail honorably, I would say, 'Amen,'
but to live and fail--it would be too terrible to bear."[246] He came
to her aid as he always had in the past.
Susan's sister Mary not only lent her all her savings, but spent her
summer vacation in New York in 1869, working in _The Revolution_
office while Susan, busy with woman suffrage conventions in Newport,
Saratoga, Chicago, and Ohio, was building up good will and
subscriptions for her paper. Concerned for her welfare, Mary
repeatedly but unsuccessfully urged her to give up. Daniel added his
entreaties to Mary's, begging Susan not to go further into debt, but
to form a stock company if she were determined to continue her paper.
She considered his advice very seriously for he was a practical
businessman and yet appreciated what she was trying to do. For a time
the formation of a stock company seemed possible, for the project
appealed to three women of means, Paulina Wright Davis, Isabella
Beecher Hooker, and Laura Curtis Bullard, but it never materialized.
* * * * *
With the financial problem of _The Revolution_ still unsolved, Susan
decided to make her appearance at Lucy Stone's convention in
Cleveland, Ohio, on November 24, 1869. Not only did she want to see
with her own eyes and hear with her own ears all that went on, but she
was determined to walk the second mile with Lucy and her supporters,
or even to turn the other cheek, if need be, for the sake of her
beloved cause.
Seeing her in the audience, Judge Bradwell of Chicago moved that she
be invited to sit on the platform, but Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who
was presiding, replied that he thought this unnecessary as a special
invitation had already been extended to all desiring to identify
themselves with the movement. Judge Bradwell would not be put off, his
motion was carried, and as Susan walked up to the platform to join the
other notables, she was greeted with hearty applause. Sitting there
among her critics, she wondered what she could possibly say to
persuade them to forget their differences for the sake of the cause.
After listening to Lucy Stone plead for renewed work for woman
suffrage and for petitions for a Sixteenth Amendment, she
spontaneously rose to her feet and asked permission to speak. "I
hope," she began, "that the work of this association, if it be
organized, will be to go in strong array up to the Capitol at
Washington to demand a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The
question of the admission of women to the ballot would not then be
left to the mass of voters in every State, but would be submitted by
Congress to the several legislatures of the States for ratification,
and ... be decided by the most intelligent portion of the people. If
the question is left to the vote of the rank and file, it will be put
off for years.[247]
"So help me, Heaven!" she continued with emotion. "I care not what may
come out of this Convention, so that this great cause shall go
forward to its consummation! And though this Convention by its action
shall nullify the National Association of which I am a member, and
though it shall tread its heel upon _The Revolution_, to carry on
which I have struggled as never mortal woman or mortal man struggled
for any cause ... still, if you will do the work in Washington so that
this Amendment will be proposed, and will go with me to the several
Legislatures and _compel_ them to adopt it, I will thank God for this
Convention as long as I have the breath of life."
Loud and continuous applause greeted these earnest words. However,
instead of pledging themselves to work for a Sixteenth Amendment, the
newly formed American Woman Suffrage Association, blind to the
exceptional opportunity at this time for Congressional action on woman
suffrage, decided to concentrate on work in the states where suffrage
bills were pending. Instead of electing an outstanding woman as
president, they chose Henry Ward Beecher, boasting that this was proof
of their genuine belief in equal rights. Lucy Stone headed the
executive committee.
Divisions soon began developing among the suffragists in the field.
Many whose one thought previously had been the cause now spent time
weighing the differences between the two organizations and between
personalities, and antagonisms increased.
Hardest of all for Susan to bear was the definite announcement of a
rival paper, the _Woman's Journal_, to be issued in Boston in January
1870 under the editorship of Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore, and Julia
Ward Howe, with Henry Blackwell as business manager. Mary Livermore,
who previously had planned to merge her paper, the _Agitator_, with
_The Revolution_ now merged it with the _Woman's Journal_. Financed by
wealthy stockholders, all influential Republicans, the _Journal_,
Susan knew, would be spared the financial struggles of _The
Revolution_, but would be obliged to conform to Republican policy in
its support of woman's rights. Had not the _Woman's Journal_ been such
an obvious affront to the heroic efforts of _The Revolution_ and a
threat to its very existence, she could have rejoiced with Lucy over
one more paper carrying the message of woman suffrage.
More determined than ever to continue _The Revolution_, Susan
redoubled her efforts, announcing an imposing list of contributors
for 1870, including the British feminist, Lydia Becker, and as a
special attraction, a serial by Alice Cary. Through the efforts of
Mrs. Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe was persuaded to consider serving
as contributing editor provided the paper's name was changed to _The
True Republic_ or to some other name satisfactory to her.[248]
Having struggled against the odds for so long, Susan had no intention
of being stifled now by Mrs. Stowe's more conservative views, nor
would she give her crusading sheet an innocuous name. However, the
decision was taken out of her hands by _The Revolution's_ coverage of
the sensational McFarland-Richardson murder case, which so shocked
both Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Stowe that they gave up all thought of being
associated in a publishing venture with Susan or Mrs. Stanton.
The whole country was stirred in December 1869 by the fatal shooting
in the _Tribune_ office of the well-known journalist, Albert D.
Richardson, by Daniel McFarland, to whose divorced wife Richardson had
been attentive. When just before his death, Richardson was married to
the divorced Mrs. McFarland by Henry Ward Beecher with Horace Greeley
as a witness, the press was agog. So strong was the feeling against a
divorced woman that Henry Ward Beecher was severely condemned for
officiating at the marriage, and Mrs. Richardson was played up in the
press and in court as the villain, although her divorce had been
granted because of the brutality and instability of McFarland.
Indignant at the sophistry of the press and the general acceptance of
a double standard of morals, _The Revolution_ not only spoke out
fearlessly in defense of Mrs. Richardson but in an editorial by Mrs.
Stanton frankly analyzed the tragic human relations so obvious in the
case. With Susan's full approval, Mrs. Stanton wrote, "I rejoice over
every slave that escapes from a discordant marriage. With the
education and elevation of women we shall have a mighty sundering of
the unholy ties that hold men and women together who loathe and
despise each other...."[249] When the court acquitted McFarland,
giving him the custody of his twelve-year-old son, Susan called a
protest meeting which attracted an audience of two thousand.
Such words and such activities disturbed many who sympathized with
Mrs. Richardson but saw no reason for flaunting exultant approval of
divorce in a woman suffrage paper, and they turned to the _Woman's
Journal_ as more to their taste.
Susan, however, reading the first number of the _Woman's Journal_,
found its editorials lacking fire. She rebelled at Julia Ward Howe's
counsel, "to lay down all partisan warfare and organize a peaceful
Grand Army of the Republic of Women ... not ... as against men, but as
against all that is pernicious to men and women."[250] Susan's fight
had never been against men but against man-made laws that held women
in bondage. There had always been men willing to help her. Experience
had taught her that the struggle for woman's rights was no peaceful
academic debate, but real warfare which demanded political strategy,
self-sacrifice, and unremitting labor. She was prouder than ever of
her _Revolution_ and its liberal hard-hitting policy.
* * * * *
Convinced that the National Woman Suffrage Association must publicize
its existence and its value, Susan began the year 1870 with a
convention in Washington which even Senator Sumner praised as
exceeding in interest anything he had ever witnessed there. Its
striking demonstration of the vitality and intelligence of the
National Association was the best answer she could possibly have given
to the accusations and criticism aimed at her and her organization.
Jessie Benton Frémont, watching the delegates enter the dining room of
the Arlington Hotel, called Susan over to her table and said with a
twinkle in her eyes, "Now, tell me, Miss Anthony, have you hunted the
country over and picked out and brought to Washington a score of the
most beautiful women you could find?"[251]
They were a fine-looking and intelligent lot--Paulina Wright Davis,
Isabella Beecher Hooker, Josephine Griffin of the Freedman's Bureau,
Charlotte Wilbour, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Martha C. Wright, and Olympia
Brown; Phoebe Couzins and Virginia Minor from Missouri, Madam Annekè
from Wisconsin, and best of all to Susan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Their presence, their friendship and allegiance were a source of great
pride and joy. Elizabeth Stanton had come from St. Louis, interrupting
her successful lecture tour, when she much preferred to stay away from
all conventions. She had written Susan, "Of course, I stand by you to
the end. I would not see you crushed by rivals even if to prevent it
required my being cut into inch bits.... No power in heaven, hell or
earth can separate us, for our hearts are eternally wedded
together."[252]
Also at this convention to show his support of Susan and her program,
was her faithful friend of many years, the Rev. Samuel J. May of
Syracuse. Clara Barton, ill and unable to attend, sent a letter to be
read, an appeal to her soldier friends for woman suffrage.
Not only did the large and enthusiastic audiences show a growing
interest in votes for women, but two great victories for women in
1869, one in Great Britain and the other in the United States, brought
to the convention a feeling of confidence. Women taxpayers had been
granted the right to vote in municipal elections in England, Scotland,
and Wales, through the efforts of Jacob Bright. In the Territory of
Wyoming, during the first session of its legislature, women had been
granted the right to vote, to hold office, and serve on juries, and
married women had been given the right to their separate property and
their earnings. This progressive action by men of the West turned
Susan's thoughts hopefully to the western territories, and early in
1870 when the Territory of Utah enfranchised its women, she had
further cause for rejoicing.
To celebrate these victories for which her twenty years' work for
women had blazed the trail, some of her friends held a reception for
her in New York at the Women's Bureau on her fiftieth birthday. She
was amazed at the friendly attention her birthday received in the
press. "Susan's Half Century," read a headline in the _Herald_. The
_World_ called her the Moses of her sex. "A Brave Old Maid," commented
the _Sun_. But it was to the _Tribune_ that she turned with special
interest, always hoping for a word of approval from Horace Greeley and
finding at last this faint ray of praise: "Careful readers of the
_Tribune_ have probably succeeded in discovering that we have not
always been able to applaud the course of Miss Susan B. Anthony.
Indeed, we have often felt, and sometimes said that her methods were
as unwise as we thought her aims undesirable. But through these years
of disputation and struggling. Miss Anthony has thoroughly impressed
friends and enemies alike with the sincerity and earnestness of her
purpose...."[253]
To Anna E. Dickinson, far away lecturing, Susan confided, "Oh, Anna, I
am so glad of it all because it will teach the young girls that to be
true to principle--to live an idea, though an unpopular one--that to
live single--without any man's name--may be honorable."[254]
A few of Susan's younger colleagues still insisted that a merger of
the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations might be
possible. Again Theodore Tilton undertook the task of mediation and
Lucretia Mott, who had retired from active participation in the
woman's rights movement, tried to help work out a reconciliation.
Susan was skeptical but gave them her blessing. Representatives of the
American Association, however, again made it plain that they were
unwilling to work with Susan and Mrs. Stanton.[255]
By this time _The Revolution_ had become an overwhelming financial
burden. For some months Mrs. Stanton had been urging Susan to give it
up and turn to the lecture field, as she had done, to spread the
message of woman's rights. Susan hesitated, unwilling to give up _The
Revolution_ and not yet confident that she could hold the attention of
an audience for a whole evening. However, she found herself a great
success when pushed into several Lyceum lecture engagements in
Pennsylvania by Mrs. Stanton's sudden illness. "Miss Anthony evidently
lectures not for the purpose of receiving applause," commented the
Pittsburgh _Commercial_, "but for the purpose of making people
understand and be convinced. She takes her place on the stage in a
plain and unassuming manner and speaks extemporaneously and fluently,
too, reminding one of an old campaign speaker, who is accustomed to
talk simply for the purpose of converting his audience to his
political theories. She used plain English and plenty of it.... She
clearly evinced a quality that many politicians lack--sincerity."[256]
For each of these lectures on "Work, Wages, and the Ballot," she
received a fee of $75 and was able as well to get new subscribers for
_The Revolution_. She now saw the possibilities for herself and the
cause in a Lyceum tour, and when the Lyceum Bureau, pleased with her
reception in Pennsylvania wanted to book her for lectures in the West,
she accepted, calling Parker Pillsbury back to _The_ _Revolution_ to
take charge. All through Illinois she drew large audiences and her
fees increased to $95, $125, and $150. In two months she was able to
pay $1,300 of _The Revolution's_ debt.
When she returned to New York, she realized that she could not
continue to carry _The Revolution_ alone, in spite of increased
subscriptions. Its $10,000 debt weighed heavily upon her. Parker
Pillsbury's help could only be temporary; Mrs. Stanton's strenuous
lecture tour left her little time to give to the paper; and Susan's
own friends and family were unable to finance it further.
Fortunately the idea of editing a paper appealed strongly to the
wealthy Laura Curtis Bullard, who had the promise of editorial help
from Theodore Tilton. Susan now turned the paper over to them
completely, receiving nothing in return but shares of stock, while she
assumed the entire indebtedness.
Giving up the control of her beloved paper was one of the most
humiliating experiences and one of the deepest sorrows she ever faced.
_The Revolution_ had become to her the symbol of her crusade for
women. Overwhelmed by a sense of failure, she confided to her diary on
the date of the transfer, "It was like signing my own death warrant,"
and to a friend she wrote, "I feel a great, calm sadness like that of
a mother binding out a dear child that she could not support."[257]
She made a valiant announcement of the transfer in _The Revolution_ of
May 26, 1870, expressing her delight that the paper had at last found
financial backing and a new, enthusiastic editor. "In view of the
active demand for conventions, lectures, and discussions on Woman
Suffrage," she added, "I have concluded that so far as my own personal
efforts are concerned, I can be more useful on the platform than in a
newspaper. So, on the 1st of June next, I shall cease to be the _sole_
proprietor of _The Revolution_, and shall be free to attend public
meetings where ever so plain and matter of fact an old worker as I am
can secure a hearing."[258]
Financial backing, however, did not put _The Revolution_ on its feet,
although its forthright editorials and articles were replaced by spicy
and brilliant observations on pleasant topics which offended no one.
Before the year was up, Mrs. Bullard was making overtures to Susan to
take the paper back. Susan wanted desperately "to keep the Old Ship
Revolution's colors flying"[259] and to bring back Mrs. Stanton's
stinging editorials. She also feared that Mrs. Bullard on Theodore
Tilton's advice might turn the paper over to the Boston group to be
consolidated with the _Woman's Journal_. As no funds were available,
she had to turn her back on her beloved paper and hope for the best.
"I suppose there is a wise Providence in my being stripped of power to
go forward," she wrote at this time. "At any rate, I mean to try and
make good come out of it."[260]
For one more year, _The Revolution_ struggled on under the editorship
of Mrs. Bullard and Theodore Tilton and then was taken over by the
_Christian Enquirer_. The $10,000 debt, incurred under Susan's
management, she regarded as her responsibility, although her brother
Daniel and many of her friends urged bankruptcy proceedings. "My pride
for women, to say nothing of my conscience," she insisted, "says
no."[261]
FOOTNOTES:
[240] Lucy Stone to Frank Sanborn, Aug. 18, 1869, Alma Lutz
Collection.
[241] Lucy Stone to Esther Pugh, Aug. 30, 1869, Ida Husted Harper
Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
[242] Mary Livermore to W. L. Garrison, Oct. 4, 1869, Boston Public
Library. Wendell Phillips did not sign the call or attend the
convention for "reasons that are good to him," wrote Lucy Stone to
Garrison, Sept. 27, 1869, Boston Public Library.
[243] _The Revolution_, IV, Oct. 21, 1869, p. 265.
[244] _Ibid._, p. 266.
[245] The Empire Sewing Machine Co., Benedict's Watches, Madame
Demorest's dress patterns, Sapolio, insurance companies, savings
banks, the Union Pacific, offering first mortgage bonds.
[246] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 354-355. In 1873, Anson Lapham
cancelled notes, amounting to $4000, and praised Susan for her
continued courageous work for women.
[247] _The Revolution_, IV, Dec. 2, 1869, p. 343.
[248] Harriet Beecher Stowe to Susan B. Anthony, Dec., 1869, Alma Lutz
Collection.
[249] _The Revolution_, IV, Dec. 23, 1869, p. 385.
[250] _Woman's Journal_, Jan. 8, 1870.
[251] Ms., Diary, Jan. 18, 1870.
[252] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, pp. 124-125.
[253] _The Revolution_, V, Feb. 24, 1870, pp. 117-118. Susan
attributed the _Tribune_ editorial to Whitelaw Reid. Susan B. Anthony
Scrapbook, Library of Congress.
[254] Feb. 21, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
Anna E. Dickinson sent Miss Anthony generous checks to help finance
_The Revolution_. Although she lectured at Cooper Union for the
National Woman Suffrage Association shortly after it was organized,
she never became a member of the organization or attended its
conventions. This was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony.
[255] Finally, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton against their best
judgment were persuaded by younger members of the National Woman
Suffrage Association to drop the name National and replace it with
Union and then to try to negotiate further with the American
Association. Theodore Tilton was elected president of the Union Woman
Suffrage Society. This proved to be an organization in name only, and
in a short time these same younger members clamored for the return to
office of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton and reestablished the National
Woman Suffrage Association.
[256] _The Revolution_, V, March 10, 1870, p. 153. Mrs. Stanton's
Lyceum lectures were undertaken to finance the education of her 7
children.
[257] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 362.
[258] _The Revolution_, V, May 26, 1870, p. 328.
[259] Sept. 19, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
[260] To E. A. Studwell, Sept. 15, 1870, Radcliffe Women's Archives,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[261] To Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Oct. 15, 1871, Lucy E. Anthony
Collection
A NEW SLANT ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
While Susan was lecturing in the West, hoping to earn enough to pay
off _The Revolution's_ debt, she was pondering a new approach to the
enfranchisement of women which had been proposed by Francis Minor, a
St. Louis attorney and the husband of her friend, Virginia Minor.
Francis Minor contended that while the Constitution gave the states
the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gave them the power to
prohibit it, and he believed that this conclusion was strengthened by
the Fourteenth Amendment which provided that "no State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States."
To claim the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment made a great
appeal to both Susan and Elizabeth Stanton. Susan published Francis
Minor's arguments in _The Revolution_ and also his suggestion that
some woman test this interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by
attempting to vote at the next election; while Mrs. Stanton used this
new approach as the basis of her speech before a Congressional
committee in 1870.
With such a fresh and thrilling project to develop, Susan looked
forward to the annual woman suffrage convention to be held in
Washington in January 1871. So heavy was her lecture schedule that she
reluctantly left preparations for the convention in the willing hands
of Isabella Beecher Hooker, who was confident she could improve on
Susan's meetings and guide the woman's rights movement into more
ladylike and aristocratic channels, winning over scores of men and
women who hitherto had remained aloof. At the last moment, however,
she appealed in desperation to Susan for help, and Susan, canceling
important lecture engagements, hurried to Washington. Here she found
the newspapers full of Victoria C. Woodhull and her Memorial to
Congress on woman suffrage, which had been presented by Senator Harris
of Louisiana and Congressman Julian of Indiana. Capitalizing on the
new approach to woman suffrage, Mrs. Woodhull based her arguments on
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, praying Congress to enact
legislation to enable women to exercise the right to vote vested in
them by these amendments. A hearing was scheduled before the House
judiciary committee the very morning the convention opened.
[Illustration: Victoria C. Woodhull]
Convinced that she and her colleagues must attend that hearing, Susan
consulted with her friends in Congress and overrode Mrs. Hooker's
hesitancy about associating their organization with so questionable a
woman as Victoria Woodhull. She engaged a constitutional lawyer,
Albert G. Riddle,[262] to represent the 30,000 women who had
petitioned Congress for the franchise. Then she and Mrs. Hooker
attended the hearing and asked for prompt action on woman suffrage.
This was the first Congressional hearing on federal enfranchisement.
Previous hearings had considered trying the experiment only in the
District of Columbia.
Susan had never before seen Victoria Woodhull. Early in 1870, however,
she had called at the brokerage office which Victoria and her sister,
Tennessee Claflin, had opened in New York on Broad Street. The press
had been full of amused comments regarding the lady bankers, and
Susan had wanted to see for herself what kind of women they were. Here
she met and talked with Tennessee Claflin, publishing their interview
in _The Revolution_, and also an advertisement of Woodhull, Claflin &
Co., Bankers and Brokers.[263]
About six weeks later, these prosperous "lady brokers" had established
their own paper, _Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly_, an "Organ of Social
Regeneration and Constructive Reform," but Susan had barely noticed
its existence, so burdened had she been by the impending loss of her
own paper and by pressing lecture engagements. She was therefore
unaware that this new weekly explored a field wider than finance,
advocating as well woman suffrage and women's advancement,
spiritualism, radical views on marriage, love, and sex, and the
nomination of Victoria C. Woodhull for President of the United States.
Now in a committee room of the House of Representatives, Susan
listened carefully as the dynamic beautiful Victoria Woodhull read her
Memorial and her arguments to support it, in a clear well-modulated
voice. Simply dressed in a dark blue gown, with a jaunty Alpine hat
perched on her curls, she gave the impression of innocent earnest
youth, and she captivated not only the members of the judiciary
committee, but the more critical suffragists as well. For the moment
at least she seemed an appropriate colleague of the forthright
crusader, Susan B. Anthony, and her fashionable friends, Isabella
Beecher Hooker and Paulina Wright Davis. They invited Victoria and her
sister, Tennessee Claflin, to their convention, and asked her to
repeat her speech for them.
At this convention Susan, encouraged by the favorable reception among
politicians of the Woodhull Memorial, mapped out a new and militant
campaign, based on her growing conviction that under the Fourteenth
Amendment women's rights as citizens were guaranteed. She urged women
to claim their rights as citizens and persons under the Fourteenth
Amendment, to register and prepare to vote at the next election, and
to bring suit in the courts if they were refused.
* * * * *
So enthusiastic had been the reception of this new approach to woman
suffrage, so favorable had been the news from those close to leading
Republicans, that Susan was unprepared for the adverse report of the
judiciary committee on the Woodhull Memorial. She now studied the
favorable minority report issued by Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts
and William Loughridge of Iowa. Their arguments seemed to her
unanswerable; and hurriedly and impulsively in the midst of her
western lecture tour, she dashed off a few lines to Victoria Woodhull,
to whom she willingly gave credit for bringing out this report.
"Glorious old Ben!" she wrote. "He surely is going to pronounce the
word that will settle the woman question, just as he did the word
'contraband' that so summarily settled the Negro question....
Everybody here chimes in with the new conclusion that we are already
free."[264]
Far from New York where Victoria's activities were being aired by the
press, Susan thought of her at this time only in connection with the
Memorial and its impact on the judiciary committee. To be sure, she
heard stories crediting Benjamin Butler with the authorship of the
Woodhull Memorial, and rumors reached her of Victoria's unorthodox
views on love and marriage and of her girlhood as a fortune teller,
traveling about like a gypsy and living by her wits. Even so, Susan
was ready to give Victoria the benefit of the doubt until she herself
found her harmful to the cause, for long ago she had learned to
discount attacks on the reputations of progressive women. In fact,
Victoria Woodhull provided Susan and her associates with a spectacular
opportunity to prove the sincerity of their contention that there
should not be a double standard of morals--one for men and another for
women.
Returning to New York in May 1871, to a convention of the National
Woman Suffrage Association, Susan found that Mrs. Hooker, Mrs.
Stanton, and Mrs. Davis had invited Victoria Woodhull to address that
convention and to sit on the platform between Lucretia Mott and Mrs.
Stanton.
Through them and others more critical, Susan was brought up to date on
the sensational story of Victoria Woodhull, who had been drawing
record crowds to her lectures and whose unconventional life
continuously provided reporters with interesting copy. Victoria's home
at 15 East Thirty-eighth Street, resplendent and ornate with gilded
furniture and bric-a-brac, housed not only her husband, Colonel Blood,
and herself but her divorced husband and their children as well, and
also all of her quarrelsome relatives. Here many radicals, social
reformers, and spiritualists gathered, among them Stephen Pearl
Andrews, who soon made use of Victoria and her _Weekly_ to publicize
his dream of a new world order, the Pantarchy, as he called it.
Victoria, herself, was an ardent spiritualist, controlled by
Demosthenes of the spirit world to whom she believed she owed her most
brilliant utterances and by whom she was guided to announce herself as
a presidential candidate in 1872. Needless to say, with such a
background, Victoria Woodhull became a very controversial figure among
the suffragists.
In New York only a few days, it was hard for Susan to separate fact
from fiction, truth from rumor and animosity. Even Demosthenes did not
seem too ridiculous to her, for many of her most respected friends
were spiritualists. Nor did Victoria's presidential aspirations
trouble her greatly. Presidential candidates had been nothing to brag
of, and willingly would she support the right woman for President. If
Victoria lived up to the high standard of the Woodhull Memorial, then
even she might be that woman. After all, it was an era of radical
theories and Utopian dreams, of extravagances of every sort. Almost
anything could happen.
Whatever doubts the suffragists may have had when they saw Victoria
Woodhull on the platform at the New York meeting of the National
Association, she swept them all along with her when, as one inspired,
she made her "Great Secession" speech. "If the very next Congress
refuses women all the legitimate results of citizenship," she
declared, "we shall proceed to call another convention expressly to
frame a new constitution and to erect a new government.... We mean
treason; we mean secession, and on a thousand times grander scale than
was that of the South. We are plotting revolution; we will overthrow
this bogus Republic and plant a government of righteousness in its
stead...."[265]
Susan, who felt deeply her right to full citizenship, who herself had
talked revolution, and who had so often listened to the extravagant
antislavery declarations of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
and Parker Pillsbury, was not offended by these statements. She was,
however, troubled by the attitude of the press, particularly of the
_Tribune_ which labeled this gathering the "Woodhull Convention" and
accused the suffragists of adopting Mrs. Woodhull's free-love
theories.
Having experienced so recently the animosity stirred up by her
alliance with George Francis Train, Susan resolved to be cautious
regarding Victoria Woodhull and was beginning to wonder if Victoria
was not using the suffragists to further her own ambitions. Yet many
trusted friends, who had talked with Mrs. Woodhull far more than she
had the opportunity to do, were convinced that she was a genius and a
prophet who had risen above the sordid environment of her youth to do
a great work for women and who had the courage to handle subjects
which others feared to touch.
Free love, for example, Susan well knew was an epithet hurled
indiscriminately at anyone indiscreet enough to argue for less
stringent divorce laws or for an intelligent frank appraisal of
marriage and sex. Was it for this reason, Susan asked herself, that
Mrs. Woodhull was called a "free-lover," or did she actually advocate
promiscuity?
With these questions puzzling her, she left for Rochester and the
West. Almost immediately the papers were full of Victoria Woodhull and
her family quarrels which brought her into court. This was a
disillusioning experience for the National Woman Suffrage Association
which had so recently featured Victoria Woodhull as a speaker, and
Susan began seriously to question the wisdom of further association
with this strange controversial character. Nevertheless, Victoria
still had her ardent defenders among the suffragists, particularly
Isabella Beecher Hooker and Paulina Wright Davis. Even the thoughtful
judicious Martha C. Wright wrote Mrs. Hooker at this time, "It is not
always 'the wise and prudent' to whom the truth is revealed; tho' far
be it from me to imply aught derogatory to Mrs. Woodhull. No one can
be with her, see her gentle and modest bearing and her spiritual face,
without feeling sure that she is a true woman, whatever unhappy
surroundings may have compromised her. I have never met a stranger
toward whom I felt more tenderly drawn, in sympathy and love."[266]
Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke her mind in Theodore Tilton's new paper,
_The Golden Age_: "Victoria C. Woodhull stands before us today a
grand, brave woman, radical alike in political, religious and social
principles. Her face and form indicate the complete triumph in her
nature of the spiritual over the sensuous. The processes of her
education are little to us; the grand result everything."[267]
Victoria was in dire need of defenders, for the press was venomous,
goading her on to revenge. Susan, now traveling westward, lecturing in
one state after another, thinking of ways to interest the people in
woman suffrage, was too busy and too far away to follow Victoria
Woodhull's court battles.
* * * * *
Mrs. Stanton met Susan in Chicago late in May 1871, to join her on a
lecture tour of the far West. Together they headed for Wyoming and
Utah, eager to set foot in the states which had been the first to
extend suffrage to women. The long leisurely days on the train gave
these two old friends, Susan now fifty-one and Mrs. Stanton,
fifty-six, ample time to talk and philosophize, to appraise their past
efforts for women, and plan their speeches for the days ahead. While
their main theme would always be votes for women, they decided that
from now on they must also arouse women to rebel against their legal
bondage under the "man marriage," as they called it, and to face
frankly the facts about sex, prostitution, and the double standard of
morals. In Utah, in the midst of polygamy fostered by the Mormon
Church, they would encounter still another sex problem.
After an enthusiastic welcome in Denver, they moved on to Laramie,
Wyoming, where one hundred women greeted them as the train pulled in.
From this first woman suffrage state, Susan exultingly wrote, "We have
been moving over the soil, that is really the land of the free and the
home of the brave.... Women here can say, 'What a magnificent country
is ours, where every class and caste, color and sex, may find
freedom....'"[268]
They reached Salt Lake City just after the Godbe secession by which a
group of liberal Mormons abandoned polygamy. As guests of the Godbes
for a week, they had every opportunity to become acquainted with the
Mormons, to observe women under polygamy, and to speak in long all-day
sessions to women alone.
Susan tried to show her audiences in Utah that her point of attack
under both monogamy and polygamy was the subjection of women, and that
to remedy this the self-support of women was essential. In Utah she
found little opportunity for women to earn a living for themselves and
their children, as there was no manufacturing and there were no free
schools in need of teachers. "Women here, as everywhere," she
declared, "must be able to live honestly and honorably without the aid
of men, before it can be possible to save the masses of them from
entering into polygamy or prostitution, legal or illegal."[269]
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony, 1871]
Some of Susan's' critics at home felt she was again besmirching the
suffrage cause by setting foot in polygamous Utah, but this was of no
moment to her, for she saw the crying need of the right kind of
missionary work among Mormon women, "no Phariseeism, no shudders of
Puritanic horror, ... but a simple, loving fraternal clasp of hands
with these struggling women" to encourage them and point the way.
Hearing that Susan and Mrs. Stanton were in the West en route to
California, Leland Stanford, Governor of California and president of
the recently completed Central Pacific Railway, sent them passes for
their journey. They reached San Francisco with high hopes that they
could win the support of western men for their demand for woman
suffrage under the Fourteenth Amendment. Their welcome was warm and
the press friendly. An audience of over 1,200 listened with real
interest to Mrs. Stanton. Then the two crusaders made a misstep. Eager
to learn the woman's side of the case in the recent widely publicized
murder of the wealthy attorney, Alexander P. Crittenden, by Laura
Fair, they visited Laura Fair in prison. Immediately the newspapers
reported this move in a most critical vein, with the result that an
uneasy audience crowded into the hall where Susan was to speak on "The
Power of the Ballot." As she proceeded to prove that women needed the
ballot to protect themselves and their work and could not count on the
support and protection of men, she cited case after case of men's
betrayal of women. Then bringing home her point, she declared with
vigor, "If all men had protected all women as they would have their
own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in
your jail tonight."[270]
Boos and hisses from every part of the hall greeted this statement;
but Susan, trained on the antislavery platform to hold her ground
whatever the tumult, waited patiently until this protest subsided,
standing before the defiant audience, poised and unafraid. Then, in a
clear steady voice, she repeated her challenging words. This time,
above the hisses, she heard a few cheers, and for the third time she
repeated, "If all men had protected all women as they would have their
own wives and daughters protected, you would have no Laura Fair in
your jail tonight."
Now the audience, admiring her courage, roared its applause. "I
declare to you," she concluded, "that woman must not depend upon the
protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and here I
take my stand."
Reading the newspapers the next morning, she found herself accused not
only of defending Laura Fair, but of condoning the murder of
Crittenden. This story was republished throughout the state and
eagerly picked up by New York newspapers.
As it was now impossible for her or for Mrs. Stanton to draw a
friendly audience anywhere in California, they took refuge in the
Yosemite Valley for the next few weeks. Susan was inconsolable. These
slanders on top of the loss of _The Revolution_ and the split in the
suffrage ranks seemed more than she could bear. "Never in all my hard
experience have I been under such fire," she confided to her diary.
"The clouds are so heavy over me.... I never before was so cut
down."[271]
Not until she had spent several days riding horseback in the Yosemite
Valley on "men's saddles" in "linen bloomers," over long perilous
exhausting trails, did the clouds begin to lift. Gradually the beauty
and grandeur of the mountains and the giant redwoods brought her peace
and refreshment, putting to flight "all the old six-days story and the
6,000 jeers."
Bearing the brunt of the censure in California, Susan expected Mrs.
Stanton to come to her defense in letters to the newspapers. When she
did not do so, Susan was deeply hurt, for in the past she had so many
times smoothed the way for her friend. Even now, on their return to
San Francisco, where she herself did not yet dare lecture, she did her
best to build up audiences for Mrs. Stanton and to get correct
transcripts of her lectures to the papers. Disillusioned and
heartsick, she was for the first time sadly disappointed in her
dearest friend.
Moving on to Oregon to lecture at the request of the pioneer
suffragist, Abigail Scott Duniway, she wrote Mrs. Stanton, who had
left for the East, "As I rolled on the ocean last week feeling that
the very next strain might swamp the ship, and thinking over all my
sins of omission and commission, there was nothing undone which
haunted me like the failure to speak the word at San Francisco again
and more fully. I would rather today have the satisfaction of having
said the true and needful thing on Laura Fair and the social evil,
with the hisses and hoots of San Francisco and the entire nation
around me, than all that you or I could possibly experience from their
united eulogies with that one word unsaid."[272]
* * * * *
So far Susan's western trip had netted her only $350. This was
disappointing in so far as she had counted upon it to reduce
substantially her _Revolution_ debt. She now hoped to build her
earnings up to $1,000 in Oregon and Washington. Everywhere in these
two states people took her to their hearts and the press with a few
exceptions was complimentary. The beauty of the rugged mountainous
country compensated her somewhat for the long tiring stage rides over
rough roads and for the cold uncomfortable lonely nights in poor
hotels. Only occasionally did she enjoy the luxury of a good cup of
coffee or a clean bed in a warm friendly home.
At first in Oregon she was apprehensive about facing an audience
because of her San Francisco experience, and she wrote Mrs. Stanton,
"But to the rack I must go, though another San Francisco torture be in
store for me."[273] She spoke on "The Power of the Ballot," on women's
right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment, on the need of women to
be self-supporting, and clearly and logically she marshaled her facts
and her arguments. Occasionally she obliged with a temperance speech,
or gathered women together to talk to them about the social evil,
relieved when they responded to this delicate subject with earnestness
and gratitude. Practice soon made her an easy, extemporaneous speaker.
Yet she was only now and then satisfied with her efforts, recording in
her diary, "Was happy in a real Patrick Henry speech."[274]
The proceeds from her lectures were disappointing, as money was scarce
in the West that winter, and she had just decided to return to the
East to spend Christmas with her mother and sisters when she was urged
to accept lecture engagements in California. Putting her own personal
longings behind her, she took the stage to California, sitting outside
with the driver so that she could better enjoy the scenery and learn
more about the people who had settled this new lonely overpowering
country. "Horrible indeed are the roads," she wrote her mother, "miles
and miles of corduroy and then twenty miles ... of black mud.... How
my thought does turn homeward, mother."[275]
This time she was warmly received in San Francisco. The prejudice, so
vocal six months before, had disappeared. "Made my Fourteenth
Amendment argument splendidly," she wrote in her diary. "All delighted
with it and me--and it is such a comfort to have the friends feel that
I help the good work on."[276]
She was gaining confidence in herself and wrote her family, "I miss
Mrs. Stanton. Still I can not but enjoy the feeling that the people
call on me, and the fact that I have an opportunity to sharpen my wits
a little by answering questions and doing the chatting, instead of
merely sitting a lay figure and listening to the brilliant
scintillations as they emanate from her never-exhausted magazine.
There is no alternative--whoever goes into a parlor or before an
audience with that woman does it at a cost of a fearful overshadowing,
a price which I have paid for the last ten years, and that cheerfully,
because I felt our cause was most profited by her being seen and
heard, and my best work was making the way clear for her."[277]
Starting homeward through Wyoming and Nevada where she also had
lecture engagements, she wrote in her diary on January 1, 1872, "6
months of constant travel, full 8000 miles, 108 lectures. The year's
work full 13,000 miles travel--170 meetings." On the train she met the
new California Senator, Aaron A. Sargent, his wife Ellen, and their
children. A warm friendship developed on this long journey during
which the train was stalled in deep snow drifts. "This is indeed a
fearful ordeal, fastened here ... midway of the continent at the top
of the Rocky mountains," she recorded. "The railroad has supplied the
passengers with soda crackers and dried fish.... Mrs. Sargent and I
have made tea and carried it throughout the train to the nursing
mothers."[278] The Sargents had brought their own food for the journey
and shared it with Susan. This and the good conversation lightened the
ordeal for her, especially as both Senator and Mrs. Sargent believed
heartily in woman's rights, and Senator Sargent in his campaign for
the Senate had boldly announced his endorsement of woman suffrage.
This friendly attitude among western men toward votes for women was
the most encouraging development in Susan's long uphill fight. These
men, looking upon women as partners who had shared with them the
dangers and hardships of the frontier, recognized at once the justice
of woman suffrage and its benefit to the country.
* * * * *
Susan traveled directly from Nevada to Washington instead of breaking
her journey by a visit with her brothers in Kansas, as she had hoped
to do. She even omitted Rochester so that she might be in time for the
national woman suffrage convention in Washington in January 1872, for
which Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Davis, and Mrs. Stanton were preparing. She
found Victoria Woodhull with them, her presence provoking criticism
and dissension.
Impulsively she came to Victoria's defense at the convention: "I have
been asked by many, 'Why did you drag Victoria Woodhull to the front?'
Now, bless your souls, she was not dragged to the front. She came to
Washington with a powerful argument. She presented her Memorial to
Congress and it was a power.... She had an interview with the
judiciary committee. We could never secure that privilege. She was
young, handsome, and rich. Now if it takes youth, beauty, and money to
capture Congress, Victoria is the woman we are after."[279]
"I was asked by an editor of a New York paper if I knew Mrs.
Woodhull's antecedents," she continued. "I said I didn't and that I
did not care any more for them than I do about those of the members of
Congress.... I have been asked along the Pacific coast, 'What about
Woodhull? You make her your leader?' Now we don't make leaders; they
make themselves."
Victoria, however, did not prove to be the leading light of this
convention, although she made one of her stirring fiery speeches
calling upon her audience to form an Equal Rights party and nominate
her for President of the United States. By this time, Susan had
concluded that Victoria Woodhull for President did not ring true and
she would have nothing to do with her self-inspired candidacy. Quickly
she steered the convention away from Victoria Woodhull for President
toward the consideration of the more practical matter of woman's right
to vote under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
This time it was Susan, not Victoria, who was granted a hearing before
the Senate judiciary committee. "At the close of the war," Susan
reminded the Senators, "Congress lifted the question of suffrage for
men above State power, and by the amendments prohibited the
deprivation of suffrage to any citizen by any State. When the
Fourteenth Amendment was first proposed ... we rushed to you with
petitions praying you not to insert the word 'male' in the second
clause. Our best friends ... said to us: 'The insertion of that word
puts no new barrier against women; therefore do not embarrass us but
wait until we get the Negro question settled.' So the Fourteenth
Amendment with the word 'male' was adopted.[280]
"When the Fifteenth was presented without the word 'sex,'" she
continued, "we again petitioned and protested, and again our friends
declared that the absence of the word was no hindrance to us, and
again begged us to wait until they had finished the work of the war,
saying, 'After we have enfranchised the Negro, we will take up your
case.'
"Have they done as they promised?" she asked. "When we come asking
protection under the new guarantees of the Constitution, the same men
say to us ... to wait the action of Congress and State legislatures in
the adoption of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall make null and void
the word 'male' in the Fourteenth and supply the want of the word
'sex' in the Fifteenth. Such tantalizing treatment imposed upon
yourselves or any class of men would have caused rebellion and in the
end a bloody revolution...."
Unconvinced of the urgency or even the desirability of votes for
women, the Senate judiciary committee promptly issued an adverse
report, but Susan was assured that her cause had a few persistent
supporters in Congress when Benjamin Butler presented petitions to the
House for a declaratory act for the Fourteenth Amendment and
Congressman Parker of Missouri introduced a bill granting women the
right to vote and hold office in the territories.
* * * * *
Susan now turned to the more sympathetic West to take her plea for
woman suffrage directly to the people. Speaking almost daily in
Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois, she had little time to think of
the work in the East; the glamor of Victoria Woodhull faded, and she
realized that her own hard monotonous spade work would in the long run
do more for the cause than the meteoric rise of a vivid personality
who gave only part of herself to the task.
When letters came from Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker showing plainly
that they were falling in with Victoria's plans to form a new
political party, Susan at once dashed off these lines of warning: "We
have no element out of which to make a political party, because there
is not a man who would vote a woman suffrage ticket if thereby he
endangered his Republican, Democratic, Workingmen's, or Temperance
party, and all our time and words in that direction are simply thrown
away. My name must not be used to call any such meeting."[281]
Then she added, "Mrs. Woodhull has the advantage of us because she has
the newspaper, and she persistently means to run our craft into her
port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits ... I
might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is she is
wholly owned and dominated by _men_ spirits and I spurn the whole lot
of them...."
A few weeks later, as she looked over the latest copy of _Woodhull &
Claflin's Weekly_, she was horrified to find her name signed to a call
to a political convention sponsored by the National Woman Suffrage
Association. Immediately she telegraphed Mrs. Stanton to remove her
name and wrote stern indignant letters begging her and Mrs. Hooker not
to involve the National Association in Victoria Woodhull's
presidential campaign. Although she herself had often called for a new
political party while she was publishing _The Revolution_, she was
practical enough to recognize that a party formed under Victoria
Woodhull's banner was doomed to failure.
Returning to New York, she found both Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker
still completely absorbed in Victoria's plans. Bringing herself up to
date once more on the latest developments in the colorful life of
Victoria Woodhull, she found that she had been lecturing on "The
Impending Revolution" to large enthusiastic audiences and that she had
again been called into court by her family. Goaded to defiance by an
increasingly virulent press, Victoria had also begun to blackmail
suffragists who she thought were her enemies, among them Mrs. Bullard,
Mrs. Blake, and Mrs. Phelps. This made Susan take steps at once to
free the National Association of her influence.
When Victoria Woodhull, followed by a crowd of supporters, sailed into
the first business session of the National Woman Suffrage Association
in New York, announcing that the People's convention would hold a
joint meeting with the suffragists, Susan made it plain that they
would do nothing of the kind, as Steinway Hall had been engaged for a
woman suffrage convention. With relief, she watched Victoria and her
flock leave for a meeting place of their own. Disgruntled at what she
called Susan's intolerance, Mrs. Stanton then asked to be relieved of
the presidency. Elected to take her place, Susan was now free to cope
with Victoria, should this again become necessary.
Not to be outmaneuvered by Susan, Victoria made a surprise appearance
near the end of the evening session and moved that the convention
adjourn to meet the next morning in Apollo Hall with the people's
convention. Quickly one of her colleagues seconded the motion. Susan
refused to put this motion, standing quietly before the excited
audience, stern and somber in her steel-gray silk dress. Beside her on
the platform, Victoria, intense and vivid, put the motion herself, and
it was overwhelmingly carried by her friends scattered among the
suffragists. Declaring this out of order because neither Victoria nor
many of those voting were members of the National Association, Susan
in her most commanding voice adjourned the convention to meet in the
same place the next morning. Victoria, however, continued her demands
until Susan ordered the janitor to turn out the lights. Then the
audience dispersed in the darkness.
With these drastic measures, Susan rescued the National Woman Suffrage
Association from Victoria Woodhull, who had her own triumph later at
Apollo Hall, where, surrounded by wildly cheering admirers, she was
nominated for President of the United States by the newly formed Equal
Rights party.
Reading about Victoria's nomination in the morning papers, Susan
breathed a prayer of gratitude for a narrow escape, recording in her
diary, "There never was such a foolish muddle--all come of Mrs. S.
[Stanton] consulting and conceding to Woodhull & calling a People's
Con[vention].... All came near being lost.... I never was so hurt with
the folly of Stanton.... Our movement as such is so demoralized by
letting go the helm of ship to Woodhull--though we rescued it--it was
as by a hair breadth escape." She was surprised to find no
condemnation of her actions in _Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly_ but only
the implication that the suffragists were too slow for Victoria's
great work.[282]
The attitude of some of the leading suffragists toward Victoria
Woodhull remained a problem. Fortunately Mrs. Stanton came back into
line, but both Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Davis seemed bound to drift under
Victoria's influence, and the promising young lawyer, Belva Lockwood,
campaigned for the Equal Rights party and its candidate Victoria
Woodhull.
* * * * *
While Victoria Woodhull's fortunes were speedily dropping from the
sublime heights of a presidential nomination to the humiliation of
financial ruin, the loss of her home, and the suspended publication
of her _Weekly_, Susan was knocking at the doors of the Republican and
Democratic national conventions. She had previously appealed to the
liberal Republicans, among whose delegates were her old friends George
W. Julian, B. Gratz Brown, and Theodore Tilton, but they had ignored
woman suffrage and had nominated for President, Horace Greeley, now a
persistent opponent of votes for women. The Democrats did no better.
Faced with Grant as the strong Republican nominee, they too nominated
Horace Greeley with B. Gratz Brown as his running mate, hoping by this
coalition to achieve victory. The Republicans, still unwilling to go
the whole way for woman suffrage by giving it the recognition of a
plank in their platform, did, however, offer women a splinter at which
Susan grasped eagerly because it was the first time an important,
powerful political party had ever mentioned women in their platform.
"The Republican party," read the splinter, "is mindful of its
obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to
the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is
received with satisfaction; and the honest demands of any class of
citizens for equal rights should be treated with respectful
consideration."[283]
Thankful to have escaped involvement with Victoria Woodhull and her
Equal Rights party just at this time when the Republicans were ready
to smile upon women, Susan basked in an aura of respectability thrown
around her by her new political allies. She was even hopeful that the
two woman-suffrage factions could now forget their differences and
work together for "the living, vital issue of today--freedom to
women."
She at once began speaking for the Republican party, looking forward
to carrying the discussion of woman suffrage into every school
district and every ward meeting. In the beginning the Republicans were
generous with funds, giving her $1,000 for women's meetings in New
York, Philadelphia, Rochester, and other large cities. For speakers
she sought both Lucy Stone and Anna E. Dickinson, but Lucy made it
plain in letters to Mrs. Stanton that she would take no part in
Republican rallies conducted by Susan, and Anna responded with a
torrent of false accusations.[284] Only Mary Livermore of the American
Association consented to speak at Susan's Republican rallies; but with
Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Olympia Brown to call upon, Susan did
not lack for effective orators.
In an _Appeal to the Women of America_, financed by the Republicans
and widely circulated, she urged the election of Grant and Wilson and
the defeat of Horace Greeley, whom she described as women's most
bitter opponent. "Both by tongue and pen," she declared, "he has
heaped abuse, ridicule, and misrepresentation upon our leading women,
while the whole power of the _Tribune_ had been used to crush our
great reform...."[285]
Beyond this she was unwilling to go in criticizing her one-time
friend. In fact her sense of fairness recoiled at the ridicule and
defamation heaped upon Horace Greeley in the campaign. "I shall not
join with the Republicans," she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "in hounding
Greeley and the Liberals with all the old war anathemas of the
Democracy.... My sense of justice and truth is outraged by the
Harper's cartoons of Greeley and the general falsifying tone of the
Republican press. It is not fair for us to join in the cry that
everybody who is opposed to the present administration is either a
Democrat or an apostate."[286]
Susan sensed a change in the Republicans' attitude toward women, as
they grew increasingly confident of victory. Not only did they refuse
further financial aid, but criticized Susan roundly because in her
speeches she emphasized woman suffrage rather than the virtues of the
Republican party. She ignored their complaints, and wrote Mrs.
Stanton, "If you are willing to go forth ... saying that you endorse
the party on any other point ... than that of its recognition of
woman's claim to vote, _I_ am not...."[287]
FOOTNOTES:
[262] A former Congressman from Ohio, a personal friend of Senator
Benjamin Wade who was a loyal friend of woman suffrage.
[263] _The Revolution_, V, March 19, 1870, pp. 154-155, 159.
[264] Clipping from _Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly_, Susan B. Anthony
Scrapbook, Library of Congress.
[265] Emanie, Sachs, _The Terrible Siren_ (New York, 1928), p. 87.
After hearing Victoria Woodhull speak at a woman suffrage meeting in
Philadelphia, Lucretia Mott wrote her daughters, March 21, 1871, "I
wish you could have heard Mrs. Woodhull ... so earnest yet modest and
dignified, and so full of faith that she is divinely inspired for her
work. The 30 or 40 persons present were much impressed with her work
and beautiful utterances." Garrison Papers, Sophia Smith Collection,
Smith College.
[266] May 20, 1871, Ida Husted Harper Collection, Henry E. Huntington
Library.
[267] _The Golden Age_, Dec., 1871.
[268] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 388.
[269] _Ibid._, pp. 389-390.
[270] _Ibid._, pp. 391-394. Laura Fair, who reportedly had been the
mistress of Alexander P. Crittenden for six years, was acquitted of
his murder on the grounds that his death was not due to her pistol
shot but to a disease from which he was suffering. Julia Cooley
Altrocchi, _The Spectacular San Franciscans_ (New York, 1949).
[271] Ms., Diary, July 13-23, 1871.
[272] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 396.
[273] _Ibid._
[274] Ms., Diary, Oct. 13, 1871.
[275] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 403.
[276] Ms., Diary, Dec. 15, 1871.
[277] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 396.
[278] Ms., Diary, Jan. 2, 1872.
[279] _Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly_, Jan. 23, 1873.
[280] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 410-411.
[281] _Ibid._, p. 413.
[282] Ms., Diary, May 8, 10, 12, 1872.
[283] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 416-417.
[284] Ms., Diary, Sept. 21, 1872. Lucy Stone wrote in the _Woman's
Journal_, July 27, 1872, "We are glad that the wing of the movement to
which these ladies belong have decided to cast in their lot with the
Republican party. If they had done so sooner, it would have been
better for all concerned...."
[285] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 519. The Republicans
financed a paper, _Woman's Campaign_, edited by Helen Barnard, which
published some of Susan's speeches and which Susan for a time hoped to
convert into a woman suffrage paper.
[286] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 422.
[287] _Ibid._
TESTING THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
Susan preached militancy to women throughout the presidential campaign
of 1872, urging them to claim their rights under the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments by registering and voting in every state in the
Union.
Even before Francis Minor had called her attention to the
possibilities offered by these amendments, she had followed with great
interest a similar effort by Englishwomen who, in 1867 and 1868, had
attempted to prove that the "ancient legal rights of females" were
still valid and entitled women property holders to vote for
representatives in Parliament, and who claimed that the word "man" in
Parliamentary statutes should be interpreted to include women. In the
case of the 5,346 householders of Manchester, the court held that
"every woman is personally incapable" in a legal sense.[288] This
legal contest had been fully reported in _The Revolution_, and
disappointing as the verdict was, Susan looked upon this attempt to
establish justice as an indication of a great awakening and uprising
among women.
There had also been heartening signs in her own country, which she
hoped were the preparation for more successful militancy to come. She
had exulted in _The Revolution_ in 1868 over the attempt of women to
vote in Vineland, New Jersey. Encouraged by the enfranchisement of
women in Wyoming in 1869, Mary Olney Brown and Charlotte Olney French
had cast their votes in Washington Territory. A young widow, Marilla
Ricker, had registered and voted in New Hampshire in 1870, claiming
this right as a property holder, but her vote was refused. In 1871,
Nannette B. Gardner and Catherine Stebbins in Detroit, Catherine V.
White in Illinois, Ellen R. Van Valkenburg in Santa Cruz, California,
and Carrie S. Burnham in Philadelphia registered and attempted to
vote. Only Mrs. Gardner's vote was accepted. That same year, Sarah
Andrews Spencer, Sarah E. Webster, and seventy other women marched to
the polls to register and vote in the District of Columbia. Their
ballots refused, they brought suit against the Board of Election
Inspectors, carrying the case unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court of
the United States.[289] Another test case based on the Fourteenth
Amendment had also been carried to the Supreme Court by Myra Bradwell,
one of the first women lawyers, who had been denied admission to the
Illinois bar because she was a woman.
With the spotlight turned on the Fourteenth Amendment by these women,
lawyers here and there throughout the country were discussing the
legal points involved, many admitting that women had a good case. Even
the press was friendly.
Susan had looked forward to claiming her rights under the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments and was ready to act. She had spent the
thirty days required of voters in Rochester with her family and as she
glanced through the morning paper of November 1, 1872, she read these
challenging words, "Now Register!... If you were not permitted to vote
you would fight for the right, undergo all privations for it, face
death for it...."[290]
This was all the reminder she needed. She would fight for this right.
She put on her bonnet and coat, telling her three sisters what she
intended to do, asked them to join her, and with them walked briskly
to the barber shop where the voters of her ward were registering.
Boldly entering this stronghold of men, she asked to be registered.
The inspector in charge, Beverly W. Jones, tried to convince her that
this was impossible under the laws of New York. She told him she
claimed her right to vote not under the New York constitution but
under the Fourteenth Amendment, and she read him its pertinent lines.
Other election inspectors now joined in the argument, but she
persisted until two of them, Beverly W. Jones and Edwin F. Marsh, both
Republicans, finally consented to register the four women.
This mission accomplished, Susan rounded up twelve more women willing
to register. The evening papers spread the sensational news, and by
the end of the registration period, fifty Rochester women had joined
the ranks of the militants.
On election day, November 5, 1872, Susan gleefully wrote Elizabeth
Stanton, "Well, I have gone and done it!!--positively voted the
Republican ticket--Strait--this A.M. at 7 o'clock--& swore my vote in
at that.... All my three sisters voted--Rhoda deGarmo too--Amy Post
was rejected & she will immediately bring action against the
registrars.... Not a jeer not a word--not a look--disrespectful has
met a single woman.... I hope the mornings telegrams will tell of many
women all over the country trying to vote.... I hope you voted
too."[291]
* * * * *
Election day did not bring the general uprising of women for which
Susan had hoped. In Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Connecticut, as in
Rochester, a few women tried to vote. In New York City, Lillie
Devereux Blake and in Fayetteville, New York, Matilda Joslyn Gage had
courageously gone to the polls only to be turned away. Elizabeth
Stanton did not vote on November 5, 1872, and her lack of enthusiasm
about a test case in the courts was very disappointing to Susan.
However, the fact that Susan B. Anthony had voted won immediate
response from the press in all parts of the country. Newspapers in
general were friendly, the New York _Times_ boldly declaring, "The act
of Susan B. Anthony should have a place in history," and the Chicago
_Tribune_ venturing to suggest that she ought to hold public office.
The cartoonists, however, reveling in a new and tempting subject,
caricatured her unmercifully, the New York Graphic setting the tone.
Some Democratic papers condemned her, following the line of the
Rochester _Union and Advertiser_ which flaunted the headline, "Female
Lawlessness," and declared that Miss Anthony's lawlessness had proved
women unfit for the ballot.
Before she voted, Susan had taken the precaution of consulting Judge
Henry R. Selden, a former judge of the Court of Appeals. After
listening with interest to her story and examining the arguments of
Benjamin Butler, Francis Minor, and Albert G. Riddle in support of the
claim that women had a right to vote under the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, he was convinced that women had a good case and
consented to advise her and defend her if necessary. Judge Selden, now
retired from the bench because of ill health, was practicing law in
Rochester where he was highly respected. A Republican, he had served
as lieutenant governor, member of the Assembly, and state senator.
Susan had known him as one of the city's active abolitionists, a
friend of Frederick Douglass who had warned him to flee the country
after the raid on Harper's Ferry and the capture of John Brown. Such
a man she felt she could trust.
All was quiet for about two weeks after the election and it looked as
if the episode might be forgotten in the jubilation over Grant's
election. Then, on November 18, the United States deputy marshal rang
the doorbell at 7 Madison Street and asked for Miss Susan B. Anthony.
When she greeted him, he announced with embarrassment that he had come
to arrest her.
"Is this your usual manner of serving a warrant?" she asked in
surprise.[292]
He then handed her papers, charging that she had voted in violation of
Section 19 of an Act of Congress, which stipulated that anyone voting
knowingly without having the lawful right to vote was guilty of a
crime, and on conviction would be punished by a fine not exceeding
$500, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years.
This was a serious development. It had never occurred to Susan that
this law, passed in 1870 to halt the voting of southern rebels, could
actually be applicable to her. In fact, she had expected to bring suit
against election inspectors for refusing to accept the ballots of
women. Now charged with crime and arrested, she suddenly began to
sense the import of what was happening to her.
When the marshal suggested that she report alone to the United States
Commissioner, she emphatically refused to go of her own free will and
they left the house together, she extending her wrists for the
handcuffs and he ignoring her gesture. As they got on the streetcar
and the conductor asked for her fare, she further embarrassed the
marshal by loudly announcing, "I'm traveling at the expense of the
government. This gentleman is escorting me to jail. Ask him for my
fare." When they arrived at the commissioner's office, he was not
there, but a hearing was set for November 29.
On that day, in the office where a few years before fugitive slaves
had been returned to their masters, Susan was questioned and
cross-examined, and she felt akin to those slaves. Proudly she
admitted that she had voted, that she had conferred with Judge Selden,
that with or without his advice she would have attempted to vote to
test women's right to the franchise.[293]
"Did you have any doubt yourself of your right to vote?" asked the
commissioner.
"Not a particle," she replied.
On December 23, 1872, in Rochester's common council chamber, before a
large curious audience, Susan, the other women voters, and the
election inspectors were arraigned. People expecting to see bold
notoriety-seeking women were surprised by their seriousness and
dignity. "The majority of these law-breakers," reported the press,
"were elderly, matronly-looking women with thoughtful faces, just the
sort one would like to see in charge of one's sick-room, considerate,
patient, kindly."[294]
The United States Commissioner fixed their bail at $500 each. All
furnished bail but Susan, who through her counsel, Henry R. Selden,
applied for a writ of habeas corpus, demanding immediate release and
challenging the lawfulness of her arrest. When a writ of habeas corpus
was denied and her bail increased to $1,000 by United States District
Judge Nathan K. Hall, sitting in Albany, Susan was more than ever
determined to resist the interference of the courts in her
constitutional right as a citizen to vote. She refused to give bail,
emphatically stating that she preferred prison.
Seeing no heroism but only disgrace in a jail term for his client and
unwilling to let her bring this ignominy upon herself. Henry Selden
chivalrously assured her that this was a time when she must be guided
by her lawyer's advice, and he paid her bail. Ignorant of the
technicalities of the law, she did not realize the far-reaching
implications of this well-intentioned act until they left the
courtroom and in the hallway met tall vigorous John Van Voorhis of
Rochester who was working on the case with Judge Selden. With the
impatience of a younger man, eager to fight to the finish, he
exclaimed, "You have lost your chance to get your case before the
Supreme Court by writ of habeas corpus!"[295]
Aghast, Susan rushed back to the courtroom, hoping to cancel the bond,
but it was too late. Bitterly disappointed, she remonstrated with
Henry Selden, but he quietly replied, "I could not see a lady I
respected in jail." She never forgave him for this, in spite of her
continued appreciation of his keen legal mind, his unfailing kindness,
and his willingness to battle for women.
Within a few days she appeared before the Federal Grand Jury in
Albany and was indicted on the charge that she "did knowingly,
wrongfully and unlawfully vote for a Representative in the Congress of
the United States...."[296] Her trial was set for the term of the
United States District Court, beginning May 13, 1873, in Rochester,
New York.
[Illustration: Judge Henry R. Selden]
During these difficult days in Albany, Susan found comfort and
courage, as in the past, in the friendliness of Lydia Mott's home.
Here she planned the steps by which to win public approval and
financial aid for her test case. She addressed the commission which
was revising New York's constitution on woman's right to vote under
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, pointing out that the law
limiting suffrage to males was nullified by this new interpretation.
Eager to spread the truth about her own legal contest, she distributed
printed copies of Judge Selden's argument. Then traveling to New York
and Washington, she personally presented copies to newspaper editors
and Congressmen. To one of these men she wrote, "It is not for
myself--but for all womanhood--yes and all manhood too--that I most
rejoice in the appeal to the legal mind of the Nation. It is no
longer whether women wish to vote, or men are willing, but it is
woman's Constitutional right."[297]
* * * * *
In spite of the fact that Susan was technically in the custody of the
United States Marshal, who objected to her leaving Rochester, she
managed to carry out a full schedule of lectures in Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois, and also the usual annual Washington and New York woman
suffrage conventions at which she told the story of her voting, her
arrest, and her pending trial, and where she received enthusiastic
support.
Because she wanted the people to understand the legal points on which
she based her right to vote, Susan spoke on "The Equal Right of All
Citizens to the Ballot" in every district in Monroe County. So
thorough and convincing was she that the district attorney asked for a
change of venue, fearing that any Monroe County jury, sitting in
Rochester, would be prejudiced in her favor. When her case was
transferred to the United States Circuit Court in Canandaigua, to be
heard a month later, she immediately descended upon Ontario County
with her speech, "Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to
Vote?" and Matilda Joslyn Gage joined her, speaking on "The United
States on Trial, Not Susan B. Anthony."
On the lecture platform Susan wore a gray silk dress with a soft,
white lace collar. Her hair, now graying, was smoothed back and
twisted neatly into a tight knot. Everything about her indicated
refinement and sincerity, and most of her audiences felt this.
"Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the
natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and vote
in making and executing the laws," she declared as she looked into the
faces of the men and women who had gathered to hear her, farmers,
storekeepers, lawyers, and housewives, rich and poor, a cross section
of America.
Repeating to them salient passages from the Declaration of
Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution, she added, "It was
we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male
citizens: but we the whole people, who formed this Union. And we
formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them;
not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the
whole people--women as well as men."[298]
She asked, "Is the right to vote one of the privileges or immunities
of citizens? I think the disfranchised ex-rebels, and the ex-state
prisoners will agree with me that it is not only one of them, but the
one without which all the others are nothing."[299]
Quoting for them the Fifteenth Amendment, she told them it had settled
forever the question of the citizen's right to vote. The Fifteenth
Amendment, she reasoned, applies to women, first because women are
citizens and secondly because of their "previous condition of
servitude." Defining a slave as a person robbed of the proceeds of his
labor and subject to the will of another, she showed how state laws
relating to married women had placed them in the position of slaves.
As she analyzed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments
and cited authorities for her conclusions, she left little doubt in
the minds of those who heard her that women were persons and citizens
whose privileges and immunities could not be abridged.
On this note she concluded: "We ask the juries to fail to return
verdicts of 'guilty' against honest, law-abiding, tax-paying United
States citizens for offering their votes at our elections ... We ask
the judges to render true and unprejudiced opinions of the law, and
wherever there is room for doubt to give its benefit on the side of
liberty and equal rights to women, remembering that 'the true rule of
interpretation under our national constitution, especially since its
amendments, is that anything for human rights is constitutional,
everything against human rights unconstitutional.' And it is on this
line that we propose to fight our battle for the ballot--all
peaceably, but nevertheless persistently through to complete triumph,
when all United States citizens shall be recognized as equals before
the law."
* * * * *
Speaking twenty-one nights in succession was arduous. "So few see or
feel any special importance in the impending trial," she jotted down
in her diary. In towns, such as Geneva, where she had old friends,
like Elizabeth Smith Miller, she was assured of a friendly welcome and
a good audience.[300]
[Illustration: "The Woman Who Dared"]
As the collections, taken up after her lectures, were too small to pay
her expenses, her financial problems weighed heavily. The notes she
had signed for _The Revolution_ were in the main still unpaid, and
one of her creditors was growing impatient. She had recently paid her
counsel, Judge Selden, $200 and John Van Voorhis, $75, leaving only
$3.45 in her defense fund, but as usual a few of her loyal friends
came to her aid, and both Judge Selden and John Van Voorhis, deeply
interested in her courageous fight, gave most of their time without
charge.[301]
If this campaign was a problem financially, it was a success in the
matter of nation-wide publicity. The New York _Herald_ exulted in
hostile gibes at women suffrage and published fictitious interviews,
ridiculing Susan as a homely aggressive old maid, but the New York
_Evening Post_ prophesied that the court decision would likely be in
her favor. The Rochester _Express_ championed her warmly: "All
Rochester will assert--at least all of it worth heeding--that Miss
Anthony holds here the position of a refined and estimable woman,
thoroughly respected and beloved by the large circle of staunch
friends who swear by her common sense and loyalty, if not by her
peculiar views." In fact the consensus of opinion in Rochester was
much like that of the woman who remarked, "No, I am not converted to
what these women advocate. I am too cowardly for that; but I am
converted to Susan B. Anthony."[302]
This, however, was far from the attitude of Lucy Stone's _Woman's
Journal_, which had ignored Susan's voting in November 1872 because it
was out of sympathy with this militant move and with her
interpretation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Later, as
her case progressed in the courts, the _Journal_ did give it brief
notice as a news item, but in 1873 when it listed as a mark of honor
the women who had worked wisely for the cause, Susan B. Anthony's name
was not among them, and this did not pass unnoticed by Susan; nor did
the fact that she was snubbed by the Congress of Women, meeting in New
York and sponsored by Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Maria
Mitchell. This drawing away of women hurt her far more than newspaper
gibes. In fact she was sadly disappointed in women's response to the
herculean effort she was making for them.
Even more disconcerting was the adverse decision of the Supreme Court
on the Myra Bradwell case, which at once shattered the confidence of
most of her legal advisors. The court held that Illinois had violated
no provision of the federal Constitution in refusing to allow Myra
Bradwell to practice law because she was a woman and declared that the
right to practice law in state courts is not a privilege or an
immunity of a citizen of the United States, nor is the power of a
state to prescribe qualifications for admission to the bar affected by
the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, filing a
dissenting opinion, lived up to Susan's faith in him, but Benjamin
Butler wrote her, "I do not believe anybody in Congress doubts that
the Constitution authorizes the right of women to vote, precisely as
it authorizes trial by jury and many other like rights guaranteed to
citizens. But the difficulty is, the courts long since decided that
the constitutional provisions do not act upon the citizens, except as
guarantees, ex proprio vigore, and in order to give force to them
there must be legislation.... Therefore, the point is for the friends
of woman suffrage to get congressional legislation."[303]
Susan, however, never wavered in her conviction that she as a citizen
had a constitutional right to vote and that it was her duty to test
this right in the courts.
FOOTNOTES:
[288] Ray Strachey, _Struggle_ (New York, 1930), pp. 113-116.
[289] The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision of a lower court that
without specific legislation by Congress, the 14th Amendment could not
overrule the law of the District of Columbia which limited suffrage to
male citizens over 21. _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 587-601.
[290] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 423.
[291] Nov. 5, 1872, Ida Husted Harper Collection, Henry E. Huntington
Library. Miss Anthony had assured the election inspectors that she
would pay the cost of any suit which might be brought against them for
accepting women's votes.
[292] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 426. The Anthony home was then numbered
7 Madison Street.
[293] _An Account of the Proceedings of the Trial of Susan B. Anthony
on the Charge of Illegal Voting_ (Rochester, New York, 1874), p. 16.
[294] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 428.
[295] _Ibid._, p. 433.
[296] _Trial_, pp. 2-3.
[297] N.d., Susan B. Anthony Papers, New York Public Library.
[298] _Trial_, pp. 151, 153. Judge Story, _Commentaries on the
Constitution of the United States_, Sec. 456: "The importance of
examining the preamble for the purpose of expounding the language of a
statute has long been felt and universally conceded in all juridical
discussion." _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, p. 477.
[299] Harper, _Anthony_, II, pp. 978, 986-987.
[300] Ms., Diary, May 10, June 7, 1873.
[301] Suffrage clubs in New York, Buffalo, Chicago, and Milwaukee sent
$50 and $100 contributions. Susan's cousin, Anson Lapham, cancelled
notes for $4000 which she had signed while struggling to finance _The
Revolution_. The women of Rochester rallied behind her, forming a
Taxpayers' Association to protest taxation without representation.
[302] Harper, _Anthony_, II, pp. 994-995.
[303] _Ibid._, I, p. 429.
"IS IT A CRIME FOR A CITIZEN ... TO VOTE?"
Charged with the crime of voting illegally, Susan was brought to trial
on June 17, 1873, in the peaceful village of Canandaigua, New York.
Simply dressed and wearing her new bonnet faced with blue silk and
draped with a dotted veil,[304] she stoically climbed the court-house
steps, feeling as if on her shoulders she carried the political
destiny of American women. With her were her counsel, Henry R. Selden
and John Van Voorhis, her sister, Hannah Mosher, most of the women who
had voted with her in Rochester, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, whose
interest in this case was akin to her own.
In the courtroom on the second floor, seated behind the bar, Susan
watched the curious crowd gather and fill every available seat. She
wondered, as she calmly surveyed the all-male jury, whether they could
possibly understand the humiliation of a woman who had been arrested
for exercising the rights of a citizen. The judge, Ward Hunt, did not
promise well, for he had only recently been appointed to the bench
through the influence of his friend and townsman, Roscoe Conkling, the
undisputed leader of the Republican party in New York and a bitter
opponent of woman suffrage. She tried to fathom this small,
white-haired, colorless judge upon whose fairness so much depended.
Prim and stolid, he sat before her, faultlessly dressed in a suit of
black broadcloth, his neck wound with an immaculate white neckcloth.
He ruled against her at once, refusing to let her testify on her own
behalf.
She was completely satisfied, however, as she listened to Henry
Selden's presentation of her case. Tall and commanding, he stood
before the court with nobility and kindness in his face and eyes,
bringing to mind a handsome cultured Lincoln. So logical, so just was
his reasoning, so impressive were his citations of the law that it
seemed to her they must convince the jury and even the expressionless
judge on the bench.
Pointing out that the only alleged ground of the illegality of Miss
Anthony's vote was that she was a woman, Henry Selden declared, "If
the same act had been done by her brother under the same
circumstances, the act would have been not only innocent and laudable,
but honorable; but having been done by a woman it is said to be a
crime.... I believe this is the first instance in which a woman has
been arraigned in a criminal court, merely on account of her
sex."[305] He claimed that Miss Anthony had voted in good faith,
believing that the United States Constitution gave her the right to
vote, and he clearly outlined her interpretation of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, declaring that she stood arraigned as a criminal
simply because she took the only step possible to bring this great
constitutional question before the courts.
After he had finished, Susan followed closely for two long hours the
arguments of the district attorney, Richard Crowley, who contended
that whatever her intentions may have been, good or bad, she had by
her voting violated a law of the United States and was therefore
guilty of crime.
At the close of the district attorney's argument, Judge Hunt without
leaving the bench drew out a written document, and to her surprise,
read from it as he addressed the jury. "The right of voting or the
privilege of voting," he declared, "is a right or privilege arising
under the constitution of the State, not of the United States.[306]
"The Legislature of the State of New York," he continued, "has seen
fit to say, that the franchise of voting shall be limited to the male
sex.... If the Fifteenth Amendment had contained the word 'sex,' the
argument of the defendant would have been potent.... The Fourteenth
Amendment gives no right to a woman to vote, and the voting of Miss
Anthony was in violation of the law....
"There was no ignorance of any fact," he added, "but all the facts
being known, she undertook to settle a principle in her own person....
To constitute a crime, it is true, that there must be a criminal
intent, but it is equally true that knowledge of the facts of the case
is always held to supply this intent...."
Then hesitating a moment, he concluded, "Upon this evidence I suppose
there is no question for the jury and that the jury should be directed
to find a verdict of guilty."
Immediately Henry Selden was on his feet, addressing the judge,
requesting that the jury determine whether or not the defendant was
guilty of crime.
Judge Hunt, however, refused and firmly announced, "The question,
gentlemen of the jury, in the form it finally takes, is wholly a
question or questions of law, and I have decided as a question of law,
in the first place, that under the Fourteenth Amendment which Miss
Anthony claims protects her, she was not protected in a right to vote.
"And I have decided also," he continued, "that her belief and the
advice which she took does not protect her in the act which she
committed. If I am right in this, the result must be a verdict on your
part of guilty, and therefore I direct that you find a verdict of
guilty."
Again Henry Selden was on his feet. "That is a direction," he
declared, "that no court has power to make in a criminal case."
The courtroom was tense. Susan, watching the jury and wondering if
they would meekly submit to his will, heard the judge tersely order,
"Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk."
"Gentlemen of the jury," intoned the clerk, "hearken to your verdict
as the Court has recorded it. You say you find the defendant guilty of
the offense whereof she stands indicted, and so say you all."
Claiming exception to the direction of the Court that the jury find a
verdict of guilty in this a criminal case. Henry Selden asked that the
jury be polled.
To this, Judge Hunt abruptly replied, "No. Gentlemen of the jury, you
are discharged."
* * * * *
That night Susan recorded her estimate of Judge Hunt's verdict in her
diary in one terse sentence, "The greatest outrage History ever
witnessed."[307]
The New York _Sun_, the Rochester _Democrat and Chronicle_, and the
Canandaigua _Times_ were indignant over Judge Hunt's failure to poll
the jury. "Judge Hunt," commented the _Sun_, "allowed the jury to be
impanelled and sworn, and to hear the evidence; but when the case had
reached the point of rendering the verdict, he directed a verdict of
guilty. He thus denied a trial by jury to an accused party in his
court; and either through malice, which we do not believe, or through
ignorance, which in such a flagrant degree is equally culpable in a
judge, he violated one of the most important provisions of the
Constitution of the United States.... The privilege of polling the
jury has been held to be an absolute right in this State and it is a
substantial right ..."[308]
Claiming that the defendant had been denied her right of trial by
jury. Henry Selden the next day moved for a new trial. Judge Hunt
denied the motion, and, ordering the defendant to stand up, asked her,
"Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence shall not be
pronounced."[309]
"Yes, your honor," Susan replied, "I have many things to say; for in
your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every
vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights,
my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored...."
Impatiently Judge Hunt protested that he could not listen to a
rehearsal of arguments which her counsel had already presented.
"May it please your honor," she persisted, "I am not arguing the
question but simply stating the reasons why sentence cannot in justice
be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen's right to vote is
the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial
of my right of representation as one of the taxed, the denial of my
right to a trial by a jury of my peers ..."
"The Court cannot allow the prisoner to go on," interrupted Judge
Hunt; but Susan, ignoring his command to sit down, protested that her
prosecutors and the members of the jury were all her political
sovereigns.
Again Judge Hunt tried to stop her, but she was not to be put off. She
was pleading for all women and her voice rang out to every corner of
the courtroom.
"The Court must insist," declared Judge Hunt, "the prisoner has been
tried according to established forms of law."
"Yes, your honor," admitted Susan, "but by forms of law all made by
men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and
against women...."
"The Court orders the prisoner to sit down," shouted Judge Hunt. "It
will not allow another word."
Unheeding, Susan continued, "When I was brought before your honor for
trial, I hoped for a broad and liberal interpretation of the
Constitution and its recent amendments, that should declare all United
States citizens under its protecting aegis--that should declare
equality of rights the national guarantee to all persons born or
naturalized in the United States. But failing to get this
justice--failing, even, to get a trial by a jury _not_ of my peers--I
ask not leniency at your hands--but rather the full rigors of the
law."
Once more Judge Hunt tried to stop her, and acquiescing at last, she
sat down, only to be ordered by him to stand up as he pronounced her
sentence, a fine of $100 and the costs of prosecution.
"May it please your honor," she protested, "I shall never pay a dollar
of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000
debt, incurred by publishing my paper--_The Revolution_ ... the sole
object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have
done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of
law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women, while they deny them
the right of representation in the government.... I shall earnestly
and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical
recognition of the old revolutionary maxim that 'Resistance to tyranny
is obedience to God.'"
Pouring cold water on this blaze of oratory. Judge Hunt tersely
remarked that the Court would not require her imprisonment pending the
payment of her fine.
This shrewd move, obviously planned in advance, made it impossible to
carry the case to the United States Supreme Court by writ of habeas
corpus.
* * * * *
That same afternoon, Susan was on hand for the trial of the three
election inspectors. This time Judge Hunt submitted the case to the
jury but with explicit instructions that the defendants were guilty.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the inspectors, denied a
new trial, were each fined $25 and costs. Two of them, Edwin F. Marsh
and William B. Hall, refused to pay their fines and were sent to jail.
Susan appealed on their behalf to Senator Sargent in Washington, who
eventually secured a pardon for them from President Grant. He also
presented a petition to the Senate, in January 1874, to remit Susan's
fine, as did William Loughridge of Iowa to the House, but the
judiciary committees reported adversely.
Because neither of these cases had been decided on the basis of
national citizenship and the right of a citizen to vote, Susan was
heartsick. To have them relegated to the category of election fraud
was as if her high purpose had been trailed in the dust. Wishing to
spread reliable information about her trial and the legal questions
involved, she had 3,000 copies of the court proceedings printed for
distribution.[310]
It was hard for her to concede that justice for women could not be
secured in the courts, but there seemed to be no way in the face of
the cold letter of the law to take her case to the Supreme Court of
the United States. This would have been possible on writ of habeas
corpus had Judge Hunt sentenced her to prison for failure to pay her
fine, but this he carefully avoided.
Even that intrepid fighter, John Van Voorhis, could find no loophole,
and another of her loyal friends in the legal profession, Albert G.
Riddle, wrote her, "There is not, I think, the slightest hope from the
courts and just as little from the politicians. They will never take
up this cause, never! Individuals will, parties never--till the thing
is done.... The trouble is that man can govern alone, and that, though
woman has the right, man wants to do it, and if she wait for him to
ask her, she will never vote.... Either man must be made to see and
feel ... the need of woman's help in the great field of human
government, and so demand it; or woman must arise and come forward as
she never has, and take her place."[311]
The case of Virginia Minor of St. Louis still held out a glimmer of
hope. She had brought suit against an election inspector for his
refusal to register her as a voter in the presidential election of
1872, and the case of Minor vs. Happersett reached the United States
Supreme Court in 1874. An adverse decision, on March 29, 1875,
delivered by Chief Justice Waite, a friend of woman suffrage, was a
bitter blow to Susan and to all those who had pinned their faith on a
more liberal interpretation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments.
Carefully studying the decision, Susan tried to fathom its reasoning,
so foreign to her own ideas of justice. "Sex," she read, "has never
been made of one of the elements of citizenship in the United
States.... The XIV Amendment did not affect the citizenship of women
any more than it did of men.... The direct question is, therefore,
presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters."[312]
She read on: "The Constitution does not define the privileges and
immunities of citizens.... In this case we need not determine what
they are, but only whether suffrage is necessarily one of them. It
certainly is nowhere made so in express terms....
"When the Constitution of the United States was adopted, all the
several States, with the exception of Rhode Island, had Constitutions
of their own.... We find in no State were all citizens permitted to
vote.... Women were excluded from suffrage in nearly all the States by
the express provision of their constitutions and laws ... No new State
has ever been admitted to the Union which has conferred the right of
suffrage upon women, and this has never been considered valid
objection to her admission. On the contrary ... the right of suffrage
was withdrawn from women as early as 1807 in the State of New Jersey,
without any attempt to obtain the interference of the United States to
prevent it. Since then the governments of the insurgent States have
been reorganized under a requirement that, before their
Representatives could be admitted to seats in Congress, they must have
adopted new Constitutions, republican in form. In no one of these
Constitutions was suffrage conferred upon women, and yet the States
have all been restored to their original position as States in the
Union ... Certainly if the courts can consider any question settled,
this is one....
"Our province," concluded Chief Justice Waite, "is to decide what the
law is, not to declare what it should be.... Being unanimously of the
opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the
right of suffrage upon any one, and that the Constitutions and laws of
the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are
not necessarily void, we affirm the judgment of the Court below."
"A states-rights document," Susan called this decision and she scored
it as inconsistent with the policies of a Republican administration
which, through the Civil War amendments, had established federal
control over the rights and privileges of citizens. If the
Constitution does not confer the right of suffrage, she asked herself,
why does it define the qualifications of those voting for members of
the House of Representatives? How about the enfranchisement of Negroes
by federal amendment or the enfranchisement of foreigners? Why did
the federal government interfere in her case, instead of leaving it in
the hands of the state of New York?
Like most abolitionists, Susan had always regarded the principles of
the Declaration of Independence as underlying the Constitution and as
the essence of constitutional law. In her opinion, the interpretation
of the Constitution in the Virginia Minor case was not only out of
harmony with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, but also
contrary to the wise counsel of the great English jurist, Sir Edward
Coke, who said, "Whenever the question of liberty runs doubtful, the
decision must be given in favor of liberty."[313]
In the face of such a ruling by the highest court in the land, she was
helpless. Women were shut out of the Constitution and denied its
protection. From here on there was only one course to follow, to press
again for a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women.
FOOTNOTES:
[304] Ms., Diary, April 26, 1873.
[305] _Trial_, p. 17.
[306] _Ibid._, pp. 62-68.
[307] Ms., Diary, June 18, 1873.
[308] Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, 1873, Library of Congress.
[309] _Trial_, pp. 81-85.
[310] This booklet also included the speeches of Susan B. Anthony and
Matilda Joslyn Gage, delivered prior to the trial, and a short
appraisal of the trial, _Judge Hunt and the Right of Trial by Jury_,
by John Hooker, the husband of Isabella Beecher Hooker. The Rochester
_Democrat and Chronicle_ called the booklet "the most important
contribution yet made to the discussion of woman suffrage from a legal
standpoint." The _Woman's Suffrage Journal_, IV, Aug. 1, 1873, p. 121,
published in England by Lydia Becker, said: "The American law which
makes it a criminal offense for a person to vote who is not legally
qualified appears harsh to our ideas."
[311] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 455-456.
[312] _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp. 737-739, 741-742.
[313] _Trial_, p. 191.
SOCIAL PURITY
Militancy among the suffragists continued to flare up here and there
in resistance to taxation without representation. Abby Kelley Foster's
home in Worcester was sold for taxes for a mere fraction of its worth,
while in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Abby and Julia Smith's cows and
personal property were seized for taxes. Both Dr. Harriot K. Hunt in
Boston and Mary Anthony in Rochester continued their tax protests.
Much as Susan admired this spirited rebellion, she recognized that
these militant gestures were but flames in the wind unless they had
behind them a well-organized, sustained campaign for a Sixteenth
Amendment, and this she could not undertake until _The Revolution_
debt was paid. Nor was there anyone to pinch-hit for her since
Ernestine Rose had returned to England and Mrs. Stanton gave all her
time to Lyceum lectures.
At the moment the prospect looked bleak for woman suffrage. In
Congress, there was not the slightest hope of the introduction of or
action on a Sixteenth Amendment. In the states, interest was kept
alive by woman suffrage bills before the legislatures, and year by
year, with more people recognizing the inherent justice of the demand,
the margin of defeat grew smaller. Whenever these state contests were
critical, Susan managed to be on hand, giving up profitable lecture
engagements to speak without fees; in Michigan in 1874 and in Iowa in
1875, she made new friends for the cause but was unable to stem the
tide of prejudice against granting women the vote. After the defeat in
Michigan, she wrote in her diary, "Every whisky maker, vendor,
drinker, gambler, every ignorant besotted man is against us, and then
the other extreme, every narrow, selfish religious bigot."[314]
A new militant movement swept the country in 1874, starting in small
Ohio towns among women who were so aroused over the evil influence of
liquor on husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers, that they gathered in
front of saloons to sing and pray, hoping to persuade drunkards to
reform and saloon keepers to close their doors. Out of this uprising,
the Women's Christian Temperance Union developed, and within the next
few years was organized into a powerful reform movement by a young
schoolteacher from Illinois, Frances E. Willard.
A lifelong advocate of temperance, Susan had long before reached the
conclusion that this reform could not be achieved by a strictly
temperance or religious movement, but only through the votes of women.
Nevertheless, she lent a helping hand to the Rochester women who
organized a branch of the W.C.T.U., but she told them just how she
felt: "The best thing this organization will do for you will be to
show you how utterly powerless you are to put down the liquor traffic.
You can never talk down or sing down or pray down an institution which
is voted into existence. You will never be able to lessen this evil
until you have votes."[315]
As she traveled through the West for the Lyceum Bureau, she did what
she could to stimulate interest in a federal woman suffrage amendment,
speaking out of a full heart and with sure knowledge on "Bread and the
Ballot" and "The Power of the Ballot," earning on the average $100 a
week, which she applied to the _Revolution_ debt.
Lyceum lecturers were now at the height of their
popularity,--particularly in the West, where in the little towns
scattered across the prairies there were few libraries and theaters,
and the distribution of books, magazines, and newspapers in no way met
the people's thirst for information or entertainment. Men, women, and
children rode miles on horseback or drove over rough roads in wagons
to see and hear a prominent lecturer. Susan was always a drawing card,
for a woman on the lecture platform still was a novelty and almost
everyone was curious about Susan B. Anthony. Many, to their surprise,
discovered she was not the caricature they had been led to believe.
She looked very ladylike and proper as she stood before them in her
dark silk platform dress, a little too stern and serious perhaps, but
frequently her face lighted up with a friendly smile. She spoke to
them as equals and they could follow her reasoning. Her simple
conversational manner was refreshing after the sonorous pretentious
oratory of other lecturers.
Continuous travel in all kinds of weather was difficult. Branch lines
were slow and connections poor. Often trains were delayed by
blizzards, and then to keep her engagements she was obliged to travel
by sleigh over the snowy prairies. There were long waits in dingy
dirty railroad stations late at night. Even there she was always busy,
reading her newspapers in the dim light or dashing off letters home on
any scrap of paper she had at hand, thinking gratefully of her sister
Mary who in addition to her work as superintendent of the neighborhood
public school, supervised the household at 7 Madison Street. Hotel
rooms were cold and drab, the food was uninviting, and only
occasionally did she find to her delight "a Christian cup of
coffee."[316] She often felt that the Lyceum Bureau drove her
unnecessarily hard, routed her inefficiently, and profited too
generously from her labors. Now and then she dispensed with their
services, sent out her own circulars soliciting engagements, and
arranged her own tours, proving to her satisfaction that a woman could
be as businesslike as a man and sometimes more so.[317]
Weighed down by worry over the illness of her sisters, Guelma and
Hannah, she felt a lack of fire and enthusiasm in her work. Anxiously
she waited for letters from home, and when none reached her she was in
despair. At such times, hotel rooms seemed doubly lonely and she
reproached herself for being away from home and for putting too heavy
a burden on her sister Mary. Yet there was nothing else to be done
until the _Revolution_ debt was paid, for some of her creditors were
becoming impatient.
* * * * *
As often as possible Susan returned to Rochester to be with her
family, and was able to nurse Guelma through the last weeks of her
illness. Heartbroken when she died, in November 1873, she resolved to
take better care of Hannah, sending her out to Colorado and Kansas for
her health. She then tried to spend the summer months at home so that
Mary could visit Hannah in Colorado and Daniel and Merritt in Kansas.
These months at home with her mother whom she dearly loved were a
great comfort to them both. They enjoyed reading aloud, finding George
Eliot's _Middlemarch_ and Hawthorne's _Scarlet Letter_ of particular
interest as Susan was searching for the answers to many questions
which had been brought into sharp focus by the Beecher-Tilton case,
now filling the newspapers. Like everyone else, she read the latest
developments in this tragic involvement of three of her good friends.
She was especially concerned about Elizabeth and Theodore Tilton, in
whose home she had so often visited and toward whom she felt a warm
motherly affection. Her sympathy went out to Elizabeth Tilton, whose
help and loyalty during the difficult days of _The Revolution_ she
never forgot. Although she had often differed with Theodore, whose
quick changes of policy and temperament she could not understand, he
had won her gratitude many times by befriending the cause. The same
was true of Henry Ward Beecher, who had found time in his busy life to
say a good word for woman's rights.
Susan was close to the facts, for in desperation a few years before,
Elizabeth Tilton had confided in her. Unfortunately both Elizabeth and
Theodore had made confidants of others less wise than Susan. Mrs.
Stanton had passed the story along to Victoria Woodhull, who late in
1872 had revived her _Weekly_ for a crusade on what she called "the
social question" and had published her expose, "The Beecher-Tilton
Scandal Case." As a result the lives of all involved were being ruined
by merciless publicity.
The Beecher-Tilton story as it unfolded revealed three admirable
people caught in a tangled web of human relationships. Henry Ward
Beecher, for years a close friend and benefactor of his young
parishioners, Theodore and Elizabeth Tilton, had been accused by
Theodore of immoral relations with Elizabeth. Accusations and denials
continued while intrigue and negotiations deepened the confusion. The
whole matter burst into flame in 1874 in the trial of Henry Ward
Beecher before a committee of Plymouth Church, which exonerated him.
Reading Beecher's statement in her newspaper, Susan impulsively wrote
Isabella Beecher Hooker, "Wouldn't you think if God ever did strike
anyone dead for telling a lie, he would have struck then?"[318]
When early in 1875 the Beecher-Tilton case reached the courts in a
suit brought by Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher for the
alienation of his wife's affections, it became headline news
throughout the country. The press, greedy for sensation, published
anything and everything even remotely connected with the case.
Reporters hounded Susan, who by this time was again lecturing in the
West, and she seldom entered a train, bus, or hotel without finding
them at her heels, as if by their very persistence they meant to force
her to express her opinion regarding the guilt or innocence of Henry
Ward Beecher. They never caught her off guard and she steadfastly
refused to reveal to them, or to the lawyers of either side, who
astutely approached her, the story which Elizabeth Tilton had told her
in confidence. Yet in spite of her continued silence, she was twice
quoted by the press, once through the impulsiveness of Mrs. Stanton,
who expressed herself frankly at every opportunity, and again when the
New York _Graphic_ without Susan's consent published her letter to
Mrs. Hooker.
The sympathy of the public was generally with Henry Ward Beecher,
whose popularity and prestige were tremendous. A dynamic preacher,
whose sermons drew thousands to his church and whose written word
carried religion and comfort to every part of the country, he could
not suddenly be ruined by the circulation of a scandal or even by a
sensational trial. Behind him were all those who were convinced that
the future of the Church and Morality demanded his vindication. On his
side, also, as Susan well knew, was the powerful, behind-the-scenes
influence of the financial interests who profited from Plymouth Church
real estate, from the earnings of Beecher's paper, _Christian Union_,
and from his book the _Life of Christ_, now in preparation and for
which he had already been paid $20,000.
Susan and Mrs. Stanton paid the penalty of being on the unpopular
side. When Elizabeth Tilton was not allowed to testify in her own
defense, they accused Beecher and Tilton of ruthlessly sacrificing her
to save their own reputations. In fact, Susan and Mrs. Stanton knew
far too much about the case for the comfort of either Beecher or
Tilton, and to discredit them, a whispering campaign, and then a press
campaign was initiated against them. They and their National Woman
Suffrage Association were again accused of upholding free love. Their
previous association with Victoria Woodhull was held against them, as
were the frank discussions of marriage and divorce published in _The
Revolution_ six years before.
Actually Susan's views on marriage were idealistic. "I hate the whole
doctrine of 'variety' or 'promiscuity,'" she wrote John Hooker, the
husband of her friend Isabella. "I am not even a believer in second
marriages after one of the parties is dead, so sacred and binding do I
consider the marriage relation."[319]
Although in public Susan uttered not one word relating to the guilt or
innocence of Henry Ward Beecher, she did confide her real feelings to
her diary. She believed that to save himself Beecher was withholding
the explanation which the situation demanded. "It is almost an
impossibility," she wrote in her diary, "for a man and a woman to have
a close sympathetic friendship without the tendrils of one soul
becoming fastened around the other, with the result of infinite pain
and anguish." Then again she wrote, "There is nothing more
demoralizing than lying. The act itself is scarcely so base as the lie
which denies it."[320]
Susan's silence probably brought her more notoriety than anything she
could have said on this much discussed subject, and it heightened her
reputation for honesty and integrity. "Miss Anthony," commented the
New York _Sun_, "is a lady whose word will everywhere be believed by
those who know anything of her character." The Rochester _Democrat and
Chronicle_ had this to say: "Whether she will make any definite
revelations remains to be seen, but whatever she does say will be
received by the public with that credit which attaches to the evidence
of a truthful witness. Her own character, known and honored by the
country, will give importance to any utterances she may make."[321]
She was not called as a witness by either side during the 112 days of
trial which ended in July 1875 with the jury unable to agree on a
verdict.
* * * * *
Realizing that many taboos were being broken down by the lurid
nation-wide publicity on the Beecher-Tilton case and that as a result
people were more willing to consider subjects which hitherto had not
been discussed in polite society, Susan began to plan a lecture on
"Social Purity."
She was familiar with the public protest Englishwomen under the
leadership of Josephine Butler were making against the state
regulation of vice. Following with interest and admiration their
courageous fight for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, which
placed women suspected of prostitution under police power, Susan found
encouragement in the support these reformers had received from such
men as John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright. Such legislation, she
resolved, must not gain a foothold in her country, because it not only
disregarded women's right to personal liberty but showed a dangerous
callousness toward men's share of responsibility for prostitution.
She was awake to the problems prostitution presented in cities like
New York and Washington, its prevalence, the police protection it
received, the political corruption it fostered and the reluctance of
the public to face the situation, the majority of men regarding it as
a necessity, and most women closing their eyes to its existence.
During the winter of 1875, while the Beecher-Tilton case was being
tried in Brooklyn, she delivered her speech on "Social Purity" at the
Chicago Grand Opera House, in the Sunday dime-lecture course, facing
with trepidation the immense crowd which gathered to hear her. Even
the daring Mrs. Stanton had warned her that she would never be asked
to speak in Chicago again, and with this the manager of the Slayton
Lecture Bureau agreed. But they were wrong. The people were hungry for
the truth and for a constructive policy. In the past they had heard
the "social evil" described and denounced in vivid thunderous words by
eloquent men and by the dramatic Anna E. Dickinson. Now an earnest
woman with graying hair, one of their own kind, talked to them without
mincing matters, calmly and logically, and offered them a remedy.
Calling their attention to the daily newspaper reports of divorce and
breach-of-promise suits, of wife murders and "paramour" shootings, of
abortions and infanticide, she told them that the prevalence of these
evils showed clearly that men were incapable of coping with them
successfully and needed the help of women. She cited statistics,
revealing 20,000 prostitutes in the city of New York, where a
foundling hospital during the first six months of its existence
rescued 1,300 waifs laid in baskets on its doorstep. She courageously
mentioned the prevalence of venereal disease and spoke out against
England's Contagious Diseases Acts which were repeatedly suggested for
New York and Washington and which she described as licensed
prostitution, men's futile and disastrous attempt to deal with social
corruption.
Declaring that the poverty and economic dependence of women as well as
the passions of men were the causes of prostitution, she quoted more
statistics which showed a great increase in the poverty of women. Work
formerly done in the household, she explained, was being gradually
taken over by factories, with the result that women in order to earn a
living had been forced to follow it out of the home and were
supporting themselves wholly or in part at a wage inadequate to meet
their needs. No wonder many were tempted by food, clothes, and
comfortable shelter into an immoral life.
Her solution was "to lift this vast army of poverty-stricken women who
now crowd our cities, above the temptation, the necessity, to sell
themselves in marriage or out, for bread and shelter." "Women," she
told them, "must be educated out of their unthinking acceptance of
financial dependence on man into mental and economic independence.
Girls like boys must be educated to some lucrative employment. Women
like men must have an equal chance to earn a living."[322]
"Whoever controls work and wages," she continued, "controls morals.
Therefore we must have women employers, superintendents, committees,
legislators; wherever girls go to seek the means of subsistence, there
must be some woman. Nay, more; we must have women preachers, lawyers,
doctors--that wherever women go to seek counsel--spiritual, legal,
physical--there, too, they will be sure to find the best and noblest
of their own sex to minister to them."
Then she added, "Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a
necessity; an incident of life, not all of it.... Marriage never will
cease to be a wholly unequal partnership until the law recognizes the
equal ownership in the joint earnings and possessions."
She asked for the vote so that women would have the power to help make
the laws relating to marriage, divorce, adultery, breach of promise,
rape, bigamy, infanticide, and so on. These laws, she reminded them,
have not only been framed by men, but are administered by men. Judges,
jurors, lawyers, all are men, and no woman's voice is heard in our
courts except as accused or witness, and in many cases the married
woman is denied the right to testify as to her guilt or innocence.
Never before had the audience heard the case for social purity
presented in this way and they listened intently. When the applause
was subsiding, Susan saw Parker Pillsbury and Bronson Alcott,
fellow-lecturers on the Lyceum circuit, coming toward her, smiling
approval. They were generous in their praise, Bronson Alcott
declaring, "You have stated here this afternoon, in a fearless manner,
truths that I have hardly dared to think, much less to utter."[323]
She repeated this lecture in St. Louis, in Wisconsin, and in Kansas,
and while most city newspapers, acknowledging the need of facing the
issues, praised her courage, small-town papers were frankly disturbed
by a spinster's public discussion of the "social evil," one paper
observing, "The best lecture a woman can give the community ... on the
sad 'evil' ... is the sincerity of her profound ignorance on the
subject."[324]
* * * * *
Having bravely done her bit for social purity, Susan with relief
turned again to her favorite lecture, "Bread and the Ballot." Her
message fell on fertile ground. These western men and women saw
justice in her reasoning. Having broken with tradition by leaving the
East for the frontier, they could more easily drop old ways for new.
Western men also recognized the influence for good that women had
brought to lonely bleak western towns--better homes, cleanliness,
comfort, then schools, churches, law and order--and many of them were
willing to give women the vote. All they needed was prodding to
translate that willingness into law.
As she continued her lecturing, she kept her watchful eye on her
family and the annual New York and Washington conventions, attending
to many of the routine details herself. Finally, on May 1, 1876, she
recorded in her diary, "The day of Jubilee for me has come. I have
paid the last dollar of the _Revolution_ debt."[325]
Even the press took notice, the Chicago _Daily News_ commenting, "By
working six years and devoting to the purpose all the money she could
earn, she has paid the debt and interest. And now, when the creditors
of that paper and others who really know her, hear the name of Susan
B. Anthony, they feel inclined to raise their hats in reverence."[326]
FOOTNOTES:
[314] Ms., Diary, Nov. 4, 1874.
[315] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 457. Frances Willard took her stand for
woman suffrage in the W.C.T.U. in 1876.
[316] Ms., Diary, Sept., 1877.
[317] To James Redpath, Dec. 23, 1870, Alma Lutz Collection.
[318] New York _Graphic_, Sept. 12, 1874. Mrs. Hooker believed her
half-brother guilty and repeatedly urged him to confess, assuring him
she would join him in announcing "a new social freedom." Kenneth R.
Andrews, Nook Farm (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), pp. 36-39. Rumors that
Mrs. Hooker was insane were deliberately circulated.
[319] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 463.
[320] _Ibid._ Only a few entries relating to the Beecher-Tilton case
remain in the Susan B. Anthony diaries, now in the Library of
Congress, and the diary for 1875 is not there.
[321] _Ibid._, p. 462.
[322] _Ibid._, II, pp. 1007-1009.
[323] _Ibid._, I, p. 468.
[324] _Ibid._, p. 470. Miss Anthony interrupted her lecturing for nine
weeks to nurse her brother Daniel after he had been shot by a rival
editor in Leavenworth.
[325] _Ibid._, p. 472.
[326] _Ibid._, p. 473.
A FEDERAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
Like everyone else in the United States in 1876, Susan now turned her
attention to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, which was
proclaiming to the world the progress this new country had made. Susan
pointed out, however, that one hundred years after the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, women were still deprived of basic
citizenship rights.
As an afterthought, a Woman's Pavilion had been erected on the
exposition grounds and exhibited here she found only women's
contribution to the arts but nothing which would in any way show the
part women had played in building up the country or developing
industry. She longed to explain so that all could hear how the skilled
work of women had contributed to the prosperous textile and shoe
industries, to the manufacture of cartridges and Waltham watches, and
countless other products. Could she have had her way, she would have
made the Woman's Pavilion an eloquent appeal for equal rights, but
unable to do this, she established a center of rebellion for the
National Woman Suffrage Association at 1431 Chestnut Street, in
parlors on the first floor. Here she spent many happy hours directing
the work, often sleeping on the sofa so that she could work late and
save money for the cause.
Philadelphia had always been a friendly city because of Lucretia Mott.
Now Lucretia came almost daily to the women's headquarters, bringing a
comforting sense of support, approval, and friendship. When Mrs.
Stanton, free at last from her lecture engagements, joined them in
June, Susan's happiness was complete and she confided to her diary,
"Glad enough to see her and feel her strength come in."[327]
Susan and Mrs. Stanton now sent the Republican and Democratic national
conventions well-written memorials pointing out the appropriateness of
enfranchising women in this centennial year. But no woman suffrage
plank was adopted by either party. Susan put Mrs. Stanton and Mrs.
Gage to work on a Women's Declaration of 1876, and so "magnificent" a
document did they produce that she not only had many copies printed
for distribution but had one beautifully engrossed on parchment for
presentation to President Grant at the Fourth of July celebration in
Independence Square.
Unable to secure permission to present this declaration, she made
plans of her own. For herself, she managed to get a press card as
reporter for her brother's paper, the Leavenworth _Times_. Mrs.
Stanton and Lucretia Mott refused to attend the celebration, so
indignant were they over the snubs women had received from the
Centennial Commission, and they held a women's meeting at the First
Unitarian Church. When at the last minute four tickets were sent Susan
by the Centennial Commission, she gave them to the most militant of
her colleagues, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, Sarah
Andrews Spencer, and Phoebe Couzins. With Susan in the lead, they
pushed through the jostling crowd to Independence Square on that
bright hot Fourth of July and were seated among the elect on the
platform.
By this time they had learned that Thomas W. Ferry of Michigan, Acting
Vice President, would substitute for President Grant at the ceremony.
Because he was a good friend of woman suffrage, Phoebe Couzins made
one more effort for orderly procedure, sending him a note asking for
permission to present the Women's Declaration. This failed, and rather
than take part in creating a disturbance, she withdrew, leaving her
four friends on the platform.
"We ... sat there waiting ..." reported Mrs. Blake. "The heat was
frightful.... Amid such a throng it was difficult to hear anything ...
We decided that our presentation should take place immediately after
Mr. Richard Lee of Virginia, grandson of the Signer, had read the
Declaration of Independence. He read it from the original document,
and it was an impressive moment when that time-honored parchment was
exposed to the view of the wildly cheering crowd.... Mr. Lee's voice
was inaudible, but at last I caught the words, 'our sacred honors,'
and cried, 'Now is the time.'
"We all four rose, Miss Anthony first, next Mrs. Gage, bearing our
engrossed Declaration, and Mrs. Spencer and myself following with
hundreds of printed copies in our hands. There was a stir in the
crowd just at the time, and General Hawley who had been keeping a wary
eye on us, had relaxed his vigilance for a moment, as he signed to the
band to resume playing. He did not see us advancing until we reached
the Vice President's dais. There Miss Anthony, taking the parchment
from Mrs. Gage, stepped forward and presented it to Mr. Ferry, saying,
'I present to you a Declaration of Rights from the women citizens of
the United States.'"[328]
Nonplussed, Mr. Ferry bowed low and received the Declaration without a
word. Then the four intrepid women filed out, distributing printed
copies of their declaration while General Hawley boomed out, "Order!
Order!"
Leaving the square and mounting a platform erected for musicians in
front of Independence Hall, they waited until a curious crowd had
gathered around them. Then while Mrs. Gage held an umbrella over Susan
to shield her from the hot sun, she read the Women's Declaration in a
loud clear voice that carried far.
"We do rejoice in the success, thus far, of our experiment of
self-government," she began. "Our faith is firm and unwavering in the
broad principles of human rights proclaimed in 1776, not only as
abstract truths, but as the cornerstones of a republic. Yet we cannot
forget, even in this glad hour, that while all men of every race, and
clime, and condition, have been invested with the full rights of
citizenship under our hospitable flag, all women still suffer the
degradation of disfranchisement."[329]
Then she enumerated women's grievances and the crowd applauded as she
drove home point after point.
"Woman," she continued, "has shown equal devotion with man to the
cause of freedom and has stood firmly by his side in its defense.
Together they have made this country what it is.... We ask our rulers,
at this hour, no special favors, no special privileges.... We ask
justice, we ask equality, we ask that all civil and political rights
that belong to the citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us
and our daughters forever."
Stepping down from the platform into the applauding crowd which
eagerly reached for printed copies of the declaration, she and her
four companions hurried to the First Unitarian Church where an eager
audience awaited their report and hailed their courage.
[Illustration: Aaron A. Sargent]
The New York _Tribune_, commenting on Susan's militancy, prophesied
that it foreshadowed "the new forms of violence and disregard of order
which may accompany the participation of women in active partisan
politics."[330]
* * * * *
Nor was Congress impressed by Susan's centennial publicity demanding a
federal woman suffrage amendment. She had gathered petitions from
twenty-six states with 10,000 signatures which were presented to the
Senate in 1877. The majority of the Senators found these petitions
uproariously funny, and Susan in the visitors' gallery at the time of
their presentation was infuriated by the mirth and disrespect of these
men. "A few read the petitions as they would any other, with dignity
and without comment," reported the popular journalist, Mary Clemmer,
in her weekly Washington column, "but the majority seemed intensely
conscious of holding something unutterably funny in their hands....
The entire Senate presented the appearance of a laughing school
practicing sidesplitting and ear-extended grins." After a few humorous
and sarcastic remarks the petitions were referred to the Committee on
Public Lands. Only one Senator, Aaron A. Sargent of California, was
"man enough and gentleman enough to lift the petitions from this
insulting proposition.... He ... demanded for the petition of more
than 10,000 women at least the courtesy which would be given any
other."[331]
Although his words did not deter the Senators, Susan was proud of this
tall vigorous white-haired Californian and grateful for his
spontaneous support in this humiliating situation. He had been a
trusted friend and counselor ever since she had shared with him and
his family the long snowy journey from Nevada in 1872. She looked
forward to the time when woman suffrage would have more such advocates
in the Congress and when she would find there new faces and a more
liberal spirit.
Disappointment only drove Susan into more intensive activity. Between
lectures she now nursed her sister Hannah who was critically ill in
Daniel's home in Leavenworth. After Hannah's death in May 1877, Susan
worked off her grief in Colorado, where the question of votes for
women was being referred to the people of the state.
The suffragists in Colorado were headed by Dr. Alida Avery, who had
left her post as resident physician at the new woman's college,
Vassar, to practice medicine in Denver. Making Dr. Avery's home her
headquarters, Susan carried her plea for the ballot to settlements far
from the railroads, traveling by stagecoach over rough lonely roads
through magnificent scenery. Holding meetings wherever she could, she
spoke in schoolhouses, in hotel dining rooms, and even in saloons,
when no other place was available, and always she was treated with
respect and listened to with interest. Occasionally only a mere
handful gathered to hear her, but in Lake City she spoke to an
audience of a thousand or more from a dry-goods box on the court-house
steps. She was equal to anything, but the mining towns depressed her,
for they were swarming with foreigners who had been welcomed as
naturalized, enfranchised citizens and who almost to a man opposed
extending the vote to women. This precedence of foreign-born men over
American women was not only galling to her but menaced, she believed,
the growth of American democracy.
Woman suffrage was defeated in Colorado in 1877, two to one. With the
Chinese coming into the state in great numbers to work in the mines,
the specter that stalked through this campaign was the fear of putting
the ballot into the hands of Chinese women.
From Colorado, Susan moved on to Nebraska with a new lecture, "The
Homes of Single Women." Although she much preferred to speak on "Woman
and the Sixteenth Amendment" or "Bread and the Ballot," she realized
that, in order to be assured of return engagements, she must
occasionally vary her subjects, but she was unwilling to wander far
afield while women's needs still were so great. By means of this new
lecture she hoped to dispel the widespread, deeply ingrained fallacy
that single women were unwanted helpless creatures wholly dependent
upon some male relative for a home and support. Aware that this
mistaken estimate was slowly yielding in the face of a changing
economic order, she believed she could help lessen its hold by
presenting concrete examples of independent self-supporting single
women who had proved that marriage was not the only road to security
and a home. She told of Alice and Phoebe Cary, whose home in New York
City was a rendezvous for writers, artists, musicians, and reformers;
of Dr. Clemence Lozier, the friend of women medical students; of Mary
L. Booth, well established through her income as editor of _Harper's
Bazaar_; and of her beloved Lydia Mott, whose home had been a refuge
for fugitive slaves and reformers.[332]
In Nebraska, she made a valuable new friend for the cause, Clara
Bewick Colby, whose zeal and earnest, intelligent face at once
attracted her. Within a few years, Mrs. Colby established in Beatrice,
Nebraska, a magazine for women, the _Woman's Tribune_, which to
Susan's joy spoke out for a federal woman suffrage amendment.
Because Susan's contract with the Slayton Lecture Bureau allowed no
break in her engagements, she was obliged to leave the Washington
convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association in the hands of
others in 1878. It was much on her mind as she traveled through
Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas, and she sent a check for $100
to help with the expenses of the convention. Particularly on her mind
was a federal woman suffrage amendment, for since 1869 when a
Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women had been introduced in
Congress and ignored, no further efforts along that line had been
made. Now good news came from Mrs. Stanton, who had attended the
convention. She had persuaded Senator Sargent to introduce in the
Senate, on January 10, 1878, a new draft of a Sixteenth Amendment,
following the wording of the Fifteenth. It read, "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 sex."[333]
[Illustration: Clara Bewick Colby]
* * * * *
During the next few years the Sixteenth Amendment made little headway,
although the complexion of Congress changed, the Democrats breaking
the Republicans' hold and winning a substantial majority. Encouraging
as was the more liberal spirit of the new Congress and the defeat of
several implacable enemies, Susan found California's failure to return
Senator Sargent an irreparable loss. In addition she now had to face a
newly formed group of anti-suffragists under the leadership of Mrs.
Dahlgren, Mrs. Sherman, and Almira Lincoln Phelps, who sang the
refrain which Congressmen loved to hear, that women did not want the
vote because it would wreck marriage and the home.
Hoping to counteract this adverse influence by increased pressure for
the Sixteenth Amendment, Susan once more appealed for help to the
American Woman Suffrage Association through her old friends, William
Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Garrison replied that her efforts
for a federal amendment were premature and "would bring the movement
into needless contempt." This she found strange advice from the man
who had fearlessly defied public opinion to crusade against slavery.
Wendell Phillips did better, writing, "I think you are on the right
track--the best method to agitate the question, and I am with you,
though between you and me, I still think the individual States must
lead off, and that this reform must advance piecemeal, State by State.
But I mean always to help everywhere and everyone."[334]
The American Association continued to follow the state-by-state
method, and this holding back aroused Susan to the boiling point, for
experience had taught her that in state elections woman suffrage faced
the prejudiced opposition of an ever-increasing number of naturalized
immigrants, who had little understanding of democratic government or
sympathy with the rights of women. A federal amendment, on the other
hand, depending for its adoption upon Congress and ratifying
legislatures, was in the hands of a far more liberal, intelligent, and
preponderantly American group. "We have puttered with State rights for
thirty years," she sputtered, "without a foothold except in the
territories."[335]
Year by year she continued her Washington conventions, convinced that
these gatherings in the national capital could not fail to impress
Congressmen with the seriousness of their purpose. As women from many
states lobbied for the Sixteenth Amendment, reporting a growing
sentiment everywhere for woman suffrage, as they received in the press
respectful friendly publicity, Congressmen began to take notice. At
the large receptions held at the Riggs House, through the generosity
of the proprietors, Jane Spofford and her husband, Congressmen became
better acquainted with the suffragists, finding that they were not
cranks, as they had supposed, but intelligent women and socially
charming.
Mrs. Stanton's poise as presiding officer and the warmth of her
personality made her the natural choice for president of the National
Woman Suffrage Association through the years. Her popularity, now well
established throughout the country after her ten years of lecturing
on the Lyceum circuit, lent prestige to the cause. To Susan, her
presence brought strength and the assurance that "the brave and true
word" would be spoken.[336] A new office had been created for Susan,
that of vice-president at large, and in that capacity she guided,
steadied, and prodded her flock.
The subjects which the conventions discussed covered a wide field
going far beyond their persistent demands for a federal woman suffrage
amendment. Not only did they at this time urge an educational
qualification for voters to combat the argument that woman suffrage
would increase the ignorant vote, but they also protested the counting
of women in the basis of representation so long as they were
disfranchised. They criticized the church for barring women from the
ministry and from a share in church government. They took up the case
of Anna Ella Carroll,[337] who had been denied recognition and a
pension for her services to her country during the Civil War, and they
urged pensions for all women who had nursed soldiers during the war.
They welcomed to their conventions Mormon women from Utah who came to
Washington to protest efforts to disfranchise them as a means of
discouraging polygamy.
Susan injected international interest into these conventions by
reading Alexander Dumas's arguments for woman suffrage, letters from
Victor Hugo and English suffragists, and a report by Mrs. Stanton's
son, Theodore, now a journalist, of the International Congress in
Paris in 1878, which discussed the rights of women. Occasionally
foreign-born women, now making new homes for themselves in this
country, joined the ranks of the suffragists, and a few of them, like
Madam Anneké and Clara Heyman from Germany contributed a great deal
through their eloquence and wider perspective. These contacts with the
thoughts and aspirations of men and women of other countries led Susan
to dream of an international conference of women in the not too
distant future.[338]
FOOTNOTES:
[327] Ms., Diary, June 18, 1876.
[328] Katherine D. Blake and Margaret Wallace, _Champion of Women, The
Life of Lillie Devereux Blake_ (New York, 1943), pp. 124-126.
[329] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, pp. 31, 34. The Woman's
Journal surprised Susan with a friendly editorial, "Good Use of the
Fourth of July," written by Lucy Stone, July 15, 1876.
[330] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 43. The Philadelphia
_Press_ praised the Declaration of Rights and the women in the
suffrage movement. The report of the New York _Post_ was patronizingly
favorable, pointing out the indifference of the public to the subject.
[331] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 485-486.
[332] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[333] This amendment was re-introduced in the same form in every
succeeding Congress until it was finally passed in 1919 as the
Nineteenth Amendment. It was ratified by the states in 1920, 14 years
after Susan B. Anthony's death. When occasionally during her lifetime
it was called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment by those who wished to
honor her devotion to the cause, she protested, meticulously giving
Elizabeth Cady Stanton credit for making the first public demand for
woman suffrage in 1848. She also made it clear that although she
worked for the amendment long and hard, she did not draft it. After
her death, during the climax of the woman suffrage campaign, these
facts were overlooked by the younger workers who made a point of
featuring the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, both because they wished to
immortalize her and because they realized the publicity value of her
name.
[334] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 484.
[335] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 66.
[336] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 544.
[337] _History of Woman Suffrage_, III, p. 153; II, pp. 3-12, 863-868;
Sarah Ellen Blackwell, _A Military Genius, Life of Anna Ella Carroll
of Maryland_ (Washington, D.C., 1891), I, pp. 153-154.
[338] "Woman Suffrage as a Means of Moral Improvement and the
Prevention of Crime" by Alexander Dumas, _History of Woman Suffrage_,
III, p. 190. Theodore Stanton, foreign correspondent for the New York
_Tribune_, now lived in Paris.
RECORDING WOMEN'S HISTORY
Recording women's history for future generations was a project that
had been in the minds of both Susan and Mrs. Stanton for a long time.
Both looked upon women's struggle for a share in government as a
potent force in strengthening democracy and one to be emphasized in
history. Men had always been the historians and had as a matter of
course extolled men's exploits, passing over women's record as
negligible. Susan intended to remedy this and she was convinced that
if women close to the facts did not record them now, they would be
forgotten or misinterpreted by future historians. Already many of the
old workers had died, Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott, whom Susan had
nursed in her last illness, Lucretia Mott, and William Lloyd Garrison.
There was no time to be lost.[339]
In the spring of 1880, Susan's mother died, and it was no longer
necessary for her to fit into her schedule frequent visits in
Rochester. Her sister Mary, busy with her teaching, was sharing her
home with her two widowed brothers-in-law and two nieces whose
education she was supervising.[340] Mrs. Stanton had just given up the
strenuous life of a Lyceum lecturer and welcomed work that would keep
her at home. Susan, who had managed to save $4,500 out of her lecture
fees, felt she could afford to devote at least a year to the history.
She now shipped several boxes of letters, clippings, and documents to
the Stanton home in Tenafly, New Jersey.[341] As they planned their
book, it soon became obvious that the one volume which they had hoped
to finish in a few months would extend to two or three volumes and
take many years to write. They called in Matilda Joslyn Gage to help
them, and the three of them signed a contract to share the work and
the profits.
The history presented a publishing problem as well as a writing
ordeal, and Susan, interviewing New York publishers, found the subject
had little appeal. Finally, however, she signed a contract with Fowler
& Wells under which the authors agreed to pay the cost of composition,
stereotyping, and engravings; and as usual she raised the necessary
funds.[342]
[Illustration: Matilda Joslyn Gage]
Returning to Tenafly as to a second home, Susan usually found Mrs.
Stanton beaming a welcome from the piazza and Margaret and Harriot
running to the gate to meet her. The Stanton children were fond of
Susan. It was a comfortable happy household, and Susan, thoroughly
enjoying Mrs. Stanton's companionship, attacked the history with
vigor. Sitting opposite each other at a big table in the sunny tower
room, they spent long hours at work. Susan, thin and wiry, her graying
hair neatly smoothed back over her ears, sat up very straight as she
rapidly sorted old clippings and letters and outlined chapters, while
Mrs. Stanton, stout and placid, her white curls beautifully arranged,
wrote steadily and happily, transforming masses of notes into readable
easy prose.[343]
Having sent appeals for information to colleagues in all parts of the
country, Susan, as the contributions began to come in, struggled to
decipher the often almost illegible, handwritten manuscripts, many of
them careless and inexact about dates and facts. To their request for
data about her, Lucy Stone curtly replied, "I have never kept a diary
or any record of my work, and so am unable to furnish you the required
dates.... You say 'I' must be referred to in the history you are
writing.... I cannot furnish a biographical sketch and trust you will
not try to make one. Yours with ceaseless regret that any 'wing' of
suffragists should attempt to write the history of the other."[344]
The greater part of the writing fell upon Mrs. Stanton, but Matilda
Joslyn Gage contributed the chapters, "Preceding Causes," "Women in
Newspapers," and "Women, Church, and State." Susan carefully selected
the material and checked the facts. She helped with the copying of the
handwritten manuscript and with the proofreading. Believing that
pictures of the early workers were almost as important for the
_History_ as the subject matter itself, she tried to provide them, but
they presented a financial problem with which it was hard to cope, for
each engraving cost $100.[345]
When the first volume of the _History of Woman Suffrage_ came off the
press in May 1881, she proudly and lovingly scanned its 878 pages
which told the story of women's progress in the United States up to
the Civil War.
She was well aware that the _History_ was not a literary achievement,
but the facts were there, as accurate as humanly possible; all the
eloquent, stirring speeches were there, a proof of the caliber and
high intelligence of the pioneers; and out of the otherwise dull
record of meetings, conventions, and petitions, a spirit of
independence and zeal for freedom shone forth, highlighted
occasionally by dramatic episodes. As Mrs. Stanton so aptly expressed
it, "We have furnished the bricks and mortar for some future architect
to rear a beautiful edifice."[346]
The distribution of the book was very much on Susan's mind, for she
realized that it would not be in great demand because of its cost,
bulk, and subject matter. Nor could she at this time present it to
libraries, as she wished, for she had already spent her savings on the
illustrations. "It ought to be in every school library," she wrote
Amelia Bloomer, "where every boy and girl of the nation could see and
read and learn what women have done to secure equality of rights and
chances for girls and women...."[347]
So much material had been collected while Volume I was in preparation
that both Susan and Mrs. Stanton felt they should immediately
undertake Volume II. After a summer of lecturing to help finance its
publication, Susan returned to Tenafly to the monotonous work of
compilation. "I am just sick to death of it," she wrote her young
friend Rachel Foster. "I had rather wash or whitewash or do any
possible hard work than sit here and go there digging into the dusty
records of the past--that is, rather _make_ history than write
it."[348]
Yet she never entirely gave up making history, for she was always
planning for the future and Rachel Foster was now her able lieutenant,
relieving her of details, doing the spade work for the annual
Washington conventions, and arranging for an occasional lecture
engagement. Susan would not leave Tenafly for a lecture fee of less
than $50.
She took this intelligent young girl to her heart as she had Anna E.
Dickinson in the past. Rachel, however, had none of Anna's dramatic
temperament or love of the limelight, but in her orderly businesslike
way was eager to serve Susan, whom she had admired ever since as a
child she had heard her speak for woman suffrage in her mother's
drawing room.
While Susan was pondering the ways and means of financing another
volume of the _History_, the light broke through in a letter from
Wendell Phillips, announcing the astonishing news that she and Lucy
Stone had inherited approximately $25,000 each for "the woman's cause"
under the will of Eliza Eddy, the daughter of their former benefactor,
Francis Jackson. Although the legacy was not paid until 1885 because
of litigation, its promise lightened considerably Susan's financial
burden and she knew that Volumes II and III were assured. Her
gratitude to Eliza Eddy was unbounded, and better still, she read
between the lines the good will of Wendell Phillips who had been Eliza
Eddy's legal advisor. That he, whom she admired above all men, should
after their many differences still regard her as worthy of this trust,
meant as much to her as the legacy itself.
In May 1882 she had the satisfaction of seeing the second volume of
the _History of Woman Suffrage_ in print, carrying women's record
through 1875. Volume III was not completed until 1885.
Women's response to their own history was a disappointment. Only a few
realized its value for the future, among them Mary L. Booth, editor of
_Harper's Bazaar_. The majority were indifferent and some even
critical. When Mrs. Stanton offered the three volumes to the Vassar
College library, they were refused.[349] Nevertheless, every time
Susan looked at the three large volumes on her shelves, she was happy,
for now she was assured that women's struggle for citizenship and
freedom would live in print through the years. To libraries in the
United States and Europe, she presented well over a thousand copies,
grateful that the Eliza Eddy legacy now made this possible.
* * * * *
In 1883, Susan surprised everyone by taking a vacation in Europe. Soon
after Volume II of the _History_ had been completed, Mrs. Stanton had
left for Europe with her daughter Harriot.[350] Her letters to Susan
reported not only Harriot's marriage to an Englishman, William Henry
Blatch, but also encouraging talks with the forward-looking women of
England and France whom she hoped to interest in an international
organization. Repeatedly she urged Susan to join her, to meet these
women, and to rest for a while from her strenuous labors. The
possibility of forming an international organization of women was a
greater attraction to Susan than Europe itself, and when Rachel Foster
suggested that she make the journey with her, she readily consented.
"She goes abroad a republican Queen," observed the Kansas City
_Journal_, "uncrowned to be sure, but none the less of the blood
royal, and we have faith that the noblest men and women of Europe will
at once recognize and welcome her as their equal."[351]
In London, Susan met Mrs. Stanton, "her face beaming and her white
curls as lovely as ever." Then after talking with English suffragists
and her two old friends, William Henry Channing and Ernestine Rose,
now living in England, Susan traveled with Rachel through Italy,
Switzerland, Germany, and France, where a whole new world opened
before her. She thoroughly enjoyed its beauty; yet there was much that
distressed her and she found herself far more interested in the
people, their customs and living conditions than in the treasures of
art. "It is good for our young civilization," she wrote Daniel, "to
see and study that of the old world and observe the hopelessness of
lifting the masses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty and
integrity. How any American, any lover of our free institutions, based
on equality of rights for all, can settle down and live here is more
than I can comprehend. It will only be by overturning the powers that
education and equal chances ever can come to the rank and file. The
hope of the world is indeed our republic...." To a friend she
reported, "Amidst it all my head and heart turn to our battle for
women at home. Here in the old world, with ... its utter blotting out
of women as an equal, there is no hope, no possibility of changing her
condition; so I look to our own land of equality for men, and partial
equality for women, as the only one for hope or work."[352]
Back in London again, she allowed herself a few luxuries, such as an
expensive India shawl and more social life than she had had in many a
year, and she longed to have Mary enjoy it all with her. She visited
suffragists in Scotland and Ireland as well as in England and
occasionally spoke at their meetings.[353] Here as in America
suffragists differed over the best way to win the vote, and even the
most radical among them were more conservative and cautious than
American women, but she admired them all and tried to understand the
very different problems they faced. Gradually she interested a few of
them in an international conference of women, and before she sailed
back to America with Mrs. Stanton in November 1883, she had their
promise of cooperation.
The newspapers welcomed her home. "Susan B. Anthony is back from
Europe," announced the Cleveland _Leader_, "and is here for a winter's
fight on behalf of woman suffrage. She seems remarkably well, and has
gained fifteen pounds since she left last spring. She is sixty-three,
but looks just the same as twenty years ago. There is perhaps an extra
wrinkle in her face, a little more silver in her hair, but her blue
eyes are just as bright, her mouth as serious and her step as active
as when she was forty. She would attract attention in any crowd."[354]
Susan came back to an indifferent Congress. "All would fall flat and
dead if someone were not here to keep them in mind of their duty to
us," she wrote a friend at this time, and to her diary she confided,
"It is perfectly disheartening that no member feels any especial
interest or earnest determination in pushing this question of woman
suffrage, to all men only a side issue."[355]
FOOTNOTES:
[339] The only such history available was the _History of the National
Woman's Rights Movement for Twenty Years_ (New York, 1871), written by
Paulina Wright Davis to commemorate the first national woman's rights
convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1850. This brief record,
ending with Victoria Woodhull's Memorial to Congress, was inadequate
and placed too much emphasis on Victoria Woodhull who had flashed
through the movement like a meteor, leaving behind her a trail of
discord and little that was constructive.
[340] Aaron McLean, Eugene Mosher, his daughter Louise, Merritt's
daughter, Lucy E. Anthony from Fort Scott, Kansas, and later Lucy's
sister "Anna O."
[341] Mrs. Stanton moved to the new home she had built in Tenafly, New
Jersey, in 1868.
[342] Fowler & Wells furnished the paper, press work, and advertising
and paid the authors 12-1/2% commission on sales. They did not look
askance at such a controversial subject, having published the Fowler
family's phrenological books. In addition the women of the family were
suffragists.
[343] In 1855, at the instigation of her father. Miss Anthony began to
preserve her press clippings. She now found them a valuable record,
and she hired a young girl to paste them in six large account books.
Thirty-two of her scrapbooks are now in the Library of Congress.
[344] Aug. 30, 1876, Ida Husted Harper Collection, Henry E. Huntington
Library. The history of the American Woman Suffrage Association was
compiled for Volume II from the _Woman's Journal_ and Mary Livermore's
_The Agitator_ by Harriot Stanton.
[345] Nov. 30, 1880, Amelia Bloomer Papers, Seneca Falls Historical
Society, Seneca Falls, N. Y.
[346] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 531. The _History_ received friendly
and complimentary reviews, the New York _Tribune_ and _Sun_ giving it
two columns.
[347] June 28, 1881, Amelia Bloomer Papers, Seneca Falls Historical
Society, Seneca Falls, N. Y. The cost of a cloth copy of the _History_
was $3.
[348] Dec. 19, 1880, Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
Rachel Foster's mother was a life-long friend of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and sympathetic to her work for women. The widow of a wealthy
Pittsburgh newspaperman, she was now active in Pennsylvania suffrage
organizations. Her daughters, Rachel and Julia, early became
interested in the cause.
[349] E. C. Stanton to Laura Collier, Jan. 21, 1886, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton Papers, Vassar College Library. Mary Livermore criticized the
_History_ as poorly edited.
[350] After her marriage in 1882, to William Henry Blatch of
Basingstoke, Harriot made her home in England for the next 20 years.
[351] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 549.
[352] _Ibid._, pp. 553, 558, 562. Miss Anthony spent a week with her
old friends, Ellen and Aaron Sargent in Berlin where Aaron was serving
as American Minister to Germany. In Paris she visited Theodore Stanton
and his French wife.
[353] Lydia Becker, Mrs. Jacob Bright, Helen Taylor, Priscilla Bright
McLaren, Margaret Bright Lucas, Alice Scatcherd, and Elizabeth Pease
Nichol. A bill to enfranchise widows and spinsters was pending in
Parliament. Only a few women were courageous enough to demand votes
for married women as well.
[354] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 582.
[355] _Ibid._, pp. 591, 583.
IMPETUS FROM THE WEST
"My heart almost stands still. I hope against hope, but still I hope,"
Susan wrote in her diary in 1885, as she waited for news from Oregon
Territory regarding the vote of the people on a woman suffrage
amendment.[356] Woman suffrage was defeated in Oregon; and in
Washington Territory, where in 1883 it had carried, a contest was
being waged in the courts to invalidate it. In Nebraska it had also
been defeated in 1882. Since the victories in Wyoming and Utah in 1869
and 1870, not another state or territory had written woman suffrage
into law.
In spite of these setbacks, Susan still saw great promise in the West
and resumed her lecturing there. She knew the rapidly growing young
western states and territories as few easterners did, and she
understood their people. Here women were making themselves
indispensable as teachers, and state universities, now open to them,
graduated over two thousand women a year. The Farmers' Alliance, the
Grange, and the Prohibition party, all distinctly western in origin,
admitted women to membership and were friendly to woman suffrage.
School suffrage had been won in twelve western states as against five
in the East, and Kansas women were now voting in municipal elections.
In a sense, woman suffrage was becoming respectable in the West, and a
woman was no longer ostracized by her friends for working with Susan
B. Anthony.
Still critical of her own speaking, Susan was often discouraged over
her lectures, but her vitality, her naturalness, and her flashes of
wit seldom failed to win over her audiences. Her nephew, Daniel Jr., a
student at the University of Michigan, hearing her speak, wrote his
parents, "At the beginning of her lecture, Aunt Susan does not do so
well; but when she is in the midst of her argument and all her
energies brought into play, I think she is a very powerful
speaker."[357]
On these trips through the West, she kept in close touch with her
brothers Daniel and Merritt in Kansas, frequently visiting in their
homes and taking her numerous nieces to Rochester. She valued
Daniel's judgment highly, and he, well-to-do and influential, was a
great help to her in many ways, investing her savings and furnishing
her with railroad passes which greatly reduced her ever-increasing
traveling expenses.
Everywhere she met active zealous members of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union. Since the Civil War, temperance had become a
vigorous movement in the Middle West, doing its utmost to counteract
the influence of the many large new breweries and saloons. Through the
Prohibition party, organized on a national basis in 1872, temperance
was now a political issue in Kansas, Iowa, and the Territory of
Dakota, and through the W.C.T.U. women waged an effective
total-abstinence campaign. Brought into the suffrage movement by
Frances Willard under the slogan, "For God and Home and Country,"
these women quickly sensed the value of their votes to the temperance
cause. Nor was Susan slow to recognize their importance to her and her
work, for they represented an entirely new group, churchwomen, who
heretofore had been suspicious of and hostile toward woman's rights.
Through them, she anticipated a powerful impetus for her cause.
With admiration she had watched Frances Willard's career.[358] This
vivid consecrated young woman was a born leader, quick to understand
woman's need of the vote and eager to lead women forward. It was a
disappointment, however, when she joined the American rather than the
National Woman Suffrage Association. The reasons for this, Susan
readily understood, were Frances Willard's warm friendship with Mary
Livermore and her own preference for the American's state-by-state
method, similar to that she had so successfully followed in her
W.C.T.U. Yet Frances Willard, whenever she could, cooperated with
Susan whom she admired and loved; and through the years these two
great leaders valued and respected each other, even though they
frequently differed over policy and method.
Susan, for example, was often troubled because women suffrage and
temperance were more and more linked together in the public mind, thus
confusing the issues and arousing the hostility of those who might
have been friendly toward woman suffrage had they not feared that
women's votes would bring in prohibition. She did her best to make it
clear to her audiences that she did not ask for the ballot in order
that women might vote against saloons and for prohibition. She
demanded only that women have the same right as men to express their
opinions at the polls. Such an attitude was hard for many temperance
women to understand and to forgive.
Over women's support of specific political parties, Susan and Frances
Willard were never able to agree. Susan had never been willing to ally
herself with a minority party. Therefore, to Frances Willard's
disappointment, she withheld her support from the Prohibition party in
1880, although their platform acknowledged woman's need of the ballot
and directed them to use it to settle the liquor question, and in 1884
when they recommended state suffrage for women. Finding women eager to
support the Prohibitionists in gratitude for these inadequate planks,
Susan even issued a statement urging them to support the Republicans,
who held out the most hope to them even if woman suffrage had not been
mentioned in their platform. Her experience in Washington had proved
to her the friendliness and loyalty of individual Republicans, and she
was unwilling to jeopardize their support.
Her judgment was confirmed during the next few years when friendly
Republicans spoke for woman suffrage in the Senate, and when in 1887
the woman suffrage amendment was debated and voted on in the Senate.
In the Senate gallery eagerly listening, Susan took notice that the
sixteen votes cast for the amendment were those of Republicans.[359]
Still hoping to win Susan's endorsement of the Prohibition party in
1888, Frances Willard asked her to outline what kind of plank would
satisfy her.
"Do you mean so satisfy me," Susan replied, "that I would work, and
recommend to all women to work ... for the success of the third party
ticket?... Not until a third party gets into power ... which promises
a larger per cent of representatives, on the floor of Congress, and in
the several State legislatures, who will speak and vote for women's
enfranchisement, than does the Republican, shall I work for it. You
see, as yet there is not a single Prohibitionist in Congress while
there are at least twenty Republicans on the floor of the United
States Senate, besides fully one-half of the members of the House of
Representatives who are in favor of woman suffrage.... I do not
propose to work for the defeat of the party which thus far has
furnished nearly every vote in that direction."[360]
Nor was she lured away when, in 1888, the Prohibition party endorsed
woman suffrage and granted Frances Willard the honor of addressing its
convention and serving on the resolutions committee.
* * * * *
The temperance issue also cropped up in the annual Washington
conventions of the National Woman Suffrage Association, preparations
for which Susan now left to Rachel Foster, May Wright Sewall, a
capable young recruit from Indiana, and Jane Spofford. However, she
still supervised these conventions, prodding and interfering, in what
she called her most Andrew Jackson-like manner. She always returned to
Washington with excitement and pleasure, and with the hope of some
outstanding victory, and the suite at the Riggs House, given her by
generous Jane Spofford, was a delight after months of hard travel in
the West. "I shall come both ragged and dirty," she wrote Mrs.
Spofford in 1887. "Though the apparel will be tattered and torn, the
mind, the essence of me, is sound to the core. Please tell the little
milliner to have a bonnet picked out for me, and get a dressmaker who
will patch me together so that I shall be presentable."[361]
Open to all women irrespective of race or creed, the National Woman
Suffrage Association attracted fearless independent devoted members.
They welcomed Mormon women into the fold, and when the bill to
disfranchise Mormon women as a punishment for polygamy was before
Congress in 1887, they did their utmost to help Mormon women retain
the vote, but were defeated.
They welcomed as well many temperance advocates. A few delegates,
however, among them Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Mrs. Colby, scorned
what they called the "singing and praying" temperance group and
protested that temperance and religion were getting too strong a hold
on the organization. Abigail Duniway from Oregon contended that
suffragists should not join forces with temperance groups and blamed
the defeat of woman suffrage in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, in
1887, on men's fear that women would vote for prohibition.
Often Susan was obliged to act as arbiter between the temperance and
nontemperance groups. She did not underestimate the momentum which the
well-organized W.C.T.U. had already given the suffrage cause,
particularly in states where the National Association had only a few
and scattered workers. She needed and wanted the help of these
temperance women and of Frances Willard's forceful and winning
personality. She also saw the importance of breaking down with Frances
Willard's aid the slow-yielding opposition of the church.
Occasionally enthusiastic workers undertook projects which to her
seemed unwise. She told them frankly how she felt and left it at that,
but most of them had to learn by experience. When Belva Lockwood, one
of her most able colleagues in Washington, accepted the nomination for
President of the United States, offered her by the women of California
in 1884 and by the women of Iowa in 1888 through their Equal Rights
party, she did not lend her support or that of the National
Association, but followed her consistent policy of no alignment with a
minority party. Nevertheless, she heartily believed in women's right
and ability to hold the highest office in the land.
* * * * *
Ever since her trip to Europe in 1883, Susan had been planning for an
international gathering of women. Interest in this project was kept
alive among European women by Mrs. Stanton during her frequent visits
with her daughter Harriot in England and her son Theodore in France.
It was Susan, however, who put the machinery in motion through the
National Woman Suffrage Association and issued a call for an
international conference in Washington, in March 1888, to commemorate
the fortieth anniversary of the first woman's rights convention. Ten
thousand invitations were sent out to organizations of women in all
parts of the world, to professional, business, and reform groups as
well as to those advocating political and civil rights for women, and
an ambitious program was prepared. Most of the work for the conference
and the raising of $13,000 to finance it fell upon the shoulders of
Susan, Rachel Foster, and May Wright Sewall, but they also had the
enthusiastic cooperation of Frances Willard, who, with her nation-wide
contacts, was of inestimable value in arousing interest among the many
and varied women's organizations and the labor groups. Another happy
development was Clara Colby's decision to publish her _Woman's
Tribune_ in Washington during the conference. Mrs. Colby's _Tribune_,
established in Beatrice, Nebraska, in 1883, had since then met in a
measure Susan's need for a paper for the National Association and she
welcomed its transfer to Washington.[362]
Women from all parts of the world assembled in Albaugh's Opera House
in Washington for the epoch-making international conference which
opened on Sunday, March 25, 1888, with religious services conducted
entirely by women, as if to prove to the world that women in the
pulpit were appropriate and adequate. Fifty-three national
organizations sent representatives, and delegates came from England,
France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, and Canada.
Presiding over all sixteen sessions, Susan rejoiced over a record
attendance. Her thoughts went back to the winter of 1854 when she and
Ernestine Rose had held their first woman's rights meetings in
Washington, finding only a handful ready to listen. The intervening
thirty-four years had worked wonders. Now women were willing to travel
not only across the continent but from Europe and Asia to discuss and
demand equal educational advantages, equal opportunities for training
in the professions and in business, equal pay for equal work, equal
suffrage, and the same standard of morals for all. Aware of their
responsibility to their countries, they asked for the tools, education
and the franchise, to help solve the world's problems. They were
listened to with interest and respect, and were received at the White
House by President and Mrs. Cleveland.
Through it all, a dynamic, gray-haired woman in a black silk dress
with a red shawl about her shoulders was without question the heroine
of the occasion. "This lady," observed the Baltimore _Sun_, "daily
grows upon all present; the woman suffragists love her for her good
works, the audience for her brightness and wit, and the multitude of
press representatives for her frank, plain, open, business-like way of
doing everything connected with the council.... Her word is the
parliamentary law of the meeting. Whatever she says is done without
murmur or dissent."[363]
A permanent International Council of Women to meet once every five
years was organized with Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England as
president, and a National Council to meet every three years was formed
as an affiliate with Frances Willard as president and Susan as
vice-president at large. Emphasizing education and social and moral
reform, the International Council did not rank suffrage first as
Susan had hoped. Nevertheless, she was happy that an international
movement of enterprising women was well on its way. They would learn
by experience.
Of all the favorable results of the International Council of Women,
two were of special importance to Susan, meeting Anna Howard Shaw and
overtures from Lucy Stone for a union of the National and American
Woman Suffrage Associations.
Prejudiced against Anna Howard Shaw, who had aligned herself with Mary
Livermore and Lucy Stone, and who she assumed, was a narrow Methodist
minister, Susan was unprepared to find that the pleasing young woman
in the pulpit on the first day of the conference, holding her audience
spellbound with her oratory, was Anna Howard Shaw. Here was a warm
personality, a crusader eager to right human wrongs, and above all a
matchless public speaker. Anna too had heard much criticism of Susan
and had formed a distorted opinion of her which was quickly dispelled
as she watched her preside. They liked each other the moment they met.
Anna Howard Shaw had grown up on the Michigan frontier, her
indomitable spirit and her eagerness for learning conquering the
hardships and the limitations of her surroundings. Encouraged by Mary
Livermore, who by chance lectured in her little town, she worked her
way through Albion College and Boston University Theological School,
from which she graduated in 1878. She then served as the pastor of two
Cape Cod churches, but was refused ordination by the Methodist
Episcopal church because of her sex. Eventually she was ordained by
the Methodist Protestant church. During her pastorate, she studied
medicine at Boston University, and because of her ability as a speaker
was in demand as a lecturer for temperance and woman suffrage groups.
Through the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, she met an
inspiring group of reformers, and their influence and that of Frances
Willard, in whose work she was intensely interested, led her to leave
the ministry for active work in the temperance and woman suffrage
movements. After several years as a lecturer and organizer for the
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, she was placed at the head
of the franchise department of the W.C.T.U. This was her work when she
met Susan B. Anthony.
[Illustration: Anna Howard Shaw]
The more Susan talked with Anna, the better she liked her, and the
feeling was mutual. This wholesome woman of forty-one, with abundant
vitality, unmarried and without pressing family ties to divert her,
seemed particularly well fitted to assist Susan in the arduous
campaigns which lay ahead. A natural orator, she could in a measure
take the place of Mrs. Stanton, who could no longer undertake western
tours. Before the International Council adjourned, Susan had Anna's
promise that she would lecture for the National Association.
One of Susan's nieces, Lucy E. Anthony, also felt drawn to Anna after
meeting her at the International Council. A warm friendship quickly
developed and continued throughout their lives. Within a few years
they were living together, Lucy serving as Anna's secretary and
planning her lecture tours and campaign trips. Educated in Rochester
through the help of her aunts, Susan and Mary, living in their home
and loving them both, Lucy readily made their interests her own and
devoted her life to the suffrage movement. Neither a public speaker
nor a campaigner, she put her executive ability to work, and her
tasks, though less spectacular, were important and freed both Susan
and Anna from many details.
Just as the International Council of Women had broken down Anna Howard
Shaw's prejudice regarding Susan B. Anthony and her National Woman
Suffrage Association, just so it clarified the opinions of other young
women, now aligning themselves with the cause. Admiring the leaders of
both factions, these young women saw no reason why the two groups
should not work together in one large strong organization, and this
seemed increasingly important as they welcomed women from other
countries to this first international conference. Unfamiliar with the
personal antagonisms and the sincere differences in policy which had
caused the separation after the Civil War, they did not understand the
difficulties still in the way of union. So strongly, however, did they
press for a united front that the leaders of both groups felt
themselves swept along toward that goal. Susan herself had long looked
forward to the time when all suffragists would again work together,
but since the unsuccessful overtures of her group in 1870, she had
made no further efforts in that direction. She was completely taken by
surprise when in the fall of 1887 the American Association proposed
that she and Lucy Stone confer regarding union.
* * * * *
The negotiations revived old arguments in the minds of zealous
partisans, and in the _Woman's Journal_, the _Woman's Tribune_, and
elsewhere, attempts were made to fasten the blame for the
twenty-year-old rift upon this one and that one; but so strong ran the
tide for union among the younger women that this excursion into the
past aroused little interest.
The election of the president of the merged organizations was the most
difficult hurdle. Lucy Stone suggested that neither she, Mrs. Stanton,
nor Susan allow their names to be proposed, since they had been blamed
for the division, but this was easier said than done. The clamor for
Susan and Mrs. Stanton was so strong and continuous among the younger
members that it soon became apparent that unless one or the other were
chosen, there would be no hope of union. The odds were in Susan's
favor. Her popularity in the National Association was tremendous.
Although Mrs. Stanton was revered as the mother of woman suffrage and
admired for her brilliant mind and her poise as presiding officer, she
now spent so much time in Europe with her daughter Harriot that many
who might otherwise have voted for her felt that the office should go
to Susan, who was always on the job.
[Illustration: Harriot Stanton Blatch]
Most of the American Association regarded Susan as safer and less
radical than Mrs. Stanton, less likely to stray from the straight path
of woman suffrage, and Henry Blackwell recommended her election.
Susan did not want the presidency. She wanted it for Mrs. Stanton, who
had headed the National Association so ably for so many years. She
pleaded earnestly with the delegates of the National Association: "I
will say to every woman who is a National and who has any love for the
old Association, or for Susan B. Anthony, that I hope you will not
vote for her for president.... Don't you vote for any human being but
Mrs. Stanton.... When the division was made 22 years ago it was
because our platform was too broad, because Mrs. Stanton was too
radical.... And now ... if Mrs. Stanton shall be deposed ... you
virtually degrade her.... I want our platform to be kept broad enough
for the infidel, the atheist, the Mohammedan, or the Christian....
These are the broad principles I want you to stand upon."[364]
When the two organizations met in February 1890 to effect formal union
as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton was elected president by a majority of 41 votes, while Susan
was the almost unanimous choice for vice-president at large. With Lucy
Stone chosen chairman of the executive committee, Jane Spofford
treasurer, and Rachel Foster and Alice Stone Blackwell
secretaries,[365] the new organization was well equipped with able
leaders for the work ahead. It was dedicated to work for both state
and federal woman suffrage amendments and its official organ would be
the _Woman's Journal_.
Susan now faced the future with gratitude that a strong unified
organization could be handed down to the younger women who would
gradually take over the work she had started, and her confidence in
these young women grew day by day. Working closely with Rachel Foster
and May Wright Sewall, she knew their caliber. Anna Howard Shaw and
Alice Stone Blackwell showed great promise, and Harriot Stanton Blatch
was living up to her expectations. In England where Harriot had made
her home since her marriage in 1882, she was active in the cause, and
on her visits to her mother in New York, she kept in touch with the
suffrage movement in the United States. She took part in the union
meeting, and in her diary, Susan recorded these words of commendation,
"Harriot said but a few words, yet showed herself worthy of her mother
and her mother's lifelong friend and co-worker. It was a proud moment
for me."[366]
To such she could entrust her beloved cause.
FOOTNOTES:
[356] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 592.
[357] _Ibid._, p. 658.
[358] Miss Anthony first met Frances Willard in 1875 when she lectured
in Rochester. Invited to sit on the platform, by her side, she
thoughtfully refused, adding "You have a heavy enough load to carry
without me." Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 472. When Frances Willard took
her stand for woman suffrage in the W.C.T.U. in 1876, Miss Anthony
wrote her, "Now you are to go forward. I wish I could see you and make
you feel my gladness." Mary Earhart, _Frances Willard_ (Chicago,
1944), p. 153.
[359] During the debate, Frances Willard rendered valuable aid with a
petition for woman suffrage, signed by 200,000 women. This
counteracted in a measure the protests against woman suffrage by
President Eliot of Harvard and 200 New England clergymen.
[360] Harper, _Anthony_, II, pp. 622-623.
[361] _Ibid._, p. 612.
[362] So successful was Mrs. Colby's Washington venture that she
continued to publish her _Woman's Tribune_ there for the next 16 years
[363] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 637.
[364] _Woman's Tribune_, Feb. 22, 1890.
[365] The credit for achieving union after two years of patient
negotiation goes to Rachel Foster Avery, secretary of the National
Association, and to Lucy Stone's daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell,
secretary of the American Association.
[366] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 675.
VICTORIES IN THE WEST
New western states were coming into the Union, North and South Dakota,
Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming, and in Susan's opinion it was
highly important that they be admitted as woman suffrage states, for
she had not forgotten that disturbing line of the Supreme Court
decision in the Virginia Minor case which read, "No new State has ever
been admitted to the Union which has conferred the right of suffrage
on women, and this has never been considered a valid objection to her
admission."[367] Susan wanted to start a new trend.
Opposition to Wyoming's woman suffrage provision was strong in
Congress in spite of the fact that it had the unanimous approval of
Wyoming's constitutional convention. To Susan in the gallery of the
House of Representatives, listening anxiously to the debate on the
admission of Wyoming, defeat was unthinkable after women had voted in
the Territory of Wyoming for twenty years; but Democrats, wishing to
block the admission of a preponderantly Republican state, used woman
suffrage as an excuse. With a sinking heart, she heard an amendment
offered, limiting suffrage in Wyoming to males. At the crucial moment,
however, the tide was turned by a telegram from the Wyoming
legislature, the words of which rejoiced Susan, "We will remain out of
the Union a hundred years rather than come in without woman
suffrage."[368] After this, the House voted to admit Wyoming, 139 to
127, but the Senate delayed, renewing the attack on the woman suffrage
provision. Not until July 1890, while she was speaking to a large
audience in the opera house at Madison, South Dakota, did the good
news of the admission of Wyoming reach her. Jubilant as she commented
on this great victory, she spoke as one inspired, for she saw this as
the turning point in her forty long years of uphill work.
Neither North Dakota nor South Dakota had wanted to risk their
chances of statehood by incorporating woman suffrage in their
constitutions.[369] Yet public opinion in both states was friendly,
South Dakota directing its first legislature to submit the question to
the voters. It was this that brought Susan to South Dakota in 1890.
Sentiment for woman suffrage in South Dakota had previously been
created almost entirely by the W.C.T.U., and this had linked woman
suffrage and prohibition together. Now, the liquor interests made
prohibition an issue in this woman suffrage campaign, as they rallied
their forces for the repeal of prohibition which had been adopted when
South Dakota was admitted to statehood. Through the propaganda of the
liquor interests the 30,000 foreign-born voters became formidable
opponents, and newly naturalized Russians, Scandinavians, and Poles,
given the vote before American women, wore badges carrying the slogan,
"Against Woman Suffrage and Susan B. Anthony."[370] Both Republicans
and Democrats cultivated these foreign-born voters, turning a cold
shoulder to the woman suffrage amendment and refusing to endorse it in
their state conventions. Even the Farmers' Alliance and the Knights of
Labor, previously friendly to woman suffrage, now joined with the
Prohibitionists to form a third political party which also failed to
endorse the woman suffrage amendment. On top of all this,
anti-suffragists from Massachusetts, calling themselves Remonstrants,
flooded South Dakota with their leaflets.
It now seemed to Susan as if every clever politician had lined up
against women. During these trying days, Anna Howard Shaw joined her,
and together they covered the state, hoping by the truth and sincerity
of their statements to quash the propaganda against woman suffrage.
Often they traveled in freight cars, as transportation was limited, or
drove long distances in wagons over the sun-baked prairie. The heat
was intense and the hot winds, blowing incessantly, seared everything
they touched. After two years of drouth, the farmers were desperately
poor, and Susan, concerned over their plight, wondered why Congress
could not have appropriated the money for artesian wells to help these
honest earnest people, instead of voting $40,000 for an investigating
commission.[371]
Occasionally Susan and Anna spent the night in isolated sod houses
where ingenious pioneer women cooked their scant meals over burning
chips of buffalo bones gathered on the prairie. Glorying in the
valiant spirit of these women, who in loneliness and hardship played
an important but unheralded role in the conquest of this new country,
Susan was generous with her praise. To them her words of commendation
were like a benediction, and few of them ever forgot a visit from
Susan B. Anthony.
By this time life on the frontier was an old story to her, for she had
campaigned under similar conditions in Kansas and in the far West.
Nonetheless, the hardships were trying. Yet this plucky woman of
seventy wrote friends in the East, "Tell everybody that I am perfectly
well in body and in mind, never better, and never doing more work....
O, the lack of modern comforts and conveniences! But I can put up with
it better than any of the young folks.... I shall push ahead and do my
level best to carry this State, come weal or woe to me personally....
I never felt so buoyed up with the love and sympathy and confidence of
the good people everywhere...."[372]
Young vigorous Anna Howard Shaw proved to be a campaigner after
Susan's own heart, tireless, uncomplaining, and good-tempered, an
exceptional speaker, witty and quick to say the right word at the
right time. It was a joy to find in Anna the same devotion to the
cause that she herself felt, the same crusading fervor and
reliability. During the long drives over the prairie, she talked to
Anna of the work that must be done, of what it would mean to the women
of the future, and she fired Anna's soul "with the flame that burned
in her own."[373]
Another young western woman, Carrie Chapman Catt, also attracted
Susan's attention at this time. She had volunteered for the South
Dakota campaign, after attending her first national woman suffrage
convention; and Susan, meeting her in Huron, South Dakota, to map out
a speaking tour for her, found a tall handsome confident young woman
ready to attack the work and see it through, in spite of the hardships
which confronted her.
Carrie Lane, a graduate of Iowa State College, had briefly studied law
and taught school before her marriage to Lee Chapman. Now, four years
after his death, she had married George W. Catt of Seattle, a
promising young engineer and a former fellow-student at Iowa State
College. What particularly impressed Susan was that Carrie, in spite
of her marriage in June, had kept her pledge to come to South Dakota.
She was pleased with the way Carrie not only heroically filled every
difficult engagement, but sized up the campaign for herself and
planned for the future. In Carrie's report of her work there was a
ruthless practicality which was rare and which instantly won Susan's
approval. Here was a young woman to watch and to keep in the work.
[Illustration: The Anthony home, Rochester, New York]
The visible result of six months of campaigning was defeat, with the
vote 22,972 for woman suffrage and 45,632 opposed, and as Susan
remembered the maneuvers of the politicians, the trading of votes for
the location of the state capital, and the scheming of the liquor
interests, she felt she was championing a lonely cause.
* * * * *
From now on Susan hoped to turn over to the younger women much of the
lecturing and organizing in the West, and she needed an anchorage, a
home of her own from which she could direct the work. Her mother had
willed 17 Madison Street to Mary, who had rented the first floor and
was living on the second where there was a room for Susan. Now that
Susan planned to spend more time at home and Mary had retired from
teaching, they decided to take over the whole house, modernize and
redecorate it, and enjoy it the rest of their lives. Mary as usual
took charge, but Susan had definite ideas about what should be done.
Mary, who had learned to be cautious and frugal, was more willing
than Susan to make old furnishings do, but their friends came to the
rescue, showering them with gifts.
Freshly painted and papered, with new rugs on the floor, lace curtains
at the windows, easy chairs and new furniture here and there, the
house was all Susan had wished for, and everywhere were familiar
touches, such as her mother's spinning wheel by the fireplace in the
back parlor.
She spent most of her time in her study on the second floor. Here she
hung her pictures of the reformers she admired and loved; and right
over her desk, looking down at her, was the comforting picture of her
dearest friend, Mrs. Stanton. Hour after hour, she sat at this desk,
writing letters, hurriedly dashing off one after another, writing just
as the thoughts came, as if she were talking, bothering little with
punctuation, using dashes instead, and vigorously underlining words
and phrases for emphasis. Instructions to workers in all parts of the
country, letters of friendship and sympathy, answers to the many
questions which came in every mail, these were signed and sealed one
after another, and slipped into the mail box when she took a brisk
walk before going to bed.
She started each day with the morning newspaper, stepping out on the
front veranda to pick it up, taking a deep breath of fresh air, and
enjoying the green grass and the tall graceful chestnut trees in front
of the house. Then sitting down in the back parlor beside the big
table covered with magazines and mail, she carefully read her paper
before beginning the work at her desk, for she must keep up-to-date on
the news.
Rochester was important to her. It was her city, and she was on hand
with her colleagues whenever there was an opportunity for women to
express interest in its government, progress, or welfare. Not only did
she encourage women to make use of their newly won right to vote in
school elections, she also urged municipal suffrage for women.
Appealing to the governor to appoint a woman to fill a vacancy on the
board of trustees of Rochester's State Industrial School, she herself
received the appointment which the _Democrat and Chronicle_ called "a
fitting recognition of one of the ablest and best women in the
commonwealth."[374]
One of her first acts as trustee was a practical one for the girls.
"Spent entire day at State Industrial School," she wrote in her diary,
"getting the laundry girls--who had always washed for the entire
institution by hand and ironed that old way--transferred to the boys'
laundry room to use its machinery--am sure it will work well--girls 12
of them delighted."[375] She also taught the boys to patch and darn,
and later asked for coeducation.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony at her desk]
* * * * *
Susan looked forward to welcoming Mrs. Stanton at 17 Madison Street
when she returned to this country in 1891, particularly because she
had sold her home in Tenafly after her husband's death, in 1887, and
now had no home to go to. Susan hoped that as they again worked
together she could persuade Mrs. Stanton to concentrate on more
serious writing than the chatty reminiscences she had just published
and which Susan felt were "not the greatest" of herself.[376] When she
heard that Mrs. Stanton seriously contemplated living in New York with
two of her children, she begged her to reconsider, writing, "This is
the first time since 1850 that I have anchored myself to any
particular spot, and in doing it my constant thought was that you
would come here ... and stay for as long, at least, as we must be
together to put your writings into systematic shape to go down to
posterity. I have no writings to go down, so my ambition is not for
myself, but is for the one by the side of whom I have wrought these
forty years, and to get whose speeches before audiences ... has been
the delight of my life."[377]
Mrs. Stanton decided to make her home in New York, but first she
visited Susan who found her as stimulating as ever and brimful of
ideas. They plotted and planned as of old and managed to stir up
public opinion on the question of admitting women to the University of
Rochester. With women enrolled at the University of Michigan since
1870, and at Cornell since 1872, and with Columbia University yielding
at last to women's entreaties by establishing Barnard College in 1889,
they felt it their duty to awaken Rochester, and although their
agitation produced no immediate results, it did start other women
thinking and made news for the press. The cartoons on the subject
delighted them both.[378]
Susan soon realized that the writing she had planned for Mrs. Stanton
would never be done, for Mrs. Stanton had already made up her mind to
write for magazines and newspapers on new and controversial subjects,
feeling this was the best contribution she could make to the cause.
Susan also found it increasingly difficult to hold her old friend to
the straight path of woman suffrage, Mrs. Stanton insisting that too
much concentration on this one subject was narrowing and left women
unprepared for the intelligent use of the ballot. Women, Mrs. Stanton
argued, needed to be stirred up to think, and this they would not do
as long as their minds were dominated by the church, which, she
believed, had for generations hampered their development by
emphasizing their inferiority and subordination. She was determined to
analyze and rebel, and Susan could in no way divert her. Completely
absorbed in trying to prove that the Bible, accurately translated and
interpreted, did not teach the inferiority or the subordination of
women, she was writing a book which she called _The Woman's Bible_,
chapters of which were already appearing in the _Woman's Tribune_.
Susan was not unsympathetic to Mrs. Stanton's ideas, but she opposed
this excursion into religious controversy because she was sure it
would stir up futile wrangles among the suffragists and keep Mrs.
Stanton from giving her best to the cause. Her lack of interest then
and her frank disapproval as _The Woman's Bible_ progressed were a
great disappointment to Mrs. Stanton, and these two old friends began
to grow somewhat apart as they took different roads to reach their
goal, the one intent on freeing women's minds, the other determined to
establish their citizenship. Yet their friendship endured.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton]
In 1892 Susan reluctantly consented to Mrs. Stanton's retirement as
president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs.
Stanton's request that she be followed by Susan won unanimous
approval, and Anna Howard Shaw was moved up to second place,
vice-president at large. For forty years, Susan had watched Mrs.
Stanton preside with a poise, warmth, and skill which few could equal.
She knew she would miss her dynamic reassuring presence at the
conventions. Yet she was obliged to admit to herself that it was more
than fitting that she should at last head the ever-growing
organization which she had built up. This was the last convention
which Mrs. Stanton attended, and it was the last for Lucy Stone who
died the next year. Susan appreciated the eager young women who now
took their places, but she did not yet feel completely at home with
them. "Only think," she wrote an old-time colleague, "I shall not have
a white-haired woman on the platform with me, and I shall be alone
there of all the pioneer workers. Always with the 'old guard' I had
perfect confidence that the wise and right thing would be said. What a
platform ours then was of self-reliant strong women! I felt sure of
you all.... I can not feel quite certain that our younger sisters will
be equal to the emergency, yet they are each and all valiant, earnest,
and talented, and will soon be left to manage the ship without even
me."[379]
In 1892, the year of the presidential election, Susan hopefully
attended the national political conventions. Again the Republicans
made their proverbial excuses, explaining that they not only faced a
formidable opponent in Grover Cleveland but also the threat of a new
People's party. The familiar ring of their alibis, which they had
repeated since Reconstruction days, made Susan wonder when and if ever
the Republicans would feel able to bear the strain of woman suffrage.
Their platform remembered the poor, the foreign-born, and male
Negroes, but it still ignored women. Yet hope for the future stirred
in her heart as she saw at the convention two women serving as
delegates from Wyoming. Here was the entering wedge.
The Democrats as usual were silent on woman suffrage, but undismayed
by them or by the Prohibitionists, who this year failed to endorse
votes for women, Susan moved on to Omaha with Anna Howard Shaw for the
first national convention of the new People's party. Here she met
representatives of the Farmers' Alliance and the Knights of Labor,
both friendly to woman suffrage, and men from other groups, critical
of the two major political parties for their failure to solve the
pressing economic problems confronting the nation. Susan was
sympathetic with many of the aims of the People's party, having seen
with her own eyes the plight of debt-burdened, hard-working farmers
and having crusaded in her own paper, _The Revolution_, for the rights
of labor and for the control of industrial monopoly. However, she
still viewed minor, reform parties with a highly critical eye. The
People's party gave her no woman suffrage plank and she found them
"quite as oblivious to the underlying principle of justice to women as
either of the old parties...."[380]
With the election of Grover Cleveland, whose opposition to woman
suffrage was well known, and with the Democrats in the saddle for
another four years, Congressional action on the woman suffrage
amendment was blocked. Nevertheless, the cause moved ahead in the
states; Colorado was to vote on the question in 1893 and Kansas in
1894, and New York was revising its constitution. In addition, the
World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 offered endless opportunities to bring
the subject before the people.
* * * * *
As soon as plans for the World's Fair were under way, Susan began to
work indirectly through prominent women in Washington and Chicago for
the appointment of women to the board of management. "Lady Managers"
were appointed, 115 strong, who proved to be very much alive under the
leadership of Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer. Susan found Mrs. Palmer
almost as determined as she to secure equality of rights for women at
the World's Fair, and nothing that she herself might have planned
could have been more effective than the series of world congresses in
which both men and women took part, or than the World's Congress of
Representative Women.
[Illustration: Elizabeth Smith Miller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and
Susan B. Anthony]
Two of Susan's "girls," as she liked to call them, Rachel Foster
Avery[381] and May Wright Sewall, were appointed by Mrs. Palmer to
take charge of the World's Congress of Representative Women, and they
arranged a meeting of the International Council of Women as a part of
this Congress.
Convening soon after the opening of the World's Fair, the Congress of
Representative Women drew record crowds at its eighty-one sessions.
Twenty-seven countries and 126 organizations were represented. Here
Susan, to her joy, heard Negroes, American Indians, and Mormons tell
of their progress and their problems, and saw them treated with as
much respect as American millionaires, English nobility, or the most
virtuous, conservative housewife. Watching these women assemble,
talking with them, and listening to their well-delivered speeches, she
felt richly rewarded for the lonely work she had undertaken forty
years before, when scarcely a woman could be coaxed to a meeting or be
persuaded to express her opinions in public. Although only one session
of the congress was devoted to the civil and political rights of
women, it was gratifying to her that women's need of the ballot was
spontaneously brought up in meeting after meeting, showing that
women, whatever their cause or whatever their organization, were
recognizing that only by means of the vote could their reforms be
achieved.
Speaking on the subject to which she had dedicated her life, Susan
gave credit to the pioneering suffragists for the change which had
taken place in public opinion regarding the position of women. She
urged women's organizations to give suffrage their wholehearted
support and pointed out the great power of some of the newer
organizations, such as the W.C.T.U. with its membership of half a
million and the young General Federation of Women's Clubs of 40,000
members. Confessing that her own National American Woman Suffrage
Association in comparison was poor in numbers and limited in funds,
she added, "I would philosophize on the reason why. It is because
women have been taught always to work for something else than their
own personal freedom; and the hardest thing in the world is to
organize women for the one purpose of securing their political liberty
and political equality."[382] Even so, the vital woman's rights
organizations, she concluded, drew the whole world to them in spirit
if not in person.
Her very presence among them without her words, in fact her very
presence on the fair grounds, advertised her cause, for in the mind of
the public she personified woman suffrage. This tall dignified woman
with smooth gray hair, abundant in energy and spontaneous
friendliness, was the center of attraction at the World's Congress of
Representative Women. In her new black dress of Chinese silk,
brightened with blue, and her small black bonnet, trimmed with lace
and blue forget-me-nots, she was the perfect picture of everyone's
grandmother, and the people took her to their hearts.[383] She was the
one woman all wanted to see. Curious crowds jammed the hall and
corridors when she was scheduled to speak, and often a policeman had
to clear the way for her. At whatever meeting she appeared, the
audience at once burst into applause and started calling for her,
interrupting the speakers, and were not satisfied until she had
mounted the platform so that all could see her and she had said a few
words. Then they cheered her. After years of ridicule and
unpopularity, she hardly knew what to make of all this, but she
accepted it with happiness as a tribute to her beloved cause. Many
who had been critical and wary of her newfangled notions began to
reverse their opinions after they saw her and heard her words of good
common sense. Even those who still opposed woman suffrage left the
World's Fair with a new respect for Susan B. Anthony.
She stayed on in Chicago for much of the summer and fall, for she was
in demand as a speaker at several of the world congresses and had five
speeches to read for Mrs. Stanton, who felt unable to brave the heat
and the crowds. She felt at home in this bustling, rapidly growing
city which for so many years had been the halfway station on her
lecture and campaign trips through the West. Here she had always found
a warm welcome, first from her cousins, the Dickinsons, then from the
ever-widening circle of friends she won for her cause. Now she was
literally swamped with hospitality.[384] She rejoiced that such great
numbers of everyday people were able to enjoy the beauty of the fair
grounds and the many interesting exhibits, and when a group of
clergymen urged Sunday closing, she took issue with them, declaring
that Sunday was the only day on which many were free to attend. Asked
by a disapproving clergyman if she would like to have a son of hers
attend Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on Sunday, she promptly and
bluntly replied, "Of course I would, and I think he would learn far
more there than from the sermons in some churches!"[385]
Hearing of this, Buffalo Bill offered her a box at his popular Wild
West Show, and she appeared the next day with twelve of her "girls."
Dashing into the arena on his spirited horse while the band played and
the spotlight flashed on him, Buffalo Bill rode directly up to Susan's
box, reined his horse, and swept off his big western hat to salute
her. Quick to respond, she rose and bowed, and beaming with pleasure,
waved her handkerchief at him while the immense audience applauded and
cheered.
She returned home early in November 1893, with happy memories of the
World's Fair and to good news from Colorado. "Telegram ... from
Denver--said woman suffrage carried by 5000 majority," she recorded in
her diary.[386] This laconic comment in no way expressed the joy in
her heart.
Her diaries, written hurriedly in small fine script, year after year,
in black-covered notebooks about three inches by six, were a brief
terse record of her work and her travels. Only occasionally a line of
philosophizing shone out from the mass of routine detail, or an
illuminating comment on a friend or a difficult situation, but she
never failed to record a family anniversary, a birthday, or a death.
The Colorado victory, referred to so casually in her diary, was
actually of great importance to her and her cause, for it carried
forward the trend initiated by the admission of Wyoming as a woman
suffrage state in 1890. Colorado also proved to her that her "girls"
could take over her work. So busy had she been winning good will for
the cause at the World's Fair that she had left Colorado in the
capable hands of the women of the state and of young efficient Carrie
Chapman Catt, to whom she now turned over the supervision of all state
campaigns.
Encouragement also came from another part of the world, from New
Zealand, where the vote was extended to women. This confirmed her
growing conviction that equal citizenship was best understood on the
frontier and that in her own country victory would come from the West.
FOOTNOTES:
[367] Minor vs. Happersett, _History of Woman Suffrage_, II, pp.
741-742. North and South Dakota, Washington and Montana were admitted
in 1889, Wyoming and Idaho in 1890.
[368] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 999-1000.
[369] North Dakota's constitution provided that the legislature might
in the future enfranchise women.
[370] _History of Woman Suffrage_, IV, p. 556.
[371] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 690.
[372] _Ibid._, p. 688.
[373] Anna Howard Shaw, _The Story of a Pioneer_ (New York, 1915), p.
202.
[374] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 731.
[375] Ms., Diary, Feb. 28, April 18, 1893.
[376] Published first in the _Woman's Tribune_, then as a book in 1898
under the title, _Eighty Years and More_.
[377] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 712.
[378] During this visit the young sculptor, Adelaide Johnson, modeled
busts of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton which later were chiseled in
marble and were exhibited with the bust of Lucretia Mott at the
World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. They are now in the Capitol in
Washington.
[379] To Clarina Nichols. Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 544. Miss Anthony
wrote in her diary, Oct. 18, 1893, "Lucy Stone died this evening at
her home--Dorchester, Mass. aged 75--I can but wonder if the spirit
now sees things as it did 25 years ago!" The wound inflicted by Lucy's
misunderstanding of her motives had never healed.
[380] _Ibid._, p. 727.
[381] Rachel Foster was married in 1888 to Cyrus Miller Avery.
[382] May Wright Sewall, Editor, _The World's Congress of
Representative Women_ (Chicago, 1894), p. 464.
[383] Statement by Lucy E. Anthony, Una R. Winter Collection.
[384] Miss Anthony's diary, 1893, mentions visiting "dear Mrs.
Coonley" (Lydia Avery Coonley) in her beautiful, friendly home. May
Wright Sewall, and devoted Emily Gross. Her sister Mary, Daniel,
Merritt, and their families joined her at the Fair for a few weeks.
[385] Shaw, _The Story of a Pioneer_, pp. 205-207.
[386] Ms., Diary, Nov. 8, 1893.
LIQUOR INTERESTS ALERT FOREIGN-BORN VOTERS AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE
"I am in the midst of as severe a treadmill as I ever experienced,
traveling from fifty to one hundred miles every day and speaking five
or six nights a week,"[387] Susan wrote a friend in 1894, during the
campaign to wrest woman suffrage from the New York constitutional
convention. She was now seventy-four years old. Political machines and
financial interests were deeply intrenched in New York, and although
two governors had recommended that women be represented in the
constitutional convention and a bill had been passed making women
eligible as delegates, neither Republicans nor Democrats had the
slightest intention of allowing women to slip into men's stronghold.
It was obvious to Susan that without representation at the convention
and without power to enforce their demands, women's only hope was an
intensive educational campaign which she now directed with vigor.
Whenever she could, she conferred with Mrs. Stanton, whose judgment
she valued, and there was zest in working together as they had during
the previous constitutional convention in 1867.
The women of New York were aroused as never before. Young able
speakers went through the state, piling up signatures on their
petitions, but they had few influential friends among the delegates.
Anti-suffragists were active, encouraged by Bishop Doane of the
Protestant Episcopal church and Mrs. Lyman Abbott, whose name carried
the prestige and influence of her husband's popular magazine, _The
Outlook_.
With the election of Joseph Choate of New York as president of the
convention, Susan knew that woman suffrage was doomed, for Choate had
political aspirations and was not likely to let his sympathies for an
unpopular cause jeopardize his chances of becoming governor. While he
gave women every opportunity to be heard, at the same time he arranged
for the defeat of woman suffrage by appointing men to consider the
subject who were definitely opposed, and they submitted an adverse
report. Here was a situation similar to that in 1867, when her
one-time friend, Horace Greeley, had deserted women for political
expediency.
"I am used to defeat every time and know how to pick up and push on
for another attack," she wrote as she now turned her attention to
Kansas.[388]
* * * * *
The Republicans in Kansas had sponsored school and municipal suffrage
for women and had passed a woman suffrage amendment to be referred to
the people in 1894. Yet they proved to be as great a disappointment to
Susan as they were in 1867, when as a last resort she had been obliged
to campaign with the Democrats and George Francis Train.
The population of Kansas had changed with the years, as immigrants
from Europe had come into the state, and Susan was again confronted
with the powerful opposition of foreign-born voters for whose support
the political parties bargained. The liquor interests were also
active, and the Republicans, who had brought prohibition to Kansas,
now left the question discreetly alone, even making a deal with German
Democrats for their votes by promising to ignore in their platform
both prohibition and woman suffrage. Prohibition and woman suffrage
were synonymous in the minds of voters, because women had generally
voted for enforcement in municipal elections, and no matter how hard
Susan tried, she found it impossible to have woman suffrage considered
on its own merits.
Watching the straws in the wind, she saw Republican supremacy
seriously threatened by the new Populist party. Convinced that she
could no longer count on help from Kansas Republicans, she turned to
the Populist party, ignoring the pleas of Republican women who warned
her she would hurt the cause by association with such a radical group.
The Populists were generally regarded as the party of social unrest,
of a regulated economy, and unsound money, and they were looked upon
with suspicion. To many they represented a threat to the American
free-enterprise system, and they were blamed for the labor troubles
which had flared up in the bloody Homestead strike in the steel mills
of Pennsylvania and in the Pullman strike, defying the powerful
railroads. Susan was never afraid to side with the underdog, and she
could well understand why western farmers, in the hope of relief, were
eagerly flocking into the Populist party when their corn sold for ten
cents a bushel and the products they bought were high-priced and their
mortgage interest was never lower than 10 per cent.
To the Populist convention, she declared, "I have labored for women's
enfranchisement for forty years and I have always said that for the
party that endorsed it, whether Republican, Democratic, or Populist, I
would wave my handkerchief."[389]
"We want more than the waving of your handkerchief, Miss Anthony,"
interrupted a delegate, who then asked her, "If the People's party put
a woman suffrage plank in its platform, will you go before the voters
of this state and tell them that because the People's party has
espoused the cause of woman suffrage, it deserves the vote of every
one who is a supporter of that cause?"
"I most certainly will," she replied, adding as the audience cheered
her wildly, "for I would surely choose to ask votes for the party
which stood for the principle of justice to women, though wrong on
financial theories, rather than for the party which was sound on
questions of money and tariff, and silent on the pending amendment to
secure political equality to half of the people."
"I most certainly will" was the phrase which was remembered and was
flashed through the country, and as a result, the Republican press and
Susan's Republican friends harshly criticized her for taking her stand
with the radicals.
Like all political parties, the Populists found it hard to comprehend
justice for women, but after a four-hour debate, the convention
endorsed the woman suffrage amendment, absolving, however, members who
refused to support it. The rank and file rejoiced as if each and every
one of them were heart and soul for the cause. They cheered, they
waved their canes, they threw their hats high in the air, and then
swarmed around Susan and Anna Shaw to shake their hands and welcome
them into the Populist party.
With woman suffrage at last a political issue in Kansas, Susan left
the field to her "girls." Her homecoming brought reporters to 17
Madison Street for the details about her alignment with the Populist
party. "I didn't go over to the Populists," she told them. "I have
been like a drowning man for a long time, waiting for someone to throw
a plank in my direction. I didn't step on the whole platform, but just
on the woman suffrage plank.... Here is a party in power which is
likely to remain in power, and if it will give its endorsement to our
movement, we want it."[390]
This explanation, however, did not satisfy her critics, and as the
Republican press circulated false stories about her enthusiasm for the
Populist party, letters of protest poured in, among them one from
Henry Blackwell. To him, she replied, "I shall not praise the
Republicans of Kansas, or wish or work for their success, when I know
by their own confessions to me that the rights of the women of their
state have been traded by them in cold blood for the votes of the
lager beer foreigners and whisky Democrats.... I never, in my whole
forty years work, so utterly repudiated any set of politicians as I do
those Republicans of Kansas.... I never was surer of my position that
no self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a
party that ignores her political rights."[391]
The contest in Kansas was close and bitter. Kansas women carried on an
able campaign with the help of Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman
Catt. When Susan returned to the state in October, she not only found
that the Democrats had entered the fight with an anti-suffrage plank
but the Populists had noticeably lost ground since the Pullman strike
riots, the court injunction against the strikers, and the arrest of
Eugene V. Debs. Again this prairie state, from which she had hoped so
much, refused to extend suffrage to women. Impulsively she recommended
a little "Patrick Henryism" to the women of Kansas, suggesting that
they fold their hands and refuse to help men run the churches, the
charities, and the reform movements.[392]
* * * * *
California was the next state to demand Susan's attention. A
Republican legislature had submitted a woman suffrage amendment to be
voted on by the people in 1896, and the women of California asked for
her help. She toured the state in the spring of 1895 with Anna Howard
Shaw, and everywhere she won friends. The continuous travel and
speaking, however, taxed her far more than she realized, and soon
after her return to the East, she collapsed. As this news flashed over
the wires, letters poured in from her friends, begging her to spare
herself. Two of these letters were especially precious. One in bold
vigorous script was from her good comrade, Parker Pillsbury, now
eighty-six, who had been an unfailing help during the most difficult
years of her career and whom she probably trusted more completely than
any other man. The other from her dearest friend, Elizabeth Stanton,
read, "I never realized how desolate the world would be to me without
you until I heard of your sudden illness. Let me urge you with all the
strength I have, and all the love I bear you, to stay at home and rest
and save your precious self."[393]
She now realized that rest was imperative for a time, but it troubled
her that people thought of her as old and ill, and she wrote Clara
Colby never to mention anyone's illness in her _Woman's Tribune_,
adding, "It is so dreadful to get public thought centered on one as
ill--as I have had it the last two months."[394]
She had no intention of retiring from the field. She knew her own
strength and that her life must be one of action. "I am able to endure
the strain of daily traveling and lecturing at over three-score and
ten," she observed, "mainly because I have always worked and loved
work.... As machinery in motion lasts longer than when lying idle, so
a body and soul in active exercise escapes the corroding rust of
physical and mental laziness, which prematurely cuts off the life of
so many women."[395]
Yet she did slow up a little, refusing an offer from the Slayton
Lecture Bureau for a series of lectures at $100 a night, and she
engaged a capable secretary, Emma B. Sweet, to help her with her
tremendous correspondence. "Dear Rachel" had given her a typewriter,
and now instead of dashing off letters at her desk late at night, she
learned to dictate them to Mrs. Sweet at regular hours. As requests
came in from newspapers and magazines for her comments on a wide
variety of subjects, she answered those that made possible a word on
the advancement of women.
Bicycling had come into vogue and women as well as men were taking it
up, some women even riding their bicycles in short skirts or bloomers.
What did she think of this? "If women ride the bicycle or climb
mountains," she replied, "they should don a costume which will permit
them the use of their legs." Of bicycling she said, "I think it has
done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world. I
rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a
feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her
seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammeled womanhood."[396]
[Illustration: Ida Husted Harper]
* * * * *
Susan returned to California in February 1896. Through the generosity
and interest of two young Rochester friends, her Unitarian minister,
William C. Gannett, and his wife, Mary Gannett, she was able to take
her secretary with her. Making her home in San Francisco with her
devoted friend, Ellen Sargent, she at once began to plan speaking
tours for herself and her "girls," many of whom, including her niece
Lucy, had come West to help her. She appealed successfully to Frances
Willard to transfer the national W.C.T.U. convention to another state,
for she was determined to keep the issue of prohibition out of the
California campaign.
With the press more than friendly and several San Francisco dailies
running woman suffrage departments, she realized the importance of
keeping newspapers fed with readable factual material and enlisted the
aid of a young journalist, Ida Husted Harper, whom she had met in 1878
while lecturing in Terre Haute, Indiana, and who was in California
that winter. When the San Francisco _Examiner_, William Randolph
Hearst's powerful Democratic paper, offered Susan a column on the
editorial page if she would write it and sign it, she dictated her
thoughts to Mrs. Harper, who smoothed them out for the column, helping
her as Mrs. Stanton had in the past, for writing was still a great
hardship. Grateful to Mrs. Harper, she sang her praises: "The moment I
give the idea--the point--she formulates it into a good
sentence--while I should have to haggle over it half an hour."[397]
California women had won suffrage planks from Republicans, Populists,
and Prohibitionists, and the prospects looked bright. Rich women came
to their aid, Mrs. Leland Stanford, with her railroad fortune,
furnishing passes for all the speakers and organizers, and Mrs. Phoebe
Hearst contributing $1,000 to their campaign. What warmed Susan's
heart, however, was the spirit of the rank and file, the seamstresses
and washerwomen, paying their two-dollar pledges in twenty-five-cent
installments, the poorly clad women bringing in fifty cents or a
dollar which they had saved by going without tea, and the women who
had worked all day at their jobs, stopping at headquarters for a
package of circulars to fold and address at night. The working women
of California made it plain that they wanted to vote.
Susan insisted upon carrying out what she called her "wild goose
chase" over the state.[398] People crowded to hear her at farmers'
picnics in the mountains, in schoolhouses in small towns, and in
poolrooms where chalked up on the blackboard she often found "Welcome
Susan B. Anthony." She was at home everywhere and ready for anything.
The men liked her short matter-of-fact speeches and her flashes of
wit. Her hopes were high that the friendly people she met would not
fail to vote justice to women.
She grew apprehensive, however, when the newspapers, pressured by
their advertisers, one by one began to ignore woman suffrage. The
Liquor Dealers' League had been sending letters to hotel owners,
grocers, and druggists, as well as to saloons, warning that votes for
women would mean prohibition and would threaten their livelihood. Word
was spread that if women voted not one glass of beer would be sold in
San Francisco. As in Kansas, liquor interests had persuaded
naturalized Irish, Germans, and Swedes to oppose woman suffrage, so
now in California, they appealed to the Chinese.
On election day Susan was in San Francisco with Anna Howard Shaw and
Ellen Sargent, watching and anxiously waiting for the returns. Telling
the story of those last tense hours when women's fate hung in the
balance, Anna Howard Shaw reported, "I shall always remember the
picture of Miss Anthony and the wife of Senator Sargent wandering
around the polls arm in arm at eleven o'clock at night, their tired
faces taking on lines of deeper depression with every minute, for the
count was against us.... When the final counts came in, we found that
we had won the state from the north down to Oakland and from the south
up to San Francisco; but there was not sufficient majority to overcome
the adverse votes of San Francisco and Oakland. In San Francisco the
saloon element and the most aristocratic section ... made an equal
showing against us.... Every Chinese vote was against us."[399]
In spite of defeat in California, Susan had the joy of marking up two
more states for woman suffrage in 1896. Utah was granted statehood
with a woman suffrage provision in its constitution and Idaho's
favorable vote, though contested in the courts, was upheld by the
State Supreme Court. Now women in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah
were voters.
FOOTNOTES:
[387] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 763.
[388] To Elizabeth Smith Miller, July 25, 1894, Elizabeth Smith Miller
Papers, New York Public Library.
[389] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 788.
[390] _Ibid._, p. 791.
[391] _Ibid._, p. 794.
[392] To Clara Colby, July 22, 1895, Anthony Collection, Henry E.
Huntington Library.
[393] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 842.
[394] N.d., Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[395] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 843.
[396] _Ibid._, pp. 844, 859.
[397] Ms., Diary, July 10, 1896.
[398] Sept. 8, 1896, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[399] Shaw, _The Story of a Pioneer_, pp. 274-275.
AUNT SUSAN AND HER GIRLS
The future of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was
much on Susan's mind. This organization which she had conceived and
nursed through its struggling infancy had grown in numbers and
prestige, and she understood, as no one else could, the importance of
leaving it in the right hands so that it could function successfully
without her.
The young women now in the work, many of them just out of college,
were intelligent, efficient, and confident, and yet as she compared
them with the vivid consecrated women active in the early days of the
movement, she observed in her diary, "[Clarina] Nichols--Paulina
Davis--Lucy Stone--Frances D. Gage--Lucretia Mott & E. C.
Stanton--each without peer among any of our college graduates--young
women of today."[400]
Even so, she appreciated the "young women of today" whom she
affectionately called her girls or her adopted nieces, but she still
held the reins tightly, although they often champed at the bit.
Recognizing, however, that she must choose between personal power and
progress for her cause, she characteristically chose progress. Quick
to appreciate ability and zeal when she saw it, she seldom failed to
make use of it. When Carrie Chapman Catt presented a detailed plan for
a thorough overhauling of the mechanics of the organization, she gave
her approval, remarking drily, "There never yet was a young woman who
did not feel that if she had had the management of the work from the
beginning, the cause would have been carried long ago. I felt just
that way when I was young."[401]
On four of her adopted nieces, Rachel Foster Avery, Anna Howard Shaw,
Harriet Taylor Upton, and Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan felt that the
greater part of her work would fall and be "worthily done."[402] Yet
she feared that in their enthusiasm for efficient organization they
might lose the higher concepts of freedom and justice which had been
the driving force behind her work. Not having learned the lessons of
leadership when the cause was unpopular, they lacked the discipline of
adversity, which bred in the consecrated reformer the wisdom,
tolerance, and vision so necessary for the success of her task. What
they did understand far better than the highly individualistic
pioneers was the value of teamwork, which grew in importance as the
National American Association expanded far beyond the ability of one
person to cope with it.
[Illustration: Rachel Foster Avery]
Probably first in her affections was Rachel Foster Avery, who had been
like a daughter to her since their trip to Europe together in 1883.
The confidence she felt in their friendship was always a comfort.
Rachel's intelligent approach to problems made her an asset at every
meeting, and Susan relied much on her judgment.
In Anna Howard Shaw, ten years older than Rachel, Susan had found the
hardy campaigner and orator for whom she had longed. Anna expressed a
warmth and understanding that most of the younger women lacked, and
best of all she loved the cause as Susan herself loved it. Because of
her close friendship with Susan's niece Lucy, she was regarded as one
of the family, and whenever possible between lectures she stopped over
in Rochester for a good talk with "Aunt Susan."
Harriet Taylor Upton of Warren, Ohio, had enlisted in the ranks in
the 1880s when her father was a member of Congress. Because of her
influence in Washington and Ohio, Harriet was invaluable, and Susan
speedily brought her into the official circle of the National American
Association as treasurer, even thinking of her as a possible
president.[403] Harriet's jovial irrepressible personality readily won
friends, and Susan found her a refreshing and comfortable companion,
able to see a bit of humor in almost every situation. When differences
of opinion at meetings threatened to get out of hand, Harriet could
always be relied on to break the tension with a few witty remarks.
[Illustration: Harriet Taylor Upton]
Carrie Chapman Catt gave every indication of developing into an
outstanding executive. Not another one of Susan's "girls" could so
quickly or so intelligently size up a situation as Carrie, nor could
they so effectively put into action well-thought-out plans. Not as
popular a speaker as the more emotional Anna Howard Shaw, she held her
audiences by her appeal to their intelligence. Tall, handsome, and
well dressed, she never failed to leave a favorable impression. Only
her name irked Susan, and as Susan wrote Clara Colby, "If Catt it must
be then I insist, she should keep her own father's name--Lane--and
not her first husband's name--Chapman,"[404] but the three Cs
intrigued Carrie and she continued to be known as Carrie Chapman Catt.
Now living in the East because her husband's expanding business had
brought him to New York, she was easily accessible, and from her
beautiful new home at Bensonhurst, a suburb of Brooklyn, she carried
on the rapidly growing work of the organization committee until a New
York City office became imperative. In Carrie, Susan recognized
qualities demanded of a leader at this stage of the campaign when
suffragists must learn to be as keen as politicians and as well
organized.
* * * * *
"Spring is not heralded in Washington by the arrival of the robin,"
commented a Washington newspaper, "but by the appearance of Miss
Anthony's red shawl." Susan was still the dominating figure at the
annual woman suffrage conventions. Everyone looked eagerly for the
tall lithe gray-haired woman with a red shawl on her arm or around her
shoulders. Once when Susan appeared on the platform with a new white
crepe shawl, the reporters immediately registered their displeasure by
putting down their pencils. This did not escape her, and always on
good terms with the newsmen and informal with her audiences, she
called out, "Boys, what is the matter?"[405]
"Where is the red shawl?" one of them asked. "No red shawl, no
report."
Enjoying this little by-play, she sent her niece Lucy back to the
hotel for the red shawl, and when Lucy brought it up to the platform
and put it about her shoulders, the audience burst into applause, for
the red shawl, like Susan herself, had become the well-loved symbol of
woman suffrage.
Susan was convinced that the annual national convention should always
be held in Washington, where Congress could see and feel the growing
strength and influence of the movement. Her "girls," on the other
hand, wanted to take their conventions to different parts of the
country to widen their influence. Not as certain as Susan that work
for a federal amendment must come first, many of them contended that a
few more states won for woman suffrage would best help the cause at
this time. The southern women, now active, were firm believers in
states' rights and supported state work.[406] Susan's experience had
taught her the impracticability of direct appeal to the voters in the
states, now that foreign-born men in increasing numbers were arrayed
against votes for women. In spite of her arguments and her pleas, the
National American Association voted in 1894 to hold conventions in
different parts of the country in alternate years. Disappointed, but
trying her best graciously to follow the will of the majority, she
traveled to Atlanta and to Des Moines for the conventions of 1895 and
1897.
Nor did the younger women welcome the messages which Mrs. Stanton, at
Susan's insistence, sent to every convention. Susan herself often
wished her good friend would stick more closely to woman suffrage
instead of introducing extraneous subjects, such as "Educated
Suffrage," "The Matriarchate," or "Women and the Church," but
nevertheless she proudly read her papers to successive conventions.
Insisting that the conventions were too academic, Mrs. Stanton urged
Susan to inject more vitality into them by broadening their platform.
Susan, however, had come to the conclusion that concentration on woman
suffrage was imperative in order to unite all women under one banner
and build up numbers which Congressmen were bound to respect. With
this her "girls" agreed 100 per cent. While all of them were convinced
suffragists, they were divided on other issues, and few of them were
wholehearted feminists, as were Susan and Mrs. Stanton.
* * * * *
With the publication of _The Woman's Bible_ in 1895, Mrs. Stanton
almost upset the applecart, stirring up heated controversy in the
National American Woman Suffrage Association. _The Woman's Bible_ was
a keen and sometimes biting commentary on passages in the Bible
relating to women. It questioned the traditional interpretation which
for centuries has fastened the stigma of inferiority upon women, and
pointed out that the female as well as the male was created in the
image of God. To those who regarded every word of the Bible as
inspired by God, _The Woman's Bible_ was heresy, and both the clergy
and the press stirred up a storm of protest against it. Suffragists
were condemned for compiling a new Bible and were obliged to explain
again and again that _The Woman's Bible_ expressed Mrs. Stanton's
personal views and not those of the movement.
Susan regarded _The Woman's Bible_ as a futile, questionable
digression from the straight path of woman suffrage. To Clara Colby,
who praised it in her _Woman's Tribune_, she wrote, "Of all her great
speeches, I am always proud--but of her Bible commentaries, I am not
proud--either of their spirit or letter.... I could cry a heap--every
time I read or think--if it would undo them--or do anybody or myself
or the cause or Mrs. Stanton any good--they are so entirely unlike her
former self--so flippant and superficial. But she thinks I have gone
over to the enemy--so counts my judgment worth nothing more than that
of any other narrow-souled body.... But I shall love and honor her to
the end--whether her _Bible_ please me or not. So I hope she will do
for me."[407]
She was, however, wholly unprepared for the rebellion staged by her
"girls" at the Washington convention of 1896, when, led by Rachel
Foster Avery, they repudiated _The Woman's Bible_ and proposed a
resolution declaring that their organization had no connection with
it. This was clear proof to Susan that her "girls" lacked tolerance
and wisdom. Listening to the debate, she was heartsick. Anna Howard
Shaw and Mrs. Catt as well as Alice Stone Blackwell spoke for the
resolution. Only a few raised their voices against it, among them her
sister Mary, Clara Colby, Mrs. Blake, and a young woman new to the
ranks, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.
Susan was presiding, and leaving the chair to express her opinions,
she firmly declared, "To pass such a resolution is to set back the
hands on the dial of reform.... We have all sorts of people in the
Association and ... a Christian has no more right on our platform than
an atheist. When this platform is too narrow for all to stand on, I
shall not be on it.... Who is to set up a line? Neither you nor I can
tell but Mrs. Stanton will come out triumphant and that this will be
the great thing done in woman's cause. Lucretia Mott at first thought
Mrs. Stanton had injured the cause of woman's rights by insisting on
the demand for woman suffrage, but she had sense enough not to pass a
resolution about it....[408]
"Are you going to cater to the whims and prejudices of people?" she
asked them. "We draw out from other people our own thought. If, when
you go out to organize, you go with a broad spirit, you will create
and call out breadth and toleration. You had better organize one woman
on a broad platform than 10,000 on a narrow platform of intolerance
and bigotry."
Her voice tense with emotion, she concluded, "This resolution adopted
will be a vote of censure upon a woman who is without a peer in
intellectual and statesmanlike ability; one who has stood for half a
century the acknowledged leader of progressive thought and demand in
regard to all matters pertaining to the absolute freedom of
women."[409]
When the resolution was adopted 53 to 40, she was so disappointed in
her "girls" and so hurt by their defiance that she was tempted to
resign. Hurrying to New York after the convention to talk with Mrs.
Stanton, she found her highly indignant and insistent that they both
resign from the ungrateful organization which had repudiated the women
to whom it owed its existence. The longer Susan considered taking this
step, the less she felt able to make the break. She severely
reprimanded Mrs. Catt, Rachel, Harriet Upton, and Anna, telling them
they were setting up an inquisition.
Finally she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "No, my dear, instead of my resigning
and leaving those half-fledged chickens without any mother, I think it
my duty and the duty of yourself and all the liberals to be at the
next convention and try to reverse this miserable narrow action."[410]
To a reporter who wanted her views on _The Woman's Bible_, she made it
plain that she had no part in writing the book, but added, "I think
women have just as good a right to interpret and twist the Bible to
their own advantage as men have always twisted it and turned it to
theirs. It was written by men, and therefore its reference to women
reflects the light in which they were regarded in those days. In the
same way the history of our Revolutionary War was written, in which
very little is said of the noble deeds of women, though we know how
they stood by and helped the great work; it is so with history all
through."[411]
* * * * *
For some years, Susan's girls had been urging her to write her
reminiscences, spurred on by the fact that Mrs. Stanton, Mary
Livermore, and Julia Ward Howe were writing theirs. There were also
other good reasons for putting her to work at this task. Writing would
keep her safely at home and away from the strenuous work in the field
which they feared was sapping her strength. It would keep her well
occupied so that they could develop the work and the conventions in
their own way.
Susan put off this task from month to month and from year to year,
torn between her desire to leave a true record of her work and her
longing to be always in the thick of the suffrage fight. Finally she
began looking about for a collaborator, convinced that she herself
could never write an interesting line. Ida Husted Harper, with her
newspaper experience and her interest in the cause, seemed the logical
choice, and in the spring of 1897, she came to 17 Madison Street to
work on the biography.[412]
The attic had been remodeled for workrooms and here Susan now spent
her days with Mrs. Harper, trying to reconstruct the past. She had
definite ideas about how the book should be written, holding up as a
model the biography of William Lloyd Garrison recently written by his
children. Mrs. Harper also had high standards, and influenced by
the formalities of the day, edited Susan's vivid brusque
letters--hurriedly written and punctuated with dashes--so that they
conformed with her own easy but more formal style. To this Susan
readily consented, for she always depreciated her own writing ability.
On one point, however, she was adamant, that her story be told without
dwelling upon the disagreements among the old workers.
The household was geared to the "bog," as they called the biography.
Mary, supervising as usual, watched over their meals and the housework
with the aid of a young rosy-cheeked Canadian girl, Anna Dann, who had
recently come to work for them and whom they at once took to their
hearts, making her one of the family. Soon another young girl,
Genevieve Hawley from Fort Scott, Kansas, was employed to help with
the endless copying, sorting of letters, and pasting of scrapbooks,
and with the current correspondence which piled up and diverted Susan
from the book.[413] Through 1897 and 1898, they worked at top speed.
_The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, A Story of the Evolution of
the Status of Women_, in two volumes, by Ida Husted Harper, was
published by the Bowen Merrill Company of Indianapolis just before
Christmas 1898. Happy as a young girl out of school, Susan inscribed
copies for her many friends and eagerly watched for reviews, pleased
with the favorable comments in newspapers and magazines throughout
this country and Europe.[414]
* * * * *
By this time the Cuban rebellion was crowding all other news out of
the papers, and Susan followed it closely, for this struggle for
freedom instantly won her sympathy. She hoped that Spain under
pressure from the United States might be persuaded to give Cuba her
independence, but the blowing up of the battleship _Maine_ and the war
cries of the press and of a faction in Congress led to armed
intervention in April 1898. Always opposed to war as a means of
settling disputes, she wrote Rachel, "To think of the mothers of this
nation sitting back in silence without even the power of a legal
protest--while their sons are taken without a by-your-leave! Well all
through--it is barbarous ... and I hope you and all our young women
will rouse to work as never before--and get the women of the Republic
clothed with the power of control of conditions in peace--or when it
shall come again--which Heaven forbid--in war."[415]
Not only did she express these sentiments in letters to her friends,
but in a public meeting, where only patriotic fervor and flag-waving
were welcome, she dared criticize the unsanitary army camps and the
greed and graft which deprived soldiers of wholesome food. "There
isn't a mother in the land," she declared, "who wouldn't know that a
shipload of typhoid stricken soldiers would need cots to lie on and
fuel to cook with, and that a swamp was not a desirable place in which
to pitch a camp.... What the government needs at such a time is not
alone bacteriologists and army officers but also women who know how to
take care of sick boys and have the common sense to surround them with
sanitary conditions."[416] At this her audience, at first hostile,
burst into applause.
More and more disturbed by the inefficient care of the wounded and the
feeding of enlisted men, she wrote Rachel, "Every day's reports and
comments about the war only show the need of women at the front--not
as employees permitted to be there because they begged to be--but
there by right--as managers and dictators in all departments in which
women have been trained--those of feeding and caring for in health and
nursing the sick."[417]
The war over, the problem of governing the Philippines, Puerto Rico,
and Hawaii was of great interest to her, and she at once asked for the
enfranchisement of the women of these newly won island possessions.
She regarded it as an outrage for the most democratic nation in the
world to foist upon them an exclusively masculine government, a "male
oligarchy," as she called it. "I really believe I shall explode," she
wrote Clara Colby, "if some of you young women don't wake up and raise
your voice in protest.... I wonder if when I am under the sod--or
cremated and floating in the air--I shall have to stir you and others
up. How can you not be all on fire?"[418]
The unwillingness of her "girls" to relate woman suffrage to
contemporary public affairs such as this, repeatedly disappointed her.
Yet she was well aware that the younger generation would never see the
work through her eyes, or exactly follow her pattern.
* * * * *
Disappointed that her National American Woman Suffrage Association did
not attract members as did the W.C.T.U. or the General Federation of
Women's Clubs, she confessed to Clara Colby, "It is the disheartening
part of my life that so very few women will work for the emancipation
of their own half of the race."[419] Watching women flock into these
other organizations and contributing to all sorts of charities, she
was obliged to admit that "very few are capable of seeing that the
cause of nine-tenths of all the misfortunes which come to women, and
to men also, lies in the subjection of women, and therefore the
important thing is to lay the ax at the root."[420]
She also discovered that it was one thing to build up a large
organization and another to keep women so busy with pressing work for
the cause that they did not find time to expend their energies on the
mechanics of organization. Not only did she chafe at the red tape most
of them spun, but she often felt that they were too prone to linger in
academic by-ways, listening to speeches and holding pleasant
conventions. Since the California campaign of 1896, only one state,
Washington, had been roused to vote on a woman suffrage amendment,
which was defeated and only one more state Delaware had granted women
the right to vote for members of school boards.
Again and again she warned her "girls" that some kind of action on
woman suffrage by Congress every year was important. A hearing, a
committee report, a debate, or even an unfavorable vote would, she was
convinced, do more to stir up the whole nation than all the speakers
and organizers that could be sent through the country.
Such thoughts as these, relative to the work which was always on her
mind, she dashed off to one after another of her young colleagues.
"Your letters sound like a trumpet blast," wrote Anna Howard Shaw,
grateful for her counsel. "They read like St. Paul's Epistles to the
Romans, so strong, so clear, so full of courage."[421]
At seventy-eight, Susan realized that the time was approaching when
she must make up her mind to turn over to a younger woman the
presidency of the National American Association, and during the summer
of 1898 she announced to her executive committee that she would retire
on her eightieth birthday in 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
[400] Ms., Diary, Nov. 7, 1895
[401] Mary Gray Peck, _Carrie Chapman Catt_ (New York, 1944), p. 84.
[402] Ms., Diary, Nov. 27, 1895.
[403] To Mrs. Upton, Sept. 5, 1890, University of Rochester Library,
Rochester, New York.
[404] Feb. 10, 1894, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[405] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1113.
[406] Miss Anthony's first attempt to win Southern women to suffrage
was at the time of the New Orleans Exposition in 1885. Because of her
reputation as an abolitionist, she had much resistance to overcome in
the South.
[407] Dec. 18, 1895, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[408] _Woman's Tribune_, Feb. 1, 1896.
[409] _History of Woman Suffrage_, IV, p. 264.
[410] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 855. The action of the National
American Woman Suffrage Association on the Woman's Bible was never
reversed.
[411] _Ibid._, p. 856.
[412] Susan thought seriously of Clara Colby as a collaborator but
concluded she was too involved with the _Woman's Tribune_. Susan
agreed to share royalties with Mrs. Harper on the biography and any
other work on which they might collaborate. On her 75th birthday
Susan's girls had presented her with an annuity of $800 a year. This
made it possible for her to give up lecturing and concentrate on her
book.
[413] Genevieve Hawley left an interesting record of these years in
letters to her aunt, many of which are preserved in the Susan B.
Anthony Memorial Collection in Rochester, New York.
[414] Both the New York _Herald_ and Chicago _Inter-Ocean_ gave the
book full-page reviews. A third volume was published in 1908.
[415] Aug. 10, 1898, Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[416] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1121.
[417] Aug. 10, 1898, Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress.
[418] Dec. 17, 1898, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
Clara Colby, making her headquarters in Washington, kept Susan
informed on developments and they carried on an animated, voluminous
correspondence during these years.
[419] March 12, 1894, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[420] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 920.
[421] Harper, _Anthony_, II, p. 924.
PASSING ON THE TORCH
The last year of Susan's presidency was particularly precious to her.
In a sense it represented her farewell to the work she had carried on
most of her life, and at the same time it was also the hopeful
beginning of the period leading to victory. Yet she had no illusion of
speedy or easy success for her "girls" and she did her best to prepare
them for the obstacles they would inevitably meet. She warned them not
to expect their cause to triumph merely because it was just.
"Governments," she told them, "never do any great good things from
mere principle, from mere love of justice.... You expect too much of
human nature when you expect that."[422]
The movement had reached an impasse. The temper of Congress, as shown
by the admission of Hawaii as a territory without woman suffrage, was
both indifferent and hostile. That this attitude did not express the
will of the American people, she was firmly convinced. It was due, she
believed, to the political influence of powerful groups opposed to
woman suffrage--the liquor interests controlling the votes of
increasing numbers of immigrants, machine politicians fearful of
losing their power, and financial interests whose conservatism
resisted any measure which might upset the status quo. How to
undermine this opposition was now her main problem, and she saw no
other way but persistent agitation through a more active, more
effective, ever-growing woman suffrage organization, reaching a wider
cross section of the people. She herself had established a press
bureau which was feeding interesting factual articles on woman
suffrage to newspapers throughout the country, for as she wrote Mrs.
Colby, the suffrage cause "needs to picture its demands in the daily
papers where the unconverted can see them rather than in special
papers where only those already converted can see them."[423]
Of greatest importance to her was winning the support of organized
labor. Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of
Labor, had already shown his friendliness toward equal pay and votes
for women and was putting women organizers in the field to speed the
unionization of women. Even so she was surprised at the enthusiasm
with which she was received at the American Federation of Labor
convention in 1899, when the four hundred delegates by a rising vote
adopted a strong resolution urging favorable action on a federal woman
suffrage amendment.
So far as possible she had always established friendly relations with
labor organizations, first in 1869 with William H. Sylvis's National
Labor Union and then with the Knights of Labor and their leader,
Terrence V. Powderly.[424] When Eugene V. Debs, president of the
American Railway Union, was arrested during the Pullman strike in 1894
for defying a court injunction, she did not rate him, as so many did,
a dangerous radical, but as an earnest reformer, crusading for an
unpopular cause. They had met years before in Terre Haute, where at
his request she had lectured on woman suffrage, and immediately they
had won each other's sympathy and respect. She did not see indications
of anarchy in the Pullman and Homestead strikes or in the Haymarket
riot, but regarded them as an unfortunate phase of an industrial
revolution which in time would improve the relations of labor and
capital.
That women would be effected by this industrial revolution was obvious
to her, and she wanted them to understand it and play their part in
it. For this reason she saw the importance of keeping the National
American Woman Suffrage Association informed on all developments
affecting wage-earning women and to her delight she found three young
suffragists wide awake on this subject. One of them, Florence Kelley,
had joined forces with that remarkable young woman, Jane Addams, in
her valuable social experiment, Hull House, in the slums of Chicago,
and was now devoting herself to improving the working conditions of
women and children. She represented a new trend in thought and
work--social service--which made a great appeal to college women and
set in motion labor legislation designed to protect women and
children. Another young woman of promise, Gail Laughlin, pioneering as
a lawyer, approached the subject from the feminist viewpoint, seeking
protection for women not through labor legislation based on sex, but
through trade unions, the vote, equal pay, and a wider recognition of
women's right to contract for their labor on the same terms as men.
Her survey of women's working conditions, presented at a convention of
the National American Association was so valuable and attracted so
much attention that she was appointed to the United States Labor
Commission. Harriot Stanton Blatch also understood the significance of
the industrial revolution and woman's part in it, and she too opposed
labor legislation based on sex. Coming from England occasionally to
visit her mother in New York, she brought her liberal viewpoint into
woman suffrage conventions with a flare of oratory matching that of
her gifted parents. "The more I see of her," Susan remarked to a
friend, "the more I feel the greatness of her character."[425]
* * * * *
Although it was Susan's intention to hew to the line of woman suffrage
and not to comment publicly on controversial issues, she could not
keep silent when confronted with injustice. Religious intolerance,
bigotry, and racial discrimination always forced her to take a stand,
regardless of the criticism she might bring on herself.
The treatment of the Negro in both the North and the South was always
of great concern to her, and during the 1890s, when a veritable
epidemic of lynchings and race riots broke out, she expressed herself
freely in Rochester newspapers. She noted the dangerous trend as
indicated by new anti-Negro societies and the limitation of membership
to white Americans in the Spanish-American War veterans' organization.
Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she put into practice her
own sincere belief in race equality. During every Washington
convention, she arranged to have one of her good speakers occupy the
pulpit of a Negro church, and in the South she made it a point to
speak herself in Negro churches and schools and before their
organizations, even though this might prejudice southerners. In her
own home, she gladly welcomed the Negro lecturers and educators who
came to Rochester. This seeking out of the Negro in friendliness was a
religious duty to her and a pleasure. She demanded of everyone
employed in her household, respectful treatment of Negro guests. She
rejoiced when she saw Negroes in the audience at woman suffrage
conventions in Washington, and it gave her great satisfaction to hear
Mary Church Terrell, a beautiful intelligent Negro who had been
educated at Oberlin and in Europe, making speeches which equaled and
even surpassed those of the most eloquent white suffragists.
* * * * *
Susan did not fail to keep in touch with the international feminist
movement, and in the summer of 1899, when she was seventy-nine years
old, she headed the United States delegation to the International
Council of Women, meeting in London. Visiting Harriot Stanton Blatch
at her home in Basingstoke, she first conferred with the leading
British feminists, bringing herself up to date on the progress of
their cause. In England as in the United States, the burden of the
suffrage campaign had shifted from the shoulders of the pioneers to
their daughters, and they were carrying on with vigor, pressing for
the passage of a franchise bill in the House of Commons.
Moving on to London, she was acclaimed as she had been at the World's
Fair in Chicago. "The papers here have been going wild over Miss
Anthony, declaring her to be the most unaggressive woman suffragist
ever seen," reported a journalist to his newspaper in the United
States.
From China, India, New Zealand, and Australia, from South Africa,
Palestine, Persia, and the Argentine, as well as from Europe and the
United States, women had come to London to discuss their progress and
their problems, and Susan, pointing out to them the goal toward which
they must head, declared with confidence, "The day will come when man
will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in the
councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the
perfect comradeship ... between the sexes that shall result in the
highest development of the race."[426]
She had hoped that Queen Victoria would receive the delegates at
Windsor Castle, thus indicating her approval of the International
Council. She longed to talk with this woman who had ruled so long and
so well. That a queen sat on the throne of England, this in itself was
important to her and she wanted to express her gratitude, although she
was well aware that the Queen had never used her influence for the
improvement of laws relating to women. She had hoped to convince her
of the need of votes for women, but Queen Victoria never gave her the
opportunity. All that influential Englishwomen were able to arrange
was the admission of the delegates to the courtyard of Windsor Castle
to watch the Queen start on her drive and to tea in the banquet room
without the Queen.
[Illustration: Carrie Chapman Catt]
* * * * *
Returning home late in August 1899, Susan began at once to make
definite plans to turn over the presidency of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association to a younger woman. Although she well knew
that the choice of her successor was actually in the hands of the
membership, it was her intention to do what she could within the
bounds of democratic procedure to insure the best possible leadership.
To fill the office, she turned instinctively to Anna Howard Shaw whom
she loved more dearly as the years went by and whose selfless devotion
to the cause she trusted implicitly. Yet Anna, in spite of her many
qualifications, lacked a few which were exceptional in Carrie Chapman
Catt--creative executive ability, diplomacy, a talent for working with
people, directing them, and winning their devotion. With growing
admiration, Susan had been watching Mrs. Catt's indefatigable work in
the states where she had been building up active branches. Her flare
for raising money was outstanding, and Susan realized, as few others
did, the crying need of funds for the campaigns ahead. In addition
Mrs. Catt had no personal financial worries, for her husband,
successful in business, was sympathetic to her work. Anna, on the
other hand, would have to support herself by lecturing and carry as
well the burden of the presidency of a rapidly growing organization.
Anna made the decision for Susan. She urged the candidacy of Mrs.
Catt, although her highest ambition had always been to succeed her
beloved Aunt Susan. As she later confessed to Susan, this was a
personal sacrifice which cost her many a heartache, but she "honestly
felt that Mrs. Catt was better fitted ... as well as freer to go into
an unpaid field."[427] Susan therefore approached Mrs. Catt through
Rachel and Harriet Upton, and was relieved when she consented to stand
for election.
Rumors of Susan's retirement aroused ambitions in Lillie Devereux
Blake, who from the point of seniority and devoted work in New York
was regarded as being next in line for the presidency by Mrs. Stanton
and Mrs. Colby. Unable to visualize Mrs. Blake as the leader of this
large organization with its diverse strong personalities, Susan
nevertheless conceded her right to compete for the office. Although
she appreciated Mrs. Blake's valuable work for the cause, there never
had been understanding or sympathy between them. Temperamentally the
blunt stern New Englander with untiring drive had little in common
with the southern beauty turned reformer.
A change in the presidency needed wise and patient handling as
personal ambitions, prejudices, and misunderstandings reared their
heads. When there were murmurings of secession among a small group if
Mrs. Catt were elected, Susan wrote Mrs. Colby that such talk was
"very immature, very despotic, very undemocratic," and she hoped she
was not one of the malcontents.[428]
Another problem was the future of the organization committee which
under Mrs. Catt's chairmanship had carried on a large part of the
work. Its influence was considerable and could readily develop so as
to conflict with that of the officers, thus threatening the unity of
the whole organization. To dissolve the committee seemed to Susan and
her closest advisors the wisest procedure. Mary Garrett Hay, who had
worked closely with Mrs. Catt on the organization committee, opposed
this plan, but after earnest discussion the officers, including Mrs.
Catt, agreed to dissolve the organization committee.
* * * * *
As Susan appeared on the platform at the opening session of the
Washington convention in February 1900, there was thunderous applause
from an audience tense with emotion at the thought of losing the
leader who had guided them for so many years. The tall gray-haired
woman in black satin, with soft rich lace at her throat and the
proverbial red shawl about her shoulders, had become the symbol of
their cause. Now, as she looked down upon them with a friendly smile
and motherly tenderness, tears came to their eyes, and they wanted to
remember always just how she looked at that moment. Then she broke the
tension with a call to duty, a summons to press for the federal
amendment, and one more plea that they always hold their annual
conventions in the national capital.
Difficult and sad as this official leave-taking was, she had made up
her mind to carry if through with good cheer. Tirelessly she presided
at three sessions daily. With the pride of a mother, she listened to
the many reports and with particular satisfaction to that of the
treasurer which showed all debts paid and pledges amounting to $10,000
to start the new year. Susan herself had made this possible, raising
enough to pay past debts and securing pledges so that the new
administration could start its work free from financial worries.
"I have fully determined to retire from the active presidency of the
Association," she announced when the reports and speeches were over.
"I am not retiring now because I feel unable, mentally or physically,
to do the necessary work, but because I wish to see the organization
in the hands of those who are to have its management in the future. I
want to see you all at work, while I am alive, so I can scold if you
do not do it well. Give the matter of selecting your officers serious
thought. Consider who will do the best work for the political
enfranchisement of women, and let no personal feelings enter into the
question."[429]
Watching developments with the keen eye of a politician, she was
confident that Mrs. Catt would be elected to succeed her, although
Mrs. Blake's candidacy was still being assiduously pressed and
circulars recommending her, signed by Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Russell Sage
and Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, were being widely distributed. Just before
the balloting, however, Mrs. Blake withdrew her name in the interest
of harmony. This left the field to Mrs. Catt, who received 254 votes
of the 278 cast.
A burst of applause greeted the announcement of Mrs. Catt's election.
Then abruptly it stopped, as the realization swept over the delegates
that Aunt Susan was no longer their president. Walking to the front of
the platform, Susan took Mrs. Catt by the hand, and while the
delegates applauded, the two women stood before them, the one showing
in her kind face the experience and wisdom of years, the other young,
intelligent, and beautiful, her life still before her. There were
tears in Susan's eyes and her voice was unsteady as she said, "I am
sure you have made a wise choice.... 'New conditions bring new
duties.' These new duties, these changed conditions, demand stronger
hands, younger heads, and fresher hearts. In Mrs. Catt, you have my
ideal leader. I present to you my successor."[430]
* * * * *
Susan's joyous confidence in the new administration was rudely jolted
as controversy over the future of the organization committee flared up
during the last days of the convention. Under strong pressure from
Mary Garrett Hay, Mrs. Catt had counseled with Henry Blackwell, and at
one of the last sessions he had slipped in a motion authorizing the
continuance of the organization committee.[431]
Stunned by this development and looking upon it as a threat to the
harmony of the new administration, Susan, supported by Harriet Upton
and Rachel, prepared to take action, and the next morning, at the
first post-convention executive committee meeting at which Mrs. Catt
presided, Susan proposed that the national officers, headed by Mrs.
Catt, take over the duties of the organization committee. This
precipitated a heated debate, during which Henry Blackwell and his
daughter, Alice, called such procedure unconstitutional, and Mary Hay
resigned. As the discussion became too acrimonious, Mrs. Catt put an
end to it by calling up unfinished business, and thus managed to
steer the remainder of the session into less troubled waters. The next
day, however, Susan brought the matter up again, and on her motion the
organization committee was voted out of existence with praise for its
admirable record of service.
Here were all the makings of a factional feud which, if fanned into
flame, could well have split the National American Association. Not
only had the old organization interfered with the new, indirectly
reprimanding Mrs. Catt, but Susan, by her own personal influence and
determination, had reversed the action of the convention. As a result,
Mrs. Catt was indignant, hurt, and sorely tempted to resign, but after
sending a highly critical letter to every member of the business
committee, she took up her work with vigor.
Disappointed and heartsick over the turn of events, Susan searched for
a way to re-establish harmony and her own faith in her successor.
Realizing that a mother's cool counsel and guiding hand were needed to
heal the misunderstandings, and convinced that unity and trust could
be restored only by frank discussion of the problem by those involved,
she asked for a meeting of the business committee at her home. "What
can we do to get back into trust in each other?" she wrote Laura Clay.
"That is the thing we must do--somehow--and it cannot be done by
letter. We must hold a meeting--and we must have you--and every single
one of our members at it."[432]
Impatient at what to her seemed unnecessary delay, she kept prodding
Mrs. Catt to call this meeting. Fortunately both Susan and Mrs. Catt
were genuinely fond of each other and placed the welfare of the cause
above personal differences. Both were tolerant and steady and
understood the pressures put on the leader of a great organization.
Anxious and troubled as she waited for this meeting, Susan appreciated
Anna Shaw's visits as never before, marking them as red-letter days on
her calender.
Late in August 1900, all the officers finally gathered at 17 Madison
Street, and Susan listened to their discussions with deep concern. She
was confident she could rely completely on Harriet Upton, Rachel, and
Anna and could count on Laura Clay's "level head and good common
sense."[433] She never felt sure of Alice Stone Blackwell and knew
there was great sympathy and often a working alliance between her, her
father, and Mrs. Catt. Of the latest member of the official family,
Catharine Waugh McCulloch, she had little first-hand knowledge. Mrs.
Catt, whom she longed to fathom and trust, was still an enigma. During
those hot humid August days, misunderstandings were healed, unity was
restored, and Susan was reassured that not a single one of her "girls"
desired "other than was good for the work."[434]
* * * * *
Susan had always been a champion of coeducation, speaking for it as
early as the 1850s at state teachers' meetings and proposing it for
Columbia University in her _Revolution_. In 1891, she and Mrs. Stanton
had agitated for the admission of women to the University of
Rochester. Seven years later the trustees consented to admit women
provided $100,000 could be raised in a year, and Susan served on the
fund-raising committee with her friend, Helen Barrett Montgomery.
Because the alumni of the University of Rochester opposed coeducation
and the city's wealthiest men were indifferent, progress was slow, but
the trustees were persuaded to extend the time and to reduce by one
half the amount to be raised.
With so much else on her mind in 1900, including the sudden death of
her brother Merritt, she had given the fund little thought until the
committee appealed to her in desperation when only one day remained in
which to raise the last $8,000. Immediately she went into action.
Remembering that Mary had talked of willing the University $2,000 if
it became coeducational, she persuaded her to pledge that amount now.
Then setting out in a carriage on a very hot September morning, she
slowly collected pledges for all but $2,000. As the trustees were in
session and likely to adjourn any minute, she appealed to Samuel
Wilder, one of Rochester's prominent elder citizens who had already
contributed, to guarantee that amount until she could raise it. To
this he gladly agreed. Reaching the trustees' meeting with Mrs.
Montgomery just in time, with pledges assuring the payment of the full
$50,000, she was amazed at their reception. Instead of rejoicing with
them, the trustees began to quibble over Samuel Wilder's guarantee of
the last $2,000 because of the state of his health. When she offered
her life insurance as security, they still put her off, telling her
to come back in a few days. Even then they continued to quibble, but
finally admitted that the women had won. Disillusioned, she wrote in
her diary, "Not a trustee has given anything although there are
several millionaires among them."[435] Only her life insurance policy
and her dogged persistence had saved the day.
This effort to open Rochester University to women, on top of a very
full and worrisome year, was so taxing and so disillusioning that she
became seriously ill. When she recovered sufficiently for a drive, she
asked to be taken to the university campus and afterward wrote in her
diary, "As I drove over the campus, I felt 'these are not forbidden
grounds to the girls of the city any longer.' It is good to feel that
the old doors sway on their hinges--to women! Will the vows be kept to
them--will the girls have equal chances with the boys? They promised
well--the fulfilment will be seen--whether there shall not be some
hitch from the proposed to a separate school."[436]
* * * * *
Still keeping her watchful eye on the National American Association,
Susan traveled to Minneapolis in the spring of 1901 for the first
annual convention under the new administration. There was talk of an
"entire new deal," the retirement of all who had served under Miss
Anthony, and the election of a "new cabinet of officers," and Susan
was so concerned that there might also be a change in the presidency
that she felt she must be on hand to guide and steady the
proceedings.[437]
Mrs. Catt was re-elected and Susan returned to Rochester well
satisfied and ready to devote herself to completing the fourth volume
of the _History of Woman Suffrage_ on which she and Mrs. Harper had
been working intermittently for the past year. It was published late
in 1902. While working on the History, Susan, although more than
satisfied with Mrs. Harper's work, often thought nostalgically of her
happy stimulating years of collaboration with Mrs. Stanton. She seldom
saw Mrs. Stanton now, but they kept in touch with each other by
letter.
In the spring of 1902, she visited Mrs. Stanton twice in New York, and
planned to return in November to celebrate Mrs. Stanton's
eighty-seventh birthday. In anticipation, she wrote Mrs. Stanton, "It
is fifty-one years since we first met and we have been busy through
every one of them, stirring up the world to recognize the rights of
women.... We little dreamed when we began this contest ... that half a
century later we would be compelled to leave the finish of the battle
to another generation of women. But our hearts are filled with joy to
know that they enter upon this task equipped with a college education,
with business experience, with the freely admitted right to speak in
public--all of which were denied to women fifty years ago.... These
strong, courageous, capable, young women will take our place and
complete our work. There is an army of them where we were but a
handful...."[438]
Two weeks before Mrs. Stanton's birthday, Susan was stunned by a
telegram announcing that her old comrade had passed away in her chair.
Bewildered and desolate, she sat alone in her study for several hours,
trying bravely to endure her grief. Then came the reporters for copy
which only this heartbroken woman could give. "I cannot express myself
at all as I feel," she haltingly told them. "I am too crushed to
speak. If I had died first, she would have found beautiful phrases to
describe our friendship, but I cannot put it into words."[439]
From New York, where she had gone for the funeral, she wrote in
anguish to Mrs. Harper, "Oh, the voice is stilled which I have loved
to hear for fifty years. Always I have felt that I must have Mrs.
Stanton's opinion of things before I knew where I stood myself. I am
all at sea--but the Laws of Nature are still going on--with no shadow
or turning--what a wonder it is--it goes right on and on--no matter
who lives or who dies."[440]
* * * * *
National woman suffrage conventions were still red-letter events to
Susan and she attended them no matter how great the physical effort,
traveling to New Orleans in 1903. Of particular concern was the 1904
convention because of Mrs. Catt's decision at the very last moment not
to stand for re-election on account of her health. Looking over the
field, Susan saw no one capable of taking her place but Anna Howard
Shaw. Not to be able to turn to Mrs. Stanton's capable daughter,
Harriot Stanton Blatch, at this time was disappointing, but Harriot's
long absence in England had made her more or less of a stranger to the
membership of the National American Association, and for some reason
she did not seem to fit in, lacking her mother's warmth and
appeal.[441]
[Illustration: Quotation in the handwriting of Susan B. Anthony]
"I don't see anybody in the whole rank of our suffrage movement to
take her [Mrs. Catt's] place but you," Susan now wrote Anna Howard
Shaw. "If you will take it with a salary of say, $2,000, I will go
ahead and try to see what I can do. We must not let the society down
into _feeble_ hands.... Don't say _no_, for the _life_ of _you_, for
if Mrs. Catt _persists_ in going out, we shall simply _have_ to
_accept it_ and we must _tide over_ with the _best material_ that we
have, and _you are the best_, and would you have taken office _four
years ago_, you would have been elected over-whelmingly."[442]
Anna could not refuse Aunt Susan, and when she was elected with Mrs.
Catt as vice-president, Susan breathed freely again.
It warmed Susan's heart to enter the convention on her eighty-fourth
birthday to a thundering welcome, to banter with Mrs. Upton who called
her to the platform, and to stop the applause with a smile and "There
now, girls, that's enough."[443] Nothing could have been more
appropriate for her birthday than the Colorado jubilee over which she
presided and which gave irrefutable evidence of the success of woman
suffrage in that state. There was rejoicing too over Australia, where
women had been voting since 1902 and over the new hope in Europe, in
Denmark, where women had chosen her birthday to stage a demonstration
in favor of the pending franchise bill.
For the last time, she spoke to a Senate committee on the woman
suffrage amendment. Standing before these indifferent men, a tired
warrior at the end of a long hard campaign, she reminded them that she
alone remained of those who thirty-five years before, in 1869, had
appealed to Congress for justice. "And I," she added, "shall not be
able to come much longer.
"We have waited," she told them. "We stood aside for the Negro; we
waited for the millions of immigrants; now we must wait till the
Hawaiians, the Filipinos, and the Puerto Ricans are enfranchised; then
no doubt the Cubans will have their turn. For all these ignorant,
alien peoples, educated women have been compelled to stand aside and
wait!" Then with mounting impatience, she asked them, "How long will
this injustice, this outrage continue?"[444]
Their answer to her was silence. They sent no report to the Senate on
the woman suffrage amendment. Yet she was able to say to a reporter of
the New York _Sun_, "I have never lost my faith, not for a moment in
fifty years."[445]
FOOTNOTES:
[422] Rachel Foster Avery, Ed., _National Council of Women_, 1891
(Philadelphia, 1891), p. 229.
[423] Dec. 1, 1898, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
Mrs. Elnora Babcock of New York was in charge of the press bureau.
[424] Miss Anthony was enrolled as a member of the Knights of Labor
and invited this organization to send delegates to the International
Council of Women in 1888.
[425] To Ellen Wright Garrison, 1900, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith
College.
[426] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1137. A few years later, militant
suffragists, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, were active in London. Mrs.
Pankhurst heard Miss Anthony speak in Manchester in 1904.
[427] Ida Husted Harper Ms., Catharine Waugh McCulloch Papers,
Radcliffe Women's Archives.
[428] Nov. 20, 1899, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[429] _History of Woman Suffrage_, IV, p. 385. Miss Anthony was "moved
up," as she expressed it, to Honorary President.
[430] Peck, Catt, p. 107, Washington _Post_ quotation.
[431] To Laura Clay, April 15, 1900, University of Kentucky Library,
Lexington, Kentucky.
[432] _Ibid._, March 15, 1900.
[433] _Ibid._
[434] _Ibid._, Sept. 7, 1900.
[435] Ms., Diary, Nov. 10, 1900.
[436] _Ibid._, Sept. 26, 1900. A separate woman's college was
established at the University of Rochester and not until 1952 were the
men's and women's colleges merged.
[437] May 20, 1901, Note, Susan B. Anthony Memorial Collection,
Rochester, New York.
[438] _History of Woman Suffrage_, V, pp. 741-742.
[439] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1263.
[440] Oct. 28, 1902, Anthony Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library.
[441] Oct. 27, 1904, Elizabeth Smith Miller Collection, New York
Public Library. A few years later, Mrs. Blatch made a vital
contribution to the cause through the Women's Political Union which
she organized and which brought more militant methods and new life
into the woman suffrage campaign in New York State.
[442] Jan. 27, 1904, Lucy E. Anthony Collection. Mrs. Blake who had
been a candidate in 1900 had by this time formed her own organization,
the National Legislative League.
[443] _History of Woman Suffrage_, V, p. 99.
[444] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1308.
[445] _Ibid._
SUSAN B. ANTHONY OF THE WORLD
Susan was on the ocean in May 1904 with her sister Mary and a group of
good friends, headed for a meeting of the International Council of
Women in Berlin. What drew her to Berlin was the plan initiated by
Carrie Chapman Catt to form an International Woman Suffrage Alliance
prior to the meetings of the International Council. This had been
Susan's dream and Mrs. Stanton's in 1883, when they first conferred
with women of other countries regarding an international woman
suffrage organization and found only the women of England ready to
unite on such a radical program. Now that women had worked together
successfully in the International Council for sixteen years on other
less controversial matters relating to women, she and Mrs. Catt were
confident that a few of them at least were willing to unite to demand
the vote.
Chosen as a matter of course to preside over this gathering of
suffragists in Berlin, Susan received an enthusiastic welcome. For her
it was a momentous occasion, and eager to spread news of the meeting
far and wide, she could not understand the objections of many of the
delegates to the presence of reporters who they feared might send out
sensational copy.
"My friends, what are we here for?" she asked her more timid
colleagues. "We have come from many countries, travelled thousands of
miles to form an organization for a great international work, and do
we want to keep it a secret from the public? No; welcome all reporters
who want to come, the more, the better. Let all we say and do here be
told far and wide. Let the people everywhere know that in Berlin women
from all parts of the world have banded themselves together to demand
political freedom. I rejoice in the presence of these reporters, and
instead of excluding them from our meetings let us help them to all
the information we can and ask them to give it the widest
publicity."[446]
This won the battle for the reporters, who gave her rousing applause,
and the news flashed over the wires was sympathetic, dignified, and
abundant. It told the world of the formation of the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance by women from the United States, Great
Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, Norway, and
Denmark, "to secure the enfranchisement of women of all nations." It
praised the honorary president, Susan B. Anthony, and the American
women who took over the leadership of this international venture,
Carrie Chapman Catt, the president, and Rachel Foster Avery,
corresponding secretary.
To celebrate the occasion, German suffragists called a public mass
meeting, and Susan, eager to rejoice with them, was surprised to find
members of the International Council disgruntled and accusing the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance of stealing their thunder and
casting the dark shadow of woman suffrage over their conference. To
placate them and restore harmony, she stayed away from this public
meeting, but she could not control the demand for her presence.
"Where is Susan B. Anthony?" were the first words spoken as the mass
meeting opened. Then immediately the audience rose and burst into
cheers which continued without a break for ten minutes. Anna Howard
Shaw there on the platform and deeply moved by this tribute to Aunt
Susan, later described how she felt: "Every second of that time I
seemed to see Miss Anthony alone in her hotel room, longing with all
her big heart to be with us, as we longed to have her.... Afterwards,
when we burst in upon her and told her of the great demonstration, the
mere mention of her name had caused, her lips quivered and her brave
old eyes filled with tears."[447]
The next morning her "girls" brought her the Berlin newspapers,
translating for her the report of the meeting and these heart-warming
lines, "The Americans call her 'Aunt Susan.' She is our 'Aunt Susan'
too."
This was but a foretaste of her reception throughout her stay in
Berlin. To the International Council, she was "Susan B. Anthony of the
World," the woman of the hour, whom all wanted to meet. Every time she
entered the conference hall, the audience rose and remained standing
until she was seated. Every mention of her name brought forth cheers.
The many young women, acting as ushers, were devoted to her and eager
to serve her. They greeted her by kissing her hand. Embarrassed at
first by such homage, she soon responded by kissing them on the
cheek.
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony at the age of eighty-five]
The Empress Victoria Augusta, receiving the delegates in the Royal
Palace, singled out Susan, and instead of following the custom of
kissing the Empress's hand, Susan bowed as she would to any
distinguished American, explaining that she was a Quaker and did not
understand the etiquette of the court. The Empress praised Susan's
great work, and unwilling to let such an opportunity slip by, Susan
offered the suggestion that Emperor William who had done so much to
build up his country might now wish to raise the status of German
women. To this the Empress replied with a smile, "The gentlemen are
very slow to comprehend this great movement."[448]
When the talented Negro, Mary Church Terrell, addressing the
International Council in both German and French, received an ovation,
Susan's cup of joy was filled to the brim, for she glimpsed the bright
promise of a world without barriers of sex or race.
* * * * *
The newspapers welcomed her home, and in her own comfortable sitting
room she read Rochester's greeting in the _Democrat and Chronicle_,
"There are woman suffragists and anti-suffragists, but all Rochester
people, irrespective of opinion ... are Anthony men and women. We
admire and esteem one so single-minded, earnest and unselfish, who,
with eighty-four years to her credit, is still too busy and useful to
think of growing old."[449]
Her happiness over this welcome was clouded, however, by the serious
illness of her brother Daniel, and she and Mary hurried to Kansas to
see him. Two months later he passed away. Now only she and Mary were
left of all the large Anthony family. Without Daniel, the world seemed
empty. His strength of character, independence, and sympathy with her
work had comforted and encouraged her all through her life. A fearless
editor, a successful businessman, a politician with principles, he had
played an important role in Kansas, and proud of him, she cherished
the many tributes published throughout the country.
Courageously she now picked up the threads of her life. Her precious
National American Woman Suffrage Association was out of her hands, but
she still had the _History of Woman Suffrage_ to distribute, and it
gave her a great sense of accomplishment to hand on to future
generations this record of women's struggle for freedom.[450]
Missing the stimulous of work with her "girls," she took more and more
pleasure in the company of William and Mary Gannett of the First
Unitarian Church, whose liberal views appealed to her strongly. She
liked to have young people about her and followed the lives of all her
nieces and nephews with the greatest interest, spurring on their
ambitions and helping finance their education. The frequent visits of
"Niece Lucy" were a great joy during these years, as was the nearness
of "Niece Anna O,"[451] who married and settled in Rochester. The
young Canadian girl, Anna Dann, had become almost indispensable to her
and to Mary, as companion, secretary, and nurse, and her marriage left
a void in the household. Anna Dann was married at 17 Madison Street by
Anna Howard Shaw with Susan beaming upon her like a proud grandmother.
* * * * *
Longing to see one more state won for suffrage, Susan carefully
followed the news from the field, looking hopefully to California and
urging her "girls" to keep hammering away there in spite of defeats.
Her eyes were also on the Territory of Oklahoma, where a constitution
was being drafted preparatory to statehood. "The present bill for the
new state," she wrote Anna Howard Shaw, in December 1904, "is an
insult to women of Oklahoma, such as has never been perpetrated
before. We have always known that women were in reality ranked with
idiots and criminals, but it has never been said in words that the
state should ... restrict or abridge the suffrage ... on account of
illiteracy, minority, _sex_, conviction of felony, mental condition,
etc.... We must fight this bill to the utmost...."[452]
The brightest spot in the West was Oregon, where suffrage had been
defeated in 1900 by only 2,000 votes. In June 1905, when the National
American Association held its first far western convention in Portland
during the Lewis and Clark Exposition, Susan could not keep away,
although she had never expected to go over the mountains again. As she
traveled to Portland with Mary and a hundred or more delegates in
special cars, she recalled her many long tiring trips through the West
to carry the message of woman suffrage to the frontier. In
comparison, this was a triumphal journey, showing her, as nothing else
could, what her work had accomplished. Greeted at railroad stations
along the way by enthusiastic crowds, showered with flowers and gifts,
she stood on the back platform of the train with her "girls," shaking
hands, waving her handkerchief, and making an occasional speech.
Presiding over the opening session of the Portland convention,
standing in a veritable garden of flowers which had been presented to
her, she remarked with a droll smile, "This is rather different from
the receptions I used to get fifty years ago.... I am thankful for
this change of spirit which has come over the American people."[453]
On Woman's Day, she was chosen to speak at the unveiling of the statue
of Sacajawea, the Indian woman who had led Lewis and Clark through the
dangerous mountain passes to the Pacific, winning their gratitude and
their praise. In the story of Sacajawea who had been overlooked by the
government when every man in the Lewis and Clark expedition had been
rewarded with a large tract of land, Susan saw the perfect example of
man's thoughtless oversight of the valuable services of women. Looking
up at the bronze statue of the Indian woman, her papoose on her back
and her arm outstretched to the Pacific, Susan said simply, "This is
the first statue erected to a woman because of deeds of daring....
This recognition of the assistance rendered by a woman in the
discovery of this great section of the country is but the beginning of
what is due." Then, with the sunlight playing on her hair and lighting
up her face, she appealed to the men of Oregon for the vote. "Next
year," she reminded them, "the men of this proud state, made possible
by a woman, will decide whether women shall at last have the rights in
it which have been denied them so many years. Let men remember the
part women have played in its settlement and progress and vote to give
them these rights which belong to every citizen."[454]
* * * * *
Reporters were at Susan's door, when she returned to Rochester, for
comments on ex-President Cleveland's tirade against clubwomen and
woman suffrage in the popular _Ladies' Home Journal_. "Pure
fol-de-rol," she told them, adding testily, "I would think that Grover
Cleveland was about the last person to talk about the sanctity of the
home and woman's sphere." This was good copy for Republican newspapers
and they made the most of it, as women throughout the country added
their protests to Susan's. A popular jingle of the day ran, "Susan B.
Anthony, she took quite a fall out of Grover C."[455]
Susan, however, had something far more important on her mind than
fencing with Grover Cleveland--an interview with President Theodore
Roosevelt. Here was a man eager to right wrongs, to break monopolies,
to see justice done to the Negro, a man who talked of a "square deal"
for all, and yet woman suffrage aroused no response in him.
In November 1905, she undertook a trip to Washington for the express
purpose of talking with him. The year before, at a White House
reception, he had singled her out to stand at his side in the
receiving line. She looked for the same friendliness now. Memorandum
in hand, she plied him with questions which he carefully evaded, but
she would not give up.
"Mr. Roosevelt," she earnestly pleaded, "this is my principle request.
It is almost the last request I shall ever make of anybody. Before you
leave the Presidential chair recommend to Congress to submit to the
Legislatures a Constitutional Amendment which will enfranchise women,
and thus take your place in history with Lincoln, the great
emancipator. I beg of you not to close your term of office without
doing this."[456]
To this he made no response, and trying once more to wring from him
some slight indication of sympathy for her cause, she added, "Mr.
President, your influence is so great that just one word from you in
favor of woman suffrage would give our cause a tremendous impetus."
"The public knows my attitude," he tersely replied. "I recommended it
when Governor of New York."
"True," she acknowledged, "but that was a long time ago. Our enemies
say that was the opinion of your younger years and that since you have
been President you have never uttered one word that could be construed
as an endorsement."
"They have no cause to think I have changed my mind," he suavely
replied as he bade her good-bye. In the months that followed he gave
her no sign that her interview had made the slightest impression.
One of the most satisfying honors bestowed on Susan during these last
years was the invitation to be present at Bryn Mawr College in 1902
for the unveiling of a bronze portrait medallion of herself. Bryn
Mawr, under its brilliant young president, M. Carey Thomas, herself a
pioneer in establishing the highest standards for women's education,
showed no such timidity as Vassar where neither Susan nor Elizabeth
Cady Stanton had been welcome as speakers. At Bryn Mawr, Susan talked
freely and frankly with the students, and best of all, became better
acquainted with M. Carey Thomas and her enterprising friend, Mary
Garrett of Baltimore, who was using her great wealth for the
advancement of women. She longed to channel their abilities to woman
suffrage and a few years later arranged for a national convention in
their home city, Baltimore, appealing to them to make it an
outstanding success.[457]
Arriving in Baltimore in January 1906 for this convention, Susan was
the honored guest in Mary Garrett's luxurious home. Frail and ill, she
was unable to attend all the sessions, as in the past, but she was
present at the highlight of this very successful convention, the
College Evening arranged by M. Carey Thomas. With women's colleges
still resisting the discussion of woman suffrage and the Association
of Collegiate Alumnae refusing to support it, the College Evening
marked the first public endorsement of this controversial subject by
college women. Up to this time the only encouraging sign had been the
formation in 1900 of the College Equal Suffrage League by two young
Radcliffe alumnae, Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin. Now here, in
conservative Baltimore, college presidents and college faculty gave
woman suffrage their blessing, and Susan listened happily as
distinguished women, one after another, allied themselves to the
cause: Dr. Mary E. Woolley, who as president of Mt. Holyoke was
developing Mary Lyons' pioneer seminary into a high ranking college;
Lucy Salmon, Mary A. Jordan, and Mary W. Calkins of the faculties of
Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley; Eva Perry Moore, a trustee of Vassar and
president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, with whom she
dared differ on this subject; Maud Wood Park, representing the younger
generation in the College Equal Suffrage League; and last of all, the
president of Bryn Mawr, M. Carey Thomas. After expressing her
gratitude to the pioneers of this great movement, Miss Thomas turned
to Susan and said, "To you, Miss Anthony, belongs by right, as to no
other woman in the world's history, the love and gratitude of all
women in every country of the civilized globe. We your daughters in
spirit, rise up today and call you blessed.... Of such as you were the
lines of the poet Yeats written:
'They shall be remembered forever,
They shall be alive forever,
They shall be speaking forever,
The people shall hear them forever.'"[458]
During the thundering applause, Susan came forward to respond, her
face alight, and the audience rose. "If any proof were needed of the
progress of the cause for which I have worked, it is here tonight,"
she said simply. "The presence on the stage of these college women,
and in the audience of all those college girls who will someday be the
nation's greatest strength, tell their story to the world. They give
the highest joy and encouragement to me...."[459]
During her visit at the home of Mary Garrett, Susan spoke freely with
her and with M. Carey Thomas of the needs of the National American
Association, particularly of the Standing Fund of $100,000 of which
she had dreamed and which she had started to raise. Now, like an
answer to prayer, Mary Garrett and President Thomas, fresh from their
successful money-raising campaigns for Johns Hopkins and Bryn Mawr,
offered to undertake a similar project for woman suffrage, proposing
to raise $60,000--$12,000 a year for the next five years.
"As we sat at her feet day after day between sessions of the
convention, listening to what she wanted us to do to help women and
asking her questions," recalled M. Carey Thomas in later years, "I
realized that she was the greatest person I had ever met. She seemed
to me everything that a human being could be--a leader to die for or
to live for and follow wherever she led."[460]
Immediately after the convention, Susan went to Washington with the
women who were scheduled to speak at the Congressional hearing on
woman suffrage. In her room at the Shoreham Hotel, a room with a view
of the Washington Monument which the manager always saved for her, she
stood at the window looking out over the city as if saying farewell.
Then turning to Anna Shaw, she said with emotion, "I think it is the
most beautiful monument in the whole world."[461]
That evening she sat quietly through the many tributes offered to her
on her eighty-sixth birthday, longing to tell all her friends the
gratitude and hope that welled up in her heart. Finally she rose, and
standing by Anna Howard Shaw who was presiding, she impulsively put
her hand on her shoulder and praised her for her loyal support. Then
turning to the other officers, she thanked them for all they had done.
"There are others also," she added, "just as true and devoted to the
cause--I wish I could name everyone--but with such women consecrating
their lives--" She hesitated a moment, and then in her clear rich
voice, added with emphasis, "Failure is impossible."[462]
* * * * *
In Rochester, in the home she so dearly loved, she spent her last
weeks, thinking of the cause and the women who would carry it on.
Longing to talk with Anna Shaw, she sent for her, but Anna, feeling
she was needed, came even before a letter could reach her. With Anna
at her bedside, Susan was content.
"I want you to give me a promise," she pleaded, reaching for Anna's
hand. "Promise me you will keep the presidency of the association as
long as you are well enough to do the work."[463]
Deeply moved, Anna replied, "But how can I promise that? I can keep it
only as long as others wish me to keep it."
"Promise to make them wish you to keep it," Susan urged. "Just as I
wish you to keep it...."
After a moment, she continued, "I do not know anything about what
comes to us after this life ends, but ... if I have any conscious
knowledge of this world and of what you are doing, I shall not be far
away from you; and in times of need I will help you all I can. Who
knows? Perhaps I may be able to do more for the Cause after I am gone
than while I am here."
A few days later, on March 13, 1906, she passed away, her hand in
Anna's.
* * * * *
Asked, a few years before, if she believed that all women in the
United States would ever be given the vote, she had replied with
assurance, "It will come, but I shall not see it.... It is inevitable.
We can no more deny forever the right of self-government to one-half
our people than we could keep the Negro forever in bondage. It will
not be wrought by the same disrupting forces that freed the slave, but
come it will, and I believe within a generation."[464]
[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony, 1905]
She had so longed to see women voting throughout the United States, to
see them elected to legislatures and Congress, but for her there had
only been the promise of fulfillment in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and
Idaho, and far away in New Zealand and Australia.
"Failure is impossible" was the rallying cry she left with her "girls"
to spur them on in the long discouraging struggle ahead, fourteen more
years of campaigning until on August 26, 1920, women were enfranchised
throughout the United States by the Nineteenth Amendment.
Even then their work was not finished, for she had looked farther
ahead to the time when men and women everywhere, regardless of race,
religion, or sex, would enjoy equal rights. Her challenging words,
"Failure is impossible," still echo and re-echo through the years, as
the crusade for human rights goes forward and men and women together
strive to build and preserve a free world.
FOOTNOTES:
[446] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1325.
[447] Shaw, _The Story of a Pioneer_, p. 210.
[448] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1319.
[449] _Ibid._, p. 1336.
[450] Miss Anthony also carefully prepared her scrapbooks, her books,
and bound volumes of _The Revolution_, woman's rights and antislavery
magazines for presentation to the Library of Congress, inscribing each
with a note of explanation.
[451] Ann Anthony Bacon.
[452] _New York Suffrage Newsletter_, Jan., 1905.
[453] _History of Woman Suffrage_, V, p. 122.
[454] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1365. The statue of Sacajawea,
presented to the Exposition by the clubwomen of America, was the work
of Alice Cooper of Denver. Woman suffrage was again defeated in Oregon
in 1906.
[455] Harper, _Anthony_, III, pp. 1357, 1359.
[456] _Ibid._, pp. 1376-1377.
[457] The medallion, the work of Leila Usher of Boston, was
commissioned by Mary Garrett.
[458] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1395.
[459] _Ibid._, pp. 1395-1396.
[460] Sept., 1935, Statement, Una R. Winter Collection.
[461] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1409.
[462] _Ibid._
[463] Shaw, _The Story of a Pioneer_, pp. 230-232.
[464] Harper, _Anthony_, III, p. 1259.
NOTES
[Transcriber's Note: All footnotes for the book were located here, on
pages 311-326. They have been relocated to immediately follow the
chapter where they are referenced.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery,
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Selden, Clara Sayre. _Family Sketches._ Rochester, N.Y., 1939.
Sewall, May Wright (ed.). _The World's Congress of Representative
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Shaw, Anna Howard. _The Story of a Pioneer._ New York, 1915.
Smith, Gerrit. _Letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton on Woman's Rights and
Dress Reform._ Pamphlet. Peterboro, N.H., 1855.
Smith, Julia. _Abby Smith and Her Cows, With a Report of the Law Case
Decided Contrary to Law._ Pamphlet. Hartford, Conn., 1877.
Smith, Matthew Hale. _Sunshine and Shadow in New York._ Hartford,
Conn., 1869.
Sprague, William F. _Women and the West._ Boston, 1940.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. _Address to the Legislature of New York,
February, 1854._ Pamphlet. Albany, 1854.
----. _Bible and Church Degrade Women._ Pamphlet. Chicago, 1884.
----. _The Christian Church and Women._ Pamphlet reprinted from _The
Index_ (Boston), n.d.
----. "The Degradation of Disfranchisement," _National Bulletin_,
March 1891. Pamphlet.
----. _Eighty Years and More._ New York, 1898.
----. _The Slave's Appeal._ Pamphlet. Albany, 1860.
----. _Significance and History of the Ballot._ Pamphlet. Washington,
D.C., 1898.
----. _The Solitude of Self._ Pamphlet. Washington, D.C., 1892.
----. _Suffrage, a Natural Right._ Pamphlet. Chicago, 1894.
----. _The Woman's Bible._ New York, 1898.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Anthony, Susan B., and Gage, Matilda Joslyn.
_History of Woman Suffrage_, Vols. I, II, III. New York and Rochester,
1881, 1882, 1886.
Stanton, Theodore. _The Woman Question in Europe._ New York, 1884.
Stanton, Theodore, and Blatch, Harriot Stanton (Ed.). _Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, As Revealed in Her Letters, Diary, and Reminiscences_, New
York, 1922.
Stevens, G. A., _New York Typographical Union No. 6._ Albany, 1913.
Strachey, Ray. _Struggle._ New York, 1930.
Ten Broek, Jacobus. _The Antislavery Origins of the Fourteenth
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Terrell, Mary Church. _A Colored Woman in a White World._ Washington,
D.C., 1940.
Thornton, Willis. _The Nine Lives of Citizen Train._ New York, 1948.
Tilton, Theodore. _Biography of Victoria C. Woodhull._ (Golden Age
Tract No. 3.) Pamphlet. New York, 1871.
Tracy, George A. _History of the Typographical Union._ Indianapolis,
1913.
Train, George Francis. _The Great Epigram Campaign of Kansas._
Pamphlet. Leavenworth, Kansas, 1867.
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Trowbridge, Lydia Jones. _Frances Willard of Evanston._ Chicago, 1938.
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NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS
Adams (Mass.) _Freeman_
_The Agitator_
_Antislavery Standard_
Chicago Daily _Tribune_
Chicago _Inter-Ocean_
_The Golden Age_
_Harper's Weekly_
_The Independent_
_Ladies' Home Journal_
_The Liberator_
_The Lily_
New York _Daily Graphic_
New York _Herald_
New York _Post_
New York _Suffrage News Letter_
New York _Sun_
New York _Times_
New York _Tribune_
New York _World_
Philadelphia _Press_
_The Revolution_
_Rochester History_
San Francisco _Examiner_
_The Una_
_Woman's Campaign_
_Woman's Journal_
_Woman's Tribune_
_Woman's Suffrage Journal_ (London, England)
_Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly_
INDEX
Adams, Abigail, 3, 311
Addams, Jane, 286
Alcott, Bronson, 117, 224, 225
American Antislavery Society, 58, 60, 112, 118-19
American Equal Rights Association, 118-20, 125, 137, 145-46, 161, 164
American Federation of Labor, 285-86
American Woman Suffrage Association, 172-73, 177, 233, 247, 249-50,
318, 322, 323
Anneké, Madam, 175, 234
Anthony, Ann O. _See_ Bacon, Ann Anthony.
Anthony, Anna Osborne, 108-09, 315
Anthony, Daniel (father), 1, 4-13, 15-16, 18, 20-24, 56, 58, 93, 98,
104, 311, 316, 322
Anthony, Daniel Jr. (nephew), 241
Anthony, Daniel Read (brother), 7, 12, 15, 22, 45-46, 56, 58, 93,
108-12, 135, 141, 171, 179, 219, 227, 230, 239, 241-42, 302, 315,
321, 324
Anthony, Eliza, 9
Anthony, Guelma. _See_ McLean, Guelma Anthony.
Anthony, Hannah. _See_ Mosher, Hannah Anthony.
Anthony, Hannah Latham, 4, 18
Anthony, Humphrey, 5, 6
Anthony, Jacob Merritt, 9, 15, 22, 46, 56, 58, 93, 98, 191, 219, 241,
294, 302, 324
Anthony, Lucy E., 235, 248, 271, 275, 277, 303, 322
Anthony, Lucy Read, 1-2, 5-6, 8-9, 11-12, 16, 18, 20-21, 62, 98, 103,
108, 129, 190, 219, 235, 311, 316
Anthony, Mary Luther, 46, 93, 108
Anthony, Mary S., 7, 15, 21, 24, 58, 62, 64, 98, 103, 108, 171, 190,
199, 217, 219, 235, 240, 248, 255, 279, 281, 294, 299, 303, 316, 324
Anthony, Sarah Burtis, 21
Anthony, Susan B., birth of, 1;
ancestry of, 4, 6, 311;
her school days, 7-8, 10-11;
as teacher, 9, 11, 13-14, 17-22;
her first temperance speech, 19;
her interest in books, 52, 94;
her interest in outdoor work, 67, 93;
her opinions on marriage, 73-74, 80, 221, 224,
on women's support of political parties, 243,
on woman as president, 245;
her first appeal for Congressional action on woman suffrage, 117;
50th birthday celebration of, 176;
arrest and trial of, 201-03, 209-13;
diaries of, 264-65;
retirement of, 283;
84th birthday celebration of, 297;
last illness and death of, 308;
prophecy of, 310
Aurora Leigh, 74-76
Avery, Dr. Alida, 230
Avery, Rachel Foster, 238-39, 244-45, 251, 262, 270, 274-75, 279-80,
282, 290, 292-93, 300, 322-23
Bacon, Ann Anthony, 303, 322, 326
Barton, Clara, 99, 176
Becker, Lydia, 174, 320, 322
Beecher, Henry Ward, 79, 101, 103, 118, 125, 129, 134, 137, 169,
173-74, 220-22
Beecher-Tilton case, 219, 220, 222-23, 321
Bickerdyke, Mother, 100, 130
Bingham, Anson, 77, 79
Bingham, John A., 122
Blackwell, Alice Stone, 72, 251, 279, 292, 294, 323
Blackwell, Antoinette Brown, 33, 41, 44, 50, 52, 69, 71-72, 76, 81,
102, 314
Blackwell, Dr. Elizabeth, 99
Blackwell, Ellen, 52, 53
Blackwell, Henry, 50, 125, 128, 145, 162, 250, 269, 292, 294
Blackwell, Samuel, 50
Blake, Lillie Devereux, 166, 194, 200, 227, 279, 290, 292, 326
Blatch, Harriot Stanton, 67, 100, 236, 239, 245, 250-51, 287-88, 296,
322, 325
Blatch, William Henry, 239, 322
Bloomer, Amelia, 26, 170, 237, 312
Bloomer Costume, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 312
Booth, Mary L., 231, 238
Bradwell, Myra, 170, 199, 207-08
Bright, Jacob, 176, 222
Brown, Antoinette. _See_ Blackwell, Antoinette Brown.
Brown, B. Gratz, 123, 196
Brown, John, 46, 56, 63-66, 115, 201, 313
Brown, Olympia, 128, 137, 175, 197
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 23, 55, 74-76, 94
Bryn Mawr College, 306-07
Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody), 264
Bullard, Laura Curtis, 166, 172, 178-79, 194
Burnham, Carrie S., 198
Butler, Benjamin F., 183, 193, 200, 208
Caldwell, Margaret Read, 17, 21
California campaign, 269, 271-73, 283, 303
Carroll, Ella Anna, 100, 234
Cary, Alice, 127, 142, 166, 174, 231
Cary, Phoebe, 142, 166, 231
Catt, Carrie Chapman, 254-55, 265, 269, 274, 276-77, 279-80, 289-94,
295-97, 299, 300
Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 226-28
Channing, William Henry, 41, 47, 239, 312
Chase, Salmon P., 141, 208
Child, Lydia Maria, 118
Claflin, Tennessee, 181-82
Clay, Laura, 293
Clemmer, Mary, 229
Cleveland, Grover, 246, 260-61, 304-05
Coeducation, 37-38, 67-68, 70, 258, 294
Colby, Clara Bewick, 231, 244-45, 270, 276, 279, 283, 285, 290, 323-25
College Equal Suffrage League, 306
College Evening, the, Baltimore, Maryland, 307
Conkling, Roscoe, 122, 209
Conway, Moncure D., 126
Corbin, Hannah Lee, 4
Couzins, Phoebe, 175, 227
Cowles, Caroline. _See_ Richards, Caroline Cowles.
Crittenden, Alexander P., 188, 319
Curtis, George William, 79, 103, 125-26, 129, 169
Dall, Caroline H., 316
Dann, Anna. _See_ Mason, Anna Dann.
Daughters of Temperance, 18, 24-25, 30
Davis, Paulina Wright, 33, 165, 167, 172, 182-85, 191, 195, 274
Debs, Eugene V., 269, 286
De Garmo, Rhoda, 16, 23, 199
Democrats, 88, 98, 106, 118, 123, 130-31, 133, 135-36, 138, 140-41,
143, 146-48, 193, 196-97, 200, 226, 232, 253, 261, 266-69, 272
Demorest, Mme. Louise, 129, 318
Dickinson, Albert, 109, 263
Dickinson, Anna E., 94-95, 104, 106-07, 112, 138, 144-45, 148, 156,
177, 196, 223, 238, 315, 318
Divorce, 32, 80-83, 174, 224
Dix, Dorothea, 99
Douglas, Stephen A., 62, 83
Douglass, Frederick, 23-24, 63, 88, 103, 106, 112, 145, 162-63, 200,
312
Duniway, Abigail Scott, 189, 244
Eddy, Eliza J., 52, 238-39, 313
Emancipation Proclamation, 98-99, 101-02
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 53, 65, 94, 117, 150
Fair, Laura, 188-89, 319
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, 246
Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment, 160-62, 164, 166, 172-73, 193,
216-18, 226, 229, 231-34, 286, 291, 298, 305, 310, 321
Fifteenth Amendment, 160, 162-65, 169, 181, 192-93, 198-200, 203,
205, 210, 214, 232
First National Woman's Rights convention, 1850, 25
First Woman's Rights convention, 1848, 20
Foster, Abby Kelley, 25, 30, 59, 61, 77, 217
Foster, Rachel. _See_ Avery, Rachel Foster.
Foster, Stephen S., 25, 59, 87, 145, 161
Fourteenth Amendment, 115-16, 120-22, 125, 142, 159, 180-82, 188,
190, 192-93, 198-200, 203, 205, 207-08, 210-11, 214, 316, 320
Frémont, Jessie Benton, 103, 175
Frémont, John C., 57, 93
Gage, Frances D., 53-54, 274, 316
Gage, Matilda Joslyn, 33, 165, 175, 196, 200, 204, 209, 227-28, 235,
237, 244, 320
Gannett, Mary Lewis, 271, 303
Gannett, William C., 271, 303
Garrett, Mary, 306-07, 326
Garrison, William Lloyd, 16, 23, 25-26, 44-47, 52, 60-63, 71, 77, 82,
84-87, 89, 90-92, 95, 104-05, 111-12, 134, 137, 139, 143, 169, 184,
233, 235, 281, 312
General Federation of Women's Clubs, 263, 283
Gibbons, Abby Hopper, 90, 146
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, 279
Godbe, William S., 186
Gompers, Samuel, 285
Gough, John B., 24, 136
Grant, Ulysses S., 112, 146-47, 201, 213, 227, 315
Greeley, Horace, 25, 28, 47, 57, 80-81, 85, 98, 101, 103-04, 123,
126-27, 132, 134, 137, 141-42, 174, 176, 196-97, 267
Greeley, Mary Cheney, 126, 146
Greenwood, Grace, 159
Grimké Sisters, 30, 102, 312
Hallowell, Mary, 23, 77, 314
Hamilton, Gail, 101
Harper, Ida Husted, 271-72, 281, 295-96, 324
Hawley, Genevieve, 281, 325
Hay, Mary Garrett, 290-92
Hearst, Phoebe, 272
Hearst, William Randolph, 272
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 52, 59, 60, 63, 67, 145-46, 169, 172
History of Woman Suffrage, 236-39, 295, 302
Hooker, Isabella Beecher, 167-68, 172, 174-75, 180-83, 185, 191,
194-95, 320-21
Hooker, John, 221, 320
Hovey, Charles F., 51, 77, 79
Hovey Fund, 77, 79, 102, 117, 123, 128
Howe, Julia Ward, 162, 169, 171, 173, 175, 207, 280
Howe, Samuel G., 63
Hoxie, Hannah Anthony, 4, 19
Hunt, Dr. Harriot K., 32, 217
Hunt, Judge Ward, 209-14
Hutchinson Family Singers, 102, 128, 317
International Council of Women, 234, 245-49, 288-89, 299-300, 302, 325
International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 299-300
Irwin, Inez Haynes, 306
Jackson, Francis, 52, 53, 61, 75, 76, 79, 238, 313
Jackson Fund, 75, 79, 117, 127
Jacobi, Dr. Mary Putnam, 292
Johnson, Adelaide, 323
Johnson, Andrew, 111, 113, 120, 140-41
Julian, George W., 140, 159-60, 180, 196
Kansas campaigns, 127-38, 261, 267-69
Kelley, Abby. _See_ Foster, Abby Kelley.
Kelley, Florence, 286
Knights of Labor, 253, 261, 286, 325
Lane, Carrie. _See_ Catt, Carrie Chapman.
Lapham, Anson, 171, 318, 320
Laughlin, Gail, 286
Lawrence, Margaret Stanton, 67, 100, 236, 257
Lewis and Clark Exposition, 303-04
_Liberator, The_, 16, 23, 63, 85-86, 92, 105, 112, 139
_Lily, The_, 26, 32
Lincoln, Abraham, 62, 64, 84-85, 87-88, 92-93, 97-98, 100, 102, 104-06,
111, 113, 145, 209, 305
Livermore, Mary, 161, 164, 169, 173, 196, 207, 242, 247, 280, 322
Lockwood, Belva, 195, 245, 314
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 66, 109
Longfellow, Samuel, 79, 83, 314
Lozier, Dr. Clemence, 157, 167, 231
Luther, Mary. _See_ Anthony, Mary Luther.
Lyceum Lecture Tours, 177
Lyon, Mary, 7, 306
Married Women's Property Law, 19-20, 38-39, 54, 78, 95, 101
Mason, Anna Dann, 281, 303
May, Samuel J., 23, 31, 41, 87-88, 92, 124, 176
May, Samuel Jr., 58, 62
Mayo, Rev. A. D., 82-83
McCulloch, Catharine Waugh, 294
McFarland, Daniel, 174
McFarland, Mrs. _See_ Richardson, Abby Sage.
McLean, Aaron, 13-14, 20, 62, 108, 235, 316, 322
McLean, Ann Eliza, 108
McLean, Guelma Anthony, 1, 7, 9-15, 18, 46, 62, 108, 129, 190, 199, 219
McLean, Judge John, 7-8, 13
Melliss, David M., 138-39
Mill, Harriet Taylor, 71
Mill, John Stuart, 71, 128-29, 222
Miller, Elizabeth Smith, 26, 33, 146, 165-66, 205, 312
Minor, Francis, 180, 198, 200
Minor, Virginia, 175, 180, 200, 214, 216, 252
Mitchell, Maria, 207
Monroe County Lectures, 204-07
Montgomery, Helen Barrett, 294
Mormons, 186-87, 234, 244, 262
Mosher, Eugene, 235, 311, 316, 322
Mosher, Hannah Anthony, 1, 7-9, 12, 15, 18, 46, 108, 190, 199, 209,
219, 230, 311, 316
Mosher, Louise, 235, 322
Mott, James, 33-34, 124
Mott, Lucretia, 18, 20-21, 25, 27, 33-34, 44-45, 54, 73-74, 83, 88,
95, 112, 117, 124, 165, 170, 177, 183, 226-27, 274, 279, 319, 323
Mott, Lydia, 10, 18, 30, 40, 73, 76-77, 89, 93, 95-96, 112, 117, 170,
203, 231, 235
Moulson, Deborah, 9-11, 18, 20, 24
National American Woman Suffrage Association, 251, 260, 263, 274-78,
283-87, 289-93, 295-97, 302-03, 307-08
National Council of Women, 246
National Labor Union Congress, 149-52, 155-56
National Woman Suffrage Association, 165, 173, 175, 177, 183, 185,
191-95, 221, 226, 233, 242, 245-51, 318, 323
Negro slavery, 4, 7, 23, 43-46, 58, 60, 62, 71, 82, 84-86, 88-90,
96-98, 102-03, 109, 111-13, 162, 311
Negro suffrage, 102, 105, 110-14, 116-18, 120-25, 127, 131-33, 135,
140-42, 145, 148, 159-63, 165-66, 192, 215
New York constitutional conventions, 125-27, 266-67, 317
New York State Industrial School, Rochester, New York, 256
New York State Teachers' convention, 36-37, 67-70
Nichols, Clarina, 32, 274, 316
Nightingale, Florence, 99
Nineteenth Amendment, 310, 321
Oberlin College, 28, 33, 70
Occupations, Women's, 36, 37, 69, 70-71, 247
Oklahoma campaign, 303
Oregon campaigns, 189-90, 303-04, 326
Owen, Robert Dale, 80, 101, 115, 120
Palmer, Bertha Honoré, 261-62
Pankhurst, Emmeline, 325
Park, Maud Wood, 306
Parker, Theodore, 52, 73, 129
Phelps, Dr. Charles Abner, 89-91
Phelps, Mrs. Charles Abner, 89-91, 315
Phelps, Elizabeth, 160, 194, 318
Phillips, Wendell, 23, 25, 46-47, 49, 52, 59-61, 65, 76-77, 81-82, 87,
90-92, 95, 103, 105-06, 112-17, 120, 124, 127, 134-35, 137, 141, 184,
233, 238, 312, 318
Pillsbury, Parker, 23, 25, 47, 49, 59, 61, 65-66, 77, 92, 94, 105, 112,
115, 117, 123, 135, 138, 140, 143, 167, 171, 177-78, 184, 224, 269
Pomeroy, Senator S. C., 123, 137, 140, 159-60
Post, Amy, 23, 199
Purvis, Robert, 124
Quakers, 4-5, 8-9, 12-14, 16-18, 20-21, 23-25, 33, 44, 49, 53, 92, 171,
311, 314-15
Read, Daniel, 1, 6, 15, 311
Read, Joshua, 11, 15, 17, 20, 45-46
Read, Susannah Richardson, 6, 311
Republicans, 52, 60, 64, 84, 86, 88, 92, 103, 114-15, 118, 122-24,
130-32, 135-36, 141, 143, 146-48, 159, 169, 173, 183, 193,
196-97, 200, 215, 226, 232, 243, 253, 260, 266-69, 272, 305, 318
_Revolution, The_, 134, 137-46, 148-49, 152-55, 157-58, 160-62,
165-67, 169, 171-74, 177-80, 188-89, 198, 205, 213, 217, 219, 220-21,
225, 261, 280, 294, 318, 320, 326
Richards, Caroline Cowles, 48
Richardson, Abbie Sage, 174-75
Richardson, Albert D., 174
Ricker, Marilla, 198
Riddle, Albert G., 181, 200, 214
Robinson, Charles, 130, 135
Rochester, University of, 225, 258, 294-95
Rogers, Dr. Seth, 51-52
Roosevelt, Theodore, 305
Rose, Ernestine, 32, 41-44, 48, 51, 71, 81, 102, 124, 165, 217, 239, 246
Sacajawea, 304, 326
Sage, Mrs. Russell, 292
Sanborn, Frank, 63, 117
Sargent, Aaron A., 191, 213, 230, 232, 322
Sargent, Ellen Clark, 191, 271, 273, 322
Selden, Judge Henry R., 200, 202-03, 207, 209-12
Sewall, May Wright, 244-45, 251, 262, 324
Seward, William H., 62-64, 87
Seymour, Horatio, 30, 98, 146-47
Shaw, Anne Howard, 247-49, 251, 253-54, 260-61, 268-69, 273-76, 279-80,
284, 289-90, 293, 296-97, 300, 303, 308
Sixteenth Amendment, 160-62, 164, 166, 172-73, 193, 216-17, 231-33
Smith, Abby and Julia, 217
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 33-34
Smith, Gerrit, 33, 57, 63, 84, 88, 103, 125, 146, 170, 312
South Dakota campaign, 253-55
Spanish-American War, 282-83
Spencer, Sarah Andrews, 198, 227
Spofford, Jane, 233, 244, 251
Stanford, Leland, 187
Stanford, Mrs. Leland, 272
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 21, 26-29, 31-36, 39-41, 49-50, 57, 67-74,
77-84, 87, 94-95, 99-102, 104, 109-112, 114-30, 135-38, 140, 142-43,
146, 150, 159-62, 165-67, 169-71, 174-77, 179-80, 183, 185-91,
193-97, 199-200, 217, 220-21, 223, 226-27, 233-40, 244-45, 248-51,
256-58, 260, 264, 266, 270, 279-80, 287, 290, 292, 294-96, 299, 306,
314, 317-18, 321-23
Stanton, Harriot. _See_ Blatch, Harriot Stanton.
Stanton, Henry B., 27, 57, 70, 84, 94, 98-99, 104, 112, 257
Stanton, Margaret. _See_ Lawrence, Margaret Stanton.
Stanton, Theodore, 234, 245, 322
Stetson, Charlotte Perkins. _See_ Gilman, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.
Stevens, Thaddeus, 118, 121, 316
Stone, Lucy, 25, 28-30, 33, 40-41, 50-52, 54, 58, 62, 69-72, 76, 80-81,
83, 99, 102, 117, 119, 124-25, 127-28, 131, 137, 144-45, 163-65,
169-73, 196, 207, 236-38, 247, 249, 251, 274, 313, 319, 321, 323
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 42, 174
Sumner, Charles, 52, 101, 117-18, 120, 175, 314
Sweet, Emma B., 270
Sylvis, William H., 150, 155, 286
Taylor, Harriet. _See_ Mill, Harriet Taylor.
Terrell, Mary Church, 287-88, 302
Thirteenth Amendment, 101, 104-05, 109, 111, 114, 118, 205, 215
Thomas, M. Carey, 306-07
Tilton, Elizabeth, 166, 219-21
Tilton, Theodore, 101, 118, 120, 141, 143, 166, 185, 196, 219-21
Train, George Francis, 131-33, 135-39, 143, 161, 169, 178, 185, 267, 317
Tubman, Harriet, 93, 315
Unitarians, 21, 23-24, 41, 44, 227, 228, 271, 303
Upton, Harriet Taylor, 274-76, 280, 290, 292, 297
Van Voorhis, John, 202-03, 207, 209, 214
Vassar College, 79, 230, 239, 306
Vaughn, Hester, 156-57, 165
Victoria, Queen, 288
Victoria Augusta, Empress, 302
Wade, Senator Benjamin, 123, 140-41, 319
Wages, Women's, 37, 70, 138, 149, 150-56, 247, 285-86
Waite, Chief Justice, 214-15
Walker, Dr. Mary, 99
Weed, Thurlow, 30-31, 86
Weld, Theodore, 25
Whittier, John G., 124
Willard, Emma, 7, 37
Willard, Frances E., 218, 242-43, 245-47, 271, 321, 323
Wilson, Senator Henry, 123, 140, 159-60, 197
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 142
Woman Suffrage, in Australia, 297, 310;
in Colorado, 230-31, 261, 264, 273, 297, 310;
in Great Britain, 55, 71, 176, 198, 288, 322-23;
in Idaho, 273, 310;
in New Zealand, 265, 310;
in Utah, 176, 186, 241, 273, 310;
in Wyoming, 176, 186, 198, 241, 252, 261, 273, 310
Woman Suffrage Conventions, 159, 169-73, 175-76, 180-81, 183-85, 191-95,
204, 225, 233-34, 251, 277-78, 287, 295-96, 303-04, 306-07
_Woman's Bible_, The, 258-60, 278-80
_Woman's Journal_, 173, 175, 179, 207, 249, 319, 321
Woman's Rights Conventions, Seneca Falls, 20;
Rochester, 21;
Syracuse, 31-32;
Albany, 39-41;
Philadelphia, 44;
Saratoga, 50-51;
New York, 70-71, 79-82
Woman's State Temperance Society, 32, 35-36
Woman's Suffrage Association of America, 146, 159
_Woman's Tribune_, 231, 245, 249, 258, 270, 279, 323-24
Women's Christian Temperance Union, 217-18, 242, 244, 247, 253, 263,
271, 283
Women's National Loyal League, 101-03, 105, 315
Woodhull, Victoria C., 180-86, 191-95, 220-21, 319, 322
Woolley, Dr. Mary E., 306
Workingwomen's Association, 149-53, 155-57, 317
World's Fair, Chicago, 261-62, 288, 323-24
World's Temperance Convention, 35
Wright, Frances, 52, 80, 142
Wright, Martha C., 33, 54, 88, 95, 124, 144, 165, 175, 185, 235
[Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to the
text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 14, Footnote #5 in Chapter "Quaker Heritage"
"ancestory" changed to "ancestry"
2. p. 14, Footnote #12 in Chapter "Quaker Heritage"
"Dairy" changed to "Diary"
3. p. 19, "responsibiity" changed to "responsibility"
4. p. 31, "Presbysterian" changed to "Presbyterian"
5. p. 53, "litle" changed to "little"
6. p. 56, "Osawatamie" changed to "Osawatomie"
7. p. 66, "marytrdom" changed to "martyrdom"
8. p. 70, "newpaper" changed to "newspaper"
9. p. 71, "Westminister" changed to "Westminster"
10. p. 84, "betwen" changed to "between"
11. p. 91, "fredom" changed to "freedom"
12. p. 99, "marshall" changed to "marshal"
13. p. 141, "Greley" changed to "Greeley"
14. p. 143, "Garrion" changed to "Garrison"
15. p. 154, "indepedence" changed to "independence"
16. p. 155, rat office" changed to "rat office"
17. p. 157, "Eourope" changed to "Europe"
18. p. 162, "betwen" changed to "between"
19. p. 164, at their side. (Removed ending quote)
20. p. 169, Mrs. Stanton and Susan use...." (Added ending quote)
21. p. 175, "Griffing" changed to "Griffin"
22. p. 184, "Victorial" changed to "Victoria"
23. p. 186, "senusous" changed to "sensuous"
24. p. 195, "Wodhull" changed to "Woodhull"
25. p. 203, "womanhoood" changed to "womanhood"
26. p. 209, "againt" changed to "against"
27. p. 231, "ben" changed to "been"
28. p. 234, "discused" changed to "discussed"
29. p. 235, "Josyln" changed to "Joslyn"
30. p. 236, "Cage" changed to "Gage"
31. p. 253, "politican" changed to "politician"
32. p. 265, "suffage" changed to "suffrage"
33. p. 265, Footnote #367 in Chapter "Victories in the West"
"Happerset" changed to "Happersett"
34. p. 274, "ue" changed to "use"
35. p. 298, "contine" changed to "continue"
36. p. 298, Footnote #426 in Chapter "Passing the Torch"
"yater" changed to "later"
37. p. 306, "Byrn" changed to "Bryn"
38. p. 308, "farwell" changed to "farewell"
39. p. 329, "Thoguhts" changed to "Thoughts"
40. p. 335, "phophecy" changed to "prophecy"
All footnotes for the book were located on pages 311-326 and have been
relocated to immediately follow the chapter where they are referenced.
End of Transcriber's Notes]
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