CHAPTER IV.

THE FARM HOME—END OF TEACHING.

1845—1850.

On November 7, 1845, the parents and three children took the stage for Troy, and from there went by railroad to Palatine Bridge for a short visit to Joshua Read. The journey from here to Rochester was made by canal on a "line boat" instead of a "packet," because it was cheaper and because they wanted to be with their household goods. At Utica they found two cousins, Nancy and Melintha Howe, waiting for the packet to go west, but when they saw their relatives they gladly boarded the line boat. Mrs. Anthony did the cooking for the entire party, in the spotless little kitchen on the boat, and the young people, at least, had a merry journey.

The family arrived in Rochester late in the afternoon of November 14. They landed at Fitzhugh street and went to the National Hotel. The father had just ten dollars, and it was out of the question to remain there over night; so he took the old gray horse and the wagon off the boat, with a few necessary articles, and with his family started for the farm, three miles west of the city. The day was cold and cheerless, the roads were very muddy, and by the time they reached their destination it was quite dark. An old man and his daughter had been left in charge and had nothing in the way of food but cornmeal and milk. Mrs. Anthony made a kettle of mush which her husband pronounced "good enough for the queen." The only bed was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Anthony, and the rest slept on the floor. Next day the household goods were brought from the city and all were soon busy putting the new home in order. That was a long and lonesome winter. The closest neighbors were the DeGarmos, and there were a number of other Quaker families in the city. These called at once and performed every friendly office in their power, but the hearts of the exiles were very sad and home-sick. The cause of human freedom was then uppermost in many minds, and the Anthonys found here congenial spirits in their strong anti-slavery convictions, and numerous little "abolition" meetings were held during that winter at their home and in those of their new friends.

When spring opened, the surroundings began to assume a more cheerful aspect. The farm was a very pretty one of thirty-two acres. The house stood on an elevation, the long walk that led up to it was lined on both sides with pinks, there were many roses and other flowers in the yard, and great numbers of peach, cherry and quince trees and currant and goose-berry bushes. The scenery was peaceful and pleasant, but they missed the rugged hills and dashing, picturesque streams of their eastern home. Back of the house were the barn, carriage-house and a small blacksmith shop. Mrs. Anthony used to say that her happiest hours were spent on Sunday mornings, when her husband would heat the little forge and mend the kitchen and farm utensils, while she sat knitting and talking with him, Quakers making no difference between Sunday and other days of the week. He had learned this kind of work in boyhood on his father's farm and always enjoyed the relaxation it afforded from the cares and worries which crowded upon him in later years.

Mr. Anthony put into his farm the energy and determination characteristic of the man. He rose early; he ploughed and sowed and reaped; he planted peach and apple orchards, and improved the property in many ways, but it was unprofitable work. It seemed very small to him after the broad acres of his early home, and he was accustomed to refer to it as his "sixpenny farm." His life had been too large and too much among men of the great business world to make it possible for him to be content with the existence of a farmer. While he retained his farm home, he very soon went into business in Rochester, connecting himself with the New York Life Insurance Company, then just coming into prominence, and used to say he made money enough out of that to afford the luxury of keeping the farm. He was very successful, and continued with this company the remainder of his life.

On April 25, 1846, Miss Anthony received this invitation:

At a meeting of the Trustees of the Canajoharie Academy held this day, it was unanimously Resolved to offer you the Female Department upon the terms which have heretofore been offered to the teachers of that department, viz:—the tuition money of the female department less 12-1/2 per cent., the teachers collecting their tuition bills. Should these terms meet your views, please favor us with an answer by return mail. The next term commences on the first Monday of May proximo.

We are Very Respectfully Yours,

JOSHUA READ, LIVINGSTON SPEAKER, GEORGE G. JOHNSON.

Miss Anthony accepted in a carefully worded and finely written letter, and arrived at the home of her uncle Joshua Saturday morning, May 2. He had lived many years at Palatine Bridge, just across the river, was school trustee, bank director, one of the owners of the turnpike, the toll bridge and the stage line, and also kept a hotel. His two daughters were well married, and Miss Anthony boarded with them during all of her three years' teaching in Canajoharie. She found her uncle very ill and being treated by the doctor "with calomel, opium and morphine." In a conversation he told her that "her success would depend largely upon thinking that she knew it all." Although there was now no postmaster in the family, letter postage had been reduced to five cents, and a voluminous correspondence is in existence covering the period from 1846 to 1849. The school commenced with forty boys and twenty-five girls, and the tuition was $5 per annum. The principal was Daniel B. Hagar, a man whom Miss Anthony always loved to remember, highly educated, a gentleman in deportment, kind, thoughtful, and always ready to help and encourage the young teacher.[9]

Here Miss Anthony was for the first time entirely away from Quaker surroundings and influences, and her letters soon show the effects of environment. The "first month, second day," expressions are dropped and the "plain language" is wholly abandoned. She has more money now than ever before and is at liberty to use it for her own pleasure. A love of handsome clothes begins to develop. "I have a new pearl straw gypsy hat," she writes, "trimmed in white ribbon with fringe on one edge and a pink satin stripe on the other, with a few white roses and green leaves for inside trimming." The beaux hover around; a certain "Dominie," a widower with several children, is very attentive; another widower, a lawyer, visits the school so often as to set all the gossips in a flutter; a third is described as "very handsome, sleek as a ribbon and the most splendid black hair I ever looked at." She takes many drives with still another, "through a delightful country variegated with hill and valley, past fields of newly-mown grass, splendid forests and gently winding rivulets, with here and there a large patch of yellow pond lilies." In writing to a relative she urges her to break herself of "the miserable habit of borrowing trouble, which saps all the sweets of life." At another time she writes: "I have made up my mind that we can expect only a certain amount of comfort wherever we may be, and that it is the disposition of a person, more than the surroundings, that creates happiness."

Her first quarterly examination, to be held in the presence of principal, trustees and parents, is a cause of great anxiety. She writes that her nerves were on fire and the blood was ready to burst from her face, and she slept none the night previous. She wore a new muslin gown, plaid in purple, white, blue and brown, two puffs around the skirt and on the sleeves at shoulders and wrists, white linen undersleeves and collarette; new blue prunella gaiters with patent-leather heels and tips; her cousin's watch with a gold chain and pencil. Her abundant hair was braided in four long braids, which cousin Margaret sewed together and wound around a big shell comb. Everybody said, "The schoolmarm looks beautiful," and "many fears were expressed lest some one should be so smitten that the school would be deprived of a teacher." The pupils acquitted themselves with flying colors, and the teacher then went to spend her vacation with her married sisters at Easton and Battenville. They had "long talks and good laughs and cries together," but she writes her parents that if they will make one visit to this old home they will go back to Rochester thoroughly satisfied with the new one.

For the winter she buys a broche shawl for $22.50, a gray fox muff for $8, a $5.50 white ribbed-silk hat, "which makes the villagers stare," and a plum-colored merino dress at $2 a yard, "which everybody admits to be the sweetest thing entirely;" and she wonders if her sisters "do not feel rather sad because they are married and can not have nice clothes." Miss Anthony may be said to have been at this time at the height of her fashionable career.

In the spring her pupils give an "exhibition" which far surpasses anything ever before seen in Canajoharie. She writes: "Can you begin to imagine my excitement? The nights seemed lengthened into days; the hopes, the fears that filled my mind are indescribable. Who ever thought that Susan Anthony could get up such an affair? I am sure I never did, but here I was; it was sink or swim, I made a bold effort and won the victory."[10]

In June she attends her first circus, "Sands, Lent & Co., Proprietors." About this time she writes of being invited to a military ball and says: "My fancy for attending dances is fully satiated. I certainly shall not attend another unless I can have a total abstinence man to accompany me, and not one whose highest delight is to make a fool of himself." She says in this letter: "The town election has just been held and the good people elected a distiller for supervisor and a rumseller for justice of the peace."

In 1848 she shows the first signs of growing tired of teaching and wonders if she is to follow it for a lifetime. She says: "I don't know whether I am weary of well-doing, but oh, if I could only unstring my bow for a few short months, I think I could take up my work with renewed vigor." She is very homesick, after the two years' absence, and so makes a visit to Rochester in August. For this she gets "a drab silk bonnet shirred inside with pink, and her blue lawn and her brown silk made over, half low-necked." She has "a beautiful green delaine and a black braise [barége] which are very becoming." She wants a fancy hat, a $15 pin and $30 mantilla, every one of which she resolves to deny herself, but afterwards writes: "There is not a mantilla in town like mine."

In March, 1849, her beloved cousin Margaret, with whom she has been living for the past two years, gives birth to a child and she remains with her through the ordeal. In a letter to her mother immediately afterwards, she expresses the opinion that there are some drawbacks to marriage which make a woman quite content to remain single. She quotes a little bit of domestic life: "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 a sort of natural consequence.'" For seven weeks she is at Margaret's bedside every moment when out of school, and also superintends the house and looks after the children. There are a nurse and a girl in the kitchen, but the invalid will eat no food which Cousin Susan does not prepare; there is no touch so light and gentle as hers; her very presence gives rest and strength. At the end of this time Margaret dies, leaving four little children. Susan's grief is as intense as if she had lost a sister, and she decides to remain no longer in Canajoharie. She writes: "I seem to shrink from my daily tasks; energy and stimulus are wanting; I have no courage. A great weariness has come over me." In all the letters of the past ten years there has not been one note of discontent or discouragement, but now she is growing tired of the treadmill. At this time the California fever was at its height, hundreds of young men were starting westward, and she writes: "Oh, if I were but a man so that I could go!"

Soon after coming to Canajoharie Miss Anthony joined the society of the Daughters of Temperance and was made secretary. Her heart and soul were enlisted in this cause. She realized the immense task to be accomplished, and, even then, saw dimly the power that women might wield if they were properly organized and given full authority and sanction to work. As yet no women had spoken in public on this question, and they had just begun to organize societies among themselves, called Daughters' Unions, which were a sort of annex to the men's organizations, but they were strongly opposed by most women as being unladylike and entirely out of woman's sphere.

On March 1, 1849, the Daughters of Temperance gave a supper, to which were invited the people of the village, and the address of the evening was made by Miss Anthony. She thus describes the occasion in a letter:

I was escorted into the hall by the Committee where were assembled about 200 people. The room was beautifully festooned with cedar and red flannel. On the south side was printed in large capitals of evergreen the name of "Susan B. Anthony!" I hardly knew how to conduct myself amidst so much kindly regard. They had an elegant supper. On the top of one pyramid loaf cake was a beautiful bouquet, which was handed to the gentleman who escorted me (Charlie Webster) and by him presented to me.

The paper is interesting as the first platform utterance of a woman destined to become one of the noted speakers of the century. While it gives no especial promise of the oratorical ability which later developed, it illustrates the courage of the woman who dared read an address in public, when to do so provoked the severest criticism. The following extracts are taken verbatim from the original MS.:

Welcome, Gentlemen and Ladies, to this, our Hall of Temperance. We feel that the cause we have espoused is a common cause, in which you, with us, are deeply interested. We would that some means were devised, by which our Brothers and Sons shall no longer be allured from the right by the corrupting influence of the fashionable sippings of wine and brandy, those sure destroyers of Mental and Moral Worth, and by which our Sisters and Daughters shall no longer be exposed to the vile arts of the gentlemanly-appearing, gallant, but really half-inebriated seducer. Our motive is to ask of you counsel in the formation, and co-operation in the carrying-out of plans which may produce a radical change in our Moral Atmosphere....

But to the question, what good our Union has done? Though our Order has been strongly opposed by ladies professing a desire to see the Moral condition of our race elevated, and though we still behold some of our thoughtless female friends whirling in the giddy dance, with intoxicated partners at their side and, more than this, see them accompany their reeling companions to some secluded nook and there quaff with them from that Virtue-destroying cup, yet may we not hope that an influence, though now unseen, unfelt, has gone forth, which shall tell upon the future, which shall convince us that our weekly resort to these meetings has not been in vain, and which shall cause the friends of humanity to admire and respect—nay, venerate—this now-despised little band of Daughters of Temperance?...

We count it no waste of time to go forth through our streets, thus proclaiming our desire for the advancement of our great cause. You, with us, no doubt, feel that Intemperance is the blighting mildew of all our social connections; you would be most happy to speed on the time when no Wife shall watch with trembling heart and tearful eye the slow, but sure descent of her idolized Companion down to the loathsome haunts of drunkenness; you would hasten the day when no Mother shall have to mourn over a darling son as she sees him launch his bark on the circling waves of the mighty whirlpool.

How is this great change to be wrought, who are to urge on this vast work of reform? Shall it not be women, who are most aggrieved by the foul destroyer's inroads? Most certainly. Then arises the question, how are we to accomplish the end desired? I answer, not by confining our influence to our own home circle, not by centering all our benevolent feelings upon our own kindred, not by caring naught for the culture of any minds, save those of our own darlings. No, no; the gratification of the selfish impulses alone, can never produce a desirable change in the Moral aspect of Society....

It is generally conceded that it is our sex that fashions the Social and Moral State of Society. We do not presume that females possess unbounded power in abolishing the evil customs of the day; but we do believe that were they en masse to discountenance 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.

I am not aware that we have any inebriate females among us, but have we not those, who are fallen from Virtue, and who claim our efforts for their reform, equally with the inebriate? And while we feel it our duty to extend the hand of sympathy and love to those who are wanderers from the path of Temperance, should we not also be zealous in reclaiming those poor, deluded ones, who have been robbed of their most precious Gem, Virtue, and whom we blush to think belong to our Sex?

Now, Ladies, all we would do is to do all in our power, both individually and collectively, to harmonize and happify our Social system. We ask of you candidly and seriously to investigate the Matter, and decide for yourselves whether the object of our Union be not on the side of right, and if it be, then one and all, for the sake of erring humanity, come forward and speed on the right. If you come to the conclusion that the end we wish to attain is right, but are not satisfied with the plan adopted, then I ask of you to devise means by which this great good may be more speedily accomplished, and you shall find us ready with both heart and hand to co-operate with you. In my humble opinion, all that is needed to produce a complete Temperance and Social reform in this age of Moral Suasion, is for our Sex to cast their United influences into the balance.

Ladies! there is no Neutral position for us to assume. If we sustain not this noble enterprise, both by precept and example, then is our influence on the side of Intemperance. If we say we love the Cause, and then sit down at our ease, surely does our action speak the lie. And now permit me once more to beg of you to lend your aid to this great Cause, the Cause of God and all Mankind.

The next day on the streets, so the letters say, everybody was exclaiming, "Miss Anthony is the smartest woman who ever has been in Canajoharie." Soon afterwards the school closed and, after spending the summer visiting eastern relatives and friends, Miss Anthony returned to Rochester in the autumn of 1849. The thing she remembers most vividly is how she reveled in fruit. All the young orchards her father had planted were now bearing, including a thousand peach trees, and for the first time in her life she had all the peaches she wanted, and "lived on them for a month."

The years of 1850 and 1851 Daniel Anthony conducted his insurance business in Syracuse and Susan remained at home, taking entire charge of the farm, superintending the planting of the crops, the harvesting and the selling. She also did most of the housework, as her mother was in delicate health, her sister was teaching school and both brothers were away. In the winter of 1852, she went into a school in Rochester as supply for three months. She found, however, that her taste for teaching was entirely gone, her work was without inspiration, her interest and sympathy had become enlisted in other things. She longed to take an active part in the two great reforms of temperance and anti-slavery, which now were absorbing public attention; she could not endure the narrow and confining life of the school-room, and so, in the spring, she abandoned teaching forever, after an experience of fifteen years.

CHAPTER V.

ENTRANCE INTO PUBLIC LIFE.

1850—1852.

Ill the conditions were such as to make it most natural for Miss Anthony, when she reached the age of maturity, to adopt a public career and go actively into reform work, and especially to enter upon that contest to secure equal rights for those of her own sex, which she was to wage unceasingly for half a century. Her father's mother and sister were "high seat" Quakers, the latter a famous preacher. Her mother's cousin, Betsey Dunnell White, of Stafford's Hill, was noted as the only woman in that locality who could "talk politics," and the men used to come from far and near to get her opinion on the political situation. She was brought up in a society which recognizes the equality of the sexes and encourages women in public speaking. In her own home the father believed in giving sons and daughters the same advantages, and in preparing the latter as well as the former for self-support. The daughters were taught business principles, and invested with responsibility at an early age. Two of them married, and the third was of a quiet and retiring disposition; but in Susan he saw ability of a high order and that same courage, persistence and aggressiveness which entered into his own character, enabling him to make his way in the business world and rally from his losses and defeats. He encouraged her desire to go into the reforms which were demanding attention, gave her financial backing when necessary, moral support upon all occasions, and was ever her most interested friend and faithful ally. She received also the sympathy and assistance of her mother, who, no matter how heavy the domestic burdens, or how precarious her own health, was never willing that she should take any time from her public work to give to the duties of home, although she frequently insisted upon doing so.

During Miss Anthony's stay at Canajoharie she went often to Albany and there made the intimate acquaintance of Abigail Mott and her sister Lydia, whose names are now a blessed memory with the leaders of the abolition movement that still remain. Their modest home was a rallying center for the reformers of the day, and here Miss Anthony met many of the noted men and women with whom she was to become so closely associated in the future. She reached home in 1849 to find a hot-bed of discussion and fermentation. The first rift had been made in the old common law, which for centuries had held women in its iron grasp, by the passage, in April, 1848, of the Property Bill allowing a married woman to hold real estate in her own name in New York. Previous to this time all the property which a woman owned at marriage and all she might receive by gift or inheritance passed into the possession of the husband; the rents and profits belonged to him, and he could sell it during his lifetime or dispose of it by will at his death except her life interest in one-third of the real estate. The more thoughtful among women were beginning to ask why other unjust laws should not also be repealed, and the whole question of the rights of woman was thus opened.

In 1848, Spiritualism may be said to have had its birth, and the remarkable manifestations of the Fox sisters brought numbers of people to Rochester, where they had-removed as soon as they began to be widely known. This form of religious belief soon acquired a large following, causing much controversy and great excitement.

The Society of Friends had divided on the slavery issue and Miss Anthony found her family attending the Unitarian church, which soon afterwards called William Henry Channing to its pulpit. Both he and Samuel J. May, the father of Unitarianism in Syracuse, became her steadfast friends and never-failing support in all the great work which was developed in later years.

In July, 1848, the first Woman's Rights Convention had been held in Seneca Falls and adjourned to meet in Rochester August 2. Miss Anthony's father, mother and sister Mary had attended and signed the declaration demanding equal rights for women, and she found them enthusiastic upon this subject and also over Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other prominent women who had taken part. Her cousin, Sarah Anthony Burtis, had acted as secretary of the convention.

In 1849 Mrs. Mott published her admirable Discourse on Woman in answer to a lyceum lecture by Richard H. Dana ridiculing the idea of civil and political rights for women. In 1847 Frederick Douglass had brought his family to Rochester and established his paper, the North Star. As soon as Miss Anthony reached home she was taken by her father to call on Douglass, and this was the beginning of another friendship which was to last a lifetime.

The year 1849 saw the whole country in a state of great unrest and excitement. Eighty thousand men had gone to California in search of gold. Telegraphs and railroads were being rapidly constructed, thus bringing widely separated localities into close communication. The unsettled condition of Europe and the famine in Ireland had turned toward America that tremendous tide of immigration which this year had risen to 300,000. The admission of Texas into the Union had precipitated the full force of the slavery question. Old parties were disintegrating and sectional lines becoming closely drawn. New territories were knocking at the door of the Union and the whole nation was in a ferment as to whether they should be slave or free. Threats of secession were heard in both the North and the South. A spirit of compromise finally prevailed and deferred the crisis for a decade, but the agitation and unrest continued to increase. The Abolitionists were still a handful of radicals, repudiated alike by the Free Soil Whigs and Free Soil Democrats. Slavery, as an institution, had not yet become a political issue, but only its extension into the territories.

Such, in brief, was the situation at the beginning of 1850. It was a period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It is not surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited woman who had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow limits of a school-room and rebel at giving her time and strength to the teaching of children, when all her mind and heart were drawn toward the great issues then filling the press and the platform and even finding their way into the pulpit. Miss Anthony's whole soul soon became absorbed in the thought, "What service can I render humanity; what can I do to help right the wrongs of society?" At this time the one and only field of public work into which women had dared venture, except in a few isolated cases, was that of temperance. Miss Anthony had brought her credentials from the Daughters' Union at Canajoharie and presented them at once to the society in Rochester; they were gladly accepted and she soon became a leader. In these days John B. Gough was delivering his magnificent lectures throughout the country, and Philip S. White, of South Carolina, was winning fame as a temperance orator.

The year 1850 was for her one of transition. A new world opened out before her. The Anthony homestead was a favorite meeting place for liberal-spirited men and women. On Sunday especially, when the father could be at home, the house was filled and fifteen or twenty people used to gather around the hospitable board. Susan always superintended these Sunday dinners, and was divided between her anxiety to sustain her reputation as a superior cook and her desire not to lose a word of the conversation in the parlor. Garrison, Pillsbury, Phillips, Channing and other great reformers visited at this home, and many a Sunday the big wagon would be sent to the city for Frederick Douglass and his family to come out and spend the day. Here were gathered many times the Posts, Hallowells, DeGarmos, Willises, Burtises, Kedzies, Fishes, Curtises, Stebbins, Asa Anthonys, all Quakers who had left the society on account of their anti-slavery principles and were leaders in the abolition and woman's rights movements. Every one of these Sunday meetings was equal to a convention. The leading events of the day were discussed in no uncertain tones. All were Garrisonians and believed in "immediate and unconditional emancipation." In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and all the resources of the federal government were employed for its enforcement. Its provisions exasperated the Abolitionists to the highest degree. The house of Isaac and Amy Post was the rendezvous for runaway slaves, and each of these families that gathered on Sunday at the Anthony farm could have told where might be found at least one station on the "underground railroad."

Miss Anthony read with deep interest the reports of the woman's rights convention held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1850, which were published in the New York Tribune.[11] She sympathized fully with the demand for equal rights for women, but was not yet quite convinced that these included the suffrage. This, no doubt, was largely because Quaker men did not vote, thinking it wrong to support a government which believed in war. Even so progressive and public-spirited a man as Daniel Anthony, much as he was interested in all national affairs, never voted until 1860, when he became convinced it was only by force of arms that the question of slavery could be settled.

In 1851, the License Law having been arbitrarily repealed a few years before, there was practically no regulation of the liquor business, nor was there any such public sentiment against intemperance as exists at the present day. Drunkenness was not looked upon as an especial disgrace and there had been little agitation of the question. The wife of a drunkard was completely at his mercy. He had the entire custody of the children, full control of anything she might earn, and the law did not recognize drunkenness as a cause for divorce. Although woman was the greatest sufferer, she had not yet learned that she had even the poor right of protest. Oppressed by the weight of the injustice and tyranny of ages, she knew nothing except to suffer in silence; and so degraded was she by generations of slavish submission, that she possessed not even the moral courage to stand by those of her own sex who dared rebel and demand a new dispensation.

The old Washingtonian Society of the first half of the nineteenth century, composed entirely of men, because reformed drunkards only could belong to it, was succeeded by the Sons of Temperance, and these had permitted the organization of subordinate lodges called Daughters of Temperance, which, as subsequent events will show, were entitled to no official recognition. It was in one of these, the only organized bodies of women known at this time,[12] that Miss Anthony first displayed that executive ability which was destined to make her famous. During 1851 she was very active in temperance work and organized a number of societies in surrounding towns. She instituted in Rochester a series of suppers and festivals to raise the funds which she at once saw were necessary before any efficient work could be done. An old invitation to one of these, dated February 21, 1851, and signed by Susan B. Anthony, chairman, reads: "The entertainment is intended to be of such a character as will meet the approbation of the wise and good; Supper, Songs, Toasts, Sentiments and short speeches will be the order of-the evening; $1 will admit a gentleman and a lady" A newpaper account says:

The five long tables were loaded with a rich variety of provisions, tastefully decorated and arranged. Mayor Samuel Richardson presided at the supper table. After the repast was over, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Directress of the Festival and President of the Association, introduced these highly creditable sentiments, which were greatly applauded by the assemblage:

"The Women of Rochester—Powerful to fashion the customs of society, may they not fail to exercise that power for the speedy and total banishment of all that intoxicates from our domestic and social circles, and thus speed on the day when no young man, be he ever so genteelly dressed or of ever so noble, origin, who pollutes his lips with the touch of the drunkard's cup, shall presume to seek the favor of any of our precious daughters.

"Our Cause—May each succeeding day add to its glory and every hour give fresh impetus to its progress...."

Many other toasts were proposed which space forbids quoting, but the following by one of the gentlemen deserves a place:

It is curious how willing men have been, through all the centuries, to admit that only the influence of women saves them from being brutes and how anxious to confine that influence to the narrowest possible limits.

In the winter of 1851 Miss Anthony attended an anti-slavery meeting in Rochester, conducted by Stephen and Abby Kelly Foster. This was her first acquaintance with Mrs. Foster, who had been the most persecuted of all the women taking part in the anti-slavery struggle. She had been ridiculed, denounced and mobbed for years; and, for listening to her on Sunday, men and women had been expelled from church. Her strong and heroic spirit struck an answering spark in Miss Anthony's breast. She accompanied the Fosters for a week on their tour of meetings in adjoining counties, and was urged by them to go actively into this reform.

The following May she went to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary in Syracuse. This convention had been driven out of New York by Rynders' mob in 1850 and did not dare go back. On the way home she stopped at Seneca Falls, the guest of Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, to hear again Wm. Lloyd Garrison and George Thompson, the distinguished Abolitionist from England, who had stirred her nature to its depths. Here was fulfilled her long-cherished desire of seeing Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their meeting is best described in that lady's own words: "Walking home with the speakers, who were my guests, we met Mrs. Bloomer with Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to greet us. There she stood with her good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray delaine, hat and all the same color relieved with pale-blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly from the beginning." Both Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Bloomer on this occasion wore what is known as the Bloomer costume. In the summer Miss Anthony went to Seneca Falls to a meeting of those interested in founding the People's College. Horace Greeley, Lucy Stone and herself were entertained by Mrs. Stanton. The three women were determined it should be opened to girls as well as boys. Mr. Greeley begged them not to agitate the question, assuring them that he would have the constitution and by-laws so framed as to admit women on the same terms as men, and he did as he promised, making a spirited fight. Before the college was fairly started, however, it was merged into Cornell University.

This was Miss Anthony's first meeting with Lucy Stone and may be called the commencement of her life-long friendship with Mrs. Stanton. These women who sat at the dinner-table that day were destined to be recorded in history for all time as the three central figures in the great movement for equal rights. There certainly was nothing formidable in the appearance of the trio: Miss Anthony a quiet, dignified Quaker girl; Mrs. Stanton a plump, jolly, youthful matron, scarcely five feet high; and Lucy Stone a petite, soft-voiced young woman who seemed better fitted for caresses than for the hard buffetings of the world.

Miss Anthony's public life may be said to have fairly begun in 1852. The Sons of Temperance had announced a mass meeting of all the divisions in the state, to be held at Albany, and had invited the Daughters to send delegates. The Rochester union appointed Susan B. Anthony. Her credentials, with those of the other women delegates, were accepted and seats given them in the convention, but when Miss Anthony rose to speak to a motion she was informed by the presiding officer that "the sisters were not invited there to speak but to listen and learn." She and three or four other ladies at once left the hall. The rest of the women had not the courage to follow, but called them "bold, meddlesome disturbers," and remained to bask in the approving smiles of the Sons. They sought advice of Lydia Mott, who said the proper thing was to hold a meeting of their own; so they secured the lecture-room of the Hudson street Presbyterian church, and then went to the office of the Evening Journal, edited by Thurlow Weed, to talk the situation over with him. He told them they had done exactly right, and in his paper that evening he announced their meeting and related their treatment by the men.

The night was cold and snowy. The little room was dark, the stove smoked and the pipe fell down during the exercises, but the women were sustained by their indignation and sense of justice and would not allow themselves to be discouraged. Rev. Samuel J. May, who was in the city attending the "Jerry Rescue" trials, seeing the notice of their meeting, came to offer his assistance, accompanied by David Wright, husband of Martha C. Wright and brother-in-law of Lucretia Mott. These two, with a reporter, were the only men present at this little assemblage of women who had decided that they could do something better for the cause of temperance than being seen and not heard.

Mr. May opened the meeting with prayer, and then showed them how to organize. Mary C. Vaughn, of Oswego, was made president; Miss Anthony, secretary; Lydia Mott, chairman of the business committee. Mrs. Vaughn gave an address. A letter had been received from Mrs. Stanton so radical that most of the ladies objected to having it read, but Miss Anthony took the responsibility. She read, also, letters from Clarina Howard Nichols and Amelia Bloomer, which had been intended for the Sons' meeting. Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler, who happened to be lecturing in Albany, spoke briefly, and Mr. May paid high tribute to the valuable work of women in temperance and anti-slavery, declaring their influence as indispensable to the state and the church as to the home. Miss Anthony then said their treatment showed that the time had come for women to have an organization of their own; and the final outcome was the appointment of a committee, with herself as chairman, to call a Woman's State Temperance Convention.

She at once wrote to all parts of the State urging the unions to send delegates, and received many encouraging replies. Horace Greeley wrote as follows:

I heartily approve the call of the Woman's Temperance Convention, and hope it may result in good. To this end I would venture to suggest:

1st. Hold an informal and private meeting before you attempt to meet in public. There select your officers, your business committees, etc., so that there shall be no jarring when you assemble in public.

2d. Have your addresses and resolves carefully prepared beforehand. Make them very short and pointed. Have them in type so that they may appear promptly and simultaneously in the daily papers. If you will send us a copy of them the night before we will endeavor to print them with our proceedings of the meeting received by telegraph.

3d. Be sure that your strongest thinkers speak and that the weaker forbear, and that extraneous matters, so far as possible, are let alone.

It will be seen that by adopting these shrewd political methods there would not be much left for the convention proper to do except listen to the speeches, but it would be hard to compress into smaller space more sensible advice. Mrs. Nichols wrote her: "It is most invigorating to watch the development of a woman in the work for humanity: first, anxious for the cause and depressed with a sense of her own inability; next, partial success of timid efforts creating a hope; next, a faith; and then the fruition of complete self-devotion. Such will be your history." From Mrs. Stanton came cheering words: "I will gladly do all in my power to help you. Come and stay with me and I will write the best lecture I can for you. I have no doubt a little practice will make you an admirable speaker. Dress loosely, take a great deal of exercise, be particular about your diet and sleep enough. The body has great influence upon the mind. In your meetings, if attacked, be cool and good-natured, for if you are simple and truth-loving no sophistry can confound you. As for my own address, if I am to be president it ought perhaps to be sent out with the stamp of the convention, but as anything from my pen is necessarily radical no one may wish to share with me the odium of what I may choose to say. If so, I am ready to stand alone. I never write to please any one. If I do please I am happy, but to proclaim my highest convictions of truth is always my sole object."

After weeks of hard work, writing countless letters, taking numerous trips to various towns, and making almost without assistance all the necessary arrangements, the convention assembled in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, April 20, 1852. The morning audience was composed entirely of women, 500 being in attendance. Miss Anthony opened the meeting, read the call, which had been widely circulated, and in a clear, forcible manner set forth the object of the convention. The call urged the women to "meet together for devising such associated action as shall be necessary for the protection of their interests and of society at large, too long invaded and destroyed by legalized intemperance." It was signed by Daniel Anthony, William R. Hallowell and a number of well-known men and women, many of whom were present and took part in the discussions. Letters were read from distinguished persons and strong resolutions adopted, among them one thanking the New York Tribune for the kindness with which it had uniformly sustained women in their efforts for temperance. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was elected president; Mrs. Gerrit Smith, Mrs. E.C. Delavan, Antoinette L. Brown and nine others, vice-presidents; Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer, secretaries. In accepting the presidency, Mrs. Stanton made a powerful speech, certain parts of which acted as a bombshell not only at this meeting, but in press, pulpit and society. The two points which aroused most antagonism were:

1st. Let no woman remain in the relation of wife with a confirmed drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children.... 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 or child.

2d. Inasmuch as charity begins at home, let us withdraw our mite from all associations for sending the Gospel to the heathen across the ocean, for the education of young men for the ministry, for the building up of a theological aristocracy and gorgeous temples to the unknown God, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffering around us. Let us feed and clothe the hungry and naked, gather children into schools and provide reading-rooms and decent homes for young men and women thrown alone upon the world. Good schools and homes, where the young could ever be surrounded by an atmosphere of purity and virtue, would do much more to prevent immorality and crime in our cities than all the churches in the land could ever possibly do toward the regeneration of the multitude sunk in poverty, ignorance and vice.

The effect of such declarations on the conservatism of half a century ago hardly can be pictured. At this time the principal outlet for women's activities was through foreign missionary work, and even in this they were allowed no official responsibility. None of the many charitable organizations which are now almost wholly in the hands of women were in existence. In scarcely one State was drunkenness recognized as cause for divorce, and yet when Mrs. Stanton made these demands, the women throughout the country joined with the men in denouncing them. Only a few of the broader and more progressive, who were ahead of their age, sustained her. Among these were Miss Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Frances D. Gage and Martha C. Wright.

After six enthusiastic sessions and the forming of a strong organization, the convention adjourned. Thus the first Woman's State Temperance Society ever formed was due almost entirely to Susan B. Anthony, because of her courage in demanding independent action and her successful efforts in calling the convention which inaugurated it. The executive committee met in May and appointed her State agent, "with full power and authority to organize auxiliary societies, collect moneys, issue certificates of membership and do all things which she may judge necessary and expedient to promote the purposes for which our society has been organized."

The Men's State Temperance Society had issued an official call for a convention to be held at Syracuse in June, containing these words: "Temperance societies of every name are invited to send delegates." Acting upon this invitation, the executive committee of the Woman's State Temperance Society appointed Gerrit Smith, Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer as delegates. Mr. Smith was not able to attend and, after their experience at Albany, there were serious doubts in the minds of the women whether they would be received. They were much encouraged, however, by the receipt of a letter from Rev. Samuel J. May, written June 14, saying: "The local committee are now in session. I have just read your letter to them, and every member has expressed himself in favor of receiving the delegates of the Woman's State Temperance Society, just as the delegates of any other society, and allowing them to take their own course, speak or not speak, as they choose."

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer went to Syracuse, and on the morning of the convention received a call from Mr. May. He came to inform them that their arrival had caused great excitement among the clergy, who comprised a large portion of the delegates and threatened to withdraw if the women were admitted. Their action had alarmed the other delegates, who feared a disturbance in the convention, and they had requested Mr. May, as probably having the most influence, to call upon the ladies and urge them not to ask for recognition. When they told him they should go to the meeting and present their credentials, he expressed great satisfaction and said that was just the decision he had hoped they would make. They quietly entered the hall and took seats with other ladies at one side of the platform. Immediately Rev. Mandeville, of Albany, turned his chair around with back to the audience and, facing them, attempted to stare them out of countenance. William H. Burleigh, secretary, read the annual report, which closed, "We hail the formation of the Woman's State Temperance Society as a valuable auxiliary." This precipitated the discussion. Rev. Mandeville sprung to his feet and moved to strike out the last sentence. His speech was filled with such venom and vulgarity as the foulest-mouthed politician would hesitate to utter. He denounced the Woman's State Temperance Society and all women publicly engaged in temperance work, declared the women delegates to be "a hybrid species, half man and half woman, belonging to neither sex," and announced finally that if this sentence were not struck out he would dissolve his connection with the society.

A heated debate followed. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered an amendment recognizing "the right of women to work in their proper sphere—the domestic circle." Rev. May, of the Unitarian church, Rev. Luther Lee, of the Wesleyan Methodist, Hon. A.N. Cole, a leading Whig politician, and several others, defended the rights of the women in the most eloquent manner, but were howled down. Miss Anthony made only one attempt to speak and that was to remind them that over 100,000 of the signers to a petition for a Maine Law, the previous winter, were women, but her voice was drowned by Rev. Fowler, of Utica, shouting, "Order! Order!" Herman Camp, of Trumansburg, the president, ruled that she was not a delegate and had no right to speak. Amid great confusion the question was put to vote and the decision of the chair sustained. As no delegates had yet been accredited, everybody in the house was allowed to vote, but the secretary, J.T. Hazen, announced that he did not count the votes of the women!

Rev. Luther Lee at once offered his church to the ladies for an evening meeting. They had a crowded house, fine speeches and good music, while the convention was practically deserted, not over fifty being present. After a masterly speech by Mr. May and stirring remarks from Mr. Lee, Mrs. Bloomer and others, Miss Anthony made the address of the evening, which she had prepared for the men's convention, a strong plea for the right of women to work and speak for temperance. Soon afterwards she wrote her father: "I feel there is a great work to be done which none but women can do. How I wish I could be daily associated with those whose ideas are in advance of my own, it would enable me to develop so much faster;" and then, notwithstanding all her rebuffs, she signed herself, "Yours cheerily."

The anti-slavery convention this year was held in Rochester, and Miss Anthony had as a guest her dear friend, Lydia Mott, and again met Garrison, Phillips, May, the Fosters, Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright and others of that glorious band who together had received the baptism of fire. Although intensely interested in the anti-slavery question she did not dare think she had the ability to take up that work, but she did resolve to give all her time and energy to the temperance cause. The summer of 1852 was spent in traveling throughout the State with Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Attilia Albro and Miss Emily Clark. They canvassed thirty counties, organizing societies and securing 28,000 signatures to a petition for the Maine Law. Miss Anthony sent out a strong appeal, saying:

Women, and mothers in particular, should feel it their right and duty to extend their influence beyond the circumference of the home circle, and to say what circumstances shall surround children when they go forth from under the watchful guardianship of the mother's love; for certain it is that, if the customs and laws of society remain corrupt as they now are, the best and wisest of the mother's teachings will soon be counteracted....

Woman has so long been accustomed to non-intervention with law-making, so long considered it man's business to regulate the liquor traffic, that it is with much cautiousness she receives the new doctrine which we preach; the doctrine that it is her right and duty to speak out against the traffic and all men and institutions that in any way sanction, sustain or countenance it; and, since she can not vote, to duly instruct her husband, son, father or brother how she would have him vote, and, if he longer continue to mis-represent her, take the right to march to the ballot-box and deposit a vote indicative of her highest ideas of practical temperance.

It will be seen by this that already she had taken her stand on the right of woman to the franchise.

While at Elmira she happened into a teachers' convention and heard Charles Anthony, of the Albany academy, a distant relative, make an address on "The Divine Ordinance of Corporal Punishment." It was a severe and cruel justification of the unlimited use of the rod, but, although more than three-fourths of the teachers present were women, not a word was uttered in protest. Throughout the proceedings not a woman's voice was heard, none was appointed on committees or voted on any question, and they were as completely ignored as so many outsiders. Miss Anthony made up her mind that here also was a work to be done, and that henceforth she would attend the State teachers' conventions every year and demand for women all the privileges now monopolized by men.

On September 8, 1852, she went to her first Woman's Rights Convention, which was held at Syracuse. She had read with avidity the accounts of the Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana and Pennsylvania conventions, but this was her first opportunity of attending one. At the preliminary meeting, held the night before, she was made a member of the nominating committee with Paulina Wright Davis, of Providence, R.I., chairman. Mrs. Davis had come with the determination of putting in as president her dear friend Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a fashionable literary woman of Boston. Both attended the meeting and the convention in short-sleeved, low-necked white dresses, one with a pink, the other with a blue embroidered wool delaine sack with wide, flowing sleeves, which left both neck and arms exposed. At the committee meeting next morning, Quaker James Mott nominated Mrs. Smith for president, but Quaker Susan B. Anthony spoke out boldly and said that nobody who dressed as she did could represent the earnest, solid, hard-working women of the country for whom they were making the demand for equal rights. Mr. Mott said they must not expect all women to dress as plainly as the Friends; but she held her ground, and as all the committee agreed with her, though no one else had had the courage to speak, Mrs. Smith's name was voted down. This is but one instance of hundreds where Miss Anthony alone dared say what others only dared think, and thus through all the years made herself the target for criticism, blame and abuse. Others escaped through their cowardice; she suffered through her bravery.

Lucretia Mott was made president, and the Syracuse Standard said: "It was a singular spectacle to see this Quaker matron presiding over a convention with an ease, grace and dignity that might be envied by the most experienced legislator in the country."[13] Susan B. Anthony and Martha C. Wright were the secretaries. Delegates were present from Canada and eight different States. Letters were received from Angelina Grimké Weld, William Henry Channing and others; Horace Greeley sent much good advice; Garrison wrote: "You have as noble an object in view, aye and as Christian a one too, as ever was advocated beneath the sun. Heaven bless all your proceedings." Rev. A.D. Mayo said in a long letter:

I have never questioned what I believed to be the central principle of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe that every mature soul is responsible directly to God, not only for its faith and opinions, but for its details of life. The assertion that woman is responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any theory of "woman's rights," but as a believer in that religion which knows neither male nor female in its imperative demand upon the individual conscience.

George W. Johnson, of Buffalo, chairman of the State committee of the Liberty party, sent $10 and these vigorous sentiments: "Woman has, equally with man, the inalienable right to education, suffrage, office, property, professions, titles and honors—to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. False to our sex, as well as her own, and false to herself and her God, is the woman who approves, or who submits without resistance or protest, to the social and political wrongs imposed upon her in common with her sex throughout the world." Mrs. Stanton's letter, read with hearty approval by Miss Anthony, raised the usual breeze in the convention. She suggested three points:

Should not all women, living in States where they have the right to hold property, refuse to pay taxes so long as they are unrepresented in the government?... Man has pre-empted the most profitable branches of industry, and we demand a place at his side; to this end we need the same advantages of education, and we therefore claim that the best colleges of the country be opened to us.... In her present ignorance, woman's religion, instead of making her noble and free, by the wrong application of great principles of right and justice, has made her bondage but more certain and lasting, her degradation more helpless and complete.

In the course of her argument Lucy Stone said:

The claims we make at these conventions are self-evident truths. The second resolution affirms the right of human beings to their persons and earnings. Is not that self-evident? Yet the common law, which regulates the relation of husband and wife, and is modified only in a few instances by the statutes, gives the "custody" of the wife's person to the husband, so that he has a right to her even against herself. It gives him her earnings, no matter with what weariness they have been acquired, or how greatly she may need them for herself or her children. It gives him a right to her personal property, which he may will entirely away from her, also the use of her real estate, and in some of the States married women, insane persons and idiots are ranked together as not fit to make a will; so that she is left with only one right, which she enjoys in common with the pauper, the right of maintenance. Indeed, when she has taken the sacred marriage vows, her legal existence ceases. And what is our position politically? The foreigner, the negro, the drunkard, all are entrusted with the ballot, all placed by men politically higher than their own mothers, wives, sisters and daughters! The woman who, seeing this, dares not maintain her rights is the one to hang her head and blush. We ask only for justice and equal rights—the right to vote, the right to our own earnings, equality before the law; these are the Gibraltar of our cause.

Rev. Antoinette Brown, the first woman ever ordained to preach, declared:

Man can not represent woman. They differ in their nature and relations. The law is wholly masculine; it is created and executed by man. The framers of all legal compacts are restricted to the masculine standpoint of observation, to the thoughts, feelings and biases of man. The law then can give us no representation as women, and therefore no impartial justice, even if the law-makers were honestly intent upon this, for we can be represented only by our peers.... When woman is tried for crime, her jury, her judges, her advocates, all are men; and yet there may have been temptations and various palliating circumstances connected with her peculiar nature as woman, such as man can not appreciate. Common justice demands that a part of the law-makers and law-executors should be of her own sex. In questions of marriage and divorce, affecting interests dearer than life, both parties in the compact are entitled to an equal voice.

Mrs. Nichols said in discussing the laws:

If a wife is compelled to get a divorce on account of the infidelity of the husband, she forfeits all right to the property which they have earned together, while the husband, who is the offender, still retains the sole possession and control of the estate. She, the innocent party, goes out childless and portionless by decree of law, and he, the criminal, retains the home and children by favor of the game law. A drunkard takes his wife's clothing to pay his rum bills, and the court declares that the action is legal because the wife belongs to the husband.

Hon. Gerrit Smith here made his first appearance upon the woman suffrage platform, although he had written many letters expressing sympathy and encouragement, and made a grand argument for woman's equality. He closed by saying: "All rights are held by a precarious tenure if this one right to the ballot be denied. When women are the constituents of men who make and administer the laws they will pay due consideration to woman's interests, and not before. The right of suffrage is the great right that guarantees all others." Here also was the first public appearance of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the youngest woman taking part in the convention, who read an excellent paper urging that daughters should be educated with sons, taught self-reliance and permitted some independent means of self-support. A fine address also was made by Paulina Wright Davis, who had managed and presided over the two conventions held in 1850 and 1851 at Worcester, Mass.[14]

The queen of the platform at this time was Ernestine L. Rose, a Jewess who had fled from Poland to escape religious persecution. She was beautiful and cultured, of liberal views and great oratorical powers. Her lectures on "The Science of Government" had attracted wide attention. Naturally, she took a prominent part in the early woman's rights meetings. On this occasion she presented and eloquently advocated the following resolution:

We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of justice; for it is in accordance with the principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to maintain government, she has a right to participate in the formation and administration of it; that as she is amenable to the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their enactment and to all the protective advantages they can bestow; that as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life, she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. Any difference, therefore, in political, civil and social rights, on account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.

During the debate Rev. Junius Hatch, a Congregational minister from Massachusetts, made a speech so coarse and vulgar that the president called him to order. As he paid no attention to her, the men in the audience choked him off with cries of "Sit down! Shut up!" His idea of woman's modesty was that she should cast her eyes down when meeting men, drop her veil when walking up the aisle of a church and keep her place at home. Miss Anthony arose and stated that Mr. Hatch himself was one of the young ministers who had been educated through the efforts of women, and she had always noticed those were the ones most anxious for women to keep silence in the churches. This finished Mr. Hatch.

A young teacher by the name of Brigham also attempted to define the spheres of Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton[15] and the other great advocates of woman's freedom and declared: "Women ought to be keepers at home and mind domestic concerns; he had no doubt the true object of this meeting was not so much to acquire any real or supposed rights as to make the speakers and actors conspicuous; he wished to urge upon them to claim nothing masculine for women, for even in animals the spheres were different. He had no objections to woman's voice being heard, but let her seek out the breathing-holes of perdition to do her work." Mr. Brigham was badly worsted in the argument which followed, and at the next session he sent in a protest, declaring he had not had "justice." He evidently did not see the satire of this complaint, since he himself had been loudest in his refusal to do justice to woman.

A heated discussion was called out by a resolution offered by Rev. Antoinette L. Brown declaring that "the Bible recognizes the rights, privileges and duties of woman as a public teacher, as in every way equal with those of man; that it enjoins upon her no subjection that is not enjoined upon him; and that it truly and practically recognizes neither male nor female in Christ Jesus." Mrs. Rose closed the discussion by saying:

I can not object to any one's interpreting the Bible as he or she thinks best; but I do object that such interpretation go forth as the doctrine of this convention, because it is a mere interpretation and not even the authority of the Book; it is the view of Miss Brown only, which is as good as that of any other minister, but that is all. For my part I reject both interpretations. Here we claim human rights and freedom, based upon the laws of humanity, and we require no written authority from Moses or Paul, because those laws and our claim are prior even to these two great men.