On this great tour Miss Anthony became so thoroughly aroused that she could no longer confine herself to written addresses, which seemed cold and formal and utterly unresponsive to the inspiration of the moment. She threw them aside and used them thereafter only on rare occasions. Her speeches from that time were made from notes or headings and among those used during the winter of 1857 are the following:

Object of meeting; to consider the fact of 4,000,000 slaves in a Christian and republican government.... Everybody is anti-slavery, ministers and brethren. There are sympathy, talk, prayers and resolutions in ecclesiastical and political assemblies. Emerson says "Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed;" so anti-slavery prayers, resolutions and speeches avail nothing without action.... Our mission is to deepen sympathy and convert it into right action; to show that the men and women of the North are slave-holders, those of the South slave-owners. The guilt rests on the North equally with the South, therefore our work is to rouse the sleeping consciences of the North.... No one is ignorant now. You recognize the facts which we present. 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. The politician demands it because its existence produces poverty and discord in the nation and imposes taxes on free labor for its support, since the government is dominated by southern rule.... We preach revolution; the politicians reform. We say disobey every unjust law; the politician says obey them, and meanwhile labor constitutionally for repeal.

Accompaning these notes are many special incidents illustrating the evils of slavery. With Miss Anthony's strong, rich voice, her powerful command of language and her intensity of feeling in regard to her subject, it may be imagined that her speeches were eloquent appeals and roused to action both her friends and her enemies. Some meetings were successful financially, others failures, and her report to the committee in the spring showed that she lacked $1,000 of having paid the total expenses, including salaries of speakers. A few of the committee were inclined to the opinion that meetings should not have been held in places where they would not pay, but that noble woman, Maria Weston Chapman, said: "My friends, if all you say is true, regarding this young woman's business enterprise, practical sagacity and platform ability, I think $1,000 expended in her education and development for this work is one of the best investments that possibly could have been made." At the unanimous request of the committee Miss Anthony remained in office and during the year canvassed the entire state with her speakers. Mr. May wrote: "We cheerfully pay your expenses and want to keep you at the head of the work."

In March she was invited to go to Bangor, Me., and speak on woman's rights, in a course which included Henry Wilson, Gough, Phillips, Beecher and other notables. For this she was paid $50 and expenses, the first large sum she had received for a lecture, and it gave her much hope and courage. While in Maine she spoke a number of times, going from point to point in sleigh or wagon through snow, slush and mud. The press was very complimentary.[25]

In August Miss Anthony attended the State Teachers' Convention at Binghamton, and here created another commotion by introducing the following:

Resolved, That the exclusion of colored youth from our public schools, academies, colleges and universities is the result of a wicked prejudice.

Resolved, That the expulsion of Miss Latimer from the normal school at Albany, when after six months of successful scholarship it was discovered that colored blood coursed in her veins, was mean and cruel.

Resolved, That a flagrant outrage was perpetrated against the teachers and pupils of the colored schools of New York City, in that no provision was made for their attendance at the free concerts given to the public schools.

Resolved, That the recent exclusion of the graduates of the colored normal school of New York City, from the public diploma presentation at the Academy of Music, was a gross insult to their scholarship and their womanhood.

Resolved, That all proscription from educational advantages and honors, on account of color, is in perfect harmony with the infamous decision of Judge Taney—"that black men have no rights which white men are bound to respect."

After considerable uproar these were referred to a select committee on which were placed two ladies, Mary L. Booth and Julia A. Wilbur, both strong supporters of Miss Anthony. The committee brought in a majority report in favor of the resolutions but this make-shift minority report was adopted: "In our opinion the colored children of the State should enjoy equal advantages of education with the white." Miss Anthony then proceeded to throw another bomb by presenting this resolution:

Since the true and harmonious development of the race demands that the sexes be associated together in every department of life; therefore

Resolved, That it is the duty of all our schools, colleges and universities to open their doors to woman and to give her equal and identical educational advantages side by side with her brother man.

This opened the flood gates. Motions to lay on the table, to refer to a committee, etc., were voted down. A few strong speeches were made in favor, but most of them were in opposition and very bitter, insisting that "it was sought to uproot the theory and practice of the whole world." The antique Professor Davies was in his element. He declared: "Here is an attempt to introduce a vast social evil. I have been trying for four years,[i.e. ever since Miss Anthony's first appearance at a teachers' convention] to escape this question, but if it has to come, let it be boldly met and disposed of. I am opposed to anything that has a tendency to impair the sensitive delicacy and purity of the female character or to remove the restraints of life. These resolutions are the first step in the school which seeks to abolish marriage, and behind this picture I see a monster of social deformity."

Another speaker, whose name is lost in oblivion, said in tones which would melt a heart of stone: "Shall an oak and a rose tree receive the same culture? Better to us is the clear, steady, softened, silvery moonlight of woman's quiet, unobtrusive influence, than the flashes of electricity showing that the true balance of nature is destroyed. Aye, better a thousand times is it than the glimmering ignus fatuus rising from decayed hopes and leading the deluded follower to those horrible quagmires of social existence—amalgamation and Mormonism."

Prof. John W. Buckley, of Brooklyn, opposed the resolution in coarse and abusive language. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Henry H. Van Dyck demolished its last hope when he demanded with outstretched arm and pointed finger: "Do you mean to say you want the boys and girls to room side by side in dormitories? To educate them together can have but one result!"

The Binghamton Daily Republican said: "Miss Anthony vindicated her resolutions with eloquence, force, spirit and dignity, and showed herself a match, at least, in debate for any member of the convention. She was equal if not identical. Whatever may be thought of her notions or sense of propriety in her bold and conspicuous position, personally, intellectually and socially speaking, there can be but one opinion as to her superior energy, ability and moral courage; and she may well be regarded as an evangel and heroine by her own sex."

The woman who advocated co-education in those days was indeed in a "bold and conspicuous position." The resolutions were lost by a large majority. Even if every man present had voted against them, there were enough women to have carried them had they voted in the affirmative. The Republican said: "If the lady members had voted so as to be heard we know not what would have been the result; but their voices, to say the least, have not been ordained by the Creator to be equal or identical with man's, and are drowned by his louder sounds." Mrs. Stanton's opinion can best be learned by an extract from a letter:

I see by the papers that you have once more stirred that pool of intellectual stagnation, the educational convention. What an infernal set of fools those schoolmarms must be! Well, if in order to please men they wish to live on air, let them. The sooner the present generation of women dies out, the better. We have idiots enough in the world now without such women propagating any more.... The New York Times was really quite complimentary. Mr. Stanton brought every item he could find about you. "Well, my dear," he would say, "another notice of Susan. You stir up Susan, and she stirs the world." I was glad you went to torment those devils. I guess they will begin to think their time has come. I glory in your perseverance. O, Susan, I will do anything to help you on. You and I have a prospect of a good long life. We shall not be in our prime before fifty, and after that we shall be good for twenty years at least. If we do not make old Davies shake in his boots or turn in his grave, I am mistaken.

The proceedings of the convention were published in full in the New York Tribune, and Miss Anthony received letters of commendation from Judge William Hay, Charles L. Reason, superintendent of the New York city colored schools, and many others. William Marvin, of Binghamton, wrote: "The sympathy of the people here, during the teachers' association, was decidedly with you. A vote from the audience would have carried any one of your resolutions."

In the autumn the anti-slavery meetings were resumed, and Miss Anthony was unsparing of herself and everybody else. Parker Pillsbury complained: "What a task-mistress our general agent is proving herself. I expect as soon as women get command, an end will have come to all our peace. We shall yet have societies for the protection of men's rights, in the cause of which many of us will have to be martyrs." Her brother, Daniel R., was sending frequent letters from Kansas containing graphic descriptions of the terrible condition of affairs in that unhappy territory, and scathing denunciations of the treachery of northern "dough faces," thus fanning the fires of patriotism that glowed in her breast and filling her with renewed zeal for the cause to which she was giving her time and strength. During these days she wrote a cherished sister:

Though words of love are seldom written or spoken by one of us to the other, there must ever remain the abiding faith that the heart still beats true and fond. Our family is now so widely separated that our enjoyment must consist in soul communing. Indeed, I almost believe in the power of affection to draw unto itself the yearning heart of the absent one. What the modern Spiritualist tells of feeling the presence of departed friends and enjoying their loving ministrations, I sometimes imagine to be true, not of the spirits of those gone hence, but of those still in the body who are separated from us. I often pass blessed moments in these sweet, silent communings.... Every day brings to me new conceptions of life and its duties, and it is my constant desire that I may be strong and fearless, baring my arm to the encounter and pressing cheerfully forward, though the way is rough and thorny.

I have just returned from the hardest three weeks' tour of anti-slavery meetings I have had yet, so cold and disheartening. The masses seem devoid of conscience and looking only for some new expedient to accomplish the desired good; but in every town there are some true spirits who walk in God's sunlight and do what is right, trusting results to the great Immutable Law.... I wish all the dear ones would write me more often. Though I am sure of their affection, yet when the soul is burdened and one is surrounded by strangers, a letter from a loved one brings healing to the spirit, and I need it more than I can tell.

There is scarcely a letter to her own family, in the large number preserved, which does not express a longing for love and sympathy, a craving that no public career, no devotion to any cause, however absorbing, ever eradicates from the human soul.

Although so fully occupied, Miss Anthony did not neglect the beloved cause of woman. This year, however, when she attempted to arrange for the annual convention, she found to her dismay that every one of the speakers whom she always depended upon was unable to be present because of maternal duties. Some were anticipating an event, others had very young infants, and the older women were kept at home by expected or recently arrived grandchildren. She was used to overcoming obstacles, but the conditions on this occasion were too much for her and, with feelings which can not well be put into language, she was obliged to give up the national convention, the only one omitted from 1850 to 1861.

Amidst the hard work and many disappointments of the year, there is one gleam of humor in what was known to the family as "Susan's raspberry experiment." During her wanderings she visited her friend Sarah Hallock who had made a great success of raspberry culture, selling 40,000 baskets during the season, and she did not see why she could not do quite as well. She unfolded her plan to her father, who supported her in that as in everything and gave her as much ground as she desired. While at home for a short time she had this underdrained and prepared, $100 worth of raspberry plants set out and staked; then went away and left the family to look after them. The father was in the city all day attending to business, the sister Mary teaching school, the mother was not well and there was no one else but the hired man, who knew nothing about the culture of raspberries and was otherwise occupied; so the bushes took their chances.

The fame of the experiment, however, spread far and wide, the newspapers announced that Miss Anthony had bought a large farm and stocked it with raspberries; that she had abandoned the platform and taken up fruit culture. She received scores of letters asking information as to the best plants and most successful methods, others begging her not to give up public work, and many from friends who had no end of fun at her expense. The bushes grew and bore fruit enough to give the family a number of delicious meals. Then a very cold winter followed and there was no one to care for the tender plants. In December came a letter from the irrepressible brother-in-law, Aaron McLean: "As to your raspberry 'spec,' I regret to tell you it has 'gone up.' The poor, little, helpless things expired of a bad cold about two weeks since. Do you remember that text of Scripture, which says, 'She who by the plow would thrive, herself must either hold or drive'? It has cost you $200 to learn the truth of it." Her sister Mary wrote: "I hope, Susan, when you get a husband and children, you will treat them better than you did your raspberry plants, and not leave them to their fate at the beginning of winter."

It was a deep regret to Miss Anthony that she could not give the necessary time and care to make this experiment a success, as she was anxious to encourage women to go into the pursuit of agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, anything which would take them out of doors. In a letter to Mr. Higginson she says: "The salvation of the race depends, in a great measure, upon rescuing women from their hothouse 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?" This is one of the many instances where Miss Anthony foreshadowed reforms and improvements which have been fulfilled in the present generation.

In 1858 is presented same routine of unremitting work which characterized so many previous years. The winter was given up to anti-slavery meetings with their attendant hardships. Miss Anthony has great scorn for those who talk regretfully of the "good old days." She thinks one lecture season under the conditions which then existed would be an effectual cure to any longing for them one might have. The conveniences of modern life, bathrooms with plenty of hot water, toiletrooms, steam-heated houses, gas and hundreds of comforts so common at the present time that one scarcely can realize they have not always existed, were comparatively unknown. One of the greatest trials these travellers had to endure was the wretched cooking which was the rule and not exception among our much-praised foremothers. In one of the old diaries is this single ejaculation, "O, the crimes that are committed in the kitchens of this land!" In those days the housewife could not step around the corner and buy for two cents a cake of yeast which insured good bread, but the process of yeast-making was long and difficult and not well understood by the average housekeeper, so a substitute was found in "salt risings," and a heavy indigestible mass generally resulted. White flour was little used and was of a poor quality. Baking powder was unknown and all forms of cakes and warm bread were made with sour milk and soda, easily ruined by too much or too little of the latter. In no particular did the table compare favorably with that of modern families.

The anti-slavery and woman's rights lecturers always accepted private hospitality when offered, for reasons of economy and, as many of the people who favored these reforms were seeking light in other directions also, they were very apt to find themselves the guests of "cranks" upon the food question and were thus made the subject of most of the experiments in vogue at that period. On one occasion Miss Anthony, Aaron Powell and Oliver Johnson were entertained by prominent and well-to-do people in a town near New York, who had not a mouthful for any of the three meals except nuts, apples and coarse bran stirred in water and baked. At the end of one day the men ignominiously fled and left her to stay over Sunday and hold the Monday meeting. She lived through it but on Tuesday started for New York and never stopped till she reached Delmonico's, where she revelled in a porterhouse steak and a pot of coffee.

During these winter meetings all of the men broke down physically and their letters were filled with complaints of their heads, their backs, their lungs, their throats and their eyes. Garrison wrote at one time: "I hope to be present at the meeting but I can not foresee what will be my spinal condition at that time, and I could not think of appearing as a 'Garrisonian Abolitionist' without a backbone." Miss Anthony never lost a day or missed an engagement, although it may be imagined that she had many hours of weariness when she would have been glad to drop the burden for a while. On March 17 she writes: "How happy I am to lay my head on my own home pillow once more after a long four months, scarcely stopping a second night under one roof." Mr. May wrote in behalf of the committee: "We rejoice with you in the success of your meetings and in all your hopes for the upspringing of the good seed sown by the faithful joint labors of you and your gallant little band. We have made the following a committee of arrangements for the annual meeting: Garrison, Phillips, Quincy, Johnson and Susan B. Anthony."

So she at once girded on her armor and began to prepare for the May anniversary and, being determined the National Woman's Rights Convention should not be omitted this year, she conducted also an extensive correspondence in regard to that. Referring to all this drudgery Lucy Stone urged: "Don't do it; quit common work such as a common worker could do; and don't mourn over us and our babies. We are growing workers. I know you are tired with your four months' work, but it is not half so hard as taking care of a child night and day. I shall not assume any responsibility for another convention till I have had my ten daughters." But Miss Anthony knew that this "common work," this hiring halls, raising money and advertising meetings was just what nobody else could or would do. She understood also that while the other women were at home "growing workers," somebody must be in the field looking after the harvest.

Abby Hutchinson, the only sister in the famous family of singers, wrote from their Jersey home, Dawnwood: "I want so much to help you; I have longed to do some good with my voice but public life wears me out very fast." Nevertheless she came and sang for them. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Brown Blackwell brought new babies into the world a few weeks before the convention, to Miss Anthony's usual discomfiture. She wrote to the latter: "Mrs. Stanton sends her love to you and says if you are going to have a large family, go right on and finish up as she has done. She has only devoted eighteen years out of the very heart of her existence to this great work. But I say, stop now."

The convention in Mozart Hall followed close upon the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, Miss Anthony presided and there were the usual distinguished speakers, Phillips, Pillsbury, Garrison, Douglass, Higginson, Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Rose, and, for the first time, George William Curtis spoke on the woman's rights platform. Notwithstanding this array of talent, the convention through all its six sessions was threatened with a mob, encouraged by the Herald and other New York papers. The disturbance at times was so great the speakers could not be heard, even Curtis was greeted with hisses and groans, but Miss Anthony stood at the helm unterrified through all and did not leave her post until the last feature of the program was completed and the convention adjourned. She was growing accustomed to mobs.

In August, 1858, she attended the teachers' convention at Lockport. The sensational feature of this meeting was the reading by Professor Davies of the first cablegram from England, a message from the Queen to the President. The press reports show that she took a prominent part in the proceedings and possibly merited the name which some one gave her of "the thorn in the side of the convention." These annual gatherings were very largely in the nature of mutual admiration societies among the men, who consumed much of the time in complimenting each other and the rest of it in long-winded orations. During this one Miss Anthony arose and said that, as all members had the same right to speak, she would suggest that speeches should be limited so as to give each a chance. She made some of the men furious by stating that they spoke so low they could not be heard.

At another time she suggested that, as there were only a few hours left for the business of the convention, they should not be frittered away in trifling discussions, saying, "if she were a man she would be ashamed to consume the time in telling how much she loved women and in fulsome flattery of other men." She moved also that they set aside the proposed discussion on "The Effects of High Intellectual Culture on the Efficiency and Respectability of Manual Labor," and take up pressing questions. When one man was indulging in a lot of the senseless twaddle about his wife which many of them are fond of introducing in their speeches, she called him to order saying that the kind of a wife he had, had nothing to do with the subject. She introduced again the resolution demanding equal pay for equal work without regard to sex. A friend wrote of this occasion: "She arraigned those assembled teachers for their misdemeanors as she would a class of schoolboys, in perfect unconsciousness that she was doing anything unusual. We women never can be sufficiently thankful to her for taking the hard blows and still harder criticisms, while we reaped the benefits."

The press reports said: "Miss Anthony has gained in the estimation of the teachers' convention, and is now listened to with great attention." She gave her lecture on "Co-Education" to a crowded house of Lockport's prominent citizens, introduced by President George L. Farnham, of Syracuse, always her friend in those troublous days. By this time more than a score of the eminent educators of the day had become her steadfast friends, and they welcomed her to these conventions, aiding her efforts in every possible manner. Rev. Samuel J. May, who had delivered an address, upon his return home wrote: "You are a great girl, and I wish there were thousands more in the world like you. Some foolish old conventionalisms would be utterly routed, and the legal and social disabilities of women would not long be what they are." Miss Anthony herself, writing to Antoinette Blackwell, said: "I wish I had time to tell you of my Lockport experience; it was rich. I never felt so cool and self-possessed among the plannings and plottings of the few old fogies, and they never appeared so frantic with rage. They evidently felt that their reign of terror is about ended."

October, 1858, brought another crucial occasion. In Rochester, a young man, Ira Stout, had been condemned to be hung for murder. A number of persons strongly opposed to capital punishment believed this a suitable time to make a demonstration. It was not that they doubted the guilt of Stout, but they were opposed to the principle of what they termed judicial murder. As the Anthonys and many of the leading Quaker families, Frederick Douglass and a number of Abolitionists shared in this opinion, it was not surprising that Miss Anthony undertook to get up the meeting. In a cold rain she made the round of the orthodox ministers but none would sign the call. The Universalist minister, Rev. J.H. Tuttle, agreed to be present and speak. She secured thirty or forty signatures, engaged the city hall and advertised extensively. The feeling against Stout was very strong and there was a determination among certain members of the community that this meeting should not be held. Huge placards were posted throughout the city, urging all opposed to the sentiments of the call to be out in force, a virtual invitation to the mob.

When the evening arrived, October 7, the hall was filled with a crowd of nearly 2,000, a large portion of whom only needed the word to break into a riot. Miss Anthony called the assemblage to order and Frederick Douglass was made chairman, but when he attempted to speak, his voice was drowned with groans and yells. Aaron M. Powell, William C. Bloss and others tried to make themselves heard but the mob had full sway. Miss Anthony was greeted with a perfect storm of hisses. Finally the demonstrations became so threatening that she and the other speakers were hurried out of the hall by a rear door, the meeting was broken up and the janitor turned out the lights. No attempt was made by the mayor or police to quell the disturbance and mob law reigned supreme.

The brightest ray of sunshine in the closing days of 1858 was the following letter from Mr. Phillips: "I have had given me $5,000 for the woman's rights cause; to procure tracts on that subject, publish and circulate them, pay for lectures and secure such other agitation of the question as we deem fit and best to obtain equal civil and political position for women. The name of the giver of this generous fund I am not allowed to tell you. The only condition of the gift is that it is to remain in my keeping. You, Lucy Stone and myself are a committee of trustees to spend it wisely and efficiently." The donor proved to be Francis Jackson, the staunch friend of the emancipation of woman as well as the negro.

CHAPTER XI.

CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE WAR.

1859.

Among Miss Anthony's many schemes for regenerating the world was one to have a Free church in Rochester, after the manner of Theodore Parker's in Boston, similar to an ethical society, where no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome, contributing what they chose. This was in her mind for years, and at the beginning of 1859 she engaged Corinthian Hall for Sunday evenings, her good friend, William A. Reynolds, as usual making her a reduced rate; and here Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Parker Pillsbury each preached for a month. She tried to engage Mrs. Stanton for a year and also Aaron M. Powell, but the financial support was too uncertain and the project had to be abandoned. All her life, however, Miss Anthony cherished the hope of seeing this Free church established and sustained. She arranged a series of lectures for this winter. George William Curtis accepted her invitation in this characteristic letter:

I think of no title for your course, but why have any? Why not say simply, "A Course of Independent Lectures?" To call them woman's rights would damn them in advance, so strong is prejudice. The only one I have at all suited to your purpose is "Fair Play for Women."[26] I hate the words "woman's rights," nor do they properly describe my treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of humanity. My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal humanity of women and an assertion that they have rights not as women but as human beings. In respect to terms, I leave it with you. I usually receive $50, but you will understand that I should prefer to pay the expenses myself rather than that you or any one interested should expend a penny; so if you can not justly give me anything, I shall be content.

Miss Anthony always came out of these lecture courses in debt, but she would call upon her friends or borrow from sister or father enough to make up the deficit, and replace the loan out of her scanty earnings. She persisted in having them to educate the public on the progressive questions of the day. At this time the long, severe mental and physical strain of years began to be felt in her one weak spot, and the old trouble with her back asserted itself. From every quarter came urgent appeals for her assistance. At first she answered: "If New York calls a constitutional convention for next spring, this will be a capital winter to strike heavy blows for freedom and equality such as we shall not have for a long time to come. I am ready just as soon as the armies can be marshaled and equipped." But later she wrote:

It is being forced upon me that nature orders me to stay quietly at home this winter and it may be that it is to enable me to get a greater literary culture than I possibly could, amidst the hurry and bustle of continual meetings. Somehow I can not philosophize away a shrinking from going into active work. I can not get up a particle of enthusiasm or faith in the success, either financial or spiritual, of another series of conventions. For the past five years I have gone through this routine and something within me keeps praying to be spared from more of it. There has been such a surfeit of lecturing, the people are tired of it. Then I never was so poor in purse and I fear to end another campaign with a heavy debt to still further encroach upon my small savings. I can not bear to make myself dependent upon relatives for the food I eat and the clothes I wear; I never have done it and hope I may never have to. Perhaps I may feel a renewed faith in myself and my work but the past years have brought me so much isolation and spiritual loneliness, although in the midst of crowds, that I confess to a longing to stay for awhile among my own people.

The commands of the physician were imperative that she should avoid all fatigue and nervous excitement, but her pen was not idle, and the time which she hoped to devote to the reading of many books was occupied in sending out letters, petitions, appeals and the various documents necessary to keep the work going. In answer to an invitation from the Friends of Human Progress she wrote:

To be esteemed worthy to speak for woman, for the slave, for humanity, is ever grateful to me, and I regret that I can not be with you at your annual gathering to get for myself a fresh baptism, a new and deeper faith. I would exhort all women to be discontented with their present condition and to assert their individuality of thought, word and action by the energetic doing of noble deeds. Idle wishes, vain repinings, loud-sounding declamations never can bring freedom to any human soul. What woman most needs is a true appreciation of her womanhood, a self-respect which shall scorn to eat the bread of dependence. Whoever consents to live by "the sweat of the brow" of another human being inevitably humiliates and degrades herself.... No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence. As a right over a man's subsistence is a power over his moral being, so a right over a woman's subsistence enslaves her will, degrades her pride and vitiates her whole moral nature.

To her brother Daniel R., in Kansas, who was somewhat skeptical on the woman question, she sent this strong letter:

Even the smallest human right denied, is large. The fact that the ruling class withhold this right is prima facie evidence that they deem it of importance for good or for evil. In either case, therefore, the human being is outraged. It, perchance, may matter but little whether Kansas be governed by a constitution made by her bona fide settlers or by people of another State or by Congress; but for Kansas to be denied the right to make her own constitution and laws is an outrage not to be tolerated. So the constitution and laws of a State and nation may be just as considerate of woman's needs and wants as if framed by herself, yet for man to deny her the right to a voice in making and administering them, is paralleled only by the Lecompton usurpation. For any human being or class of human beings, whether black, white, male or female, tamely to submit to the denial of their right to self-government shows that the instinct of liberty has been blotted out.

You blunder on this question of woman's rights just where thousands of others do. You believe woman unlike man in her nature; that conditions of life which any man of spirit would sooner die than accept are not only endurable to woman but are needful to her fullest enjoyment. Make her position in church, State, marriage, your own; everywhere your equality ignored, everywhere made to feel another empowered by law and time-honored custom to prescribe the privileges to be enjoyed and the duties to be discharged by you; and then if you can imagine yourself to be content and happy, judge your mother and sisters and all women to be.

It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand and immutable truth, "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

She wrote Lydia Mott: "The new encyclopedia is just out and I notice in regard to Antoinette Brown Blackwell that it gives a full description of her work up to the time of her marriage, then says: 'She married Samuel Blackwell and lives near New York.' Not a word of the splendid work she has done on the platform and in the pulpit since. Thus does every married woman sink her individuality." This brought from Lydia a spirited answer:

For my part, when you speak of the individuality of one who is truly married being inevitably lost, I think you mistake. If there ever was any individuality it will remain. I don't believe it is necessary for development that the individual must always force itself upon us. We naturally fall into the habits and frequently the train of thought of those we love and I like the expression "we" rather than "I." I never feel that my interests and actions can be independent of the dear ones with whom I am surrounded. Even the one who seems to be most absorbed may, in reality, possess the strongest soul. This standing alone is not natural and therefore can not be right. I am sure one of these days you will view this matter from a different standpoint.

Miss Anthony so far yielded as to reply: "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' never will 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!'" But later when one woman failed to keep a lecture engagement because her husband wanted her to go somewhere with him, and another because her husband was not willing she should leave home, she again poured out her sorrows to her friend:

There is not one woman left who may be relied on, all have "first to please their husband," after which there is but little time or energy left to spend in any other direction. I am not complaining or despairing, but facts are stern realities. The twain become one flesh, the woman, "we"; henceforth she has no separate work, and 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 power of any woman, even of myself, to withstand the mighty matrimonial maelstrom!

But how did I get into this dissertation? If to you it seems morbid, pardon the pen-wandering. In the depths of my soul there is a continual denial of the self-annihilating spiritual or legal union of two human beings. Such union, in the very nature of things, must bring an end to the free action of one or the other, and it matters not to the individual whose freedom has thus departed whether it be the gentle rule of love or the iron hand of law which blotted out from the immortal being the individual soul-stamp of the Good Father. How I do wish those who know something of the real social needs of our age would rescue this greatest, deepest, highest question from the present unphilosophical, unspiritual discussers.

As might be expected, the legacy of $5,000 brought not only a flood of requests from all parts of the country, but some division of opinion among those who had it in control. Miss Anthony would use all of it in the work of propaganda, lectures, conventions, tracts and newspaper articles. Lucy Stone wished to use part in suits to prove the unconstitutionality of the law which taxes women and refuses them representation. Antoinette Blackwell wanted a portion to establish a church where she could spread the doctrine of woman's rights along with the gospel. Most of the women lecturers and some of the men wished to be engaged immediately at a fixed salary. Miss Anthony writes for advice to Phillips, who replies: "Go ahead with your New York plan as sketched to me. I am willing to risk spending $1,000 on it. Never apologize as if you troubled me; it is my business as much as yours, and I am only sorry to be of so little help." Brief records in the little diary say:

Sister Mary and I passed New Year's Day, 1859, most quietly and happily in the dear farm-home. Mother is in the East with sister Hannah, and father dined in the city with sister Guelma, who sent us a plate of her excellent turkey.... In the afternoon Mary and I drove to Frederick Douglass' and had a nice visit; stayed to tea and listened to a part of his new lecture on "Self-Made Men."... Father and Mary gone to their work in the city, and I am writing on my lecture "The True Woman." Ground out four commercial-note pages in five mortal hours, but they are strong.... Ten degrees below zero. Mother home; no writing today; all talk about the eastern folks.... Antoinette Blackwell preached here yesterday, and we have had a good visit together today. Just helped two fugitive slaves, perhaps genuine and perhaps not.... Went to the city to hear A.A. Willit's lecture on "A Plea for Home." Gives woman a place only in domestic life—sad failure.... Twenty letters written and mailed today. Took tea with the Hallowells. Am glad to learn that the money forwarded to the Anti-Slavery Bazar and lost was sent by a man instead of a woman.... Heard Bayard Taylor on "Life in Lapland." Hundreds could not gain admittance. Curtis lectured on "Fair Play for Women"; great success, but I feel that he has not yet been tried by fire. Afterwards visited with Curtis and Taylor, and Mr. Curtis said: "Rather than have a radical thinker like Mrs. Rose at your suffrage conventions, you would better give them up. With such speakers as Beecher, Phillips, Theodore Parker, Chapin, Tilton and myself advocating woman's cause, it can not fail."