Miss Anthony did not hesitate to criticise even Mr. Curtis, writing him in reference to his great lecture, "Democracy and Education": "When all the different classes of industrial claimants for a voice in the government were enumerated, there was not one which could be interpreted to represent womanhood. Hence only the few who know that with George William Curtis, the words 'man,' 'people,' 'citizens,' are not, as with the vast majority of lecturers, mere glittering generalities, can understand that his grand principles of democracy are intended to be applied to woman equally with man. I listen for the unthinking masses and pray that every earnest, manly spirit shall help make women free." In reply Mr. Curtis closed a long and cordial letter by saying: "Believe me that I have thought of the point you make but the greater statement must inevitably include the less." She scribbled a comment on the back of this for her own satisfaction: "Men still the greater, women the less."

The last of January Miss Anthony went to Albany to attend the anti-slavery convention and remained six weeks during the legislative session to work in the interest of the women's petitions and the Personal Liberty Bill. This was a season of great enjoyment for her, notwithstanding much tramping about in the rain and snow and many discouraging experiences with the Legislature. She writes a friend: "Well, I am a member of the lobby but lacking the two most essential requisites, for I neither accept money nor have I any to pay out. Dr. Cheever speaks tonight in the Assembly chamber on 'The Guilt of the Slave Traffic and of the Legislation by which it is Supported.' I have been going about all day to collect enough to defray his expenses."

Phillips, Garrison, Pillsbury and all the host were at the convention. They dined in Lydia Mott's simple little home and had a merry time. Between the meetings the party visited the Legislature, Geological Hall, Palmer's studio and other places of interest and managed to get a bit of holiday recreation. Miss Anthony stayed with her friend Miss Mott, visited Rev. Mayo, called often on Thurlow Weed, went to Troy to hear Beecher lecture on "The Burdens of Society," to Hudson to hear Phillips on "Toussaint L'Ouverture" and, whenever she could spare a day from her work with the Legislature, held woman's rights meetings in neighboring towns; thus every hour was filled to overflowing.

In March she finished her lecture, "The True Woman," and plunged into the preparations for the approaching woman's rights convention. She also indulged the love for gardening which her busy life so seldom permitted and, judging from her diary, must have given the hired men more attention than they ever received before or afterwards:

Uncovered the strawberry and raspberry beds.... Worked with Simon building frames for the grape vines in the peach orchards.... Set out eighteen English black currants, twenty-two English gooseberries and Muscadine grape vines, also Lawton blackberries.... Worked in the garden all day, then went to the city to hear Dr. Cheever; few there, but grand lecture. How he unmasked the church hypocrites!... Wrote reports of the lecture for Standard and Liberator, and helped father plan the new kitchen.... Finished setting out the apple trees and the 600 blackberry bushes, then took the 6 o'clock train for Seneca Falls. Hot and dusty, and I am very, very tired.

She spoke in various towns all the way to New York where she arrived in time to attend the Anti-Slavery Anniversary and make final arrangements for the convention in Mozart Hall, May 12. She had written asking Lucretia Mott to preside, who answered, "I am sure there needs not a better presiding officer than thyself," but agreed to come. When the hour arrived the hall was so packed that it was impossible for Mrs. Mott to reach the platform and Miss Anthony was obliged to open the meeting. This convention, like several which preceded it, was greatly disturbed by noise and interruptions from the audience, until finally it was turned over to Wendell Phillips who "knew better than any one else how to play with and lash a mob and thrust what he wished to say into their long ears." At the end of his speech Miss Anthony immediately adjourned the convention, to prevent violent demonstrations. The Tribune said:

The woman's rights meeting last night was well calculated to advance the cause that the reformers met to plead. The speakers were comparatively so temperate, while sundry voters were so intemperate in demonstrating their folly, rudeness, ignorance and indecency, that almost any cause which the one pleaded and the other objected to would be likely to find favor with order-loving people. The presence of a single policeman might have preserved perfect order, saved the reputation of our city before crowds of strangers and given hundreds an opportunity to hear. Of course it being a meeting that women were to address, as "women have no rights in public which men are bound to maintain," there was no policeman present.

The disturbances at these conventions were not so much because the mob objected to the doctrine of woman's rights as that they were addressed by the leading anti-slavery speakers and therefore had to bear the odium attached to that hated cause.

A strong memorial, asking for equal social, civil and political rights for women and based on the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence, was prepared by a committee consisting of Miss Anthony, Mr. Phillips and seven others, to be presented to every legislature in the Union. By the time the legislatures met in 1860, political affairs had reached a crisis and the country was in a state of unrest and excitement which made it impossible to secure consideration for this or any other question outside the vital issues that were pressing, although it was presented in several States.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton wrote an eloquent appeal to be circulated with the petitions to rouse public sentiment. Armed with this the former began correspondence with speakers in reference to a summer and fall campaign of the state. The diary shows that she actually found time to attend a picnic, but as she was called upon for a speech while there the day was not wholly wasted. There are also references to "moonlight rides," and one entry records: "Mr. —— walked home with me; marvelously attentive. What a pity such powers of intellect should lack the moral spine!"

Out of the Francis Jackson fund Mr. Phillips sent Miss Anthony $1,500 for her extensive campaign. She engaged speakers to come into New York in different months, and July 13 opened the series with Antoinette Blackwell at Niagara Falls. From here they made the round of the watering places, Avon, Clifton, Trenton Falls, Sharon, Saratoga, Ballston Spa and Lake George, where persons of wealth and prominence were gathered from all parts of the Union. In some places they spoke in a grove to thousands of people; at others in hotel parlors, and everywhere met a friendly spirit and respectful treatment.

Miss Anthony did not forget to go to Poughkeepsie this summer, and stir up the teachers at their annual meeting. Antoinette Blackwell says of this trip: "I shall always recollect our journey on the boat with two or three dozen teachers, and your walking the deck with one and another, talking about women and their rights, in school and out of school, in the most matter-of-fact way, although it was plainly evident that most of them would sooner have listened to a discussion on the rights of the Hottentots." The teacher who was her chief support at these conventions was Helen Philleo.[27] There were very few of them in those days who had the courage to help fight this battle for their own interests. At the last session she announced a woman's rights meeting and many remained to attend it.

After the summer resorts were closed the meetings were continued in the principal towns. Mrs. Blackwell thus describes an incident in the Fort William Henry hotel: "I remember a rich scene at the breakfast table. Aaron Powell was with us and the colored waiter pointedly offered him the bill of fare. Miss Anthony glanced at it and began to give her order, not to Powell in ladylike modesty, but promptly and energetically to the waiter. He turned a grandiloquent, deaf ear; Powell fidgeted and studied his newspaper; she persisted, determined that no man should come between her and her own order for coffee, cornbread and beefsteak. 'What do I understand is the full order, sir, for your party?' demanded the waiter, doggedly and suggestively. Powell tried to repeat her wishes, but stumbled and stammered and grew red in the face. I put in a working oar to cover the undercurrent of laughter, while she, coolly unconscious of everything except that there was no occasion for a 'middleman,' since she was entirely competent to look after her own breakfast, repeated her order, and the waiter, looking intensely disgusted, concluded to bring something, right or wrong."

While at Easton among her old friends Miss Anthony attended Quaker meeting and the spirit moved her to speak very forcibly, as she relates in a letter: "A young Quaker preacher from Virginia, who happened to be there, said: 'Christ was no agitator, but a peacemaker; George Fox was no agitator; the Friends at the South follow these examples and are never disturbed by fanaticism.' This was more than I could bear; I sprung to my feet and quoted: 'I came into the world not to bring peace but a sword.... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites that devour widow's houses!' Read the New Testament, and say if Christ was not an agitator. Who is this among us crying 'peace, peace, when there is no peace?'—and sat down." It is a matter of regret that she did not tell what became of the gentleman from Virginia.

Miss Anthony writes to Mary Hallowell, during these days: "I am more tired than ever before and know that I am draining the millpond too low each day to be filled quite up during the night, but I am having fine audiences of thinking men and women. Oh, if we could but make our meetings ring like those of the anti-slavery people, wouldn't the world hear us? But to do that we must have souls baptized into the work and consecrated to it."

Mrs. Blackwell's domestic affairs will not permit any further lecturing and Miss Anthony says in a letter to her: "O, dear, dear, how I do wish you could have kept on with me. I can't tell you how utterly awful is the suspense these other women keep me in: first, they can't, then they can, then they won't unless things are so and so; and when I think everything is settled, it all has to be gone over again. The fact is I am not fit to deal with anybody who is not terribly in earnest." To this she replies: "Dear child, I'm sorry I can not help you, but pity a poor married woman and forgive. The ordeal that I have been going through, four sewingwomen each giving about two days, no end of little garments to alter and to make, with a husband whose clothes as well as himself have been neglected for three months, the garden to be covered up from the frost, shrubs to transplant, winter provisions to lay in and only one good-natured, stupid servant to help with all. This, Susan, is 'woman's sphere.'"

As Miss Anthony never approved of a woman's neglecting her household for any purpose, she urged no more but sought elsewhere for assistance. There was not one unmarried woman except herself in all the corps of available speakers and, while some of them could make a trip of a few weeks, not one could be depended on for steady work. In October she secured Mrs. Tracy Cutler for awhile, and later Frances D. Gage, J. Elizabeth Jones and Lucy N. Coleman, but was obliged to hold many meetings alone. These were continued at intervals through the fall of 1859 and the winter and spring of 1860, and numerous pages of foolscap are still in existence containing a carefully kept account of the expenses. Each meeting was made partly to pay for itself, the lecturers received $12 a week, Miss Anthony herself taking only this sum, and it may be believed that no more extended and effective propaganda work ever was accomplished with the same amount of money. While this was being done, she also assisted Clarina Howard Nichols and Susan E. Wattles to plan an important campaign in Kansas with money furnished from the Jackson fund.

She received the following characteristic letter from Rev. Thomas K. Beecher when she asked for the use of his church in Elmira: "I will answer for myself and afterwards append the decision of the trustees. Anybody with good moral character and clean feet is welcome to use our meeting house, if they like, but were I you I should prefer Holden's Hall. But, lastly, I should shrink from holding such a meeting. I fear that you will come to pain of disappointment when your enthusiasm is chilled and bruised against the stone walls of Elmira apathy. More people will attend at Holden's Hall than at church. So speaks in brief, yours with hearty respect."

Mrs. Blackwell writes her teasingly about what she calls her obtuseness, going straight ahead with her work, never knowing when she was snubbed or defeated, giving the undiluted doctrine to people without ever perceiving their frantic efforts to escape, and ignoring all the humorous features of the campaigns. Miss Anthony retorts: "You might give some of the funny things at your own expense, but tell just as many as you please at mine. You see I have always gone with such a blind rush that I never had time to see the ridiculous, and blessed for me and my work and my happiness that I did not." Another invariable habit was never to notice complaints written to her. She always answered the business points but entirely ignored complainings, charges against other people and all extraneous matters.

She relates a significant incident which occurred during this summer campaign when she and Antoinette Blackwell spent a Sunday at Gerrit Smith's. He had established at Peterboro and was maintaining at his own expense a Free church. Mrs. Blackwell, under the influence of Theodore Parker, Chapin and other liberal thinkers, had become very broad in her doctrines, and was greatly pleased at an opportunity to preach for Mr. Smith, thinking to find perfect appreciation and sympathy. After church Miss Anthony went to her room and found her weeping bitterly, but she begged to be left to herself. When more composed she sent for her and told how in the midst of her sermon, when she felt herself surpassing anything she ever had done, she heard a gentle snore, and looking down beheld Mr. Smith sound asleep! She was terribly disappointed and now had made up her mind there was but one thing for the human soul, and that was to live absolutely within itself. There is no friend, no relative, who can enter into the depths of another individuality. A husband and wife may be very happy together; in all the little occurrences which really make up the sum of everyday life, they may be perfectly congenial; but there will be times when each will feel the other separated by an immeasurable distance. Henceforth she would enjoy what solace there was in her religious faith for herself but would expect no other soul to share it with her. "This was to me a wonderful revelation," said Miss Anthony, "and I realized, as never before, that in our most sacred hours we dwell indeed in a world of solitude."

On December 2, 1859, occurred that terrible tragedy in the country's history, the execution of John Brown for the raid on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The nation was shaken as by a great earthquake. Its dreadful import was realized perhaps by none so strikingly as by that little band of Abolitionists who never had wavered in their belief that slavery must ultimately disrupt the Union. When the country was paralyzed with horror and uncertainty, they alone dared call public meetings of mourning and indignation. It was natural that in Rochester they should turn to Susan B. Anthony for leadership. Without a moment's hesitation for fear of consequences she engaged Corinthian Hall and set about arranging a meeting for the evening of that day. Parker Pillsbury wrote:

Can you not make this gathering one of a popular character? What I mean is will not some sturdy Republican or Gerrit Smith man preside, another act as secretary and several make addresses? Only we must not lose the control. I do not believe that any observance of the day will be instituted outside our ranks. I am without tidings from the "seat of war" since Tuesday evening; and do not know what we shall hear next. My voice is against any attempt at rescue. It would inevitably, I fear, lead to bloodshed which could not compensate nor be compensated. If the people dare murder their victim, as they are determined to do, and in the name of law, he dares and is prepared to die and the moral effect of the execution will be without a parallel since the scenes on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, and the halter that day sanctified shall be the cord to draw millions to salvation.

Miss Anthony found that beyond the little band of Abolitionists not a person dared give her any assistance. Her diary says: "Not one man of prominence in religion or politics will publicly identify himself with the John Brown meeting." She went from door to door selling tickets and collecting money. Samuel D. Porter, a prominent member of the Liberty party, assisted her, as did that circle of staunch Quaker friends who never failed her in any undertaking; Frederick Douglass had been obliged to flee to England. An admission fee of fifty cents kept out the rabble, and not more than 300 were present. The masses of the people, even those in full sympathy, were afraid to attend. Rev. Abram Pryn, a Free church minister, made a fine address, and Parker Pillsbury spoke as never before. Mr. Porter said: "This was the only occasion that ever matched Pillsbury's adjectives." Miss Anthony presided and there was no disturbance. The surplus receipts were sent to John Brown's family.

Mrs. Stanton wrote shortly afterwards, urging her to come to Seneca Falls: "Indeed it would do me great good to see some reformers just now. The death of my father, the worse than death of my dear cousin Gerrit,[28] the martyrdom of that great and glorious John Brown, all conspire to make me regret more than ever my dwarfed and perverted womanhood. In times like these every soul should do the work of a fullgrown man. When I pass the gate of the celestials and good Peter asks me where I wish to sit, I will say: 'Anywhere so that I am neither a negro nor a woman. Confer on me, great angel, the glory of white manhood, so that henceforth I may feel unlimited freedom.'"

In this year of 1859, Charles F. Hovey, a wealthy merchant of Boston, a radical in religion and a noted reformer and philanthropist, left $50,000 to be expended in securing equal rights for women, the abolition of slavery, and other reforms, at the discretion of Wendell Phillips, Wm. Lloyd Garrison and the other executors. As slavery was abolished four years later, a considerable portion of this was used for the cause of woman.

Early in December the anti-slavery committee insisted that Miss Anthony should resume the management of their conventions, as they wished to hold a series throughout the large cities of the State and had been unable to find any one who could so successfully conduct them. Abby Kelly Foster, though often critical and censorious, wrote her regarding one of her speeches: "It is a timely, noble, clear-sighted and fearless vindication of our platform. I want to say how delighted both Stephen and myself are to see that you, though much younger than some others in the anti-slavery school, have been able to appreciate so entirely the genius of our enterprise." The distinguished George B. Cheever, of the Church of the Puritans in New York, one of the few orthodox clergymen who stood with the Abolitionists in those early days, wrote Miss Anthony: "May God be with you and guide and bless you in your efforts. That is the strength we all need and must have if we accomplish anything good and permanent in this terrible conflict."

A single instance will show how closely the question of woman's rights was connected with that of anti-slavery in the popular mind. When Miss Anthony and Mrs. Blackwell were at Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George, they spoke one evening in the hotel parlors. There were a number of southerners present and many of them were delighted with the meeting, whose doctrines were entirely new to them, and made liberal contributions. The next day the speakers left in the stage with one of these, Judge John J. Ormond and his two daughters, of Tuscaloosa, Ala. He told Miss Anthony he had been instrumental in securing many laws favorable to women in that state and it would be a pleasure to him to see that their memorial was presented to the Alabama Legislature. When she reached home she sent it to him with the following letter:

Enclosed is a copy of our woman's rights memorial. Will you give me a full report of the action taken upon it?... I hope you and your daughters arrived home safe. Say to the elder I shall be most happy to hear from her when she shall have fairly inaugurated some noble life work. I trust each will take to her soul a strong purpose and that on her tombstone shall be engraved her own name and her own noble deeds instead of merely the daughter of Judge Ormond, or the relict of some Honorable or D. D. When true womanhood shall be attained it will be spoken of and remembered for itself alone. My kindest regards to them, accompanied with the most earnest desire that they shall make truth and freedom the polar star of their lives.

To this Judge Ormond made cordial reply, October 17, 1859:

DEAR MADAM: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d inst., with the papers enclosed. The petition to the Legislature will be presented by the senator from this county and I will apprise you of the action had upon it. My daughters are obliged to you for the interest you take in them. To a certain extent I agree with you as to the duties of woman. I am greatly in favor of her elevation to her proper sphere as the equal of man as to her civil rights, the security of her person, the right to her property and, where there is a separation after marriage, her equal right with the father to the custody and education of the children. All this as a legislator I have endeavored to accomplish, making large innovations upon the ancient common law. If I differ from you as to her political rights, it is because I think that, from political as well as moral considerations, she is unfit for, indeed incapacitated from, the performance of most of the duties which are now performed by men as members of the body politic; but there are many avocations and professions now exclusively occupied by men which women are as well, perhaps better fitted to fill. I hope these will soon be thrown open to an active competition of both sexes.

Then came the raid on Harper's Ferry and all its terrible consequences, and in December Judge Ormond wrote again:

MADAM: In redemption of my promise to tell you the fate of the woman's rights petition to our Legislature, I have the honor to inform you that it was virtually rejected, being laid on the table. I interested a distinguished member of our Senate in its presentation and, in addition, wrote a letter which under ordinary circumstances would have insured its respectful consideration. But after your petition was forwarded came the treasonable and murderous invasion of John Brown. The atrocity of this act, countenanced as it manifestly was by a great party at the North, has extinguished our last spark of fraternal feeling. Whilst we are all living under a Constitution which secures to us our right to our slaves, the results of which are in truth more beneficial to the whole North, and especially to the New England States, than to us, you are secretly plotting murderous inroads into our peaceful country and endeavoring to incite our slaves to cut the throats of our wives and children. Can you believe that this state of things can last? We now look upon you as our worst enemies and are ready to separate from you. Measures are in progress as far as practicable to establish non-intercourse with you and to proscribe all articles of northern manufacture or origin, including New England teachers. We can live without you; it remains to be seen how you will get along without us. You will probably find that fanaticism is not an element of national wealth or conducive to the happiness or comfort of the people.

In conclusion, let me assure you this is written more in sorrow than in anger. I am not a politician and have always been a strenuous friend of the Union. I am now in favor of a separation, unless you immediately retrace your steps and give the necessary guarantees by the passage of appropriate laws that you will faithfully abide by the compromises of the Constitution, by which alone the slaveholding States can with honor or safety remain in the Union. But that this will be done, I have very little hope, as "madness seems to rule the hour;" and as you have thus constituted yourselves our enemies, you must not be surprised at finding that we are yours.

CHAPTER XII.

RIFT IN COMMON LAW—DIVORCE QUESTION.

1860.

During the first decade of its history the movement toward securing a larger liberty for women was known by the comprehensive term "woman's rights." At its inception, under the English common law which everywhere prevailed, woman was legally a part of man's belongings, one of his chattels. Restrained by custom from speaking in public or expressing herself through the newspapers, she had been silent under the oppression of ages. When at length she found her voice there were so many wrongs to be righted that she scarcely knew which first should receive attention. Those early meetings could not be called woman suffrage conventions, for many who advocated all the other reforms which they considered either disbelieved in or were indifferent to the franchise. It was only the Anthonys, Stantons, Stones, Roses, Garrisons, Phillips of this great movement for woman's liberty who were philosophical enough to see that the right of suffrage was the underlying principle of the whole question; so it was not for many years, not until practically all other demands had been granted, that they were finally resolved into a suffrage organization, pure and simple. At the beginning of 1860 the laws relating to women, as briefly stated by the great jurist, David Dudley Field, were as follows:

The elective franchise is confined entirely to men. A married woman can not sue for her services, as all she earns legally belongs to the husband, whereas his earnings belong to himself, and the wife legally has no interest in them. Where children have property and both parents are living, the father is the guardian. In case of the wife's death without a will, the husband is entitled to all her personal property and to a life interest in the whole of her real estate to the entire exclusion of the children, even though this property may have come to her through a former husband and the children of that marriage still be living. If the husband die without a will, the widow is entitled to one-third of the personal property and to a life interest in one-third only of the real estate. In case a wife be personally injured, either in reputation by slander, or in body by accident, compensation must be recovered in the joint name of herself and her husband, and when recovered it belongs to him. On the other hand, the wife has no legal claim in a similar case in regard to the husband. The father may by deed or will appoint a guardian for the minor children, who may thus be taken entirely away from the jurisdiction of the mother at his death. Where both parents are dead, the children shall be given to the nearest of kin and, as between relatives of the same degree of consanguinity, males shall be preferred. No married woman can act as administrator in any case.

One can not but ask why, under such laws, women ever would marry, but in those days virtually all occupations were closed to them and the vast majority were compelled to marry for support. In the few cases where women had their own means, they married because of the public sentiment which considered it a serious reproach to remain a spinster and rigorously forbade to her all the pleasures and independence that are freely accorded to the unmarried woman of today. And they married because it is natural for women to marry, and all laws and all customs, all restrictions and all freedom, never will circumvent nature.

On February 3 and 4, 1860, the State Woman's Rights Convention was held at Albany in Association Hall, an interesting and successful meeting. At its close, in a letter to Mrs. Wright, Miss Anthony said: "Mr. Anson Bingham, chairman of the judiciary committee, will bring in a radical report in favor of all our claims, but previous to doing so he wishes our strongest arguments made before the committee and says Mrs. Stanton must come. I wish you would slip over there and make her feel that the salvation of the Empire State, at least of the women in it, depends upon her bending all her powers to move the hearts of our law-givers at this time. I should go there myself this very night but I must watch and encourage friends here." Mrs. Stanton replied to her urgent appeal: "I am willing to do the appointed work at Albany. If Napoleon says cross the Alps, they are crossed. You must come here and start me on the right train of thought, as your practical knowledge of just what is wanted is everything in getting up the right document."

The readers of history never will be able to separate Miss Anthony's addresses from Mrs. Stanton's; they themselves scarcely could do it. Some of the strongest ever written by either were prepared without the assistance of the other, but most of their resolutions, memorials and speeches were the joint work of both. Miss Anthony always said, "Mrs. Stanton is my sentence maker, my pen artist." No one can excel Miss Anthony in logic of thought or vigor of expression; no one is so thoroughly supplied with facts, statistics and arguments, but she finds it difficult and distasteful to put them into written form. When, however, some one else has taken her wonderful stock of material and reduced it to shape, she is a perfect critic. Her ear is as carefully attuned to the correct balance of words as that of a skilled musician to harmony in music. She will detect instantly a weak spot in a sentence or a paragraph and never fail to suggest the exact word or phrase needed to give it poise and strength.

Mrs. Stanton had a large house and a constantly increasing family, making it exceedingly difficult to find time for literary work; so when a state paper was to be written, Miss Anthony would go to Seneca Falls. After the children were in bed, the two women would sit up far into the night arranging material and planning their work. The next day Mrs. Stanton would seek the quietest spot in the house and begin writing, while Miss Anthony would give the children their breakfast, start the older ones to school, make the dessert for dinner and trundle the babies up and down the walk, rushing in occasionally to help the writer out of a vortex. Many an article which will be read with delight by future generations was thus prepared. Mrs. Stanton describes these occasions in her charming Reminiscences:

It was mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational and woman's rights conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions, agricultural reports and constitutional arguments, for we made it a matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work. With the cares of a large family, perhaps I might in time, like too many women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow selfishness, had not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in which women had an equal interest without an equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a fire-brand in the midst of their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn I knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by the ears with our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau stuffed with facts was opened and there we had what Rev. John Smith and Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretation of Bible texts, statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of some college, half-paid for their work, reports of some disgraceful trial—injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers, a petition to the Legislature, letters to the faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, call on the Lily, the Una, the Liberator, the Standard, to remember our wrongs. We never met without issuing a pronunciamento on some question.

In thought and sympathy we were one, and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In writing we did better work together than either could do alone. While she is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together we made arguments which have stood unshaken by the storms of nearly fifty long years.[29]

In 1878 Theodore Tilton gave this graphic description: "These two women, sitting together in their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fireworks to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious and political assemblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half welcome of the members; more often to the bewilderment and prostration of numerous victims; and in a few signal instances, to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country; nor will they themselves deny the charge. In fact, this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum for keeping up what Daniel Webster called 'the rub-a-dub of agitation.'"

On March 19, 1860, Mrs. Stanton presented her address to a joint session of the Legislature at Albany, occupying the speaker's desk and facing as magnificent an audience as ever assembled in the old Capitol. It was a grand plea for a repeal of the unjust and oppressive laws relating to women, and it was universally said that its eloquence could not have been surpassed by any man in the United States. A bill was then in the hands of the judiciary committee, simply an amendment of the Property Law of 1848, to which Andrew J. Colvin objected as not liberal enough. Miss Anthony gave him a very radical bill just introduced into the Massachusetts Legislature, which he examined carefully, adding several clauses to make it still broader. It was accepted by the committee, composed of Messrs. Hammond, Ramsey and Colvin, reported to the Senate and passed by that body in February. It was concurred in by the Assembly the day following Mrs. Stanton's speech, and signed by Governor Edwin D. Morgan.[30] This new law declared in brief:

Any property, real and personal, which any married woman now owns, or which may come to her by descent, etc., shall be her sole and separate property, not subject to control or interference by her husband.

Any married woman may bargain, sell, etc., carry on any trade or perform any services on her own account, and her earnings shall be her sole and separate property and may be used or invested by her in her own name.

A married woman may buy, sell, make contracts, etc., and if the husband has willfully abandoned her, or is an habitual drunkard, or insane, or a convict, his consent shall not be necessary.

A married woman may sue and be sued, bringing action in her own name for damages and the money recovered shall be her sole property.

Every married woman shall be joint guardian of her children with her husband, with equal powers, etc., regarding them.

At the decease of the husband the wife shall have the same property rights as the husband would have at her death.

This remarkable action, which might be termed almost a legal revolution, was the result of nearly ten years of laborious and persistent effort on the part of a little handful of women who, by constant agitation through conventions, meetings and petitions, had created a public sentiment which stood back of the Legislature and gave it sanction to do this act of justice. While all these women worked earnestly and conscientiously to bring about this great reform, there was but one, during the entire period, who gave practically every month of every year to this purpose, and that one was Susan B. Anthony. In storm and sunshine, in heat and cold, in seasons of encouragement and in times of doubt, criticism and contumely, she never faltered, never stopped. Going with her petition from door to door, only to have them shut in her face by the women she was trying to help; subjecting herself to the jeers and insults of men whom she need never have met except for this mission; held up by the press to the censure and ridicule of thousands who never had seen or heard her; misrepresented and abused above all other women because she stood in the front of the battle and offered herself a vicarious sacrifice—can the women of New York, can the women of the nation, ever be sufficiently grateful to this one who, willingly and unflinchingly, did the hardest pioneer work ever performed by mortal?

Miss Anthony divided the winter of 1860 between the anti-slavery and the woman's cause. As she had very little on hand (!) she arranged another course of lectures for Rochester, inviting A.D. Mayo, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Starr King and others. These speakers were in the employ of the lyceum bureau, but were so restricted by it that they could give their great reform, lectures only under private management. At the close of Emerson's he said to Miss Anthony that he had been instrumental in establishing the lyceum for the purpose of securing a freedom of speech not permitted in the churches, but he believed that now he would have to do as much to break it up, because of its conservatism, and organize some new scheme which would permit men and women to utter their highest thought. She was in the habit of arranging many of her woman's rights meetings in different towns when Phillips or others were to be there for a lyceum lecture, thus securing them for a speech the following afternoon.