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.1 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,2 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:
The Daughters—Our characters they elevate,
Our manners they refine;
Without them we'd degenerate