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."
Respectfully yours,
E. H. Chapin.
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