This letter from Lucretia Mott shows that some men remained true to the woman's cause: "My husband and myself cordially hail this movement. The negro's hour came with his emancipation from cruel bondage. He now has advocates not a few for his right to the ballot. Intelligent as these are, they must see that this right can not be consistently withheld from women. We pledge $50 toward the necessary funds." At this time Miss Anthony in a strong and earnest letter showed the injustice of the Standard's behavior:
How I do wish the good old Standard would preach the whole gospel of the whole loaf of republicanism; but I am sorry to say the present indications are that it will extend even less favor to us than ever before. I gather this from Mr. Powell's announcement to me last week that henceforth, if I were not going to give my personal efforts to the Standard, he should not publish notices of our meetings except at "full advertising rates." I was not a little startled but answered: "Of course I shall say the Standard is the truest and best paper for negro suffrage; but I can not say that it is so for woman suffrage." He said he saw this and hereafter we must pay for all notices.
Now, I do complain of this and with just cause, so long as $2,000 of the sainted Hovey's money are sunk annually in the struggle to keep the Standard afloat, while Mr. Hovey's will expressly says: "In case chattel slavery should be abolished before the expenditure of the full amount, the residue shall be applied toward securing woman's rights," etc. Mr. Pillsbury told the Hovey Committee last winter, after abolition was proclaimed, that he could not in conscience accept his salary from them as editor of the Standard for another year unless it should advocate woman's claims equally with those of the negro.
In her diary she writes: "Even Charles Sumner bends to the spirit of compromise and presents a constitutional amendment which concedes the right to disfranchise law-abiding, tax-paying citizens." Robert Purvis again expressed his cordial sympathy: "I am heartily with you in the view 'that the reconstruction of the Union is a work of greater importance than the restoration of the rebel States;' and that it should be in accordance with the true republican idea of the personal rights of all our citizens, without regard to sex or color. If the settlement of this question upon the comprehensive basis of equal rights and impartial justice to all should require the postponement of the enfranchisement of the colored man, I am willing for the delay, though it should take a decade of years to 'fight it out on that line.'" Mr. Purvis frequently said in the debates of those days that he would rather his son never should be enfranchised than that his daughter never should be, as she bore the double disability of sex and color and, by every principle of justice, should be the first to be protected.
As the struggle for the enfranchisement of the negro grew more intense, and the entire burden of it fell upon the Republican party, its members became more and more insistent that the women should not jeopardize the claims of the colored man by pressing their own. Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and a few others of the stronger and more independent women declared they would not suffer in silence the injustice and insult of having this great body of ignorant men granted the political rights which were denied intelligent women; nor would they submit without protest to having a million ballots added to the mass which already were sure to be cast against the enfranchisement of women if ever the question came to a popular vote. As a result of their stand for justice, they found themselves utterly deserted by all the great leaders with whom they had labored so earnestly and harmoniously for many years—Garrison, Phillips, Greeley, Curtis, Tilton, Higginson, Douglass, Gerrit Smith. Of all the old Abolitionists only four—Samuel J. May, Robert Purvis, Parker Pillsbury and Stephen S. Foster—remained loyal to their standard. There was not one of the men repudiating them who did not believe thoroughly in the principle of woman's full right to the ballot. The women simply were sacrificed to political expediency; set aside without a moment's hesitation in obedience to the party shibboleth. "This is the negro's hour!"
1. See Appendix for this address.
2. 'WHEREAS, by the war, society is once more resolved into its original elements, and in the reconstruction of our government we again stand face to face with the broad question of natural rights, all associations based on special claims for special classes are too narrow and partial for the hour; therefore, from the baptism of a second Revolution, purified and exalted by suffering, seeing with a holier vision that the peace, prosperity and perpetuity of the republic rest on Equal Rights to All, we, today assembled in our Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, bury the woman in the citizen, and our organization in that of the American Equal Rights Association. President, Lucretia Mott; vice-presidents, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Tilton, Frederick Douglass, Josephine S. Griffing, Frances D. Gage, Robert Purvis, Martha C. Wright, Rebecca W. Mott; corresponding secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline M. Severance, Mattie Griffith; treasurer, Ludlow Patton; recording secretary, Henry B. Blackwell.
3. Mr. Beecher was invited to one of the preliminary meetings held during the summer and thus replied: "I can not come to Syracuse, much as I should like to, for I am, from the middle of August, a victim of ophthalmic catarrh, often called hay-fever or hay cold, which unfits me for any serious duty except that of sneezing and crying. That which the prophet longed for—that his eyes might become a fountain of tears—I have, unlonged for, and I am persuaded that Jeremiah would never have asked for it a second time, if he had but once tried it. The visit to Gerrit Smith's is tempting but at this, like many another good thing, I look and pass on."
4. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.
Chapter XVII:
Campaigns in New York and Kansas
(1867)
Canvass of New York to secure Woman Suffrage Amendment to new State Constitution; scurrilous comment of Buffalo Commercial; praise of Troy Times; Miss Anthony rebukes selfish woman; always assumes the drudgery; Beecher can not work in organizations; Lucy Stone's letters from Kansas on action of Republicans; Beecher's speech in New York on Woman Suffrage; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton prepare Memorial to Congress; Miss Anthony and Greeley break lances at Albany; Curtis stands by the women; Mrs. Greeley's petition used to checkmate her husband; Anna Dickinson's indignation; Kansas Republican Committee fights Woman Suffrage; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton go to Kansas; hardships of the campaign; Mrs. Starrett's description of Miss Anthony; negroes oppose woman suffrage; George Francis Train comes to the rescue; Suffrage Amendment defeated; Leavenworth Commercial pays tribute; Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Train make lecture tour from Omaha to Boston; persecution by former friends.
The first three months of 1867 were spent by Miss Anthony and a corps of speakers in a series of conventions throughout the State of New York in order to secure for women a representation in the Constitutional Convention. The history of these was that of many which had preceded them, large crowds and much enthusiasm in some places, small audiences and chilling receptions at others. The press comments were generally fair, but occasionally there was a weak attempt at wit or satire. For instance, the editor of the Buffalo Commercial thus replied through his columns to a polite note from Miss Anthony enclosing an advertisement of the convention and requesting that the blank space left be filled with the names of places where tickets usually were sold, the bill to be sent to her:
By reference to the notice which we publish elsewhere, it will be seen that we have complied with the request of Susan, except in giving the names of places where tickets are to be had. "The bars of the principal hotels" suggested itself; but then it occurred to us that perhaps some of our strong-minded female fellow-citizens might not like to go