The next day, almost without assistance and deserted by those who should have stood by her, she went through with the remaining three sessions and brought the convention to a close. In her diary that evening is written: "A sad day for me; all came near being lost. Our ship was so nearly stranded by leaving the helm to others, that we rescued it only by a hair's breadth." She stopped at Lydia Mott's and then at Martha Wright's for comfort and sympathy, finding them in abundant measure, and reached home strengthened and refreshed, ready again to take up the work.
At the request of many suffrage advocates, Miss Anthony and Laura De Force Gordon went to the National Liberal Convention, at Cincinnati, May 2, 1872, with a resolution asking that as liberal Republicans they should hold fast to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and recognize the right of women to the franchise. The ladies were politely treated and invited to seats on the platform, but were not allowed to appear before the committee and no attention was paid to their resolution. They expected no favors from the presiding officer, Carl Schurz, the foreign born, always a bitter opponent of woman suffrage, but they had hoped for assistance from B. Gratz Brown, George W. Julian, Theodore Tilton and other leading spirits of the meeting, who had been open and avowed friends; but it was the old, old story—political exigency required that women must be sacrificed, and this so-called Liberal convention was no more liberal on this subject than all which had preceded it. Miss Anthony is quoted in an interview as saying:
You see our cause is just where the anti-slavery cause was for a long time. It had plenty of friends and supporters three years out of four, but every fourth year, when a President was to be elected, it was lost sight of; then the nation was to be saved and the slave must be sacrificed. So it is with us women. Politicians are willing to use us at their gatherings to fill empty seats, to wave our handkerchiefs and clap our hands when they say smart things; but when we ask to be allowed to help them in any substantial way, by assisting them to choose the best men for our law-makers and rulers, they push us aside and tell us not to bother them.
On June 7 Miss Anthony and other prominent suffrage leaders attended the National Republican Convention, at Philadelphia, which adopted the following compromise:
The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields of usefulness is received with satisfaction; and the honest demands of any class of citizens for equal rights should be treated with respectful consideration.
At the close of this meeting, the faithful Sarah Pugh slipped $20 into Miss Anthony's hand, telling her to go and confer with Mrs. Stanton. She did so and they prepared a strong letter for the New York World, calling upon the Democrats at Baltimore to adopt a woman suffrage plank if they did not wish to compel the women of the country to work for the success of the Republican ticket. Immediately after the Philadelphia convention, Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, wrote Miss Anthony:
I have given my views to Mrs. Stanton as to the wisdom of concentrating the woman suffragists in support of the Republican candidates and platform. I think if this is done earnestly, heartily and unselfishly, upon the ground of anti-slavery principle and of progressive tendencies, a strong and general reaction will set in and that, instead of "recognition," as in 1872, we shall have endorsement and victory in 1876.... I believe you love the cause better than yourself. I hope that you will see the wisdom of accepting the resolution in the friendly, generous spirit of the convention and, by accepting it, making it mean what we desire it should, which we can do if we will.
To this she replied on June 14:
Your note is here. My view of our true position is to hold ourselves as a balance of power, "to give aid and comfort," as the Springfield Republican says, to the party which shall inscribe on its banners "Freedom to Woman." If I am a Republican or Liberal or Democrat per se and work for the party right or wrong, then I make of myself and my co-workers no added power for or against the one which adopts or rejects our claim for recognition.
I do not expect any man to see and act with me here, but I do not understand how any woman can do otherwise than refuse to accept any party which ignores her sex. I will not work with a party today on the war issues or because it was true to them in the olden time; but I will work with the one which accepts the living, vital issue of today—freedom to woman—and I scarcely have a hope that Baltimore will step ahead of Philadelphia in her platform. Grant's recognition of citizens' rights evidently means to include women, and Wilson's letter openly and boldly declares the new mission of Republicanism. I, therefore, now expect to take the field—the stump, if you please to call it so—for the Republican party, but not because of any of its nineteen planks save the fourteenth, which makes mention of woman, although faintly. It is "the promise of things not seen," hence I shall clutch it as the drowning man the floating straw, and cling to it until something stronger and surer shall present itself. It is a great step to get this first recognition; it carries the discussion of our question legitimately into every school district and every ward meeting of the presidential canvass. It is what my soul has waited for these seven years. From this we shall go rapidly onward.
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker attended the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore, July 9. The latter some time before had repudiated her life-long allegiance to the Republican party, because of its treatment of woman's claims, and had declared her belief that their only chance was with the Democrats. The Baltimore Sun thus describes an interview in the corridor between the Hon. James R. Doolittle, president of the convention, and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker: "Mr. Doolittle's erect and commanding figure was set off to great advantage by his elegantly-fitting dress-coat; Mrs. Hooker, tall and erect as the lord of creation she was bearding, with her abundant tresses of beautiful gray and her intellectual, sparkling eyes; Miss Anthony, the peer of both in height, with her gold spectacles set forward on a nose which would have delighted Napoleon; the two ladies attired in rich black silk—the attention of the few who lingered was at once attracted to the picture." But Mr. Doolittle justified his name, as far as extending any assistance was concerned, and the ladies had not even seats on the platform.
As an example of the way in which the politicians tried not to do it and yet seem to sufficiently to secure such small influence as the women might possess, may be quoted a letter from Hon. John Cochran, of New York City, to Mrs. Stanton, his cousin: "I think Baltimore should speak on the subject. I am sorry Cincinnati did not. Any baby could say that fourteenth formula in the Philadelphia platform; but I would say something more if I said anything at all. Come, see if you can rig up this shaky plank and give something not quite suffrage, but so like it that all the female Sampsons will vote that it is good." The Baltimore convention, however, could not be induced to adopt even a rickety plank which might fool the women. Miss Anthony writes in her diary: "The Democrats have swallowed Cincinnati, hoofs, horns and all. No hope for women here."
While the Republican plank was unsatisfactory, it was the first time Woman ever had been mentioned in a national platform and so many glittering hopes were held out by the Republican leaders that the officers of the National Association felt justified in giving their influence to this party. They were the more willing to do this as General Grant, the nominee, had been the first President to appoint women postmasters and was known to be friendly to their claim for equal opportunities, and as Henry Wilson, candidate for Vice-President, was an avowed advocate of woman suffrage. Therefore, Miss Anthony, president, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, chairman of the executive committee, on July 19 sent out a ringing address which began:
Women of the United States, the hour for political action has come. For the first time in the history of our country, woman has been recognized in the platform of a large and dominant party. Philadelphia has spoken and woman is no longer ignored. She is now officially recognized as a part of the body politic.... We are told that the plank does not say much, that in fact it is only a "splinter;" and our Liberal friends warn us not to rely upon it as a promise of the ballot to women. What it is, we know even better than others. We recognize its meagerness;