The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 22

Notwithstanding the rebuff they had received from the Anti-Slavery Society, this resolution was unanimously adopted and the Woman's Rights Society which had existed practically for sixteen years was merged into the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation to work for universal suffrage. A const.i.tution was adopted and officers chosen.[37] Mrs. Stanton thus describes the last moments of the convention: "As Lucretia Mott uttered her few parting words of benediction, the fading sunlight through the stained windows falling upon her pure face, a celestial glory seemed about her, a sweet and peaceful influence pervaded every heart, and all responded to Theodore Tilton when he said this closing meeting was one of the most beautiful, delightful and memorable which any of its partic.i.p.ants ever enjoyed."

A short time thereafter Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton were in the Standard office discussing the work. Mr.

Phillips argued that the time was ripe for striking the word "white"

out of the New York const.i.tution, at its coming convention, but not for striking out "male." Mr. Tilton supported him, in direct contradiction to all he had so warmly advocated only a few weeks before, and said what the women should do was to canva.s.s the State with speeches and pet.i.tions for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro, leaving that of the women to come afterward, presumably twenty years later, when there would be another revision of the const.i.tution. Mrs. Stanton, entirely overcome by the eloquence of these two gifted men, acquiesced in all they said; but Miss Anthony, who never could be swerved from her standard by any sophistry or blandishments, was highly indignant and declared that she would sooner cut off her right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for woman. After Phillips had left, she overheard Tilton say to Mrs. Stanton, "What does ail Susan? She acts like one possessed." Mrs. Stanton replied, "I can not imagine; I never before saw her so unreasonable and absolutely rude."

She was obliged to leave immediately to keep an engagement, but as soon as she was at liberty went straight to Mrs. Stanton's home, and found her walking up and down the long parlors, wringing her hands. She threw her arms around Miss Anthony, exclaiming: "I never was so glad to see you. Do tell me what is the matter with me? I feel as if I had been scourged from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet!" They sat down together and went over the whole conversation, and she then saw and felt most keenly the insult and degradation concealed in the proposition of the two men, and agreed with Miss Anthony that she would sacrifice her life before she would accept it.

This incident ill.u.s.trates one marked difference in these two women, each so strong in her own characteristics. Mrs. Stanton in the presence of brilliant intellect and elegant culture at times would seem to be entirely psychologized, even though the arguments used were in direct conflict with her own instincts and judgment. On the contrary, no eloquence, no persuasiveness of manner, no magnetic power could induce Miss Anthony for one moment to abandon her convictions of truth and justice. Mrs. Stanton's disposition was one of extreme suavity which loved to please, while Miss Anthony's nature was rugged, unflinching and stern in upholding the right without regard to expediency.

On May 31 both the Anti-Slavery Society and the Equal Rights a.s.sociation held large meetings in Boston. The latter, in conformity with its new name, announced that "any member of the audience, man or woman, was ent.i.tled to speak on the topics under debate and would be made welcome." This had been the rule always in the old woman's rights conventions, but it was reaffirmed now in order to show the broad and catholic spirit of the new organization. At this Boston meeting Anna d.i.c.kinson made her first speech for the rights of woman. It was one of those bursts of inspiration which no pen can reproduce, and was received by the audience with cheer upon cheer. She gave $100 to the cause, a.s.suring them of her services henceforth, and Miss Anthony wrote of her, "She is sound to the heart's core."

The great work of rolling up pet.i.tions, not only to Congress but to the New York Const.i.tutional Convention, was then commenced. The executive board of the Standard offered to lease to the Equal Rights a.s.sociation office-room and a certain amount of s.p.a.ce in the paper. These, however, were put at such a price and placed under such restrictions as it was thought unwise to accept. All the matter submitted would be subject to "editorial revision," even though the a.s.sociation paid for the s.p.a.ce, and as Mr. Pillsbury had resigned the editorship and Mr. Powell had taken it, they decided they could not trust the "editorial revision."

The women had done so vast an amount of gratuitous work for the Standard in past years, that they felt themselves ent.i.tled to more liberal treatment. The editor had written, only a short time before, of the excellent service Miss Anthony had rendered in straightening out the accounts. She also had secured numerous subscribers, sending in as many as thirty at a time from some of her meetings.

For the purpose of arousing public interest in the approaching New York Const.i.tutional Convention, an equal rights meeting was held at Albany, in Tweddle Hall, November 21. To make this a success Miss Anthony spent many weeks of hard work. The diary notes that, among other things, she directed and sent out 1200 complimentary tickets.[38] At this Albany convention political differences began to appear. Mrs. Stanton complimented the Democrats for the a.s.sistance they had rendered; Frederick Dougla.s.s objected to their receiving any credit, branding their advocacy as a trick of the enemy, and there were frequent sharp encounters. Miss Anthony made an extended speech, of which there is but this newspaper report:

She referred to the a.s.sertion of Horace Greeley, that while women had the abstract right to suffrage the great majority of them did not wish it. So they told us when we said the negro ought to be free; he did not wish it; he was contented and happy. As we replied relative to the negro, so do we regarding women. If they do not desire the right to vote, it is an evidence of the depth to which they have been degraded by its deprivation. A woman clerk, in the New York Mercantile Library, told her that during the war the salaries of the male clerks all had been raised, but not those of the women, and a man's, who held an inferior position, had been increased to $300 more than her own. The clerk said that if she had been a voter she did not believe such injustice would have been perpetrated. In Rochester the salaries of the male teachers in the public schools were raised $100 per annum while the small salaries of the women were still further reduced. In Auburn $200 additional compensation was voted to the male teachers and $25 to the women, who thereupon held a meeting and pa.s.sed an ironical resolution thanking the board for their liberal allowance. The board then required them to sign a paper saying they did not intend an insult, and those who did not make such recantation were discharged. The speaker then referred to the power of the ballot. No politician dared oppose the eight-hour agitation, because the workingman held the franchise. Give the workingwoman a vote and she, too, can protect herself.

A form of pet.i.tion was approved asking that women might be members of the coming Const.i.tutional Convention and vote on the new const.i.tution.

Respectful reports were made by the New York papers with the exception of the World, which said in a long and abusive article:

Altogether the ablest, most dignified and best-balanced man in the body is Frederick Dougla.s.s, and there is a deep feeling for him for United States senator in spite of the drift of the convention, which is evidently in favor of Susan B. Anthony; notwithstanding which Elizabeth Cady Stanton is likewise a candidate with considerable strength, favoring as she does the Copperheads, the Democratic party and other dead and buried remains of alleged disloyalty. Susan is lean, cadaverous and intellectual, with the proportions of a file and the voice of a hurdy-gurdy. She is the favorite of the convention. Mrs. Stanton is of intellectual stock, impressive in manner and disposed to henpeck the convention which of course calls out resistance and much cackling.... Susan has a controlling advantage over her in the fact that she is unenc.u.mbered with a husband. As male members of Congress rarely have wives in Washington, so female members will be expected to be without husbands at the capital....

Parker Pillsbury, one of the notabilities of the body, is a good-looking white man naturally, but has a cowed and sneakish expression stealing over him, as though he regretted he had not been born a n.i.g.g.e.r or one of these females.... Lucy Stone, the president of the convention, is what the law terms a "spinster."

She is a sad old girl, presides with timidity and hesitation, is wheezy and nasal in her p.r.o.nunciation and wholly without dignity or command.... Mummified and fossilated females, void of domestic duties, habits and natural affections; crack-brained, rheumatic, dyspeptic, henpecked men, vainly striving to achieve the liberty of opening their heads in presence of their wives; self-educated, oily-faced, insolent, gabbling negroes, and Theodore Tilton, make up the less than a hundred members of this caravan, called, by themselves, the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation.

On December 6 and 7 a ma.s.s meeting was held in Cooper Inst.i.tute, Miss Anthony presiding. There were the usual effective speeches and large and appreciative audiences present at every session. From New York the speakers went at once to Rochester and held a two days' convention there. The forces then divided and, under the management of Miss Anthony, held meetings in a large number of the towns of western and central New York, to arouse public sentiment in favor of giving women a representation at the Const.i.tutional Convention.

Meanwhile the pet.i.tions asking Congress to include women in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment were rapidly pushed, and as soon as ten or twelve thousand names were secured they were sent at once to Washington, as the resolution was then under discussion. And here came the revelation which had been for some time foreshadowed--the Republicans refused to champion this cause! From the founding of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, women had been always its most loyal supporters, bearing their share of the odium and persecution of early days. When the Republican party was formed, the leading women of the country had allied themselves with it and given faithful service during the long, dark years which followed. All the Abolitionists and prominent Republicans had upheld the principle of equal rights to all, and now, when the test came, they refused to recognize the claims of woman! Some of the senators and representatives declined to present the pet.i.tions sent from their own districts; others offered them merely as pet.i.tions for "universal suffrage," carefully omitting the word "woman"

and trusting that it would be inferred they meant suffrage for the negro men.

Even Charles Sumner, who so many times had acknowledged his indebtedness to Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and the other women who were now asking for their rights, presented a pet.i.tion from Ma.s.sachusetts, headed by Lydia Maria Child, with the declaration that he did it under protest and that it was "most inopportune." Mrs. Child was the first and one of the ablest editors of the Anti-Slavery Standard, and had battled long and earnestly for the freedom of the slave at the cost of her literary popularity; but now when she asked that she might receive the rights of citizenship at least at the same time they were conferred upon the freedman, her plea was declared "most inopportune."

The Democrats in Congress, who never had favored or a.s.sisted in any way the so-called woman's rights doctrines, seized upon this opportunity to hara.s.s the Republicans and defeat negro suffrage. They not only presented the women's pet.i.tions but made long and eloquent speeches in their favor, using with telling force against the Republicans their own oft-repeated arguments for equal rights to all. In the midst of this agitation, the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill being under discussion, Edgar Cowan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, moved to strike out the word "male," and thus precipitated a debate which occupied three entire days in the Senate. Among the Republicans Benjamin F. Wade and B. Gratz Brown made splendid arguments for woman suffrage and announced their votes in favor of the measure. Senator Wilson, from Ma.s.sachusetts, declared himself ready at any and all times to vote for a separate bill enfranchising women, but opposed to connecting it with negro suffrage. The vote in the Senate to strike the word "male" from the proposed bill resulted: yeas, 9; nays, 47; in the House, yeas, 49; nays, 74--68 not voting. A number of members in both Houses who believed in woman suffrage voted "no" because they preferred to sacrifice the women rather than the negroes.[39]

[Autograph: B.F. Wade]

[Autograph: With the respects of B. Gratz Brown]

The Republican press was equally hostile to the proposition to enfranchise women. Mr. Greeley, who in times past had been so staunch a supporter of woman's rights, now said in the New York Tribune:

A CRY FROM THE FEMALES,--.... Our heart warms with pity towards these unfortunate creatures. We fancy that we can see them, deserted of men, and bereft of those rich enjoyments and exalted privileges which belong to women, languishing their unhappy lives away in a mournful singleness, from which they can escape by no art in the construction of waterfalls or the employment of cotton-padding. Talk of a true woman needing the ballot as an accessory of power, when she rules the world by a glance of her eye! There was sound philosophy in the remark of an Eastern monarch, that his wife was sovereign of the empire, because she ruled his little ones and his little ones ruled him. The sure panacea for such ills as the Ma.s.sachusetts pet.i.tioners complain of, is a wicker-work cradle and a dimple-cheeked baby.

The New York Post, which under Mr. Bryant's editorship had favored the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, also took ground against it now, and this was the att.i.tude of Republican papers in all parts of the country. The Democratic press was opposed, except when it could make capital against the Republicans by espousing it.

In November Miss Anthony went to a great anti-slavery meeting in Philadelphia. Between the two sessions, Lucretia Mott invited about twenty of the leading men and women to lunch with her. At her request Miss Anthony acted as spokesman and, in behalf of the women, begged Mr.

Phillips to reconsider his position and make the woman's and the negro's cause identical, but here, in the presence of the women who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him in all his hard-fought battles of the last twenty years, he again refused, declaring that their time had not yet come. Miss Anthony sent the most impa.s.sioned appeals to the Joint Committee of Fifteen, with Thaddeus Stevens as chairman, which had charge of the congressional policy on reconstruction, urging that if they could not report favorably on the pet.i.tions, at least they would not interpose any new barrier against woman's right to the ballot; but, although Mr. Stevens had ever been friendly to the claims of women, he refused to recognize them now. Everywhere they were met by the cry, "This is the negro's hour!"

It was a long time before the women could believe that the Republicans and Abolitionists, who had advocated their cause for years, would forsake them at this critical moment. The letters written during this period showed the agony of spirit they endured as they beheld one after another repudiating their demands and setting them aside in favor of the negro. Not only did the men thus abandon the cause of equal rights but, by their specious arguments, they persuaded many of the women that it was their duty to sacrifice their own claims and devote themselves to securing suffrage for the colored men. This indignant letter from Mrs. Stanton to one of the "old guard," who at first declined to circulate pet.i.tions, will serve as an example of many which were sent to the women:

I have just read your letter, and it would have been a wet blanket to Susan and me were we not sure that we are right. With three bills before Congress to exclude us from all hope of representation in the future, I thank G.o.d that _two_ women of the nation felt the insult and decided to rouse the rest to use the only right we have in the government--the right of pet.i.tion. If the pet.i.tion goes with our names alone, ours be the glory, and the disgrace to all the rest! We have sent out 1,000 franked by Representative James Brooks, of the New York Express, and if they come back to us empty, Susan and I will sign all of them, that every Democratic member may have one to shame those hypocritical Republicans. When your granddaughters hear that against such insults you made no protest, they will blush for their ancestry.

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 emanc.i.p.ation 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lucretia Mott]

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 const.i.tutional 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 s.e.x 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 s.e.x and color and, by every principle of justice, should be the first to be protected.

As the struggle for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 ma.s.s which already were sure to be cast against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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, Dougla.s.s, 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!"

[Footnote 36: See Appendix for this address.]

[Footnote 37: '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 a.s.sociations based on special claims for special cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sembled in our Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, bury the woman in the citizen, and our organization in that of the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation.

_President_, Lucretia Mott; _vice-presidents_, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Tilton, Frederick Dougla.s.s, 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.]

[Footnote 38: 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 pa.s.s on."]

[Footnote 39: See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II; p. 103.]

CHAPTER XVII.

CAMPAIGNS IN NEW YORK AND KANSAS.

1867.

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 Const.i.tutional 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt of the convention and requesting that the blank s.p.a.ce 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 princ.i.p.al hotels" suggested itself; but then it occurred to us that perhaps some of our strong-minded female fellow-citizens might not like to go to these places for cards of admission. Then we thought of inserting "for freight or pa.s.sage apply to the captain on board;" but we did not know whether Susan or Elizabeth was captain, and a row might have resulted, in which case the former would probably become "black-eyed Susan." We finally concluded not to meddle with the matter but to let Susan and Elizabeth do as the man insisted upon doing who enacted the part of the king in the play, and who profanely declared that as he _was_ king, he would die just where he d---- pleased. The girls can sell tickets just where "they've a mind ter." We may not be able to give the proposed meeting "frequent editorial notice;" still the probabilities are that we shall allude to it if we live and do well, and we shan't charge Susan a cent for our services. We would not have it said, nor would we have you, "O Susan, Susan, lovely dear," imagine that we are ag'in "the one true basis of a genuine republic."

And yet, after all this, the freedom-loving General Rufus Saxton had the courage to preside at the meeting and introduce the speakers. He subsequently wrote: "I pray that G.o.d will bless your n.o.ble work and that, sooner than you think, woman shall be admitted to her proper place, where G.o.d intended she should be, and to exclude her from which must, like any other great wrong, bring misery and sorrow." The Troy Times said:

The last time we heard Miss Anthony speak was in 1861, shortly after the election of Lincoln when, it will be remembered, she was mobbed from city to city. Since then time and the various undertakings in which she has engaged have apparently had no effect upon her, unless to render her more eloquent and more sanguine of the ultimate righting of all wrongs, and to inspire additional enthusiasm for a cause to which she has clung with a perseverance deserving admiration. She is very choice in the selection of words and phrases, speaks in an earnest, attractive monotone, and really made one of the most eloquent and sensible speeches for female suffrage to which we ever listened.

At Fairfield, Herkimer Co., Miss Anthony spoke in the presence of a large number of students from the academy and, at the close of her address, there were vigorous calls for the wife of the princ.i.p.al, who was known to be opposed to any phase of so-called woman's rights. She finally responded and, in the course of her remarks, said that when she was a teacher she used to believe that women should receive the same salary as men, but since she had married and realized the responsibilities of a man of family, she had been converted to the belief that men should receive more than women. Miss Anthony at once retorted: "It would seem then, that so long as you were earning your own living you wanted a good salary, but so soon as you give your services to a husband, you want him to receive the value of both your work and his own, regardless of those women who still have to support themselves and very often a family." The fact that the lady was her hostess did not save her from this merited rebuke, which was heartily appreciated and enjoyed by the students.

In these tours the burden of the preliminary arrangements always was a.s.sumed by Miss Anthony. When Mrs. Stanton and she reached a place where a meeting was to be held, the former would go at once to bed, while the latter rushed to the newspaper offices to look after the advertising, then to the hall to see that all was in readiness, and usually conducted the afternoon session alone. In the evening Mrs.

Stanton would appear, rested and radiant, and read a carefully written address, while Miss Anthony, exhausted and having had no time to prepare a speech, would make a few impromptu remarks as best she could.