The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 18

This closed the series of conventions. With a Republican mayor in every other city, there had been no attempt at official protection; and yet it may be remembered, in extenuation, that it is always easier for the party out of power than for the one in power to stand for principle; the former has nothing to lose. The Republicans at this time were panic-stricken and staggering under the weight of responsibility suddenly laid upon them; and the Abolitionists, by their radical demands and scathing criticism, were adding to their difficulties.

There can be no justification, however, for any official who is too cowardly or too dishonest to fulfill the duties of his office.

Immediately upon the close of this anti-slavery meeting, the State Woman's Rights Convention was held in Albany, February 7 and 8. Mr.

Garrison, Mrs. Rose, Lucretia Mott and many of the old brilliant galaxy were among the speakers. They little thought that this was the last convention they would hold for five years, that a long and terrible war would cast its shadow over every household before they met again, that differences would arise in their own ranks, and that never more would they come together in the old, fraternal spirit that had bound them so closely and given them strength to bear the innumerable hards.h.i.+ps which so largely had been their portion.

After the Albany meeting, Miss Anthony at once began preparations for the National Woman's Rights Convention in New York in May. The date was set, the Tabernacle secured and many of the speakers engaged, but in the meantime the affairs of the nation had become more and more complicated; the threatened secession of the Southern States had been accomplished; the long-expected, long-dreaded crisis seemed close at hand; the people were uncertain and bewildered in the presence of the dreadful catastrophe. All thought, all interest, all action were centered in the new President. The whole nation was breathlessly awaiting the declaration of Lincoln's policy. To call any kind of meeting which had an object other than that relating to the preservation of the Union seemed almost a sacrilege. Letters poured in upon Miss Anthony urging her to relinquish all idea of a convention, but she never had learned to give up. Even after the fall of Sumter and the President's call for troops, the letters were still insisting that she declare the meeting postponed; but it was not until the abandonment of the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, which always took place the same week, and until she found there were absolutely no speakers to be had, that she finally yielded.

About this time she takes care of a sister with a baby, and writes Mrs.

Stanton: "O this babydom, what a constant, never-ending, all-consuming strain! We should never ask anything else of the woman who has to endure it. I realize more and more that rearing children should be looked upon as a profession which, like any other, must be made the primary work of those engaged in it. It can not be properly done if other aims and duties are pressing upon the mother." And yet so great was her spirit of self-sacrifice that in this same letter she offers to take entire charge of Mrs. Stanton's seven children while she makes a three months' trip abroad. At a later date, when caring for a young niece, she says: "The dear little Lucy engrosses most of my time and thoughts. A child one loves is a constant benediction to the soul, whether or not it helps to the accomplishment of great intellectual feats."

The watchword of the Abolitionists ever had been "Peace." Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Garrison, their policy had been one of non-resistance.

When war actually was precipitated, when the South had fired upon the stars and stripes and the tread of marching feet resounded through every northern city, they were amazed and bewildered. Instinctively they turned to their great leaders for guidance. In Music Hall, Boston, April 21, 1861, to an audience of over 4,000, Wendell Phillips made that masterly address, justifying "this last appeal to the G.o.d of Battles," and declaring for War. It was one of the matchless speeches of all history, and touched the keynote which soon swelled into a grand refrain from ocean to ocean. But even then there were those who waited for the declaration of Garrison, the great pioneer of Abolitionism. A letter written by Rev. Beriah Green to Miss Anthony, May 22, expresses the sentiment which pervaded the minds of many Abolitionists at this period:

I looked forward to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary with the keenest pleasure and hope. I should see luminous faces; I should bear the voice of wisdom; I should gather strength and courage and return to my task-garden refreshed and quickened. But when I read the official notice in the Standard and Liberator of the grounds on which the meeting was given up, "that nothing should be done at this solemn crisis needlessly to check or divert the mighty current of popular feeling which is now sweeping southward with the strength and impetuosity of a thousand Niagaras," I was surprised and puzzled. I have read Phillips' War Speech, marked the tenor and spirit of the Liberator, seen the stars and stripes paraded in the Standard, perused James Freeman Clarke's sermon, and I feel more desolate and solitary than ever. Mrs. Stanton, too, is for War for the Union, and I say to myself: "How will Susan Anthony and Parker Pillsbury and all the other old comrades be affected by these signs of the times?"

Miss Anthony replied in the same strain:

A feeling of sadness, almost of suffocation, has been mine ever since the first announcement that the anti-slavery meeting was postponed. I can not welcome the demon of expediency or consent to be an abettor, by silence any more than by word or act, of wicked means to accomplish an end, not even for the sake of emanc.i.p.ating the slaves. I have tried hard to persuade myself that I alone remained mad, while all the rest had become sane, because I have insisted that it is our duty to bear not only our usual testimony but one even louder and more earnest than ever before.... The Abolitionists, for once, seem to have come to an agreement with all the world that they are out of time and place, hence should hold their peace and spare their rebukes and anathemas. Our position to me seems most humiliating, simply that of the politicians, one of expediency not principle. I have not yet seen one good reason for the abandonment of all our meetings, and am more and more ashamed and sad that even the little Apostolic number have yielded to the world's motto--"the end justifies the means."

As the long, hard winter's work had left her very tired she gladly turned to that haven of refuge, the farm-home. The father, who was willing always to put the control of affairs into her capable hands, took this opportunity to make a long-desired trip to Kansas, going the first of May and returning in September. She a.s.sumed the entire management of the farm, put in the crops, watched over, harvested and sold them; a.s.sisted her mother with the housework and the family sewing and, by way of variety, pieced a silk quilt and wove twenty yards of rag carpet in the old loom. She found time, more-over, to go to the Progressive Friends' meeting at Junius and to attend the State Teachers' Convention at Watertown. She also managed a large anti-slavery Fourth of July meeting at Gregory's grove, near Rochester, securing a number of distinguished speakers. In writing her, relative to this meeting, Frederick Dougla.s.s said: "I rejoice not in the death of any one, yet I can not but feel that, in the death of Stephen A.

Douglas, a most dangerous person has been removed. No man of his time has done more than he to intensify hatred of the negro and to demoralize northern sentiment. Since Henry Clay he has been the King of Compromise. Yours for the freedom of man and of woman always."

[Autograph: Frederick Dougla.s.s]

From her diary may be obtained an idea of the busy life which only allowed the briefest entries, but these show her restlessness and dissatisfaction:

Tried to interest myself in a sewing society; but little intelligence among them.... Attended Progressive Friends' meeting; too much namby-pamby-ism.... Went to colored church to hear Dougla.s.s. He seems without solid basis. Speaks only popular truths.... Quilted all day, but sewing seems to be no longer my calling.... I stained and varnished the library bookcase today, and superintended the plowing of the orchard.... The last load of hay is in the barn; all in capital order. Fitted out a fugitive slave for Canada with the help of Harriet Tubman.... The teachers'

convention was small and dull. The woman's committee failed to report. I am mortified to death for them.... Washed every window in the house today. Put a quilted petticoat in the frame. Commenced Mrs. Browning's Portuguese Sonnets. Have just finished Casa Guidi Windows, a grand poem and so fitting to our terrible struggle.... I wish the government would move quickly, proclaim freedom to every slave and call on every able-bodied negro to enlist in the Union army. How not to do it seems the whole study at Was.h.i.+ngton. Good, stiff-backed Union Democrats would dare to move; they would have nothing to lose and all to gain for their party. The present inc.u.mbents have all to lose; hence dare not avow any policy, but only wait. To forever blot out slavery is the only possible compensation for this merciless war.

All through the chroniclings of the monotonous daily life is the cry: "The all-alone feeling will creep over me. It is such a fast after the feast of great presences to which I have been so long accustomed."

During these days she reads Adam Bede, and thus writes Mrs. Stanton:

I finished Adam Bede yesterday noon. I can not throw off the palsied oppression of its finale to poor, poor Hetty--and Arthur almost equally commands my sympathy. He no more desired to wrong her or cause her one hour of sorrow than did Adam, but the impulse of his nature brooked no restraint. Should public sentiment tolerate such a consummation of love--or pa.s.sion, if it were not love? (But I believe it was, only the impa.s.sable barrier of caste forbade its public avowal.) If such a birth could be left free from odium and scorn, contempt and pity from the world, it would be a thousand times more holy, more happy, than many of those in legal marriage. It will not do for me to read romances; they are too real to shake off. What is the irresistible power so terrifically pictured in both Hetty and Arthur, which led them on to the very ill they most would shun?

To crown the result I went to the colored church to hear Sallie Holley, but she did not come. Mrs. Coleman was in the pulpit and read a poem of Gerald Ma.s.sey on Peace, spoke a few minutes and said she saw Miss Anthony present and hoped she'd occupy the time. Then rang round the house the appalling cry of "Miss Anthony." There was no escape, and I staggered up and stammered out a few words and sat down--dead, killed--thoroughly enraged that I had not spent the forenoon in making myself ready at least to read something, instead of poring over Adam Bede.

To this Mrs. Stanton replies: "You speak of the effect of Adam Bede on you. It moved me deeply, and The Mill on the Floss is another agony.

Such books as these explain why the 'marriage question' is all-absorbing. O, Susan, are you ever coming to visit me again? It would be like a new life to spend a day with you. How I shudder when I think of our awful experience with those mobs last winter, and yet even now I long for action." Miss Anthony was equally restive in her own seclusion which, although by no means an idle one, had shut her from the great outside world that at this hour seemed to cry aloud for the best service of every man and woman. In January, 1862, she went to Mrs.

Stanton's and together they prepared an address for the State Anti-Slavery Convention to be held at Albany, February 7 and 8, and here in the society of Garrison and Phillips, she received fresh inspiration. Soon after reaching home, at Phillips' request, she arranged a lecture for him in Rochester. After paying all expenses, she sent him a check--there is no record of its size--but he returned a portion, saying:

DEAR SUSAN: Thank you, but you are too generous. I can't take such an awful big lion's share, even to satisfy your modesty. Put the enclosed, with my thanks, into your own pocket, as a slight compensation for all your trouble. Remember and pay my successor not one cent more than you can afford.... I had to charter a locomotive all to myself to get back from Oswego in time for Rondout. Riding in the darkness with the engineer through the snow gave me time to think of the pleasant group and supper I missed the night before at the Hallowells. Kind regards to them. Tell Mrs.

Hallowell her lunch tasted good about midnight, as I entered Syracuse.

Miss Anthony managed the usual series of lectures this winter. When she sent Mr. Tilton his check he returned this rollicking answer:

DEAR S.B.A.: I received your letter and its enclosure, which latter has already vanished like April snow, to pay the debts of the subscriber.... Our morning ride with our good friend Frederick gives me pleasure whenever I think of it. Those pictures of Mount Hope and the waterfall were better than any in the Academy of Design. As to yourself, I have had some talk with Rev. Oliver Johnson about your "sphere," and we both agree that you are defrauding some honest man of his just due. I recommend that you form an acquaintance, with a view to prospective results for life, with some well-settled, Old-School Presbyterian clergyman, and send me some of the cake.

[Autograph: Theodore Tilton]

In 1862, as the previous year, Miss Anthony was determined to hold a National Woman's Rights Convention in New York, but her efforts met with no favorable response and so, for the second time, she was obliged to give up the annual protest which seemed to her a sacred duty. She did not then acknowledge, nor has she ever admitted, that there is any question of more vital importance than that relating to the freedom of woman. Defeated here she decided to start out again in the anti-slavery lecture field, since, as she wrote her friend Lydia: "It is so easy to feel your power for public work slipping away if you allow yourself to remain too long snuggled in the Abrahamic bosom of home. It requires great will-force to resurrect one's soul." In her tour she visited Adams, accompanied by her loved niece, Ann Eliza McLean, and wrote back an amusing account of how she lectured the male relatives for requiring their women folks to use worn-out cook-stoves, broken kitchen utensils and all sorts of inconvenient things in the household. While there she went with a large party of relatives over the mountains to see the wonderful Hoosac Tunnel, now well under way. One day she spoke to an audience on the very top of the Green mountains. On this trip, having for a rarity a little leisure, she visited the art galleries of New York and wrote:

My very heart of hearts has been made to rejoice in the work of two of earth's n.o.blest women--Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur. Twice have I visited the Academy of Design and there have I sat in silent, reverential awe, with eyes intent upon the marble face of Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci. I have no power to express my hope, my joy, my renewed faith in womanhood. In the accomplishment of that grand work of the sculptor's chisel, making that cold marble breathe and pulsate, Harriet Hosmer has done more to enn.o.ble and elevate woman than she possibly could have done by mere words, it matters not how G.o.dlike; though I would not ignore true words, for it is these which rouse to action the latent powers of the Harriet Hosmers.... Even the rude and uncultivated seem awed into silence when they come into the presence of that sleeping, but speaking purity. Rosa Bonheur is the first woman who has dared venture into the field of animal painting, and her work not only surpa.s.ses anything ever done by a woman, but is a bold and successful step beyond all other artists. Mark another significant fact: The three greatest productions of art during the past three years are by women--Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair and Harriet Hosmer's Beatrice Cenci--and these triumphs are in three of its most difficult and exalted departments.

In April she took Mrs. Stanton's four boys from Seneca Falls to New York, and cared for them while the family were removing to that city.

In May she attended the New York Anniversary and the New England convention in Boston, and on the Fourth of July the celebration at Framingham, and during this time gave many addresses on anti-slavery.

When in Boston she had a delightful visit with the Garrisons, and called on Mrs. Phillips with Mrs. Garrison, one of the few persons admitted to the invalid's seclusion.

While all the women were giving themselves, body and soul, to the great work of the war, the New York Legislature, April 10, 1862, finding them off guard, very quietly amended the law of 1860 and took away from mothers the lately-acquired right to the equal guardians.h.i.+p of their children. They also repealed the law which secured to the widow the control of the property for the care of minor children. Thus at one blow were swept away the results of nearly a decade of hard work on the part of women, and wives and mothers were left in almost the same position as under the old common law. Had one woman been a member of the Legislature, such an act never would have been possible; but the little band who for ten years had watched and toiled to protect the interests of their s.e.x, were in the sanitary commission, the hospitals, at the front, on the platform in the interest of the Union, or at home doing the work of those who had gone into the army, and this was their reward! Miss Anthony's anger and sorrow were intense when she heard of the repeal of the laws which she had spent seven long years to obtain, tramping through cold and heat to roll up pet.i.tions and traversing the whole State of New York in the dead of winter to create public sentiment in their favor. In her anguish she wrote Lydia Mott:

Your startling letter is before me. I knew some weeks ago that abominable thing was on the calendar, with some six or eight hundred bills before it, and hence felt sure it would not come up this winter, and that in the meantime we should sound the alarm.

Well, well; while the old guard sleep the "young devils" are wide awake, and we deserve to suffer for our confidence in "man's sense of justice;" but nothing short of this could rouse our women again to action. All our reformers seem suddenly to have grown politic.

All alike say: "Have no conventions at this crisis; wait until the war excitement abates;" which is to say: "Ask our opponents if they think we had better speak, or rather if they do not think we had better remain silent." I am sick at heart, but I can not carry the world against the wish and will of our best friends. What can we do now when even the motion to retain the mother's joint guardians.h.i.+p is voted down? Twenty thousand pet.i.tions rolled up for that--a hard year's work--the law secured--the echoes of our words of grat.i.tude in the Capitol scarcely died away, and now all is lost!

This year began the acquaintance with Anna d.i.c.kinson, whose letters are as refres.h.i.+ng as a breeze from the ocean:

The sunniest of sunny mornings to you, how are you today? Well and happy, I hope. To tell the truth I want to see you very much indeed, to hold your hand in mine, to hear your voice, in a word, I want _you_--I can't have you? Well, I will at least put down a little fragment of my foolish self and send it to look up at you.... I work closely and happily at my preparations for next winter--no, for the future--nine hours a day, generally; but I never felt better, exercise morning and evening, and never touch book or paper after gaslight this warm weather; so all those talks of yours were not thrown away upon me.

What think you of the "signs of the times?" I am sad always, under all my folly;--this cruel tide of war, sweeping off the fresh, young, brave life to be dashed out utterly or thrown back shattered and ruined! I know we all have been implicated in the "great wrong," yet I think the comparatively innocent suffer today more than the guilty. And the result--will the people save the country they love so well, or will the rulers dig the nation's grave?

Will you not write to me, please, soon? I want to see a touch of you very much.

[Autograph:

Very Affectionately Yours Anna E. d.i.c.kinson]

Early in September Greeley writes her: "I still keep at work with the President in various ways and believe you will yet hear him proclaim universal freedom. Keep this letter and judge me by the event."

Miss Anthony thus lectures Mrs. Stanton because she has a teacher and educates her children at home: "I am still of the opinion that whatever the short-comings of the public schools your children would be vastly more profited in them, side by side with the very mult.i.tude with whom they must mingle as soon as school days are over. Any and every private education is a blunder, it seems to me. I believe those persons stronger and n.o.bler who have from childhood breasted the commonalty. If children have not the innate strength to resist evil, keeping them apart from what they must inevitably one day meet, only increases their incompetency."

In the summer of 1862 Miss Anthony attended her last State Teachers'

Convention, which was held in Rochester, where she began her labors in this direction. In 1853 she had forced this body to grant her a share in their deliberations, the first time a woman's voice had been heard.

For ten years she never had missed an annual meeting, keeping up her members.h.i.+p dues and allowing no engagement to interfere. Year after year she had followed them up, insisting that in the conventions women teachers should hold offices, serve on committees and exercise free speech; demanding that they should be eligible to all positions in the schools with equal pay for equal work; and compelling a general recognition of their rights. All these points, with the exception of equal pay, had now been gained and there was much improvement in salaries.

Her mission here being ended, she turned her attention to other fields; but for the privileges which are enjoyed by the women teachers of the present day, they are indebted first of all to Susan B. Anthony.[31]

After speaking at intervals through the summer, she started on a regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott: "I can not feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this. I am speaking now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war. What a stay, counsel and comfort you have been to me, dear Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance meeting in that cold, smoky chapel in 1852. How you have compelled me to feel myself competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and distrust. I never can express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you."

A letter from Abby Kelly Foster at this time said: "I am especially gratified to know that you have entered the field in earnest as your own speaker, which you ought to have done years ago instead of always pus.h.i.+ng others to the front and taking the drudgery yourself." Miss Anthony was very successful, each day gaining more courage. Her sole theme was "Emanc.i.p.ation the Duty-of the Government." A prominent citizen of Schuyler county wrote her after she had spoken at Mecklinburg: "There is not a man among all the political speakers who can make that duty as plain as you have done." Her whole heart was in the work and she was constantly inspired by the thought that the day of deliverance for the slave was approaching.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

FATHER AND MOTHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

AGED 60, FROM DAGUERREOTYPES]

At the height of her enthusiasm came the heaviest blow it would have been possible for her to receive. She had come home for a few days, and the Sunday morning after election was sitting with her father talking over the political situation. They had been reading the Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard and were discussing the probable effect of Lincoln's proclamation, when suddenly he was stricken with acute neuralgia of the stomach. He had not had a day's illness in forty years and had not the slightest premonition of this attack. He lingered in great suffering for two weeks and died on November 25, 1862.

No words can express the terrible bereavement of his family. He had been to them a tower of strength. From childhood his sons and daughters had carried to him every grief and perplexity and there never had been a matter concerning them too trivial to receive his careful attention.

In manhood and womanhood they still had turned to him above all others for advice and comfort, even the grandchildren receiving always the same loving care. Between husband and wife there ever had been the deepest, truest affection. He was far ahead of his time in his recognition of the rights of women. Years before he had written to a brother: "Take your family into your confidence and give your wife the purse." He was never willing to enter into any pleasure which his wife did not share. They tell of him that once the daughters persuaded him to remain in town on a stormy evening and go to the Hutchinson concert.

As they were driving home he said: "Never again ask me to do such a thing; I suffered more in thinking of your mother at home alone than any enjoyment could possibly compensate." A short time before his death he and his wife went to Ontario Beach one afternoon and did not return till 10 o'clock. When asked by the daughters what detained them, the mother answered that they had a fish supper and then strolled on the beach by moonlight; and on their laughing at her and saying she was worse than the girls, she replied: "Your father is more of a lover today than he was the first year of our marriage."