CHAPTER XI Susan B. ANTHONY CONTINUED It was in 1852 that anti-slavery, through the eloquent lips of such men as George Thompson, Phillips and Garrison, first proclaimed to Ms. Anthony its pressing financial necessities to their inspired words she gave answer four years afterward by becoming a regularly employed agent in the anti-slavery society. For her espoused cause, she has always made boldest demands. In the abolition meetings, she used to tell each class why it should support the movement financially, invariably calling upon Democrats to give liberally, as the success of the cause would enable them to cease bowing the knee to the slave power. There is scarce a town, however small, from New York to San Francisco that has not heard her ringing voice. Who can number the speeches she has made on lyceum platforms, in churches, school houses, halls, barns, and in the open air, with a lumber wagon or a cart for her rostrum? Who can describe the varied audiences and social circles she has cheered and interested? Now we see her on the far off prairies, entertaining with sterling common sense large gatherings of men, women and children, seated on rough boards in some unfinished building, again holding debates in some town with half-fledged editors and clergymen, next sailing up the Columbia River, and in hot haste to meet some appointment, jolting over the rough mountains of Oregon and Washington, and then before legislative assemblies, constitutional conventions and congressional committees, discussing with senators and judges the letter and spirit of constitutional law. Miss Anthony's style of speaking is rapid and vehement. In debate she is ready and keen and she is always equal to an emergency, many times in traveling with her through the west, especially on our first trip to Kansas and California, we were suddenly called upon to speak to the women assembled at the stations. Filled with consternation I usually appealed to her to go first, and without a moment's hesitation she could always fill five minutes with some appropriate words, and inspire me with thoughts and courage to follow. The climax of these occasions was reached in an institution for the deaf and dumb in Michigan. I had just said to my friend, there is one comfort in visiting this place, we shall not be asked to speak, when the superintendent, approaching us, said, ladies, the pupils are assembled in the chapel ready to hear you, I promise to invite you to speak to them as soon as I heard you were in town. The possibility of addressing such an audience was as novel to Miss Anthony as to me, yet she promptly walked down the aisle to the platform as if to perform an ordinary duty, while I half distracted with anxiety, wondering by what process I was to be placed in communication with the deaf and dumb reluctantly followed. But the manner was simple enough when illustrated. The superintendent standing by our side repeated in the sign language what was said as fast as uttered, and by laughter, tears, and applause the pupils showed that they fully appreciated the pathos, humor, and argument. One night, crossing the Mississippi at McGregor, Iowa, we were ice-bound in the middle of the river. The boat was crowded with people, hungry, tired, and cross with the delay. Some gentlemen, with whom we had been talking on the cars, started the cry, speech on woman's suffrage. Accordingly, in the middle of the Mississippi River at midnight, we presented our claims to political representation and debated the question of universal suffrage until we landed. Our voyagers were quite thankful that we had shortened the many hours, and we equally so at having made several converts, and held a convention on the very bosom of the great mother of waters. Only once in all these wanderings was Miss Anthony taken by surprise, and that was on being asked to speak to the inmates of an insane asylum. Bless me, she said, it is as much as I can do to talk to the sane. What could I say to an audience of lunatics? Your companion, Virginia L. Miner of St. Louis replied, This is a golden moment for you, the first opportunity you have ever had according to the constitutions to talk to your peers, for is not the right of suffrage denied to idiots, criminals, lunatics, and women? Much curiosity has been expressed as to the love life of Miss Anthony. But if she has enjoyed or suffered any of the usual triumphs or disappointments of her sex, she has not yet foreshaved this information to her biographers. While few women have had more sincere and lasting friendships, or a more extensive correspondence with a large circle of noble men, yet I doubt if one of them can boast of having received from her any exceptional attention. She has often playfully said, when questioned on this point, that she could not consent that the man she loved, described in the Constitution as a white male, native-born, citizen possessed of the right of self-government eligible to the office of President of the Great Republic should unite his destinies in marriage with a political slave and pariah. No, no, when I am crowned with all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a citizen, I may give some consideration to this social institution. But until then I must concentrate all my energies on the enfranchisement of my own sex. Mrs. Anthony's love life, like her religion, has manifested itself in steadfast, earnest labours for men in general. She has been a watchful and affectionate daughter, sister, friend, and those who have felt the pulsations of her great heart know how warmly it beats for all. As the custom has been observed among married women of celebrating the anniversaries of their wedding day, quite properly the initiative has been taken in late years of doing honour to the great events in the lives of single women. Being united in the closest bonds to her profession, Dr. Harriet K. Hunt of Boston celebrated her twenty-fifth year of faithful services as a physician by giving to her friends and patrons a large reception, which she called her silver wedding. From a feeling of the sacredness of her life work, the admirers of Susan B. Anthony have been moved to mark by reception and convention her rapid flowing years and the passing decades of the suffrage movement. To the most brilliant occasion of this kind, the invitation cards were as follows. The ladies of the women's bureau invite you to a reception on Tuesday evening, February 15, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Susan B. Anthony, when her friends will have an opportunity to show their appreciation of her long services in behalf of women's emancipation. In response to the invitation, the parlours of the bureau were crowded with friends to congratulate Miss Anthony on the happy event, many bringing valuable gifts as an expression of their gratitude. Among other presents were a handsome gold watch and checks to the amount of a thousand dollars. The guests were entertained with music, recitations, and reading of many pecan letters of regret from distinguished people and witty rhymes written for the occasion by the Cary sisters. Miss Anthony received her guest with her usual straightforward simplicity and in a few earnest words expressed her thanks for the presents and praises showered upon her. The comments of the leading journals next day were highly complementary and as genial as amusing, all dwelt on the fact that, at last, a woman had arisen brave enough to assert her right to grow old and openly declare that a half a century had rolled over her head. Of carefully prepared written speeches Miss Anthony has made few, but these, by the high praise they called forth, proved that she can, in spite of her own declaration to the contrary, put her sterling thoughts on paper concisely and effectively. After her exhaustive plea in 1880 for a sixteenth amendment before the judiciary committee of the Senate, Senator Edmunds accosted her as she was leaving the capital and said he neglected to tell her in the committee room that she had made an argument no matter what his personal feelings were as to the conclusions reached, which was unanswerable. An argument, unlike the usual platform oratory given at hearings, suited to a committee of men trained to the law. It was in 1876 that Miss Anthony gave her much criticized lecture on social purity in Boston. As to the result she felt very anxious, for the intelligence of New England composed her audience, and it did not still her heartbeats to see sitting just in front of the platform her revered friend William Lloyd Garrison. But surely every fear vanished when she felt the grand old abolitionist's hand warmly pressing hers and heard him say that to listen to no one else would he have had the courage to leave his sick room and that he felt fully repaid by her grand speech, which neither in matter nor manner would he have changed in the smallest particle. But into Miss Anthony's private correspondence one must look for examples of her most effective writing. Verb or substantive is often wanting, but you can always catch the thought and will ever find it clear and suggestive. It is a strikingly strange dialect, but one that touches at times the deepest cords of pathos and humor, and when stirred by some great event is highly eloquent. From being the most ridiculed and mercilessly persecuted woman Miss Anthony has become the most honored and respected in the nation. Witness the praises of press and people, and the enthusiastic ovations she received on her departure for Europe in 1883. Never were warmer expressions of regret for an absence, nor more sincere prayers for a speedy return, according to any American on leaving his native shores. This slow awaking to the character of her services shows the abiding sense of justice in the human soul. Having spent the winter of 1882 to 1883 in Washington, trying to press to a vote the bill for a sixteenth amendment before Congress, and the autumn in a vigorous campaign through Nebraska, where a constitutional amendment to enfranchise women had been submitted to the people, she felt the imperative need of an entire change in the current of her thoughts. Accordingly after one of the most successful conventions ever held at the national capital, and a most flattering ovation in the spacious parlors of the Riggs House, and a large reception in Philadelphia, she sailed for Europe. Fortunate in being perfectly well during the entire journey, our traveler received perpetual enjoyment in watching the ever-varying sea and sky. To the captain's merry challenge to find anything so grand as the ocean, she replied, Yes, these mighty forces in nature do indeed fill me with awe, but this vessel with deep-buried fires, powerful machinery, spacious decks, and tapering masks, walking the waves like a thing of life, and all the work of man impresses one still more deeply. Low in man's divine creative power is fulfilled the prophecy, ye shall be as gods. In all her journeyings through Germany, Italy, and France, Miss Anthony was never the mere sightseer, but always the humanitarian and reformer in traveller's guise. Few of the great masterpieces of art gave her real enjoyment. The keen appreciation of the beauties of sculpture, painting and architecture, which one would have expected to find in so deep a religious nature, was wanting, warped no doubt by her early Quaker training. That her travels gave her more pain than pleasure was perhaps not so much that she had no appreciation of aesthetic beauty, but that she quickly grasped the infinitude of human misery, not because her soul did not feel the heights to which art had risen, but that it vibrated in every fiber to the depths of which mankind had fallen. Wandering through a gorgeous palace one day, she exclaimed, What do you find to admire here? If it were a school of five hundred children being educated into the rite of self-government, I could admire it, too. But standing for one man's pleasure, I say no. In the quarters of one of the devotees at the old monastery of the Sertosa at Florence, there lies on a small table an open book in which visitors register. On the occasion of Miss Anthony's visit, the pen and ink proved so unpromising that her entire party declined this opportunity to make themselves famous, but she made the rebellious pen inscribed Perfect equality for women, civil, political, religious, Susan B. Anthony, USA. Friends who visited the monastery next day reported that lines had been drawn through this heretical sentiment. During her visit at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sargent in Berlin, Miss Anthony quite innocently posted her letters in the official envelopes of our suffrage association, which bore the usual No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed, etc. In a few days an official brought back a large package saying, Such sentiments are not allowed to pass through the post office. Probably nothing saved her from arrest as a socialist under the tyrannical police regulations but the fact that she was the guest of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States. My son Theodore wrote of Miss Anthony's visit in Paris. I had never before seen her in the role of tourist. She seemed interested only in the historical monuments and in the men in questions of the hour. The galleries of the Louvre had little attraction for her, but she gazed with deep pleasure at Napoleon's tomb, Notre-Dame, and the ruins of the Tuileries. She was always ready to listen to discussions on the political problems before the French people, the prospects of the Republic, the divorce agitation, and the education of women. I had rather seen Jules Ferry than all the pictures of the Louvre Luxembourg and Ceylon, she remarked at table. A day or two later she saw Ferry at Le Bouyer's funeral. The three things which made the deepest impression on Miss Anthony during her stay at Paris were probably the interment of Le Bouyer, the friend of the United States of the woman movement, the touching anniversary demonstration of the communists at the cemetery of Père Lechace, on the very spot where the last defenders of the commune of 1871 were ruthlessly shot and buried in a common grave, and a woman's rights meeting held in a little hall in the Rue de Rivoli, at which the brave, far-seeing mademoiselle Hubertin Alchey was the leading spirit. While on the continent Miss Anthony experienced the unfortunate sensation of being deaf and dumb, to speak and not to be understood, to hear and not to comprehend, were her bitter realities. We can imagine to what desperation she was brought when her Quaker Prudishness could hail an emphatic oath in English from a French official with the exclamation, well, it sounds good to hear someone even swear in Anglo-Saxon. After two months of enforced silence she was buoyant in reaching the British islands, once more, where she could enjoy public speaking and general conversation. Here she was the recipient of many generous social attentions, and on May 25th a large public meeting of representative people presided over by Jacob Bright was called in our honor by the National Association of Great Britain. She spoke on the educational and political status of women in America, eye of their religious and social position. Before closing my friends' biography I shall trace two golden threads in this closely woven life of incident. One of the greatest services rendered by Miss Anthony to the suffrage cause was in casting a vote in the presidential election of 1872 in order to test the rights of women under the Fourteenth Amendment. For this offense the brave woman was arrested. On Thanksgiving Day the national holiday handed down to us by pilgrim fathers escaped from England's persecutions. She asked for a writ of habeas corpus, the writ being flatly refused in January 1873. Her counsel gave bonds. The daring defendant finding when too late that this not only kept her out of jail but her case out of the Supreme Court of the United States regretfully determined to fight on and gain the uttermost by a decision in the United States Circuit Court. Her trial was set down for the Rochester term in May. Quickly she canvassed the whole county laying before every probable juror the strength of her case. When the time for the trial arrived the district attorney fearing the result if the decision were left to a jury drawn from Miss Anthony's enlightened county transferred the trial to the Ontario county term in June 1873. It was now necessary to instruct the citizens of another county. In this task Miss Anthony received valuable assistance from Matilda Jocelyn Gage and to meet all this new expense financial aid was generously given, unsolicited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Garrett Smith, and other sympathizers. But in vain was every effort. In vain the appeal of Miss Anthony to her jurors. In vain the moral influence of the leading representatives of the bar of central New York filling the courtroom, for Judge Hunt, without precedent to sustain him, declared it a case of law and not a fact, refused to give the case to the jury, reserving it to himself final decision. Was it not an historic scene which was enacted there in that little courthouse in Conendaga? All the inconsistencies were embodied in that judge, punctilious and manner, scrupulous in attire, conscientious in trivialities, and obtuse on great principles, fitly described by Charles O'Connor, a very ladylike judge. Behold him sitting there balancing all the niceties of law and equity in his old world scales, and at last saying, the prisoner will stand up, whereupon the accused arose. The sentence of the court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution. Then the unruly defendant answers, May it please your honour I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty, and more to the same effect all of which she has lived up to. The ladylike judge had gained some insight into the determination of the prisoner, so not wishing to incarcerate her to all eternity, he added gently, Madam, the court will not order you committed until the fine is paid. It was on the seventeenth of June that the verdict was given.  But how ended that rebellion of weak colonists? The cause of American womanhood embodied for the moment in the liberty of a single individual received a rebuff on June seventeenth, 1873. But just as surely as our revolutionary heroes were in the end victorious, so will the inalienable rights of our heroines of the nineteenth century receive final vindication. In his speech of 1880, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, Wendell Phillips said, what as a rule is true, that a reformer to be conscientious must be free from bread-winning. I will open Miss Anthony's accounts and show that this reformer, being perhaps the exception which proves the rule, has been consistently and conscientiously in debt. Turning over her yearbooks, the pages give a fair record up to 1863. Here began the first herculean labor. The woman's loyal league, sadly in need of funds, was not an incorporated association, so its secretary assumed the debts. This year became quite lamentable, the deficit reaching $5,000. It must be paid, and in fact will be paid. Anxious weary hours were spent in crowding the Cooper Institute from week to week with paying audiences to listen to such men as Phillips, Curtis, and Douglas, who contributed their service and lifted the secretary out of debt. At last, after many difficulties, her cash book of 1863 was honorably pigeon-holed. In 1867 we can read a count of herculean labor the second. Twenty thousand tracts are needed to convert the voters of Kansas to woman's suffrage. Traveling expenses to Kansas and the tracts make the debtor column overreach the creditor some $2,000. There is recognition on these pages of more than $1,000 obtained by soliciting advertisements, but no note is made of the weary, burning, July days spent in the streets of New York to procure this money, nor of the ready application of the savings made by petty economies from her salary from the Hovey Committee. It would have been fortunate for my brave friend if cash books 1868, 1869, and 1870 had never come down from their shelves, for they sing and sing in notes of debts till all unite in one vast chorus of far more than $10,000. These were the days of the Revolution, the newspaper, not the war, though it was warfare for the debt-ridden manager. Several thousand dollars she paid with money earned by lecturing and with money given her for personal use. One thanksgiving was, in truth, a time for returning thanks, for she received canceled from her cousin, Anson Lafam, her note for $4,000. Under the funeral of Paulina Wright Davis, the bereaved widower pressed into Miss Anthony's hand canceled notes for $500, bearing on the back the words, in memory of my beloved wife. One other note was canceled in recognition of her perfect forgetfulness of self-interest and ready sacrifice to the needs of others. When laboring in 1874 to fill every engagement in order to meet her debts, her mother's sudden illness called her home. Without one selfish regret the anxious daughter hastened to Rochester. When recovery was certain, and Miss Anthony was about to return to her fatiguing labors, her mother gave her at parting her note for $1,000, on which was written in trembling lines, in just consideration of the tender sacrifice made to nurse me in severe illness. At last all the revolution debt was paid, except that due to her generous sister, Mary Anthony, who used often humorously to assure her she was a fit subject for the bankrupt act. There is something humorously pathetic in the death of the revolution that first borne of Miss Anthony. Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard generously assumed the care of the troublesome child, and in order to make the adoption legal gave the usual consideration, $1. The very night of the transfer Miss Anthony went to Rochester with the dollar in her pocket, and the little change left after purchasing her ticket. She arrived safely with her debts, but nothing more. Her pocket had been picked. Oh, thief, you could not know what value of faithful work you perloined. From the close of the year 1876 Miss Anthony's account showed favorable signs as to the credit column. Indeed at the end of five years there was a solid balance of several thousand dollars earned on lecturing tours. But alas, the accounts grow dim again. In fact the credit column fades away. The history of woman's suffrage ruthlessly swallowed up every vestige of Miss Anthony's bank account. But in 1886, by the will of Mrs. Eddie, daughter of Francis Bacon of Boston, Miss Anthony received $24,000 for the woman's suffrage movement, which lifted her out of debt once more. In vain you will search these telltale books for evidence of personal extravagance, for although Miss Anthony thinks it true economy to buy the best, her tastes are simple. Is there not something very touching in the fact that she never bought a book or picture for her own enjoyment? The meager personal balance sheets show four lapses from discipline, lapses that she even now regards as ruthless extravagance. Viz. The purchase of two inexpensive broaches, a much needed watch, and a pair of cuffs to match a pointless collar presented by a friend. Those interested in Miss Anthony's personal appearance long ago ceased to trust her with the purchase money for any ornament. For however firm her resolution to comply with their wish, the check invariably found its way to the credit column of those little cash books as money received for the cause. Now, reader, you have been admitted to a private view of Miss Anthony's financial records, and you can appreciate her devotion to an idea. Do you not agree with me that a breadwinner can be a conscientious reformer? In finishing this sketch of the most intimate friend I have had for the past 45 years, with whom I have spent weeks and months under the same roof, I can truly say that she is the most upright, courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous human being I have ever known. I have seen her be set on every side with the most petty annoyances, ridiculed and misrepresented, slandered and persecuted. I have known women refused to take her extended hand, women to whom she presented copies of the history of woman's suffrage, return it unnoticed, others to keep it without one word of acknowledgment, others to write most insulting letters in answer to hers of affectionate conciliation, and yet under all the crossfires incident to a reform, never has her hope flagged, her self-respect wavered, or a feeling of resentment shattered her mind. Oftentimes when I have been sorely discouraged, thinking that the prolonged struggle was a waste of force, in which other directions might be rich in achievement, with her sublime faith in humanity she would breathe into my soul renewed inspiration, saying, pity rather than blame those who persecute us. So closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes and experiences that separated we have a feeling of incompleteness, united, such strength of self-assertion that no ordinary obstacles, difficulties or dangers ever appear to us insurmountable. Reviewing the life of Susan B. Anthony, I ever liken her to the Doric column in Grecian architecture, so simply, so grandly she stands, free from every extraneous ornament supporting her one vast idea, the enfranchisement of woman. As our estimate of ourselves and our friendship may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from what our common friend Theodore Tilton wrote of us in 1868. Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and lifelong advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and women's rights, has been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal age, but of the most opposite characteristics, and illustrate the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each other a friendship of extraordinary strength. Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant. Miss Anthony is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains and great hearts. Neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity, but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm for the cause to which they are devoting their lives. Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say, that as opposites though they may be, each does not so much supplement the other's deficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same time diminish each other's discretion. But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one or the impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are ever more as white as the light. The good that they do is by design, the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in their parlors have for the last thirty years been diligent foragers of all manner of projectiles, from fireworks to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, and political assemblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half-welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and prostation of numerous victims, and in a few signal instances to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country. Nor will they themselves deny the charge. In fact, this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum, keeping up what Daniel Webster called the Rub-a-dub of agitation. CHAPTER XII. MY FIRST SPEECH BEFORE A LEGISLATING OF THE LIMBERBOX Women had been willing so long to hold a subordinate position, both in private and public affairs, that gradually growing feeling of rebellion among them quite exasperated the men, and their manifestations of hostility in public meetings were often as ridiculous as humiliating. True, these gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join their societies and churches to do the drudgery, to work up the enthusiasm in fares and revivals, conventions and flag presentations, to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church, to circulate petitions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the outskirts of a hall in teachers' state conventions, like so many wall-flowers, but they would not allow them to sit on the platform, address the assembly, or vote for men in measures. Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips of Henry B. Stanton, Samuel J. May and Garrett Smith, would not accept such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all interest in this question gradually died out in the state, and practically nothing was done in New York for nearly 20 years. Garrett Smith made one or two attempts towards an anti-dram shop party, but as women could not vote, they felt no interest in the measure, and failure was the result. I soon convinced Miss Anthony that the ballot was the key to the situation, that when we had a voice in the laws, we should be welcome to any platform. In turning the intense earnestness and religious enthusiasm of this great sold woman into this channel, I soon felt the power of my convert engoding me forever forward to more untiring work. Soon fastened, heart to heart, with hooks of steel and a friendship that years of confidence and affection have steadily strengthened, we have labored faithfully together. From the year 1850, conventions were held in various states, and their respective legislatures were continually besieged. New York was thoroughly canvassed by Miss Anthony and others. Appeals, calls for meeting, and petitions were circulated without number. In 1854 I prepared my first speech for the New York legislature. This was a great event in my life. I felt so nervous over it, least it should not be worthy the occasion, that Miss Anthony suggested that I should slip up to Rochester and submit it to Reverend William Henry Channing, who was preaching there at the time. I did so, and his opinion was so favorable as to the merits of my speech that I felt quite reassured. My father felt equally nervous when he saw, from the Albany Evening Journal, that I was to speak at the Capitol and asked me to read my speech to him also. Accordingly, I stopped in Jonestown on my way to Albany, and late one evening, when he was alone in his office, I entered and took my seat on the opposite side of his table. On no occasion before or since was I ever more embarrassed, an audience of one, and that the one of all others whose approbation I most desired, whose disapproval I most feared. I knew he condemned the whole movement, and was deeply grieved at the active part I had taken.  However, I began with a dog determination to give all the power I could to my manuscript, and not to be discouraged or turned for my purpose by any tender appeals or adverse criticisms. I described the widow in the first hours of her grief, subject to the intrusions of the coarse minions of the law, taking inventory of the household goods, of the old armchair in which her loved one had breathed his last, of the old clock in the corner that told the hour he passed away. I threw all the pathos I could into my voice and language at this point, and to my intense satisfaction I saw tears filling my father's eyes. I cannot express the exultation I felt, thinking that now he would see, with my eyes, the injustice women suffered under the laws he understood so well. Feeling that I had touched his heart, I went on with renewed confidence, and when I had finished, I saw he was thoroughly magnetized. With beating heart I waited for him to break the silence. He was evidently deeply pondering over all he had heard, and did not speak for a long time. I believe I had opened to him a new world of thought. He had listened long to the complaints of women, but from the lips of his own daughter they had come with a deeper pathos and power. At last he turned abruptly and said, Surely you have had a happy, comfortable life, with all your wants and needs supplied, and yet that speech fills me with self-reproach, for one might naturally ask, how can a young woman tenderly brought up, who has had no bitter personal experience, feel so keenly the wrongs of her sex? Where did you learn this lesson? I learned it here, I replied, in your office, when a child listening to the complaints women made to you, they who have sympathy and imagination to make the sorrows of others their own can rapidly learn all the hard lessons of life from the experience of others. Oh, well, he said. You have made your points clear and strong, but I think I can find you even more cruel laws than those you have quoted. He suggested some improvements in my speech, looked up other laws, and it was one o'clock in the morning before we kissed each other good night. How we felt on the question after that I do not know, as he never said anything in favor of or against it. He gladly gave me any help I needed, from time to time, in looking up the laws, and was very desirous that whatever I gave to the public should be carefully prepared. Miss Anthony printed twenty thousand copies of this address, laid it on the desk of every member of the legislature, both in the Assembly and Senate, and in her travels that winter, she circulated it throughout the State. I am happy to say I never felt so anxious about the fate of a speech since. The first women's convention in Albany was held at this time, and we had a kind of protracted meeting four or two weeks after. There were several hearings before both branches of the legislature and a succession of meetings in Association Hall, in which Phillips, Channing, Ernest L. Rose, Antoinette L. Brown, and Susan B. Anthony took part. Being at the capital of the State, discussion was aroused at every fireside, while the comments of the press were numerous and varied. Every little country paper had something witty or silly to say about the uprising of the strong-minded. Those editors, whose heads were about the size of an apple, were the most opposed to the uprising of women, illustrating what Sidney Smith said long ago. There always was, and there always will be, a class of men so small, that if women were educated, there would be nobody left below them. Poor human nature loves to have something to look down upon. There is a specimen of the way such editors talked at that time. The Albany Register, in an article on women's rights in the legislature, dated March 7th, 1854, says, While the feminine propagandists of women's rights confine themselves to the exhibition of short paycots and long-legged boots, and to the holding of conventions and speech-making in concert rooms, the people were disposed to be amused by them, as they are by the wit of the clown in the circus, or the performances of Junction Judy on fair days, or the menstrual of gentlemen with blackened faces on banjos, the tambourine, and bones. But the joke is becoming stale. People are getting cloyed with their performances, and are looking for some healthier and more intellectual amusement. The ludicrous is wearing away, and disgust is taking the place of pleasurable sensations arising from the novelty of this new phase of hypocrisy and infidel. People are beginning to inquire how far public sentiment should sanction or tolerate these unsexed women, who would step out from the true spear of the mother, the wife, the daughter, and taking upon themselves the duties and the business of men, stalking to the public gaze, and, by engaging in the politics, the rough controversies and trafficking of the world, upheave existing institutions and overrun all the social relations of life. It is a melancholy reflection that among our American women, who have been educated to better things, there should be found any who are willing to follow the lead of such foreign propagandist as the ring-litid, gloved exotic, Ernestine L. Rose. We can understand how such a man as the Reverend Mr. May, or the sleek-headed Dr. Channing, may be diluted by her into becoming one of her disciples. Not the first instances of infatuation that may overtake weak-minded men, if they are honest in their devotion to her and her doctrines, nor would they be the first examples of a low ambition that seeks notoriety as a substitution for true fame, as they are dishonest. Such men there are always, and, honest or dishonest, their true position is that of being tied to the apron-strings of some strong-minded woman, and to be exhibited as rare specimens of human wickedness or human weakness and folly. But that one educated American should become her disciple and follow her insane teachings as a marvel. When we see the abuse and ridicule to which the best of men are subjected for standing on our platform in the early days, we need not wonder that so few have been brave enough to advocate our cause in later years, either in conventions or in the halls of legislation. After twelve added years of agitation, following the passage of the Property Bill, New York conceded other civil rights to married women. Pending the discussion of these various bills, Susan B. Anthony circulated petitions, both for the civil and political rights of women throughout the state, traveling on stagecoaches, open wagons and slays in all seasons, and on foot, from door to door through towns and cities, doing her utmost to rouse women to some sense of their natural rights as human beings, and to their civil and political rights as citizens of a republic. And while extending her time, strength and money to secure these blessings for the women of the state, they would gruffly tell her that they had all the rights they wanted, or rudely shut the door in her face, leaving her to stand outside, petition in hand, treating her with as much contempt as if she were asking alms for herself. None but those who did that work in the early days for the slaves and the women can ever know the hardships and humiliations that were endured. But it was done because it was only through petitions a power seemingly so inefficient that disfranchised classes could be heard in the state and national councils, hence their importance. The frivolous objections some women made to our appeals were as exasperating as they were ridiculous. To reply to them politely, at all times, required a divine patience. On one occasion, after addressing the legislature, some of the ladies in congratulating me inquired in the depreciating tone, what do you do with your children? Ladies, I said, it takes me no longer to speak than you to listen. What have you done with your children the two hours you have been sitting here? But to answer your question, I never leave my children to go to Saratoga, Washington, Newport, or Europe, or even to come here. They are, at this moment, with a faithful nurse in the Delavan house, and having accomplished my mission, we shall all return home together. When my children reached the magic number of seven, my good angel, Susan B. Anthony, would sometimes take one or two of them to her own quiet home just out of Rochester, where, on a well-cultivated little farm, one could enjoy uninterrupted rest and the choices-fruits of the season. That was always a safe harbor for my friend, as her family sympathized fully in the reforms to which she gave her life. I have many pleasant memories of my own flying visits to the hospitable Quaker home and the broad Catholic spirit of Daniel and Lucy Anthony. Whatever opposition and ridicule their daughter endured elsewhere, she enjoyed the steadfast sympathy and confidence of her own home circle. Her faithful sister Mary, a most successful teacher in the public schools of Rochester for a quarter of a century and a good financier, who with her patrimony and salary had laid by a competence, took on her shoulder's double duty at home in cheering the declining years of her parents, that Susan might do the public work in the reforms in which they were equally interested. Now, with life's earnest work nearly accomplished, the sisters were living happily together, illustrating another of the many charming homes of single women, so rapidly multiplying of late. Miss Anthony, who was a frequent guest at my home, sometimes stood guard when I was absent. The children of our household say that among their earliest recollections is the Tableau of Mother and Susan, seated by a large table covered with books and papers always writing and talking about the Constitution, interrupted with occasional visits from others of the faithful. Hither came Elizabeth Oakes-Smith, Paulina Wright Davis, Francis Dana Gage, Dr. Harriet Hunt, Reverend Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, and Abby Kelly, until all these names were as familiar as household words to the children. Martha C. Wright of Auburn was a frequent visitor at the center of the rebellion, as my sequestered cottage on Locust Hill was fastidiously called. She brought to these councils of war not only her own wisdom, but that of the wife and sister of William H. Seward, and sometimes encouraging suggestions from the great statesman himself, from whose writings we often gleaned grand and radical sentiments. Luceretta Mote, too, being an occasional guest of her sister, Martha C. Wright, added the dignity of her presence at many of these important consultations. She was uniformly in favor of toning down our fiery pronouncementos. For Miss Anthony and myself, the English language had no word strong enough to express the indignation we felt at the prolonged injustice to women. We found, however, that after expressing ourselves in the most reminiscent manner, and thus in a measure giving our feelings an outlet, we were reconciled to issue the documents in milder terms. If the men of the state could have known the stern rebukes, the denunciations, the wits, the irony, the sarcasm that were gardenered there, and then judiciously pigeon-holed and milder, more persuasive appeal substituted, they would have been truly thankful that they fared no worse. Senators Seward frequently left Washington to visit in our neighborhood at the house of Judge G. V. Sackett, a man of wealth and political influence. One of the Senators' standing antidotes at dinner to illustrate the purifying influence of women at the polls, which he always told with great zest for my special benefit, was in regard to the manner in which his wife's sister exercised the right of suffrage. He said, Mrs. Warden, having the supervision of a farm near Auburn, was obliged to hire two or three men for its cultivation. It was her custom, having examined them as to their capacity to perform the required labor, their knowledge of tools, horses, cattle, and horticulture, to inquire as to their politics.  And it always so happened that the men who offered their services belonged to the Republican Party. I remarked to her one day, are you sure your men vote as they promise? Yes, she replied. I trust nothing to their discretion. I take them in my carriage within sight of the polls and put them in charge of some Republican who can be trusted. I see that they have the right tickets and then I feel sure that I am faithfully represented. And I know I am right in doing so. I have neither husband, father, nor son. I am responsible for my own taxes. I am amenable to all the laws of the state. Must pay the penalty of my own crimes if I commit any. Hence, I have the right, according to the principles of our government, to representation. And so long as I am not permitted to vote in person, I have a right to do so by proxy. Hence, I hire men to vote my principles. These two sisters, Mrs. Warden and Mrs. Sewer, daughters of Judge Miller, an influential man, were women of culture and remarkable natural intelligence and interested in all progressive ideas. They had rare common sense and independence of character, great simplicity of manner and were wholly indifferent to the little arts of the toilet. I was often told by fashionable women that they objected to the women's right movements because the publicity of a convention, the immodesty of speaking from a platform, and the trial of seeing one's name in the papers. Several ladies made such remarks to me one day as a bevy of us were sitting together in one of the fashionable hotels in Newport. We were holding a convention there at the time, and some of them had been present at one of the sessions. Really, I said, ladies, you surprise me. Our conventions are not as public as the ballroom where I saw you all dancing last night. As to modesty, it may be a question in many minds whether it is less modest to speak words of stubbornness and truth plainly dressed on a platform then gorgeously arrayed with bare arms and shoulders to waltz in the arms of strange gentlemen. As to the press, I noticed you all reading in this morning's papers with evident satisfaction the personal compliments and full descriptions of your dresses at the last ball. I presume that any one of you would have felt slighted if your name had not been mentioned in the general description. When my name is mentioned, it is in connection with some great reform movement. Thus we all suffer or enjoy the same publicity. We are alike ridiculed. Wise men pity and ridicule you, and fools pity and ridicule me. You as the victims of folly and fashion, me as the representative of many of the disagreeable isms of the age as they chose to style liberal opinions. It is amusing in analyzing prejudices to see what slender foundation they rest and the ladies around me were so completely cornered that no one attempted an answer. I remember being at a party at Secretary Seward's home in Auburn one evening when Mr. Burlingame, special administrator from China to the United States, with a Chinese delegation were among the guests. As soon as the dance commenced, the young ladies and gentlemen locked in each other's arms began to whirl in a giddy waltz.   Modesty and taste are questions of latitude and education. The more people know, the more their ideas are expanded by travel, experience and observation. The less easily they are shocked. The narrowness and bigotry of women are the result of their circumscribed sphere of thought and action. A few years after Judge Holbert had published his work on human rights in which he advocated women's rights to the suffrage, and I addressed the legislature, we met at a dinner party in Albany. Senator and Mrs. Seward were there. The senator was very merry on this occasion and made Judge Holbert and myself the target for all his ridicule on the women's rights question in which the most of the company joined so that he quite stood alone. Sure that we had the right on our side and the arguments clearly defined in our minds and both being cool and self-possessed and in wit and sarcasm quite equal to any of them, we fought the senator inch by inch until he had a very narrow platform to stand on. Mrs. Seward, maintaining an unbroken silence while those ladies who did open their lips were with the opposition, supposing no doubt that Senator Seward represented his wife's opinions. When we ladies withdrew from the table my embarrassment may be easily imagined. Separated from the judge, I would now be an hour with a bivvy of ladies who evidently felt repugnance to all my most cherished opinions. It was the first time I had met Mrs. Seward and I did not then know the liberal tendencies of her mind. What a tide of disagreeable thought rushed through me at that short passage from the dining-room to the parlor. How gladly I would have glided out the front door. But that was impossible, so I made up my mind to stroll round as if self-absorbed and look at the books and paintings until the judge appeared, as I took it for granted that after all that I had said at the table on the political, religious, and social equality of women, I would have anything to say to me. Imagine then my surprise when the moment the parlor door was closed upon us, Mrs. Seward approached me most affectionately and said, Let me thank you for your brave words you uttered at the dinner-table and for your speech before the legislature that thrilled my soul as you read it over and over. I was filled with joy and astonishment. Recovering myself I said, Is it possible, Mrs. Seward, that you agree with me? Why, when I was so hard-pressed by foes on every side, did you not come to the defenses? I supposed that all you ladies were hostile to every one of my ideas on this question. No, no, she said, I am with you thoroughly. But I am a born coward. There is nothing I dread more than Mr. Seward's ridicule. I would rather walk up to the cannon's mouth and encounter it. I too am with you. And I, said two or three others, who had been silent at the table. I never had a more serious heartfelt conversation than with these ladies. Mrs. Seward's spontaneity and earnestness had moved them all deeply, and when the senator appeared, the first words he said were, Before we part I must confess that I was fairly vanquished by you and the judge on my own principles. For we had quoted some of his most radical utterances. You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic. There was one bright woman among the many in our Seneca Falls literary circle to whom I would give more than a passing notice, Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who represented three novel phases of woman's life. She was assistant postmistress, an editor of a reform paper advocating temperance and women's rights, and an advocate of the new costume which bore her name. In 1849 her husband was appointed postmaster and she became his deputy, was duly sworn in, and during the administration of Taylor and Fillmore served in that capacity. When she assumed her duties, the improvement in the appearance and conduct of the office was generally acknowledged. A neat little room adjoining the public office became a kind of ladies' exchange, where those coming from different parts of the town could meet to talk over the news of the day and read the papers and magazines that came to Mrs. Bloomer as editor of the lily. Those who enjoyed the brief reign of a woman in the post office can readily testify to the void felt by the ladies of the village when Mrs. Bloomer's term expired and a man once more reigned in her stead. However, she still edited the lily and her office remained a fashionable center for several years. Although she wore the Bloomer dress, its originator was Elizabeth Smith Miller, the only daughter of Garrett Smith. In the winter of 1852, Mrs. Miller came to visit me in Seneca Falls, dressed somewhat in the Turkish style, short skirt, full trousers of fine black broadcloth, a Spanish cloak of the same material reaching to the knee, beaver hat and feathers and dark furs, altogether a most becoming costume and exceedingly convenient for walking in all kinds of weather. To see my cousin with a lamp in one hand and a baby in the other walk upstairs with ease and grace, while with flowing robes I pulled myself up with difficulty, lamp and baby out of the question, readily convinced me that there was sore need of reform in woman's dress and I promptly donned a similar attire. What incredible freedom I enjoyed for two years, like a captive set free from his ball and chain, I was always ready for a brisk walk through sleet and snow and rain to climb a mountain, jump over a fence, work in the garden and, in fact, for any necessary locomotion. Bloomer is now a recognized word in the English language. Mrs. Bloomer, having the lily in which to discuss the merits of the new dress, the press generally took up the question which valuable information was elicited on the physiological results of woman's fashionable attire, the crippling effect of tight waist and long skirts, the heavy weight on the hips and high heels, all combined to throw the spine out of plum and lay the foundation for all manner of nervous diseases. But while all agreed that some change was absolutely necessary for the health of women, the press stoutly ridiculed those who were ready to make the experiment. A few sensible women in different parts of the country adopted the costume and farmer's wives especially proved its convenience. It was also worn by skaters, gymnasts, tourists and in sanitariums. But while the few realized its advantages, the many laughed to scorn and heaped such ridicule on its wearers that they soon found that the physical freedom enjoyed did not compensate for the persistent persecution and petty annoyances offered at every turn. To be rudely gazed at in public and in private, to be the conscious subjects of criticism, and to be followed by crowds of boys in the streets were all, to the very last degree, exasperating. A favorite dog girl that our tormentors chanted when we appeared in public places ran thus. The singers were generally invisible, behind some fence or attic window. Those who wore the dress can recall countless amusing and annoying experiences. The patience of most of us was exhausted in about two years, but our leader, Mrs. Miller, bravely adhered to the costume for nearly seven years under the most trying circumstances. While her father was in Congress, she wore it at many fashionable dinners and receptions in Washington. She was bravely sustained, however, by her husband, Colonel Miller, who never flinched in escorting his wife and her co-agitors, however inartistic their costumes might be. To tall, gaunt women with large feet, and to those who were short and stout, it was equally trying. Mrs. Miller was also encouraged by the intense feeling of her father on the question of woman's dress. To him the whole revolution in woman's position turned on her dress. The long skirt was the symbol of her degradation. The names of those who wore the Bloomer costume, besides those already mentioned, were Paulina Wright Davis, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Mrs. William Burley, Celia Burley, Charlotte Veebe Wilbur, Helen Jarvis, Lydia Jenkins, Amelia Willard, Dr. Harriet N. Austin, and many patients in sanitariums whose names I cannot recall. Looking back to this experiment, I am not surprised at the hostility of men in general to the dress, as it made it very uncomfortable for them to go anywhere with those who wore it. People would stare, many men and women make rude remarks, boys following crowds with deers and laughter so that gentlemen in attendance would feel at their duty to show fight, unless they had sufficient self-control to pursue the even tenor of their way, as the ladies themselves did, without taking the slightest notice of the commotion they created. But Colonel Miller went through the ordeal with coolness and dogged determination to the vexation of his acquaintances, who thought one of his duties, as a husband, was to prescribe his wife's costume. Though we did not realize the success we hoped for by making the dress popular, yet the effort was not lost. We were well aware that the dress was not artistic, though we made many changes, our own good taste was never satisfied until we threw aside the loose trousers and adopted buttoned leggings. After giving up the experiment, we found that the costume in which Diana the Huntress is represented, and that worn on the stage by Ellen Tree in the play of Ion, would have been more artistic and convenient. But we, who had made the experiment, were too happy to move about unnoticed and unknown, to risk, again, the happiness of ourselves and our friends by any further experiments. I have never wondered since that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in iron shoes, nor that the Hindu widows walk calmly to the funeral pyre, for great are the penalties of those who dare to resist the behests of the tyrant custom. Nevertheless, the agitation has been kept up, in a mild form, both in England and America. Lady Harbiton, in 1885, was at the head of an organized movement in London to introduce the bifurcated skirt. Mrs. Janice Miller, in this country, is making an entire revolution in every garment that belongs to a woman's toilet, and common-sense shoemakers have vouched safe to us, at last, a low, square heel to our boots, and a broad sole in which the five toes can spread themselves at pleasure. Evidently, a new day of physical freedom is at last dawning for the most cribbed and crippled of Eve's unhappy daughters. It was while living in Seneca Falls, and at one of the most despairing periods of my young life, that one of the best gifts of the gods came to me in the form of a good, faithful housekeeper. She was indeed a treasure, a friend and comforter, a second mother to my children, and understood all life's duties and gladly bore its burdens. She could fill any department in domestic life, and for thirty years was the joy of our household. But for this noble, self-sacrificing woman, much of my public work would have been quite impossible. If by word or deed I have made the journey of life easier for any struggling soul, I must, in justice, share the meat of praise accorded me with my little Quaker friend, Amelia Willard. There are two classes of housekeepers, one that will get what they want, if in the range of human possibilities, and then accept the inevitable inconveniences with cheerfulness and heroism, the other, from a kind of chronic inertia and a fear of taking responsibility, accept everything as they find it, though with gentle, continuous complainings. The latter are called amiable women. Such a woman was our congressman's wife in 1854, and, as I was the reservoir of all her sorrows, great and small, I became very reary of her amiable non-resistance. Among other domestic trials, she had a kitchen stove that smoked and leaked, which could neither bake nor broil, a worthless thing, and too small for any purpose. Consequently, half their vines were spoiled in the cooking, and the cooks left in disgust, one after another. In telling me one day of these kitchen misadventures, she actually shed tears, which so roused my sympathies that, with surprise, I exclaimed, Why do you not buy a new stove? To my unassisted common sense, that seemed the most practical thing to do. Why, she replied, I have never purchased a darning needle to put the case strongly, without consulting Mr. S., and he does not think a new stove necessary. What, pray, said I, does he know about stoves sitting in his easy chair in Washington? If he had a dull old knife with broken blades, he would soon get a new one, with which to sharpen his pens and pencils, and if he attempted to cook a meal, granting he knew how, on your old stove, he would set it out of doors the next hour. Now, my advice to you is to buy a new one this very day. Bless me, she said, that would make him furious, he would blow me sky-high. Well, I replied, suppose he did go into a regular tantrum, and use all the most startling expletives in the vocabulary for fifteen minutes. What is that compared with a good stove three hundred and sixty-five days in the year? Just put all he could say on one side, and all the advantages you would enjoy on the other, and you must readily see that his wrath would kick the beam. As my logic was irresistible, she said, well, if you will go with me and help me select a stove, I think I will take the responsibility. Accordingly, we went to the hardware store, and selected the most approved, largest-sized stove, with all the best cooking utensils, best Russian pipe, etc. Now, she said she, I am in equal need of a good stove in my sitting room, and I would like the pipes of both stoves into dumb stoves above, and thus heat two or three rooms upstairs for my children to play in, as they have no place except the sitting room where they must always be with me, but I suppose it is not best to do too much at one time. On the contrary, I replied, as your husband is wealthy, you had better get all you really need now. Mr. S. will probably be no more surprised with two stoves than with one, and as you expect a hot scene over the matter, the more you get out of it, the better. So the stoves and pipes were ordered, holes cut through the ceiling, and all were in working order the next day. The cook was delighted over her splendid stove and shining tins, copper-bottom tea kettle and boiler, and warm sleeping room upstairs. The children were delighted with their large playrooms, and Madam jubilant with her added comforts and that newborn feeling of independence one has in assuming responsibility. She was expecting Mr. S. home in the holidays, and occasionally weakened at the prospect of what she feared might be a disagreeable encounter. At such time she came to consult with me, as to what she would say and do when the crisis arrived. Having studied the genus Homo alike on the divine heights of exaltation and in the valleys of humiliation, I was able to make some valuable suggestions. Now, said I, when your husband explodes as you think he will, neither say nor do anything. Sit and gaze out of the window with that faraway, sad look women know so well how to effect. If you can summon tears at pleasure, a few would not be amiss. A gentle shower, not enough to make the nose and eyes red or to detract from your beauty. Men cannot resist beauty and tears. Never mar the effect with anything bordering on sobs and hysteria. Such violent manifestations being neither refined nor artistic. A scene in which one person does the talking must be limited in time. No ordinary man can keep at white heat fifteen minutes if his victim says nothing. He will soon exhaust himself. Remember every time you speak in the way of defense you give him a new text on which to branch out again. If silence is ever golden it is when a husband is in a tantrum. In due time Mr. S. arrived again with Christmas presents and Charlotte came over to tell me that she had passed through the ordeal. I will give the scene in her own words as nearly as possible. My husband came yesterday just before dinner and as I expected him I had all things in order. He seemed very happy to see me and the children and we had a gay time looking at our presents and chatting about Washington and all that had happened since we parted. It made me sad in the midst of our happiness to think how soon the current things would change and I wished in my soul that I had not bought the stoves. But at last dinner was announced and I knew that the hour had come.  He explored the upper apartments and came down the back stairs glanced at the kitchen stove then into the dining room and stood confounded for a moment before the nickel plated morning glory. Then he explained, Heavens and earth, Charlotte, what have you been doing? I remembered what you told me and said nothing, but looked steadily out of the window. I summoned no tears, however, for I felt more like laughing than crying. He looked so ridiculous flying around spesmodically like popcorn on a hot griddle and talking as if making a stump speech on the corruptions of the Democrats. The first time he paused to take breath I said in my softest tones, William, dinner is waiting. I fear the soup will be cold. Fortunately he was hungry and that great central organ of life and happiness asserted its claims on his attention and when he took his seat at the table. I broke what might have been an awkward silence chatting with the older children about their school lessons. Fortunately they were late and did not know what had happened, so they talked to their father and gradually restored his equilibrium. We had a very good dinner and I have not heard a word about the stove yet. I suppose we shall have another scene when the bill is presented. A few years later Horace Greeley came to Seneca Falls to lecture on temperance. As he stayed with us, we invited Mr. S among others to dinner. The chief topic at the table was the idiosyncrasies of women. Mr. Greeley told many amusing things about his wife, of her erratic movements and sudden decisions to do and dare what seemed most impractical. Perhaps on rising some morning she would say, I think I'll go to Europe by the next steamer, Horace. Will you get tickets today for me, the nurse and the children? Well, said Mr. S, she must be something like our hostess. Every time her husband goes away she cuts a door or window. They only have ten doors to lock every night now. Yes, I said, and your own wife too, Mrs. S, has the credit of some high-handed measures when you are in Washington. Then I told the whole country, amid peals of laughter just as related above. The dinner table scene fairly convulsed the congressman.  When sufficiently recovered to speak he said, well I never could understand how it was that Charlotte suddenly emerged from her thralldom and manifested such rare executive ability. Now I see whom I am indebted for the most comfortable part of my married life. I am a thousand times obliged to you. You did just right and so did she, and she has been a happier woman ever since. Now she gets what she needs and frets no more to me about ten thousand little things. How can a man know what implements are necessary for the work he never does? Of all agencies for upsetting the equanimity of family life, none can surpass an old broken-down abolition-stove. In the winter of 1861, just after the election of Lincoln, the abolitionists decided to hold a series of conventions in the chief cities of the north. All their available speakers were pledged for active service. The Republican Party, having absorbed the political abolitionists within its ranks by declaring its hostility to the extension of slavery, had come into power with overwhelming majorities. Hence the Garrisonian abolitionists, opposed to all compromises, felt that this was the opportune moment to rouse the people to the necessity of holding that party to its declared principles and pushing it, if possible, a step or two forward. I was invited to accompany Miss Anthony and Bariah Green to a few points in Central New York, but we soon found by the concerted action of Republicans all over the county that anti-slavery conventions would not be tolerated. Thus Republicans and Democrats made common cause against the abolitionists. The John Brown Raid, the year before, had intimidated northern politicians as much as southern slaveholders, and the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the north should be altogether suppressed. From Buffalo to Albany our experience was the same, varied only by the fertile resources of the actors and their surroundings. Thirty years of education had somewhat changed the character of the northern moms. They no longer dragged men through the streets with ropes around their necks, nor broke up women's prayer meetings. They no longer threw eggs and brick baths at the apostles of reform, nor dipped them in barrels of tar and feathers. They simply crowded the halls, and with laughing, groaning, clapping, and cheering, effectually interrupted the proceedings. Such was our experience during the two days we attempted to hold the convention in St. James Hall, Buffalo. As we paid for the hall, the mob enjoyed themselves at our expense in more ways than one. Every session at the appointed time we took our places at the platform, making, at various intervals of silence, renewed efforts to speak. Not succeeding, we sat and conversed with each other and the many friends who crowded the platform and anti-rooms. Thus among ourselves we had a pleasant discussion of many phases of the question that brought us together. The mob not only vouchsafe to us the privilege of talking to our friends without interruption, but delegations of their own came from behind the scenes from time to time to discuss with us the right of free speech and the constitutionality of slavery. These Buffalo rowdies were headed by ex-justice Hinson, aided by younger members of the Fillmore and Seymour families and the chief of police and 50 subordinates who were admitted to the hall free for the express purpose of protecting our right of free speech but who, in defiance of the mayor's orders, made not the slightest effort in our defence. At Lockport there was a feeble attempt in the same direction. At Albion neither hall, church, nor school-house could be obtained, so we held small meetings in the dining-room of the hotel. At Rochester, Corinthian Hall was packed long before our advertised. This was a delicately appreciative trecoce mob. At this point Aaron Powell joined us. As he had just risen from a bed of sickness, looking pale and emaciated, he slowly mounted the platform. The mob at once took in his look of exhaustion, and as he seated himself, they gave an audible, simultaneous sigh as if to say, what a relief it is to be seated. So completely did the tender manifestation reflect Mr. Powell's apparent condition that the whole audience burst into a roar of laughter. Here, too, all attempts to speak were futile. At Port Byron, a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the stove, soon cut short all constitutional arguments and pay-ins to liberty. And so it was all the way to Albany. The whole state was aflame with the mob spirit, and from Boston and various points in other states the same news reached us. As the legislature was in session and we were advertised in Albany, a radical member sarcastically moved, that as Mrs. Stanton and Ms. Anthony were about to move on Albany, the militia be ordered out for the protection of the city. Happily, Albany could then boast of a Democratic mayor, a man of courage and conscience, who said the right of free speech should never be trodden underfoot where he had to prevent it. And, grandly, did that one determined man maintain order in his jurisdiction. Throughout all the sessions of the convention, Mayor Thatcher sat on the platform, his police stationed in different parts of the hall and outside the building, to disperse the crowd as fast as it collected. If a man or boy hissed or made the slightest interruption, he was immediately ejected. And not only did the mayor preserve order in the meetings, but with a company of armed police escorted us every time to and from the Delevin House. The last night Garrett Smith addressed the mob from the steps of the hotel, after which they gave him three cheers and disbursed in good order. When proposing for the mayor a vote of thanks at the close of the convention, Mr. Smith expressed his fears that it had been a severe ordeal for him to listen to these prolonged anti-slavery discussions. He smiled and said, I have really been deeply interested and instructed. I rather congratulate myself that a convention of this character has, at last, come in the line of my business. Otherwise, I should have probably remained in ignorance of many important facts and opinions I now understand and appreciate. While all this was going on publicly, an equally trying experience was progressing day by day behind the scenes.  The wife belonged to one of the first families in New York, her brother being a United States senator, and the husband also a man of position. A large circle of friends and acquaintances was interested in the result. Though she was incarcerated in an insane asylum for eighteen months, yet members of her own family again and again testified that she was not insane. Miss Anthony, knowing that she was not, and believing fully that the unhappy mother was the victim of a conspiracy would not reveal her hiding place. Knowing the confidence Miss Anthony felt in the wisdom of Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, they were implored to use their influence with her to give up the fugitives. Letters and telegrams, persuasions, arguments and warnings from Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phillips, and the senator on one side, and from Lydia Mott, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellett, and Abby Hopper Gibbons on the other, poured in upon her day after day, but Miss Anthony remained immovable, although she knew that she was defying and violating the law and might be arrested any moment on the platform. We had known so many aggravated cases of this kind that, in daily counsel, we resolved that this woman should not be recaptured if it were possible to prevent it. To us it looked as an imperative duty to shield a sane mother who had been torn from a family of little children and doomed to the companionship of lunatics and to aid her fleeing to a place of safety as to help a fugitive from slavery to Canada. In both cases, an unjust law was violated. In both cases, the supposed owners of the victims were defied. Hence, in point of law and morals, the act was the same in both cases. The result proved the wisdom of Anthony's decision, as all with whom Mrs. P. came into contact for years afterward expressed the opinion that she was and always had been perfectly sane. Could the dark secrets of insane asylums be brought to light, we should be shocked to know the great number of rebellious wives, sisters, and daughters who were thus sacrificed to false customs and barbarous laws made by men for women. Chapter 14 of 80 years and more Reminisances 1815-1897 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ava'i in November 2010 80 years and more Reminisances 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 14 Views on Marriage and Divorce The widespread discussion we are having just now on the subject of marriage and divorce reminds me of an equally exciting one in 1860. A very liberal bill introduced into the Indiana legislature by Robert Dale Owen and which passed by a large majority roused much public thought on the question and made that state free soil for unhappy wives and husbands. A similar bill was introduced into the legislature of New York by Mr. Ramsey which was defeated by four votes, owing mainly to the intense opposition of Horace Greeley. He and Mr. Owen had a prolonged discussion in the New York Tribune in which Mr. Owen got decidedly the better of the argument. There had been several aggravated cases of cruelty to wives among the Dutch aristocracy, so that strong influences in favor of the bill had been brought to bear on the legislature, but the Tribune thundered every morning in its editorial column its loudest pearls which reverberated through the state. So bitter was the opposition to divorce for any cause that but few dared to take part in the discussion. I was the only woman for many years who wrote and spoke on the question. Articles on divorce by a number of women recently published in the North American Review are a sign of progress showing that women dare speak out now more freely on the relations that most deeply concern them. My feelings had been stirred to their depths very early in life by the sufferings of a dear friend of mine at whose wedding I was one of the bridesmaids. In listening to the facts in her case my mind was fully made up as to the wisdom of a liberal divorce law. We read Milton's essays on divorce together and were thoroughly convinced as to the right and duty not only of separation but of absolute divorce. When Bill was pending I was requested by Louis Benedict one of the committee who had the bill in charge to address the legislature. I gladly accepted feeling that here was an opportunity not only to support my friend in the step she had taken but to make the path clear for other unhappy wives who might desire to follow her example. I had no thought after persecution I was drawing down on myself for thus attacking so venerable an institution. I was always courageous in saying what I saw to be true for the simple reason that I never dreamed of opposition. What seemed to me to be right I thought must be equally plain to all other rational beings. Hence I had no dread of denunciation. I was only surprised when I encountered it and no number of experience have as yet taught me to fear public opinion. What I said on divorce 37 years ago seems quite in line with what many say now. The trouble was not in what I said but that I said it too soon and before the people were ready to hear it. It may be however that I helped them to get ready. Who knows? As we were holding a woman's suffrage convention in Albany at the time appointed for the hearing Ernestine L. Rose and Lucretia and Mrs. Mott briefly added their views on the question. Although Mrs. Mott had urged Mrs. Rose and myself to be as moderate as possible in our demands she quite unconsciously made the most radical utterance of all in saying that marriage was a question beyond the realm of legislation that must be left to the parties themselves. We rallied LaCretia on her radicalism and some of the journals criticized us severely but the following letter shows that she had no thought of receding from her position. Roadside near Philadelphia 4th month 30th 1861 My dear Lydia Mott I have wished ever since parting with thee and our other dear friends in Albany to send thee a line and have only waited in the hope of contributing a little substantial aid to this noble depository. The twenty dollars enclosed is from our female anti-slavery society. I see the annual meeting in New York is not to be held this spring. Sister Martha is here and was expecting to attend both anniversaries but we now think the woman's rights meeting had better not be attempted and she has written Elizabeth C. Stanton to this effect. I was well satisfied with being at the Albany meeting. I have since met with the following from a speech of Lord Brougham's which pleased me as being as radical as mine in your stately hall of representatives. Quote Before women can have any justice by the laws of England there must be a total reconstruction of the whole marriage system for any attempt to amend it would prove useless. The great charter in establishing the supremacy of law over prerogative rights only for justice between man and man. For women nothing is left but common law accumulations and modifications of original Gothic and Roman heathenism which no amount of filtration through ecclesiastical courts could change into Christian laws. They are declared unworthy a Christian people by great jurists. Still they remain unchanged. End quote So Elizabeth Stanton will see that I have authority for going to the root of the evil. Thine LaCretia Mott End quote Those of us who met in Albany talked the matter over in regard to a free discussion of the divorce question at the coming convention in New York. It was the opinion of those present that as the laws on marriage and divorce were very unequal for men and women this was a legitimate subject for discussion on our platform. Accordingly I presented a series of resolutions at the annual convention in New York City to which I spoke for over an hour. I was followed by Antoinette L. Brown who also presented a series of resolutions in opposition to mine. She was in turn answered by Ernestine L. Rose. Wendell Phillips then arose and in an impressive manner pronounced a whole discussion irrelevant to our platform and moved that neither the speeches nor resolutions go on the records of the convention. As I greatly admired Wendell Phillips and appreciated his good opinion I was surprised and humiliated to find myself under the ban of his disapprobation. My face was scarlet and I trembled with mingled feelings of doubt and fear. Doubt is to the wisdom of my position and fear lester convention should the whole discussion. My emotion was so apparent that Reverend Samuel Longfellow a brother of the poet who said beside me whispered in my ear nevertheless you are right and the convention will sustain you. Mr. Phillips said that as marriage concerned man and woman alike and the laws bore equally on them women had no special ground for complaint although in my speech I had quoted many laws to show the reverse. Mr. Garrison and Reverend Antoinette L. Brown were alike opposed to Mr. Phillips' motion and claimed that marriage and divorce were legitimate subjects for discussion on our platform. Ms. Anthony closed the debate. She said quote I hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion that these resolutions shall not appear on the records of the convention. I am very sure that it would be contrary to all parliamentary usage to say that when the speeches which enforced and advocated the resolutions are reported and published in the proceedings the resolutions shall not be placed there and is to the point that this question does not belong to this platform from that I totally dissent. Marriage has ever been a one-sided matter resting most unequally upon the sexes. By it man gains all woman loses all tyrant law and last reign supreme with him meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her. Woman has never been consulted her wish has never been taken into consideration as regards the terms of the marriage compact. By law, public sentiment and religion from the time of Moses down to the present day woman has never been thought of and as a piece of property to be disposed of at the will and pleasure of man. And at this very hour by our statute books by our so-called enlightened Christian civilization she has no voice whatever in saying which shall be the basis of the relation. She must accept marriage as man prophesied or not at all. And then again on Mr. Phillips own ground the discussion is perfectly in order since nearly all the wrongs of which we complain grow out of the inequality of the marriage laws that robbed the wife of the right to herself and her children that make her the slave of the man she marries. I hope therefore the resolutions will be allowed to go out to the public that there may be a fair report of the ideas which have actually been presented here that they may not be left to the mercy of the secular press. I trust the convention will not vote the publication of those resolutions with the proceedings end quote Reverend William Hoisington the blind preacher followed Miss Anthony and said quote publish all that you have done here and let the public know it end quote the question was then put on the motion of Mr. Phillips and it was lost as Mr. Greeley in commenting on the convention took the same ground with Mr. Phillips that the laws on marriage and divorce were equal for man and woman I answered them in the following letter to the New York Tribune quote to the editor of the New York Tribune Sir at our recent national women's rights convention many were surprised to hear Wendell Phillips object to the question of marriage and divorce as irrelevant to our platform he said quote we had no right to discuss here any laws or customs but those were inequality existed for the sexes that the laws on marriage and divorce rested equally on man and woman that he suffers as much as she possibly could the wrongs and abuses of an ill-assorted marriage end quote now it must strike every careful thinker that an immense difference in the fact that man has made the laws cunningly and selfishly for his own purpose from Coke down to Kent who can cite one clause of the marriage contract where woman has the advantage when man suffers from false legislation he has his remedy in his own hands shall woman be denied the right of protest against laws in which she had no voice laws with outraged the holiest affections of her nature laws which transcend the limits of human legislation in a convention called for the express purpose of considering her wrongs he might as well object to a protest against the injustice of hanging a woman because capital punishment bears equally on man and woman the contract of marriage is by no means equal the law permits the girl to marry at 12 years of age while it requires several years more of experience on the part of the boy in entering this compact the man gives up nothing that he before possessed he is a man still while the legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage and henceforth she is known but in and through the husband she is nameless, priceless, childless though a woman, an heiress and a mother Blackstone says the husband and wife are one and that one is the husband Chancellor Kent in his commentaries says the legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the principle of the common law by which the husband and wife are regarded as one person and her legal existence and authority lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union the wife is regarded by all legal authorities as a femme couvert placed holly sub potestate viri her moral responsibility even is merged in her husband the law takes it for granted that the wife lives in fear of her husband that his command is her highest law hence a wife is not punishable for the theft committed in the presence of her husband an unmarried woman can make contracts, sue and be sued enjoy the rights of property to her inheritance to her wages, to her person to her children but in marriage she is robbed by law of all and every natural and civil right Kent further says quote the disability of the wife to contract so as to bind herself arises not from want of discretion but because she has entered an indissoluble connection by which she is placed under the power and protection of her husband end quote she is possessed of certain rights until she is married then all are suspended to revive again the moment the breath goes out of the husband's body seek howen's treaties volume 2 page 709 if the contract be equal whence come the terms marital power, marital rights obedience and restraint dominion and control power and protection etc etc many cases are stated showing the exercise of the most questionable power over the wife sustained by the courts see bishop on divorce page 489 the laws on divorce are quite as unequal as those on marriage yes, far more so the advantages seem to be all on one side and the penalties all on the other in case of divorce if the husband be not the guilty party the wife goes out of the partnership penniless Kent volume 2 page 33 bishop on divorce page 492 in new york and some other states the wife of the guilty husband can now sue for a divorce in her own name and the costs come out of the husband's estate but in the majority of the states she is still compelled to sue in the name of another as she has no means for paying costs even though she may have brought her thousands into the partnership the allowance to the innocent wife of at interim alimony and money to sustain the suit is not regarded as a strict right in her but of sound discretion in the court bishop on divorce page 581 quote many jurists, says Kent are of opinion that the adultery of the husband ought not to be noticed or made subject to the same animadversions as that of the wife because it is not evidence of such entire depravity nor equally injurious in its effects upon the morals, good order and happiness of the domestic life Montus Que Poutier and Dr. Taylor all insist that the cases of husband and wife ought to be distinguished and that the violation of the marriage vow on the part of the wife is the most mischievous and the prosecution ought to be confined to the offence on her part Esprit de loi, volume 3 186 Traité du contrat de mariage number 516 Elements of civil law page 254 end quote say you these are but the opinions of men on what else I ask are the hundreds of women depending who, this hour depending on our courts are released from burdensome contracts are not these delicate matters left holly to the discretion of courts are not young women from the first families dragged into our courts into assemblies men exclusively the judges all men the jurors all men no true woman there to shield them by her presence from gross and impertinent questionings to pity them as fortunes or to protest against their wrongs the administration of justice depends far more on the opinions of eminent jurists than on law alone for law is powerless when at variance with public do not the above citations clearly prove inequality are not the very letter and spirit of the marriage contract based on the idea of the supremacy of men as the keeper of women's virtue her sole protector and support out of marriage woman asks nothing at this hour but the elective franchise it is only in marriage that you must demand her right to person children property wages life liberty and the pursuit of happiness how can we discuss all the laws and conditions of marriage without perceiving its essential essence and and aim now whether the institution of marriage be human or divine whether regarded as indissoluble by ecclesiastical courts or dissoluble by civil courts woman finding herself equally degraded in each and every phase of it always the victim of the institution it is her right and her duty to sift the relation and the compact through and through until she finds out the true cause of her false position how can we go before the legislatures of our respective states and demand new laws or no laws on divorce until we have some idea of what the true relation is we decide the whole question of slavery by settling the sacred rights of the individual we assert that man cannot hold property in man and reject a whole code of laws that conflicts with the self-evident truth of the assertion again I ask is it possible to discuss all the laws of a relation and not touch the relation itself yours respectfully Elizabeth Cady Stanton end quote the discussion on the question of marriage and divorce occupied one entire season of the convention and called down on us severe criticisms from the metropolitan and state press so alarming were the comments on what had been said that I began to feel that I had inadvertently taken out the underpinning from the social system enemies were unsparing in their denunciations and friends ridiculed the whole proceeding I was constantly called on for a definition of marriage and asked to describe home life as it would be when men changed their wives every Christmas letters and newspapers poured in upon me asking all manner of absurd questions until I often wept with vexation so many things that I had neither thought nor said were attributed to me that at times I really doubted my own identity however in the progress of events the excitement died away the earth seemed to turn on its axes as usual women were given in marriage children were born fires burned as brightly as ever at the domestic altars and family life to all appearances was as stable as usual public attention was again roused to this subject by the McFarlane Richardson trial in which the former shot the letter being jealous of his attentions to his wife McFarlane was a brutal, improvident husband who had completely alienated his wife's affections while Mr. Richardson who had long been a cherished acquaintance of the family befriended the wife in the darkest days of her misery she was a very refined, attractive woman and the large circle of warm friends stood by her through the fierce ordeal of her husband's trial though McFarlane did not deny that he killed Richardson yet he was acquitted on the plea of insanity and was at the same time made the legal guardian of his child a boy then twelve years of age and walked out of the court with him hand in hand what a travesty on justice and common sense that while a man is declared too insane to be held responsible for taking the life of another he might still be capable of directing the life and education of a child and what an insult to that intelligent mother who had devoted twelve years of her life to his care while his worthless father had not provided for them the necessaries of life she married Mr. Richardson on his deathbed the ceremony was performed by Henry Ward Beecher and Reverend O. B. Frothingham while such men as Horace Greeley and Joshua Leavitt witnessed the solemn service though no shadow had ever dimmed Mrs. Richardson's fair fame yet she was rudely treated in the court and robbed of her child though by far the most fitting parent to be entrusted with his care as the indignation among women was general and at white heat with regard to her treatment Ms. Anthony suggested to me one day that it would be a golden opportunity to give women a lesson on their helplessness under the law wholly in the power of man as to their domestic relations as well as to their civil and political rights accordingly we decided to hold some meetings for women alone to protest against the decision of this trial the general conduct of the case the tone of the press and the laws that made it possible to rob a mother of her child many ladies readily enlisted in the movement I was invited to make the speech on the occasion and Ms. Anthony arranged for two great meetings one in Apollo Hall, New York City and one in the Academy of Music in Brooklyn the result was all that we could desire Ms. Anthony with wonderful executive ability made all the arrangements taking on her own shoulders the whole financial responsibility my latest thought on this question I gave in the arena of April 1894 from which I quote the following there is a demand just now for an amendment to the United States Constitution that shall make the laws of marriage and divorce the same in all the states of the Union as the suggestion comes uniformly from those who consider the present divorce laws too liberal we may infer that the proposed national law is to place the whole question on a narrower basis rendering null and void the laws that have been passed in a broader spirit according to the needs and experiences in certain sections of the sovereign people and here let us bear in mind that the widest possible law would not make divorce obligatory on anyone while a restricted law on the contrary would compel many marrying perhaps under more liberal laws to remain in uncongenial relations as we are still in the experimental stage on this question we are not qualified to make a perfect law that would work satisfactorily over so vast an area as our boundaries now embrace I see no evidence in what has been published on this question of late by statesmen, ecclesiastics, lawyers and judges that any of them have thought sufficiently on the subject to prepare a well digested code or a comprehensive amendment to the national constitution some view it as a civil contract though not governed by the laws of other contracts some view it as a religious ordinance a sacrament some think it a relation to be regulated by the state others by the church and still others think it should be left wholly to the individual with this wide divergence of opinion among our leading minds it is quite evident that we are not prepared for a national law moreover as woman is the most important factor in the marriage relation her infringement is the primal step in deciding the basis of family life before public opinion on this question crystallizes into an amendment to the national constitution the wife and mother must have a voice in the governing power and must be heard on this great problem in the halls of legislation there are many advantages in leaving all these questions as now to the states local self-government more readily permits of experiments on mooted questions which are the outcome of the needs and convictions of the community the smaller the area over which legislation extends the more pliable are the laws by leaving the states free to experiment in the local affairs we can judge of the working varying circumstances and thus learn the comparative merits the progress education has achieved in America is due to the fact that we have left our system of public instruction in the hands of local authorities how different would be the solution of the great educational question of manual labor in the schools if the matter had to be settled at Washington the whole nation might find itself pledged to a scheme that a few years would prove wholly impracticable not only is the town meeting as Emerson says the cradle of American liberties but it is the nursery of Yankee experiment and wisdom England with its clumsy national code of education making one inflexible standard of scholarship for the bright children of the manufacturing districts and the dull brains of the agricultural counties should teach us a lesson to the wisdom of keeping apart state and national government before we can decide the just grounds for divorce we must get a clear idea of what constitutes marriage in a true relation the chief object is the loving companionship of man and woman their capacity for mutual help and happiness and for the development of all that is noblest in each other the second object is the building up home and family a place of rest, peace, security in which child life can bud and blossom like flowers in the sunshine the first step toward making the ideal the real is to educate our sons and daughters into the most exalted ideas of the sacredness of married life and the responsibilities of parenthood I would have them give at least as much thought to the creation of an immortal being as the artist or statue watch him in his hours of solitude communing with great nature for days and weeks in all her changing moods and when at last his dream of beauty is realized and takes a clearly defined form behold how patiently he works through long months and years on sky and lake on tree and flower and when complete it represents to him more love and life more hope and ambition to the child at his side to whose conception and antinatal development not one soulful thought was ever given to this impressible period of human life few parents give any thought yet here we must begin to cultivate virtues that can alone redeem the world the contradictory views in which woman is represented are as pitiful as varied while the magnificat to the virgin is chanted in all our cathedrals round the globe on each returning Sabbath day and her motherhood extolled by her worshippers maternity for the rest of woman kind is referred to as a weakness a disability, a curse an evidence of woman's divinely ordained subjection yet surely the real woman should have some points of resemblance in character and position with the ideal one whom poets, novelists and artists portray it is folly to talk of the sacredness of marriage and maternity while the wife is practically regarded as an inferior, a subject a slave having decided that companionship and conscientious parenthood are the only true grounds for marriage if the relation brings out the worst characteristics of each party or if the home atmosphere is unwholesome for children is not the very raison d'être of the union wanting and the marriage practically annulled it cannot be called a holy relation no, not a desirable one when love and mutual respect are wanting and let us bear in mind one other important fact the lack of sympathy and content in the parents indicates radical physical unsuitability which results in badly organized offspring if then the real object of marriage is defeated it is for the interest of the state as well as the individual concerned to see that all such pernicious unions be legally dissolved in as much then as incompatibility of temper defeats the two great objects of marriage it should be the primal cause for divorce the true standpoint from which to view this question is individual sovereignty individual happiness it is often said that the interests of society are paramount and first to be considered this was the roman idea the pagan idea that the individual was made for the state the central idea of barbarism has ever been the family the tribe, the nation never the individual but the great doctrine of christianity is the right of individual conscience and judgment the reason it took such a hold on the hearts of the people is because it is thought that the individual was primary the state, the church society, the family secondary however a comprehensive view on any question of human interest shows that the highest good and happiness of the individual and society lie in the same direction the question of divorce like marriage should be settled as to its most sacred relations by the parties themselves neither the state nor the church having any right to intermeddle therein as to property and children it must be viewed and regulated as a civil contract then the union should be dissolved with at least as much deliberation and publicity as it was formed there might be some ceremony and witnesses to add to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion like the quaker marriage which the parties conduct themselves so in this case without any statement of their disagreements the parties might simply declare that after living together for several years they found themselves unsuited to each other and incapable of making a happy home if the wars were made respectable and recognized by society as a duty as well as a right reasonable men and women could arrange all the preliminaries often even the division of property and guardianship of children quite as satisfactorily as it could be done in the courts where the mother is capable of training the children a sensible father would leave them to her care rather than place them in the hands of a stranger but where divorce is not respectable men who have no paternal feeling will often hold the child not so much for its good or for his own affection as to punish the wife for disgracing him the love of children is not strong in most men and they feel but little responsibility in regard to them see how readily they turn off young sons to shift for themselves and unless the law compels them to support their illegitimate children they would never give them a second thought but on the mother's soul rest forever the care and responsibility of human life her love for the child born out of wedlock is often intensified by the infinite pity she feels through its disgrace even among the lower animals we find the female ever brooding over the young and helpless limiting the causes of divorce to physical defects or delinquencies making the proceedings public prying into all the personal affairs of unhappy men and women regarding the step as quasi-criminal punishing the guilty party in the suit not strengthen frail human nature will not ensure happy homes will not banish scandals and purge society of prostitution no no the enemy of marriage of the state of society is not liberal divorce laws but the unhealthy atmosphere that exists in the home itself a legislative act cannot make a unit of a divided family end of chapter 14