None of this activity was lost on Clara Barton, who possessed an innate sense of honesty and justice. She became an early advocate of rights for women. “I must have been born believing,” she wrote, “in the full right of woman to all the privileges and positions which nature and justice accord her in common with other human beings. Perfectly equal rights—human rights. There was never any question in my mind in regard to this.” She supported the cause of woman suffrage, for she maintained that while a woman was denied the vote she “had no rights and ... must submit to wrongs, and because she submits to wrongs she isn’t anybody.” Yet she steadfastly asserted her rights and deemed it “ridiculous that any sensible, rational person should question it.” Although she did not participate in women’s rights rallies until later in her life, she always acted on her principles. In February 1861, for example, Barton began to champion the cause of her cousin, Elvira Stone, a postmistress who was about to lose her job to a man. Barton laid the unpleasant facts before her friends in Washington without hesitation: “As Cousin Elvira had never taken any parts [_sic_] in politics ... political tendencies can scarcely be made a pretext, neither incompetence, neglect of business, location or lack of a proper recognition of, or attention to, the wants of the community in any manner—And it would not _look well_ to commence a petition with _Mankind_ being naturally prone to selfishness we hereby etc., etc.—And I have been able to divine nothing except that she is guilty of being a woman.” By April she had secured her cousin’s position. She dryly remarked that Elvira Stone was certainly entitled to it, for, “I have never learned that the [post office] proceeds arising from the female portion of the correspondence of our country were deducted from the revenue.” [Illustration: _Stephen Barton was a descendant of Edward Barton who had come to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1640. Stephen, born in 1774, served in the Indian Wars in Ohio Territory during the 1790s under Mad Anthony Wayne._] [Illustration: _David Barton was a keen horseman. In later years Clara Barton referred to him as the “Buffalo Bill of the neighborhood” when recalling the events of her childhood. David and his brother Stephen owned and operated a satinet mill: satinet was a kind of cotton cloth._] Barton felt that by winning such small battles, her larger feminist principles were upheld. But her real contribution in these early years was her own attitude and actions. By demonstrating that her talents, courage, and intellect were undeniably equal to a man’s she quietly furthered the women’s cause as much as parades and speeches did. “As for my being a woman,” she told the men who questioned her, “[you] will get used to that.”