Mrs. Stanton delivered this address before a joint session of the New York legislature in March 1860. Susan beamed with pride as she watched the large audience crowd even the galleries and heard the long loud applause for the speech which she was convinced could not have been surpassed by any man in the United States. The next day the Assembly passed the Married Women's Property Bill, and when shortly it was signed by the governor, Susan and Mrs. Stanton scored their first big victory, winning a legal revolution for the women of New York State. This new law was a challenge to women everywhere. Under it a married woman had the right to hold property, real and personal, without the interference of her husband, the right to carry on any trade or perform any service on her own account and to collect and use her own earnings; a married woman might now buy, sell, and make contracts, and if her husband had abandoned her or was insane, a convict, or a habitual drunkard, his consent was unnecessary; a married woman might sue and be sued, she was the joint guardian with her husband of her children, and on the decease of her husband the wife had the same rights that her husband would have at her death. Susan did not then realize the full significance of what she had accomplished--that she had unleashed a new movement for freedom which would be the means of strengthening the democratic government of her country. FOOTNOTES: [90] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 173-174, 198. [91] _Ibid._, p. 160. [92] May 26, 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Vassar College Library. [93] _Ibid._, June 5, 1856. Antoinette Brown Blackwell was often called Nette. [94] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress. [95] 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. [96] Ms., Susan B. Anthony Papers, Library of Congress. A notation on this ms. reads, "Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton--Delivered by Susan B. Anthony." [97] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 143. [98] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, p. 71. [99] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 162. [100] June 10, 1856, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. [101] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 171. [102] Sept. 27, 1857, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. [103] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 175. [104] Ms., Diary, 1855. [105] Sept. 27, 1857, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. [106] Elizabeth Barrett Browning, _Aurora Leigh_ (New York, 1857), p. 316; quotations following, pp. 53-54, pp. 364-365. [107] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 170. [108] _Ibid._, p. 177. Mary Hallowell, a liberal Rochester Quaker, always interested in Susan B. Anthony and her work. THE ZEALOT