The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
They went to Mrs. Rose but she could not accommodate them; then to Abby
Hopper Gibbons, who sent them to Elizabeth F. Ellet, saying if they
could not find quarters to come back and she would care for them. Mrs.
Ellet was not at home. All day they went from place to place but no one
was willing to accept the responsibility of sheltering them, and at
night, utterly worn out, they returned to Mrs. Gibbons. She promised to
keep the mother and child until other arrangements could be effected,
and Miss Anthony left them there and took the 10 o'clock train back to
Albany. She arrived toward morning, tired out in mind and body, but
soon was made comfortable by the ministrations of her faithful friend
Lydia.
[Autograph: Abby Hopper Gibbons]
It was not long before the family became convinced that Miss Anthony
knew the whereabouts of mother and child and then began a siege of
persecution. She had at this time commenced that never-to-be-forgotten
series of anti-slavery conventions which were mobbed in every town from
Buffalo to Albany. In the midst of all this excitement and danger, she
was constantly receiving threats from the brothers that they would have
her arrested on the platform. They said she had broken the laws and
they would make her pay the penalty; that their sister was an "ugly"
woman and nobody could live with her. To this she replied: "I have
heard there was Indian blood in your family; perhaps your sister has
got a little of it as well as yourselves. I think you would not allow
your children to be taken away from you, law or no law. There is no
reason or justice in a woman's submitting to such outrages, and I
propose to defy the law and you also."
If she had been harassed only by these men, it would have caused her no
especial worry, but letters and telegrams from friends poured in urging
her to reveal the hiding-place and, most surprising of all, both
Garrison and Phillips wrote that she had abducted a man's child and
must surrender it! Mr. Phillips remonstrated: "Let us urge you,
therefore, at once to advise and insist upon this woman's returning to
her relatives. Garrison concurs with me fully and earnestly in this
opinion, thinking that our movement's repute for good sense should not
be compromised by any such mistake." In a letter from Mr. Garrison
covering six pages of foolscap, he argued: "Our identification with the
woman's rights movement and the anti-slavery cause is such that we
ought not unnecessarily involve them in any hasty and ill-judged, no
matter how well-meant, efforts of our own. We, at least, owe to them
this--that if for any act of ours we are dragged before courts we ought
to be able to show that we acted discreetly as well as with good
intentions." Both men spoke kindly and affectionately but they were
unable to view the question from a mother's or even from a woman's
standpoint. Miss Anthony replied to them:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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