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
On May 31 both the Anti-Slavery Society and the Equal Rights
Association held large meetings in Boston. The latter, in conformity
with its new name, announced that "any member of the audience, man or
woman, was entitled to speak on the topics under debate and would be
made welcome." This had been the rule always in the old woman's rights
conventions, but it was reaffirmed now in order to show the broad and
catholic spirit of the new organization. At this Boston meeting Anna
Dickinson made her first speech for the rights of woman. It was one of
those bursts of inspiration which no pen can reproduce, and was
received by the audience with cheer upon cheer. She gave $100 to the
cause, assuring them of her services henceforth, and Miss Anthony wrote
of her, "She is sound to the heart's core."
The great work of rolling up petitions, not only to Congress but to the
New York Constitutional Convention, was then commenced. The executive
board of the Standard offered to lease to the Equal Rights Association
office-room and a certain amount of space in the paper. These, however,
were put at such a price and placed under such restrictions as it was
thought unwise to accept. All the matter submitted would be subject to
"editorial revision," even though the association paid for the space,
and as Mr. Pillsbury had resigned the editorship and Mr. Powell had
taken it, they decided they could not trust the "editorial revision."
The women had done so vast an amount of gratuitous work for the
Standard in past years, that they felt themselves entitled to more
liberal treatment. The editor had written, only a short time before, of
the excellent service Miss Anthony had rendered in straightening out
the accounts. She also had secured numerous subscribers, sending in as
many as thirty at a time from some of her meetings.
For the purpose of arousing public interest in the approaching New York
Constitutional Convention, an equal rights meeting was held at Albany,
in Tweddle Hall, November 21. To make this a success Miss Anthony spent
many weeks of hard work. The diary notes that, among other things, she
directed and sent out 1200 complimentary tickets.[38] At this Albany
convention political differences began to appear. Mrs. Stanton
complimented the Democrats for the assistance they had rendered;
Frederick Douglass objected to their receiving any credit, branding
their advocacy as a trick of the enemy, and there were frequent sharp
encounters. Miss Anthony made an extended speech, of which there is but
this newspaper report:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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