Again, in the Nation's greatest crisis, Woman Suffrage showed itself to be the antipodes of woman's progress. Those of us whose once sable locks are now silvered are content to wear the badge of years, when we remember that we were permitted to live long enough ago to have felt the expansion of soul, the fervor of loyal love, the melting power of an overwhelming universal sorrow and a united joy, which filled the mighty days during a war for freedom and for the life of the Republic. Most of the women of the land were working with a devotion that spared neither strength nor life. What was the Woman-Suffrage Association doing? I answer in their own words. In their "History," they say: "While the most of women never philosophize on the principles that underlie national existence, there were those in our late war who understood the political significance of the struggle: the 'irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery; between national and State rights.' They saw that to provide lint, bandages, and supplies for the army, while the war was not conducted on a wise policy, was labor in vain; and while many organizations, active, vigilant, self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look after the material wants of the army, these few formed themselves into a National Loyal League to teach sound principles of government, and to impress on the nation's conscience, that 'freedom to the slaves was the only way to victory.'" They further say: "Accustomed as most women had been to works of charity, to the relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle. They clamored for practical work, something for their hands to do; for fairs, sewing societies to raise money for soldiers' families, for tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but conventions to discuss principles and to circulate petitions for emancipation. They could not see that the best service they could render the army was to suppress the rebellion, and that the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform the slaves into soldiers. The Woman's Loyal League voiced the solemn lessons of the war; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty."