Volume I Part 89 (1/2)

[130] It is pleasant to record that a few years later Mr. Beecher's vision was clear on the whole question, and he was often found on the woman's rights platform, not only speaking himself, but his sister, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, also. On one occasion he conducted Miss Kate Field to the platform in Plymouth Church as gracefully as he ever handed a lady out to dinner, introduced her to the audience, and presided during her address. Sitting there he seemed to feel as much at his ease as if Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had been the speaker.

[131] As this meeting was hastily decided upon, there was no call issued; it was merely noticed in the county papers. _The Saratoga Whig_, August 18, 1854, says:

WOMEN'S RIGHTS.--The series of conventions that have been holding sessions in the village during the week, will close this day with a meeting for the discussion of the social, legal, and political rights of women, at which Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Miss Sarah Pellet will appear. The meetings will be held at St.

Nicholas Hall this afternoon at 3 and a half o'clock, and in the evening at 8 o'clock.

[132] Any one but the indomitable Susan B. Anthony would have abandoned all idea of a meeting, but, as it was advertised, she felt bound to make it a fact. This decision may seem the more remarkable in view of other facts, that Miss Anthony had but little experience as a speaker, and was fully aware of her deficiencies in that line; her forte lay in planning conventions, raising money, marshalling the forces, and smoothing the paths for others to go forward, make the speeches, and get the glory. Having listened in St. Nicholas Hall for several days to some of the finest orators in the country, it was with great trepidation that she resolved to attempt to hold such audiences as had crowded all the meetings during the week, and would no doubt continue to do so. However, she had one written speech, which she decided to divide, giving the industrial disabilities of women in the afternoon, and their political rights in the evening, supplementing each with whatever extemporaneous observations might strike her mind as she proceeded. With Mrs. Gage to speak at one session and Miss Pellet at the other, Miss Anthony rounded out both meetings to the general satisfaction. It was thus she always stood ready for every emergency; when n.o.body else would or could speak she did; when everybody wished to speak she was silent.--E. C. S.

[133] _The Daily Saratogian_. August 19th, said: Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, a medium-sized, lady-like looking woman, dressed in a tasty plum-colored silk with two flounces, made the first address upon some of the defects in the marriage laws, quoting Story, Kent, and Blackstone. She closed by speaking of Mrs. Marcet, an able writer on political economy, her book much used in schools. She referred to Miss Pinckney, of South Carolina, who in nullification times, wrote powerfully on that subject. It was said that party was consolidated by the nib of a lady's pen. She was the first woman in the United States who was honored with a public funeral.

[134] _President_.--Martha C. Wright, of Auburn.

_Vice-Presidents_.--Rev. Samuel J. May, Syracuse; Lydia Mott, Albany; Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Antoinette L. Brown, New York; Susan B.

Anthony, Rochester; Augusta A. Wiggins, Saratoga Springs.

_Secretaries_.--Emily Jaques, Na.s.sau; Aaron M. Powell, Ghent; Mary L.

Booth, Williamsburgh.

_Finance Committee_.--Susan B. Anthony, Marietta Richmond, Mary S.

Anthony, Phebe H. Jones.

_Business Committee_.--Antoinette L. Brown, Ernestine L. Rose, T. W.

Higginson, Charles F. Hovey, of Boston; Phebe Merritt, of Michigan; Hon. William Hay, of Saratoga Springs.

[135] Now the successful editor of _Harper's Bazar_.

[136] This year Miss Anthony canva.s.sed the State, holding conventions in fifty-four counties, organizing societies, getting signatures to pet.i.tions, and subscribers to _The Una_. At some of these meetings Mrs. Rose, Miss Brown, and Miss Filkins a.s.sisted by turn, but the chief part she carried through alone. She had posters for the entire State printed in Rochester, her father, brother Merritt, and Mary Luther folding and superscribing to all the postmasters and the sheriff of every county. The sheriffs, with but few exceptions, opened the Court Houses for the meetings, posted the bills, and attended to the advertising. Miss Anthony entered on this work without the pledge of a dollar. But with free meetings and collections in the afternoon, and a s.h.i.+lling admission in the evening, she managed to cover the entire expenses of the campaign.

[137] WOMEN'S RIGHTS PEt.i.tION.

_To the Honorable, the Senate and a.s.sembly of the State of New York_:

WHEREAS, the women of the State of New York are recognized as citizens by the Const.i.tution, and yet are disfranchised on account of s.e.x; we do respectfully demand the right of suffrage; a right which involves all other rights of citizens.h.i.+p, and which can not be justly withheld, when we consider the admitted principles of popular government, among which are the following:

1st. That all men are born free and equal.

2d. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

3d. That taxation and representation should go together.

4th. That those held amenable to laws should have a share in framing them.

We do, therefore, pet.i.tion that you will take the necessary steps so to revise the Const.i.tution of our State, as that all her citizens may enjoy equal political privileges.

[138] The committee were Susan B. Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette L. Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott.

[139] At the close of this Convention, Charles F. Hovey, as was his usual custom, planned an excursion for those who had taken part in the meetings. He invited them to take a drive to the lake, a few miles out of Saratoga, gave them a bountiful repast, and together they spent a day rich in pleasant memories. Listening day after day to the wrongs perpetrated on woman by law and Gospel of man's creation, Mr. Hovey always seemed to feel that he was in duty bound to throw what suns.h.i.+ne and happiness he could into the lives of women, and thus in a measure atone for the injustice of his s.e.x, and most royally he did this whenever an opportunity offered, not only while he lived, but by bequests at his death.

[140] Twenty years after this Mrs. Stanton met a lady in Texas, who told her about this Saratoga Convention. She said her attention was first called to the subject of woman's rights by some tracts a friend of hers, then living in Georgia, brought home at that time, and that we could form but little idea of the intense interest with which they were read and discussed by quite a circle of ladies, who plied her aunt with innumerable questions about the Convention and the appearance and manners of the ladies who led the movement.