Paulina Wright DavisPaulina Wright Davis
Aided and abetted by her new National Woman Suffrage Association, Susan continued her opposition inThe Revolutionto the Fifteenth Amendment until it was ratified in 1870.
So incensed was the Boston group byThe Revolution'sopposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, so displeased was Lucy Stone by the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Associationwithout consultation with her, one of the oldest workers in the field, that they began to talk of forming a national woman suffrage organization of their own. They charged Susan with lust for power and autocratic control. Mrs. Stanton they found equally objectionable because of her radical views on sex, marriage, and divorce, expressed inThe Revolutionin connection with the Hester Vaughn case. They sincerely felt that the course of woman suffrage would run more smoothly, arouse less antagonism, and make more progress without these two militants who were forever stirring things up and introducing extraneous subjects.
During these trying days of accusations, animosity, and rival factions, Mrs. Stanton's unwavering support was a great comfort to Susan as was the joy of having a paper to carry her message.
In addition to all the responsibilities connected with publishing her weekly paper, advertising, subscriptions, editorial policy, and raising the money to pay the bills, Susan was also holding successful conventions in Saratoga and Newport where men and women of wealth and influence gathered for the summer; she was traveling out to St. Louis, Chicago, and other western cities to speak on woman suffrage, making trips to Washington to confer with Congressmen, getting petitions for the Sixteenth Amendment circulated, and through all this, building up the National Woman Suffrage Association.
TheRevolutionoffice became the rallying point for a forward-looking group of women, many of whom contributed to the hard-hitting liberal sheet. Elizabeth Tilton, the lovely dark-haired young wife of the popular lecturer and editor of theIndependent, selected the poetry. Alice and Phoebe Cary gladly offered poems and a novel; and when Susan was away, Phoebe Cary often helped Mrs. Stanton get out the paper. Elizabeth Smith Miller gave money, encouragement, and invaluable aid with her translations of interesting letters whichThe Revolutionreceived from France and Germany. Laura Curtis Bullard, the heir to the Dr. Winslow-Soothing-Syrup fortune, who traveled widely in Europe, sent letters from abroad and took a lively interest in the paper. Another new recruit was Lillie Devereux Blake, who was gaining a reputation as a writer and who soon proved to be a brilliant orator and an invaluableworker in the New York City suffrage group. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, unfailingly gave her support, and her calm assurance strengthened Susan. The wealthy Paulina Wright Davis of Providence, Rhode Island, who followed Parker Pillsbury as editor, when he felt obliged to resign for financial reasons, gave the paper generous financial backing.
Isabella Beecher HookerIsabella Beecher Hooker
It was Mrs. Davis who brought into the fold the half sister of Henry Ward Beecher, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a queenly woman, one of the elect of Hartford, Connecticut. Hoping to break down Mrs. Hooker's prejudice against Susan and Mrs. Stanton, which had been built up by New England suffragists, Mrs. Davis invited the three women to spend a few days with her. After this visit, Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in Boston, "I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week.... She is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart. In unselfishness and benevolence she has scarcely an equal, and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power, which is something immense. Sometimes she fails in judgment, according to the standards ofothers, but in right intentions never, nor in faithfulness to her friends.... After attending a two days' convention in Newport, engineered by her in her own fashion, I am obliged to accept the most favorable interpretation of her which prevails generally, rather than that of Boston. Mrs. Stanton too is a magnificent woman.... I hand in my allegiance to both as leaders and representatives of the great movement."[239]
From then on, Mrs. Hooker did her best to reconcile the Boston and New York factions, hoping to avert the formation of a second national woman suffrage organization.
"I think we need two national associations for woman suffrage so that those who do not oppose the Fifteenth Amendment, nor take the tone ofThe Revolutionmay yet have an organization with which they can work in harmony."[240]So wrote Lucy Stone to many of her friends during the summer of 1869, and some of these letters fell into Susan's hands.
"The radical abolitionists and the Republicans could never have worked together but in separate organizations both did good service," Lucy further explained. "There are just as distinctly two parties to the woman movement.... Each organization will attract those who naturally belong to it—and there will be harmonious work."
When the ground had been prepared by these letters, Lucy asked old friends and new to sign a call to a woman suffrage convention, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1869, "to unite those who cannot use the methods which Mrs. Stanton and Susan use...."[241]
Those feeling as she did eagerly signed the call, while others who knew little about the controversy in the East added their names because they were glad to take part in a convention sponsored by such prominent men and women as Julia Ward Howe, George William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and William Lloyd Garrison. Still others who did not understand the insurmountable differences in temperament and policy between the two groups hoped that a new truly national organization would unite the two factions. Even Mary Livermore, who had been active in the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, was by this time responding to overtures from the Boston group, writing William Lloyd Garrison, "I have been repelled by some of the idiosyncrasies of our New York friends, as have others. Their opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, the buffoonery of George F. Train, the loose utterances of theRevolutionon the marriage and dress questions—and what is equally potent hindrance to the cause, the fearful squandering of moneyat the New York headquarters—all this has tended to keep me on my own feet, apart from those to whom I was at first attracted.... I am glad at the prospect of an association that will be truly national and which promises so much of success and character."[242]
Neither Susan nor Mrs. Stanton received a notice of the Cleveland convention, but Susan, scanning a copy of the call sent her by a solicitous friend, was deeply disturbed when she saw the signatures of Lydia Mott, Amelia Bloomer, Myra Bradwell, Gerrit Smith, and other good friends.
The New YorkWorld, at once suspecting a feud, asked, "Where are those well-known American names, Susan B. Anthony, Parker Pillsbury, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton? It is clear that there is a division in the ranks of the strong-minded and that an effort is being made to ostracizeThe Revolutionwhich has so long upheld the cause of Suffrage, through evil report and good...."[243]
The RochesterDemocrat, loyal to Susan, put this question, "Can it be possible that a National Woman's Suffrage Convention is called without Susan's knowledge or consent?... A National Woman's Suffrage Association without speeches from Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Stanton will be a new order of things. The idea seems absurd."[244]
To Susan it also seemed both absurd and unrealistic, for she remembered how almost single-handed she had held together and built up the woman suffrage movement during the years when her colleagues had been busy with family duties. She was appalled at the prospect of a division in the ranks at this time when she believed victory possible through the action of a strong united front.
Confident that many who signed the call were ignorant of or blind to the animus behind it, she did her best to bring the facts before them. She put the blame for the rift entirely upon Lucy Stone, believing that without Lucy's continual stirring up, past differences in policy would soon have been forgotten. The antagonism between the two burned fiercely at this time. Susan was determined to fight to the last ditch for control of the movement, convinced that her policies and Mrs. Stanton's were forward-looking, unafraid, and always put women first.
Susan now also had to face the humiliating possibility that she might be forced to give upThe Revolution. Not only was the operating deficit piling up alarmingly, but there were persistent rumors of a competitor, another woman suffrage paper to be edited by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe.
Susan had assumed full financial responsibility forThe Revolutionbecause Mrs. Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, both with families to consider, felt unable to share this burden. Mrs. Stanton had always contributed her services and Parker Pillsbury had been sadly underpaid, while Susan had drawn out for her salary only the most meager sums for bare living expenses.
With a maximum of 3,000 subscribers, the paper could not hope to pay its way even though she had secured a remarkably loyal group of advertisers.[245]Reluctantly she raised the subscription price from $2 to $3 a year. Her friends and family were generous with gifts and loans, but these only met the pressing needs of the moment and in no way solved the overall financial problem of the paper.
Appealing once again to her wealthy and generous Quaker cousin, Anson Lapham, she wrote him in desperation, "My paper must not, shall not go down. I am sure you believe in me, in my honesty of purpose, and also in the grand work whichThe Revolutionseeks to do, and therefore you will not allow me to ask you in vain to come to the rescue. Yesterday's mail brought 43 subscribers from Illinois and 20 from California. We only need time to win financial success. I know you will save me from giving the world a chance to say, 'There is a woman's rights failure; even the best of women can't manage business!' If only I could die, and thereby fail honorably, I would say, 'Amen,' but to live and fail—it would be too terrible to bear."[246]He came to her aid as he always had in the past.
Susan's sister Mary not only lent her all her savings, but spent her summer vacation in New York in 1869, working inThe Revolutionoffice while Susan, busy with woman suffrage conventions in Newport, Saratoga, Chicago, and Ohio, was building up good will and subscriptions for her paper. Concerned for her welfare, Mary repeatedly but unsuccessfully urged her to give up. Daniel added his entreaties to Mary's, begging Susan not to go further into debt,but to form a stock company if she were determined to continue her paper. She considered his advice very seriously for he was a practical businessman and yet appreciated what she was trying to do. For a time the formation of a stock company seemed possible, for the project appealed to three women of means, Paulina Wright Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and Laura Curtis Bullard, but it never materialized.
With the financial problem ofThe Revolutionstill unsolved, Susan decided to make her appearance at Lucy Stone's convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 24, 1869. Not only did she want to see with her own eyes and hear with her own ears all that went on, but she was determined to walk the second mile with Lucy and her supporters, or even to turn the other cheek, if need be, for the sake of her beloved cause.
Seeing her in the audience, Judge Bradwell of Chicago moved that she be invited to sit on the platform, but Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was presiding, replied that he thought this unnecessary as a special invitation had already been extended to all desiring to identify themselves with the movement. Judge Bradwell would not be put off, his motion was carried, and as Susan walked up to the platform to join the other notables, she was greeted with hearty applause. Sitting there among her critics, she wondered what she could possibly say to persuade them to forget their differences for the sake of the cause. After listening to Lucy Stone plead for renewed work for woman suffrage and for petitions for a Sixteenth Amendment, she spontaneously rose to her feet and asked permission to speak. "I hope," she began, "that the work of this association, if it be organized, will be to go in strong array up to the Capitol at Washington to demand a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The question of the admission of women to the ballot would not then be left to the mass of voters in every State, but would be submitted by Congress to the several legislatures of the States for ratification, and ... be decided by the most intelligent portion of the people. If the question is left to the vote of the rank and file, it will be put off for years.[247]
"So help me, Heaven!" she continued with emotion. "I care not what may come out of this Convention, so that this great causeshall go forward to its consummation! And though this Convention by its action shall nullify the National Association of which I am a member, and though it shall tread its heel uponThe Revolution, to carry on which I have struggled as never mortal woman or mortal man struggled for any cause ... still, if you will do the work in Washington so that this Amendment will be proposed, and will go with me to the several Legislatures andcompelthem to adopt it, I will thank God for this Convention as long as I have the breath of life."
Loud and continuous applause greeted these earnest words. However, instead of pledging themselves to work for a Sixteenth Amendment, the newly formed American Woman Suffrage Association, blind to the exceptional opportunity at this time for Congressional action on woman suffrage, decided to concentrate on work in the states where suffrage bills were pending. Instead of electing an outstanding woman as president, they chose Henry Ward Beecher, boasting that this was proof of their genuine belief in equal rights. Lucy Stone headed the executive committee.
Divisions soon began developing among the suffragists in the field. Many whose one thought previously had been the cause now spent time weighing the differences between the two organizations and between personalities, and antagonisms increased.
Hardest of all for Susan to bear was the definite announcement of a rival paper, theWoman's Journal, to be issued in Boston in January 1870 under the editorship of Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore, and Julia Ward Howe, with Henry Blackwell as business manager. Mary Livermore, who previously had planned to merge her paper, theAgitator, withThe Revolutionnow merged it with theWoman's Journal. Financed by wealthy stockholders, all influential Republicans, theJournal, Susan knew, would be spared the financial struggles ofThe Revolution, but would be obliged to conform to Republican policy in its support of woman's rights. Had not theWoman's Journalbeen such an obvious affront to the heroic efforts ofThe Revolutionand a threat to its very existence, she could have rejoiced with Lucy over one more paper carrying the message of woman suffrage.
More determined than ever to continueThe Revolution, Susan redoubled her efforts, announcing an imposing list of contributorsfor 1870, including the British feminist, Lydia Becker, and as a special attraction, a serial by Alice Cary. Through the efforts of Mrs. Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe was persuaded to consider serving as contributing editor provided the paper's name was changed toThe True Republicor to some other name satisfactory to her.[248]
Having struggled against the odds for so long, Susan had no intention of being stifled now by Mrs. Stowe's more conservative views, nor would she give her crusading sheet an innocuous name. However, the decision was taken out of her hands byThe Revolution'scoverage of the sensational McFarland-Richardson murder case, which so shocked both Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Stowe that they gave up all thought of being associated in a publishing venture with Susan or Mrs. Stanton.
The whole country was stirred in December 1869 by the fatal shooting in theTribuneoffice of the well-known journalist, Albert D. Richardson, by Daniel McFarland, to whose divorced wife Richardson had been attentive. When just before his death, Richardson was married to the divorced Mrs. McFarland by Henry Ward Beecher with Horace Greeley as a witness, the press was agog. So strong was the feeling against a divorced woman that Henry Ward Beecher was severely condemned for officiating at the marriage, and Mrs. Richardson was played up in the press and in court as the villain, although her divorce had been granted because of the brutality and instability of McFarland.
Indignant at the sophistry of the press and the general acceptance of a double standard of morals,The Revolutionnot only spoke out fearlessly in defense of Mrs. Richardson but in an editorial by Mrs. Stanton frankly analyzed the tragic human relations so obvious in the case. With Susan's full approval, Mrs. Stanton wrote, "I rejoice over every slave that escapes from a discordant marriage. With the education and elevation of women we shall have a mighty sundering of the unholy ties that hold men and women together who loathe and despise each other...."[249]When the court acquitted McFarland, giving him the custody of his twelve-year-old son, Susan called a protest meeting which attracted an audience of two thousand.
Such words and such activities disturbed many who sympathizedwith Mrs. Richardson but saw no reason for flaunting exultant approval of divorce in a woman suffrage paper, and they turned to theWoman's Journalas more to their taste.
Susan, however, reading the first number of theWoman's Journal, found its editorials lacking fire. She rebelled at Julia Ward Howe's counsel, "to lay down all partisan warfare and organize a peaceful Grand Army of the Republic of Women ... not ... as against men, but as against all that is pernicious to men and women."[250]Susan's fight had never been against men but against man-made laws that held women in bondage. There had always been men willing to help her. Experience had taught her that the struggle for woman's rights was no peaceful academic debate, but real warfare which demanded political strategy, self-sacrifice, and unremitting labor. She was prouder than ever of herRevolutionand its liberal hard-hitting policy.
Convinced that the National Woman Suffrage Association must publicize its existence and its value, Susan began the year 1870 with a convention in Washington which even Senator Sumner praised as exceeding in interest anything he had ever witnessed there. Its striking demonstration of the vitality and intelligence of the National Association was the best answer she could possibly have given to the accusations and criticism aimed at her and her organization.
Jessie Benton Frémont, watching the delegates enter the dining room of the Arlington Hotel, called Susan over to her table and said with a twinkle in her eyes, "Now, tell me, Miss Anthony, have you hunted the country over and picked out and brought to Washington a score of the most beautiful women you could find?"[251]
They were a fine-looking and intelligent lot—Paulina Wright Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Josephine Griffin of the Freedman's Bureau, Charlotte Wilbour, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Martha C. Wright, and Olympia Brown; Phoebe Couzins and Virginia Minor from Missouri, Madam Annekè from Wisconsin, and best of all to Susan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their presence, their friendship and allegiance were a source of great pride and joy. Elizabeth Stanton had come from St. Louis, interrupting her successful lecture tour, when she much preferred to stay away from all conventions.She had written Susan, "Of course, I stand by you to the end. I would not see you crushed by rivals even if to prevent it required my being cut into inch bits.... No power in heaven, hell or earth can separate us, for our hearts are eternally wedded together."[252]
Also at this convention to show his support of Susan and her program, was her faithful friend of many years, the Rev. Samuel J. May of Syracuse. Clara Barton, ill and unable to attend, sent a letter to be read, an appeal to her soldier friends for woman suffrage.
Not only did the large and enthusiastic audiences show a growing interest in votes for women, but two great victories for women in 1869, one in Great Britain and the other in the United States, brought to the convention a feeling of confidence. Women taxpayers had been granted the right to vote in municipal elections in England, Scotland, and Wales, through the efforts of Jacob Bright. In the Territory of Wyoming, during the first session of its legislature, women had been granted the right to vote, to hold office, and serve on juries, and married women had been given the right to their separate property and their earnings. This progressive action by men of the West turned Susan's thoughts hopefully to the western territories, and early in 1870 when the Territory of Utah enfranchised its women, she had further cause for rejoicing.
To celebrate these victories for which her twenty years' work for women had blazed the trail, some of her friends held a reception for her in New York at the Women's Bureau on her fiftieth birthday. She was amazed at the friendly attention her birthday received in the press. "Susan's Half Century," read a headline in theHerald. TheWorldcalled her the Moses of her sex. "A Brave Old Maid," commented theSun. But it was to theTribunethat she turned with special interest, always hoping for a word of approval from Horace Greeley and finding at last this faint ray of praise: "Careful readers of theTribunehave probably succeeded in discovering that we have not always been able to applaud the course of Miss Susan B. Anthony. Indeed, we have often felt, and sometimes said that her methods were as unwise as we thought her aims undesirable. But through these years of disputation and struggling. Miss Anthony has thoroughly impressed friends andenemies alike with the sincerity and earnestness of her purpose...."[253]
To Anna E. Dickinson, far away lecturing, Susan confided, "Oh, Anna, I am so glad of it all because it will teach the young girls that to be true to principle—to live an idea, though an unpopular one—that to live single—without any man's name—may be honorable."[254]
A few of Susan's younger colleagues still insisted that a merger of the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations might be possible. Again Theodore Tilton undertook the task of mediation and Lucretia Mott, who had retired from active participation in the woman's rights movement, tried to help work out a reconciliation. Susan was skeptical but gave them her blessing. Representatives of the American Association, however, again made it plain that they were unwilling to work with Susan and Mrs. Stanton.[255]
By this timeThe Revolutionhad become an overwhelming financial burden. For some months Mrs. Stanton had been urging Susan to give it up and turn to the lecture field, as she had done, to spread the message of woman's rights. Susan hesitated, unwilling to give upThe Revolutionand not yet confident that she could hold the attention of an audience for a whole evening. However, she found herself a great success when pushed into several Lyceum lecture engagements in Pennsylvania by Mrs. Stanton's sudden illness. "Miss Anthony evidently lectures not for the purpose of receiving applause," commented the PittsburghCommercial, "but for the purpose of making people understand and be convinced. She takes her place on the stage in a plain and unassuming manner and speaks extemporaneously and fluently, too, reminding one of an old campaign speaker, who is accustomed to talk simply for the purpose of converting his audience to his political theories. She used plain English and plenty of it.... She clearly evinced a quality that many politicians lack—sincerity."[256]
For each of these lectures on "Work, Wages, and the Ballot," she received a fee of $75 and was able as well to get new subscribers forThe Revolution. She now saw the possibilities for herself and the cause in a Lyceum tour, and when the Lyceum Bureau, pleased with her reception in Pennsylvania wanted to book her for lectures in the West, she accepted, calling Parker Pillsbury back toTheRevolutionto take charge. All through Illinois she drew large audiences and her fees increased to $95, $125, and $150. In two months she was able to pay $1,300 ofThe Revolution'sdebt.
When she returned to New York, she realized that she could not continue to carryThe Revolutionalone, in spite of increased subscriptions. Its $10,000 debt weighed heavily upon her. Parker Pillsbury's help could only be temporary; Mrs. Stanton's strenuous lecture tour left her little time to give to the paper; and Susan's own friends and family were unable to finance it further.
Fortunately the idea of editing a paper appealed strongly to the wealthy Laura Curtis Bullard, who had the promise of editorial help from Theodore Tilton. Susan now turned the paper over to them completely, receiving nothing in return but shares of stock, while she assumed the entire indebtedness.
Giving up the control of her beloved paper was one of the most humiliating experiences and one of the deepest sorrows she ever faced.The Revolutionhad become to her the symbol of her crusade for women. Overwhelmed by a sense of failure, she confided to her diary on the date of the transfer, "It was like signing my own death warrant," and to a friend she wrote, "I feel a great, calm sadness like that of a mother binding out a dear child that she could not support."[257]
She made a valiant announcement of the transfer inThe Revolutionof May 26, 1870, expressing her delight that the paper had at last found financial backing and a new, enthusiastic editor. "In view of the active demand for conventions, lectures, and discussions on Woman Suffrage," she added, "I have concluded that so far as my own personal efforts are concerned, I can be more useful on the platform than in a newspaper. So, on the 1st of June next, I shall cease to be thesoleproprietor ofThe Revolution, and shall be free to attend public meetings where ever so plain and matter of fact an old worker as I am can secure a hearing."[258]
Financial backing, however, did not putThe Revolutionon its feet, although its forthright editorials and articles were replaced by spicy and brilliant observations on pleasant topics which offended no one. Before the year was up, Mrs. Bullard was making overtures to Susan to take the paper back. Susan wanted desperately "to keep the Old Ship Revolution's colors flying"[259]and to bring backMrs. Stanton's stinging editorials. She also feared that Mrs. Bullard on Theodore Tilton's advice might turn the paper over to the Boston group to be consolidated with theWoman's Journal. As no funds were available, she had to turn her back on her beloved paper and hope for the best. "I suppose there is a wise Providence in my being stripped of power to go forward," she wrote at this time. "At any rate, I mean to try and make good come out of it."[260]
For one more year,The Revolutionstruggled on under the editorship of Mrs. Bullard and Theodore Tilton and then was taken over by theChristian Enquirer. The $10,000 debt, incurred under Susan's management, she regarded as her responsibility, although her brother Daniel and many of her friends urged bankruptcy proceedings. "My pride for women, to say nothing of my conscience," she insisted, "says no."[261]
While Susan was lecturing in the West, hoping to earn enough to pay offThe Revolution'sdebt, she was pondering a new approach to the enfranchisement of women which had been proposed by Francis Minor, a St. Louis attorney and the husband of her friend, Virginia Minor.
Francis Minor contended that while the Constitution gave the states the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gave them the power to prohibit it, and he believed that this conclusion was strengthened by the Fourteenth Amendment which provided that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
To claim the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment made a great appeal to both Susan and Elizabeth Stanton. Susan published Francis Minor's arguments inThe Revolutionand also his suggestion that some woman test this interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by attempting to vote at the next election; while Mrs. Stanton used this new approach as the basis of her speech before a Congressional committee in 1870.
With such a fresh and thrilling project to develop, Susan looked forward to the annual woman suffrage convention to be held in Washington in January 1871. So heavy was her lecture schedule that she reluctantly left preparations for the convention in the willing hands of Isabella Beecher Hooker, who was confident she could improve on Susan's meetings and guide the woman's rights movement into more ladylike and aristocratic channels, winning over scores of men and women who hitherto had remained aloof. At the last moment, however, she appealed in desperation to Susan for help, and Susan, canceling important lecture engagements, hurried to Washington. Here she found the newspapers full of Victoria C. Woodhull and her Memorial to Congress on woman suffrage, which had been presented by Senator Harris of Louisiana and Congressman Julian of Indiana. Capitalizing on the new approach to woman suffrage, Mrs. Woodhull based her argumentson the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, praying Congress to enact legislation to enable women to exercise the right to vote vested in them by these amendments. A hearing was scheduled before the House judiciary committee the very morning the convention opened.
Victoria C. WoodhullVictoria C. Woodhull
Convinced that she and her colleagues must attend that hearing, Susan consulted with her friends in Congress and overrode Mrs. Hooker's hesitancy about associating their organization with so questionable a woman as Victoria Woodhull. She engaged a constitutional lawyer, Albert G. Riddle,[262]to represent the 30,000 women who had petitioned Congress for the franchise. Then she and Mrs. Hooker attended the hearing and asked for prompt action on woman suffrage. This was the first Congressional hearing on federal enfranchisement. Previous hearings had considered trying the experiment only in the District of Columbia.
Susan had never before seen Victoria Woodhull. Early in 1870, however, she had called at the brokerage office which Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, had opened in New York on Broad Street. The press had been full of amused comments regardingthe lady bankers, and Susan had wanted to see for herself what kind of women they were. Here she met and talked with Tennessee Claflin, publishing their interview inThe Revolution, and also an advertisement of Woodhull, Claflin & Co., Bankers and Brokers.[263]
About six weeks later, these prosperous "lady brokers" had established their own paper,Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, an "Organ of Social Regeneration and Constructive Reform," but Susan had barely noticed its existence, so burdened had she been by the impending loss of her own paper and by pressing lecture engagements. She was therefore unaware that this new weekly explored a field wider than finance, advocating as well woman suffrage and women's advancement, spiritualism, radical views on marriage, love, and sex, and the nomination of Victoria C. Woodhull for President of the United States.
Now in a committee room of the House of Representatives, Susan listened carefully as the dynamic beautiful Victoria Woodhull read her Memorial and her arguments to support it, in a clear well-modulated voice. Simply dressed in a dark blue gown, with a jaunty Alpine hat perched on her curls, she gave the impression of innocent earnest youth, and she captivated not only the members of the judiciary committee, but the more critical suffragists as well. For the moment at least she seemed an appropriate colleague of the forthright crusader, Susan B. Anthony, and her fashionable friends, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Paulina Wright Davis. They invited Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, to their convention, and asked her to repeat her speech for them.
At this convention Susan, encouraged by the favorable reception among politicians of the Woodhull Memorial, mapped out a new and militant campaign, based on her growing conviction that under the Fourteenth Amendment women's rights as citizens were guaranteed. She urged women to claim their rights as citizens and persons under the Fourteenth Amendment, to register and prepare to vote at the next election, and to bring suit in the courts if they were refused.
So enthusiastic had been the reception of this new approach to woman suffrage, so favorable had been the news from thoseclose to leading Republicans, that Susan was unprepared for the adverse report of the judiciary committee on the Woodhull Memorial. She now studied the favorable minority report issued by Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts and William Loughridge of Iowa. Their arguments seemed to her unanswerable; and hurriedly and impulsively in the midst of her western lecture tour, she dashed off a few lines to Victoria Woodhull, to whom she willingly gave credit for bringing out this report. "Glorious old Ben!" she wrote. "He surely is going to pronounce the word that will settle the woman question, just as he did the word 'contraband' that so summarily settled the Negro question.... Everybody here chimes in with the new conclusion that we are already free."[264]
Far from New York where Victoria's activities were being aired by the press, Susan thought of her at this time only in connection with the Memorial and its impact on the judiciary committee. To be sure, she heard stories crediting Benjamin Butler with the authorship of the Woodhull Memorial, and rumors reached her of Victoria's unorthodox views on love and marriage and of her girlhood as a fortune teller, traveling about like a gypsy and living by her wits. Even so, Susan was ready to give Victoria the benefit of the doubt until she herself found her harmful to the cause, for long ago she had learned to discount attacks on the reputations of progressive women. In fact, Victoria Woodhull provided Susan and her associates with a spectacular opportunity to prove the sincerity of their contention that there should not be a double standard of morals—one for men and another for women.
Returning to New York in May 1871, to a convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Susan found that Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Stanton, and Mrs. Davis had invited Victoria Woodhull to address that convention and to sit on the platform between Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton.
Through them and others more critical, Susan was brought up to date on the sensational story of Victoria Woodhull, who had been drawing record crowds to her lectures and whose unconventional life continuously provided reporters with interesting copy. Victoria's home at 15 East Thirty-eighth Street, resplendent and ornate with gilded furniture and bric-a-brac, housed not only her husband, Colonel Blood, and herself but her divorced husband and theirchildren as well, and also all of her quarrelsome relatives. Here many radicals, social reformers, and spiritualists gathered, among them Stephen Pearl Andrews, who soon made use of Victoria and herWeeklyto publicize his dream of a new world order, the Pantarchy, as he called it. Victoria, herself, was an ardent spiritualist, controlled by Demosthenes of the spirit world to whom she believed she owed her most brilliant utterances and by whom she was guided to announce herself as a presidential candidate in 1872. Needless to say, with such a background, Victoria Woodhull became a very controversial figure among the suffragists.
In New York only a few days, it was hard for Susan to separate fact from fiction, truth from rumor and animosity. Even Demosthenes did not seem too ridiculous to her, for many of her most respected friends were spiritualists. Nor did Victoria's presidential aspirations trouble her greatly. Presidential candidates had been nothing to brag of, and willingly would she support the right woman for President. If Victoria lived up to the high standard of the Woodhull Memorial, then even she might be that woman. After all, it was an era of radical theories and Utopian dreams, of extravagances of every sort. Almost anything could happen.
Whatever doubts the suffragists may have had when they saw Victoria Woodhull on the platform at the New York meeting of the National Association, she swept them all along with her when, as one inspired, she made her "Great Secession" speech. "If the very next Congress refuses women all the legitimate results of citizenship," she declared, "we shall proceed to call another convention expressly to frame a new constitution and to erect a new government.... We mean treason; we mean secession, and on a thousand times grander scale than was that of the South. We are plotting revolution; we will overthrow this bogus Republic and plant a government of righteousness in its stead...."[265]
Susan, who felt deeply her right to full citizenship, who herself had talked revolution, and who had so often listened to the extravagant antislavery declarations of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Parker Pillsbury, was not offended by these statements. She was, however, troubled by the attitude of the press, particularly of theTribunewhich labeled this gathering the"Woodhull Convention" and accused the suffragists of adopting Mrs. Woodhull's free-love theories.
Having experienced so recently the animosity stirred up by her alliance with George Francis Train, Susan resolved to be cautious regarding Victoria Woodhull and was beginning to wonder if Victoria was not using the suffragists to further her own ambitions. Yet many trusted friends, who had talked with Mrs. Woodhull far more than she had the opportunity to do, were convinced that she was a genius and a prophet who had risen above the sordid environment of her youth to do a great work for women and who had the courage to handle subjects which others feared to touch.
Free love, for example, Susan well knew was an epithet hurled indiscriminately at anyone indiscreet enough to argue for less stringent divorce laws or for an intelligent frank appraisal of marriage and sex. Was it for this reason, Susan asked herself, that Mrs. Woodhull was called a "free-lover," or did she actually advocate promiscuity?
With these questions puzzling her, she left for Rochester and the West. Almost immediately the papers were full of Victoria Woodhull and her family quarrels which brought her into court. This was a disillusioning experience for the National Woman Suffrage Association which had so recently featured Victoria Woodhull as a speaker, and Susan began seriously to question the wisdom of further association with this strange controversial character. Nevertheless, Victoria still had her ardent defenders among the suffragists, particularly Isabella Beecher Hooker and Paulina Wright Davis. Even the thoughtful judicious Martha C. Wright wrote Mrs. Hooker at this time, "It is not always 'the wise and prudent' to whom the truth is revealed; tho' far be it from me to imply aught derogatory to Mrs. Woodhull. No one can be with her, see her gentle and modest bearing and her spiritual face, without feeling sure that she is a true woman, whatever unhappy surroundings may have compromised her. I have never met a stranger toward whom I felt more tenderly drawn, in sympathy and love."[266]
Elizabeth Cady Stanton spoke her mind in Theodore Tilton's new paper,The Golden Age: "Victoria C. Woodhull stands before us today a grand, brave woman, radical alike in political, religiousand social principles. Her face and form indicate the complete triumph in her nature of the spiritual over the sensuous. The processes of her education are little to us; the grand result everything."[267]
Victoria was in dire need of defenders, for the press was venomous, goading her on to revenge. Susan, now traveling westward, lecturing in one state after another, thinking of ways to interest the people in woman suffrage, was too busy and too far away to follow Victoria Woodhull's court battles.
Mrs. Stanton met Susan in Chicago late in May 1871, to join her on a lecture tour of the far West. Together they headed for Wyoming and Utah, eager to set foot in the states which had been the first to extend suffrage to women. The long leisurely days on the train gave these two old friends, Susan now fifty-one and Mrs. Stanton, fifty-six, ample time to talk and philosophize, to appraise their past efforts for women, and plan their speeches for the days ahead. While their main theme would always be votes for women, they decided that from now on they must also arouse women to rebel against their legal bondage under the "man marriage," as they called it, and to face frankly the facts about sex, prostitution, and the double standard of morals. In Utah, in the midst of polygamy fostered by the Mormon Church, they would encounter still another sex problem.
After an enthusiastic welcome in Denver, they moved on to Laramie, Wyoming, where one hundred women greeted them as the train pulled in. From this first woman suffrage state, Susan exultingly wrote, "We have been moving over the soil, that is really the land of the free and the home of the brave.... Women here can say, 'What a magnificent country is ours, where every class and caste, color and sex, may find freedom....'"[268]
They reached Salt Lake City just after the Godbe secession by which a group of liberal Mormons abandoned polygamy. As guests of the Godbes for a week, they had every opportunity to become acquainted with the Mormons, to observe women under polygamy, and to speak in long all-day sessions to women alone.
Susan tried to show her audiences in Utah that her point of attack under both monogamy and polygamy was the subjection of women, and that to remedy this the self-support of women wasessential. In Utah she found little opportunity for women to earn a living for themselves and their children, as there was no manufacturing and there were no free schools in need of teachers. "Women here, as everywhere," she declared, "must be able to live honestly and honorably without the aid of men, before it can be possible to save the masses of them from entering into polygamy or prostitution, legal or illegal."[269]