his business position to accompany his wife and they made a thorough canvass of that State during April and May. Mr. Phillips was unwilling that any money from the Jackson fund should be used for this purpose, as he did not want the question agitated at this time, but as Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone constituted a majority of the committee, they appropriated $1,500 for it. Even thus early in the contest the Republican managers began to show their hand. Lucy Stone wrote from Atchison May 9:
I should be glad to be with you tomorrow at the equal rights convention in New York and to know this minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground which sound policy, as well as justice and statesmanship require. Just now there is a plot here to get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and canvass only for the word "white." A call has been signed by the chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, for a meeting at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge the party to that single issue. As soon as we saw it and the change of tone in some of the papers, we sent letters to all those whom we had found true, urging them to be at Topeka and vote for both words. Till this action of the Republicans is settled, we can affirm nothing. Everywhere we go, we have the largest and most enthusiastic meetings and any one of our audiences would give a majority for women; but the negroes are all against us. These men ought not to be allowed to vote before we do because they will be so much more dead weight to lift.
Again she wrote of the situation in Kansas:
The Tribune and Independent alone, if they would urge universal suffrage as they do negro suffrage, could carry this whole nation upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to hold and not use!.... They must take it up. I shall see them the very first thing when I get home. At your meeting next Monday evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used for the Standard and anti-slavery purposes since slavery was abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which by the express terms of the will were to receive all of the fund when slavery should be ended. I trust you will not fail to rebuke the cowardly use of the terms "universal," "impartial" and "equal," applied to hide a dark skin and an unpopular client.... I hope not a man will be asked to speak at the convention. If they volunteer, very well, but I have been for the last time on my knees to Phillips, Higginson or any of them. If they help now, they should ask us and not we them.
On May 9 and 10 the Equal Rights Association held its first anniversary in New York, at the Church of the Puritans. Cordial and encouraging letters were received from Lydia Maria Child, Anna Dickinson, Clara Barton, Mary A. Livermore and many other distinguished women. While there were the usual number of able speeches, the strongest discussion was on the following resolution, offered by Miss Anthony: "The proposal to reconstruct our government on the basis of manhood suffrage, which emanated from the Republican party and has received the recent sanction of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is but a continuation of the old system of class and caste legislation, always cruel and proscriptive in itself and ending, in all ages, in national degradation and revolution." Henry Ward Beecher spoke eloquently in its favor, saying in part:
I am not a farmer, but I know that spring comes but once in the year. When the furrow is open is the time to put in your seed, if you would gather a harvest in its season. Now, when the red-hot plowshare of war has opened a furrow in this nation, is the time to put in the seed. If any say to me, "Why will you agitate the woman question when it is the hour for the black man?" I answer, it is the hour for every man and every woman, black or white. The bees go out in the morning to gather the honey from the morning-glories. They take it when they are open, for by 10 o'clock they are shut, never to open again. When the public mind is open, if you have anything to say, say it. If you have any radical principles to urge, any higher wisdom to make known, don't wait until quiet times come, until the public mind shuts up altogether.
We are in the favored hour; and if you have great principles to make known, this is the time to advocate them. I therefore say whatever truth is to be known for the next fifty years in this nation, let it be spoken now—let it be enforced now. The truth that I have to urge is not that women have the right of suffrage—not that Chinamen or Irishmen have that right—not that native born Yankees have it—but that suffrage is the inherent right of mankind.... I do not put back for a single day the black man's enfranchisement. I ask not that he should wait. I demand that this work should be done, not upon the ground that it is politically expedient now to enfranchise black men; but I propose that you take expediency out of the way, and put a principle which is more enduring in the place of it—manhood and womanhood suffrage for all. That is the question. You may just as well meet it now as at any other time. You will never have so favorable an occasion, so sympathetic a heart, never a public reason so willing to be convinced as today.... I believe it is just as easy to carry the enfranchisement of all as of any one class, and easier than to carry it class after class.
The resolution was adopted unanimously, as was also a memorial to Congress, written by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, asking most earnestly that the negro should be enfranchised, but just as earnestly that the suffrage should be conferred on woman at the same time. The leading thought was expressed in these beautiful words:
We believe that humanity is one in all those intellectual, moral and spiritual attributes out of which grow human responsibilities. The Scripture declaration is, "So God created man in his own image, male and female created he them," and all divine legislation throughout the realm of nature recognizes the perfect equality of the two conditions; for male and female are but different conditions. Neither color nor sex is ever discharged from obedience to law, natural or moral, written or unwritten. The commandments thou shalt not steal, or kill, or commit adultery, recognize no sex; and hence we believe that all human legislation which is at variance with the divine code, is essentially unrighteous and unjust....
Women and colored men are loyal, liberty-loving citizens, and we can not believe that sex or complexion should be any ground for civil or political degradation. Against such outrage on the very name of a republic we do and ever must protest; and is not our protest against this tyranny of "taxation without representation" as just as that thundered from Bunker Hill, when our Revolutionary fathers fired the shot which shook the world?... We respectfully and earnestly pray that, in restoring the foundations of our nationality, all discriminations on account of sex or race may be removed; and that our government may be republican in fact as well as form; A GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE; FOR THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE.
This was the last convention ever held in the old historic Church of the Puritans. It soon passed into other hands, and where once sparkled and scintillated flashes of repartee and gems of oratory, now glitter and shine the magnificent jewels in the great establishment of Tiffany.
After this May Anniversary Miss Anthony prepared to go before the New York Constitutional Convention with speeches and petitions for the recognition of women in the new constitution. The necessary arrangements involved an immense amount of labor, and her diary says: "My trips from Albany to New York and back are like the flying of the shuttle in the loom of the weaver." At this hearing, June 27, 1867, after Mrs. Stanton had finished her address she announced that they would answer any questions, whereupon Mr. Greeley said in his drawling monotone: "Miss Anthony, you know the ballot and the bullet go together. If you vote, are you ready to fight?" Instantly she retorted: "Yes, Mr. Greeley, just as you fought in the late war—at the point of a goose-quill!" After the merriment had subsided, he continued: "When should this inalienable right of suffrage commence for young men and foreigners? Have we the right to say when it shall begin?" Miss Anthony replied: "My right as a human being is as good as that of any other human being. If you have a right to vote at twenty-one, then I have. All we ask is that you shall take down the bars and let the women and the negroes in, then we will settle all these matters." The Tribune report said this was received with "loud and prolonged applause."
Miss Anthony continued with great vivacity: "Can you show me any class possessed of the franchise which is shut out of schools or degraded in the labor market, or any class but women and negroes denied any privilege they show themselves possessed of capacity to attain? Since you refuse to grant woman's demand,
