was steadfast on this question. Harper's Magazine for June, 1892, contains his last plea for woman and for a higher standard for political parties....
Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, exiled from Poland on account of her religious faith, married an Englishman and came to America, where she was one of the first and most eloquent of the women who spoke on the public platform. In 1836 she circulated petitions for the property rights of married women, in company with Mrs. Paulina Wright (Davis), and presented them to the New York Legislature. For forty years she was among the ablest advocates of the rights of women, lecturing also on religion, government and other subjects. Mrs. Abby Hutchinson Patton was lovingly referred to, the last but one of that family who had sung so many years for freedom, not only for the negro but for woman. Whittier, the uncompromising advocate of liberty for woman as well as for man, was eulogized in fitting terms.
The Hon. A. G. Riddle (D. C.) offered a fine testimonial to Francis Minor and Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, saying: "Mr. Minor was the first to urge the true and sublime construction of that noble amendment born of the war. It declares that all persons—not simply males—born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Those who are denied or are refused the right to exercise the privileges and franchises of citizenship are less than citizens. Those who still declare that women may not vote, simply write 'falsehood' across that glorious declaration." General Butler, as a leading member of the House Judiciary Committee, in a matchless argument had asserted the right of women to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment,89 and used all his influence to secure suffrage for women. Miss Anthony said in part:
The good of this hour is that it brings to the knowledge of the young the work of the pioneers who have passed away. It seems remarkable to those standing, as I do, one of a generation almost ended, that so many of these young people know nothing of the past; they are apt to think they have sprung up like somebody's gourd, and that nothing ever was done until they came. So I am always gratified to hear these reminiscences, that they may know how others have sown what they are reaping to-day.
One of the earliest advocates of this cause was Sally Holly, the daughter of Myron Holly, founder of the Liberty Party in the State of New York, and also founder of Unitarianism in the city of Rochester. Frederick Douglass will say a few words in regard to Sally Holly, and of such of the others as he may feel moved to speak; and I want to say that when, at the very first convention called and managed by women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her resolution that the elective franchise is the underlying right, there was but one man to stand with her, and that man was Frederick Douglass.
Mr. Douglass (D. C.) told of attempting to speak in Buffalo against slavery in 1843, when every hall was closed to him and he went into an abandoned storeroom:
I continued from day to day speaking in that old store to laborers from the wharves, cartmen, draymen and longshoremen, until after awhile the room was crowded. No woman made her appearance at the meetings, but day after day for six days in succession I spoke—morning, afternoon and evening. On the third day there came into the room a lady leading a little girl. No greater contrast could possibly have been presented than this elegantly dressed, refined and lovely woman attempting to wend her way through that throng. I don't know that she showed the least shrinking from the crowd, but I noticed that they rather shrank from her, as if fearful that the dust of their garments would soil hers. Her presence to me at that moment was as if an angel had been sent from Heaven to encourage me in my anti-slavery endeavors. She came day after day thereafter, and at last I had the temerity to ask her name. She gave it—Sally Holly. "A daughter of Myron Holly?" said I. "Yes," she answered. I understood it all then, for he was amongst the foremost of the men in western New York in the anti-slavery movement. His home was in Rochester and his dust now lies in Mt. Hope, the beautiful cemetery of that city. Over him is a monument, placed there by that other true friend of women, Gerrit Smith of Peterboro....
I have seen the Hutchinson family in a mob in New York. When neither Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phillips nor Mr. Burleigh, nor any one could speak, when there was a perfect tempest and whirlwind of rowdyism in the old Tabernacle on Broadway, then this family would sing, and almost upon the instant that they would raise their voices, so perfect was the music, so sweet the concord, so enchanting the melody, that it came down upon the audience like a summer shower on a dusty road, subduing, settling everything.
I can not add to the paper which Mrs. Stanton has sent. After her—silence. Your cause has raised up no voice so potent as that of Elizabeth Cady Stanton—no living voice except yours, Madame President.
How delighted I am to see that you have the image of Lucretia Mott here [referring to her marble bust on the stage]. I am glad to be here, glad to be counted on your side, and glad to be able to remember that those who have gone before were my friends. I was more indebted to Whittier perhaps than to any other of the anti-slavery people. He did more to fire my soul and enable me to fire the souls of others than any other man. It was Whittier and Pierpont who feathered our arrows, shot in the direction of the slave power, and they did it well. No better reading can now be had in favor of the rights of woman or the liberties of man than is to be found in their utterances....
Miss Clara Barton (D. C.) spoke in a touching manner of the great service rendered to humanity by Dr. Harriet N. Austin, who assisted Dr. James C. Jackson to establish the "Home on the Hillside," the Dansville (N. Y.) Sanitorium. Henry B. Blackwell told of John L. Whiting, "a power and a strength to the Massachusetts Suffrage Association for many years, one of those rare men not made smaller by wealth, and always willing to give himself, his mind, his heart, his money, to help the cause of woman." The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw said in part:
I have been asked to speak a word of Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. It has been said by some people that we have wrongfully quoted Mr. Emerson as being on our side. His biographers appear to have put in his early statements and forgotten to include his later declarations, which were all in favor of the enfranchisement of women.
I was once sent to Concord by the Massachusetts society to hold a meeting. The churches were closed against suffrage speakers and there was not money enough to pay for a hall. Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson heard the meeting was to be given up, and she sent a message to the lady having the work in charge, saying: "Shall it be said that here in Concord, where the Revolutionary war began, there is no place to speak for the freedom of women? Get the best hall in town and I will pay for it." So on that occasion and on another Mrs. Emerson paid for the hall and sent a kind word to the meeting, declaring herself in favor of the suffrage for women, and stating that her husband's views and her own were identical on this question. She had the New England trait of being a good wife, a good mother and a good housekeeper, and Mr. Emerson's home was a restful and blessed place. We sometimes forget the wives of great men in thinking of the greatness of their husbands, but Mrs. Emerson was as great in her way as Mr. Emerson in his, and no more faithful friend to woman and to woman's advancement ever has lived among us.90
A word as to the Rev. Anna Oliver, the first woman to enter the theological department of Boston University. She was much beloved by her class. She was a devoted Christian, eminently orthodox, and a very good worker in all lines of religious effort. After Miss Oliver graduated she was ambitious to become ordained, as all women ought to be who desire to preach the gospel; and so after I had graduated from the theological school, the year following, we both applied to the conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church for admission. Miss Oliver's name beginning with O and mine with S, her case was presented first. She was denied ordination by Bishop Andrews. Our claims were carried to the general conference in Cincinnati, and the Methodist Episcopal Church denied ordination to the women whom it had graduated in its schools and upon whom it had conferred the degree of bachelor of divinity. It not only did this, but it made a step backwards; it took from us the licenses to preach which had been granted to Miss Oliver for four years and to myself for eight years.
But Miss Oliver was earnest in her efforts, and so she began to preach in the city of Brooklyn, and with great courage bought a church in which a man had failed as a minister, leaving a debt of $14,000. She was like a great many other women—and here is a warning for all women.