Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
dinner. The chief topic at the table was the idiosyncrasies of women.
Mr. Greeley told many amusing things about his wife, of her erratic
movements and sudden decisions to do and dare what seemed most
impracticable. Perhaps, on rising some morning, she would say: "I think
I'll go to Europe by the next steamer, Horace. Will you get tickets
to-day for me, the nurse, and children?" "Well," said Mr. S., "she must
be something like our hostess. Every time her husband goes away she cuts
a door or window. They have only ten doors to lock every night, now."
"Yes," I said, "and your own wife, too, Mrs. S., has the credit of some
high-handed measures when you are in Washington." Then I told the whole
story, amid peals of laughter, just as related above. The dinner table
scene fairly convulsed the Congressman. The thought that he had made
such a fool of himself in the eyes of Charlotte that she could not even
summon a tear in her defense, particularly pleased him. When
sufficiently recovered to speak, he said: "Well, I never could
understand how it was that Charlotte suddenly emerged from her thraldom
and manifested such rare executive ability. Now I see to whom I am
indebted for the most comfortable part of my married life. I am a
thousand times obliged to you; you did just right and so did she, and
she has been a happier woman ever since. She now gets what she needs,
and frets no more, to me, about ten thousand little things. How can a
man know what implements are necessary for the work he never does? Of
all agencies for upsetting the equanimity of family life, none can
surpass an old, broken-down kitchen stove!"
In the winter of 1861, just after the election of Lincoln, the
abolitionists decided to hold a series of conventions in the chief
cities of the North. All their available speakers were pledged for
active service. The Republican party, having absorbed the political
abolitionists within its ranks by its declared hostility to the
extension of slavery, had come into power with overwhelming majorities.
Hence the Garrisonian abolitionists, opposed to all compromises, felt
that this was the opportune moment to rouse the people to the necessity
of holding that party to its declared principles, and pushing it, if
possible, a step or two forward.
I was invited to accompany Miss Anthony and Beriah Green to a few points
in Central New York. But we soon found, by the concerted action of
Republicans all over the country, that anti-slavery conventions would
not be tolerated. Thus Republicans and Democrats made common cause
against the abolitionists. The John Brown raid, the year before, had
intimidated Northern politicians as much as Southern slaveholders, and
the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the North
should be altogether suppressed.
From Buffalo to Albany our experience was the same, varied only by the
fertile resources of the actors and their surroundings. Thirty years of
education had somewhat changed the character of Northern mobs. They no
longer dragged men through the streets with ropes around their necks,
nor broke up women's prayer meetings; they no longer threw eggs and
brickbats at the apostles of reform, nor dipped them in barrels of tar
and feathers, they simply crowded the halls, and, with laughing,
groaning, clapping, and cheering, effectually interrupted the
proceedings. Such was our experience during the two days we attempted to
hold a convention in St. James' Hall, Buffalo. As we paid for the hall,
the mob enjoyed themselves, at our expense, in more ways than one. Every
session, at the appointed time, we took our places on the platform,
making, at various intervals of silence, renewed efforts to speak. Not
succeeding, we sat and conversed with each other and the many friends
who crowded the platform and anterooms. Thus, among ourselves, we had a
pleasant reception and a discussion of many phases of the question that
brought us together. The mob not only vouchsafed to us the privilege of
talking to our friends without interruption, but delegations of their
own came behind the scenes, from time to time, to discuss with us the
right of free speech and the constitutionality of slavery.
These Buffalo rowdies were headed by ex-Justice Hinson, aided by younger
members of the Fillmore and Seymour families, and the chief of police
and fifty subordinates, who were admitted to the hall free, for the
express purpose of protecting our right of free speech, but who, in
defiance of the mayor's orders, made not the slightest effort in our
defense. At Lockport there was a feeble attempt in the same direction.
At Albion neither hall, church, nor schoolhouse could be obtained, so we
held small meetings in the dining room of the hotel. At Rochester,
Corinthian Hall was packed long before the hour advertised. This was a
delicately appreciative, jocose mob. At this point Aaron Powell joined
us. As he had just risen from a bed of sickness, looking pale and
emaciated, he slowly mounted the platform. The mob at once took in his
look of exhaustion, and, as he seated himself, they gave an audible
simultaneous sigh, as if to say, what a relief it is to be seated! So
completely did the tender manifestation reflect Mr. Powell's apparent
condition that the whole audience burst into a roar of laughter. Here,
too, all attempts to speak were futile. At Port Byron a generous
sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the stove soon cut short all
constitutional arguments and paeans to liberty.
And so it was all the way to Albany. The whole State was aflame with the
mob spirit, and from Boston and various points in other States the same
news reached us. As the legislature was in session, and we were
advertised in Albany, a radical member sarcastically moved "That as Mrs.
Stanton and Miss Anthony were about to move on Albany, the militia be
ordered out for the protection of the city." Happily, Albany could then
boast of a Democratic mayor, a man of courage and conscience, who said
the right of free speech should never be trodden under foot where he had
the right to prevent it. And grandly did that one determined man
maintain order in his jurisdiction. Through all the sessions of the
convention Mayor Thatcher sat on the platform, his police stationed in
different parts of the hall and outside the building, to disperse the
crowd as fast as it collected. If a man or boy hissed or made the
slightest interruption, he was immediately ejected. And not only did the
mayor preserve order in the meetings, but, with a company of armed
police, he escorted us, every time, to and from the Delevan House. The
last night Gerrit Smith addressed the mob from the steps of the hotel,
after which they gave him three cheers and dispersed in good order.
When proposing for the Mayor a vote of thanks, at the close of the
convention, Mr. Smith expressed his fears that it had been a severe
ordeal for him to listen to these prolonged anti-slavery discussions. He
smiled, and said: "I have really been deeply interested and instructed.
I rather congratulate myself that a convention of this character has, at
last, come in the line of my business; otherwise I should have probably
remained in ignorance of many important facts and opinions I now
understand and appreciate."
While all this was going on publicly, an equally trying experience was
progressing, day by day, behind the scenes. Miss Anthony had been
instrumental in helping a much abused mother, with her child, to escape
from a husband who had immured her in an insane asylum. The wife
belonged to one of the first families of New York, her brother being a
United States senator, and the husband, also, a man of position; a large
circle of friends and acquaintances was interested in the result. Though
she was incarcerated in an insane asylum for eighteen months, yet
members of her own family again and again testified that she was not
insane. Miss Anthony, knowing that she was not, and believing fully that
the unhappy mother was the victim of a conspiracy, would not reveal her
hiding place.
Knowing the confidence Miss Anthony felt in the wisdom of Mr. Garrison
and Mr. Phillips, they were implored to use their influence with her to
give up the fugitives. Letters and telegrams, persuasions, arguments,
and warnings from Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phillips, and the Senator on the one
side, and from Lydia Mott, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, and Abby Hopper
Gibbons, on the other, poured in upon her, day after day; but Miss
Anthony remained immovable, although she knew that she was defying and
violating the law and might be arrested any moment on the platform. We
had known so many aggravated cases of this kind that, in daily counsel,
we resolved that this woman should not be recaptured if it were possible
to prevent it. To us it looked as imperative a duty to shield a sane
mother, who had been torn from a family of little children and doomed to
the companionship of lunatics, and to aid her in fleeing to a place of
safety, as to help a fugitive from slavery to Canada. In both cases an
unjust law was violated; in both cases the supposed owners of the
victims were defied; hence, in point of law and morals, the act was the
same in both cases. The result proved the wisdom of Miss Anthony's
decision, as all with whom Mrs. P. came in contact for years afterward,
expressed the opinion that she was, and always had been, perfectly sane.
Could the dark secrets of insane asylums be brought to light we should
be shocked to know the great number of rebellious wives, sisters, and
daughters who are thus sacrificed to false customs and barbarous laws
made by men for women.
CHAPTER XIV.
VIEWS ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
The widespread discussion we are having, just now, on the subject of
marriage and divorce, reminds me of an equally exciting one in 1860. A
very liberal bill, introduced into the Indiana legislature by Robert
Dale Owen, and which passed by a large majority, roused much public
thought on the question, and made that State free soil for unhappy wives
and husbands. A similar bill was introduced into the legislature of New
York by Mr. Ramsey, which was defeated by four votes, owing, mainly, to
the intense opposition of Horace Greeley. He and Mr. Owen had a
prolonged discussion, in the New York _Tribune_, in which Mr. Owen got
decidedly the better of the argument.
There had been several aggravated cases of cruelty to wives among the
Dutch aristocracy, so that strong influences in favor of the bill had
been brought to bear on the legislature, but the _Tribune_ thundered
every morning in its editorial column its loudest peals, which
reverberated through the State. So bitter was the opposition to divorce,
for any cause, that but few dared to take part in the discussion. I was
the only woman, for many years, who wrote and spoke on the question.
Articles on divorce, by a number of women, recently published in the
_North American Review_, are a sign of progress, showing that women dare
speak out now more freely on the relations that most deeply concern
them.
My feelings had been stirred to their depths very early in life by the
sufferings of a dear friend of mine, at whose wedding I was one of the
bridesmaids. In listening to the facts in her case, my mind was fully
made up as to the wisdom of a liberal divorce law. We read Milton's
essays on divorce, together, and were thoroughly convinced as to the
right and duty not only of separation, but of absolute divorce. While
the New York bill was pending, I was requested, by Lewis Benedict, one
of the committee who had the bill in charge, to address the legislature.
I gladly accepted, feeling that here was an opportunity not only to
support my friend in the step she had taken, but to make the path clear