the slave
States wherever our armies had opened the way.

The Woman's National League now numbers FIVE THOUSAND MEMBERS.
And in the west, where we have employed two lecturing
agents--Josephine S. Griffing, and Hannah Tracy Cutler--a large
number of auxiliary Leagues have been formed.

We have registered on our books the names of TWO THOUSAND men and
women, boys and girls, who have circulated these petitions. We
have on file all the letters received from the thousands with
whom we have been in correspondence, feeling that this canvass of
the nation for freedom will be an important and most interesting
chapter in our future history. These letters, coming from all
classes and all latitudes, breathe one prayer for the downfall of
slavery.

Massachusetts' noble Senator, Charles Sumner, who has so
reverently received, presented, and urged these petitions, has
cheered us with kind messages, magnifying the importance of our
labors. His eloquent speech, made in the Senate on presenting our
first installment--_the prayer of one hundred thousand_--we have
printed in tract form and scattered throughout the country. We
have flooded the nation with letters and appeals, public and
private, and put forth every energy to rouse the people to
earnest, persistent action against slavery, the deadly foe of all
our cherished institutions.

We proposed to ourselves in the first moments of enthusiasm to
secure, at least, _a million_ signatures--one thirtieth part of
our entire population. We thought the troubled warnings of a
century--the insidious aggressions of slavery, with its
violations of the sacred rights of _habeas corpus_, free speech,
and free press, with its riots in our cities, and in the councils
of the nation striking down, alike, black men and brave Senators,
all culminating, at last, in the horrid tragedies of war--must
have roused the dullest moral sense, and prepared the nation's
heart to do justice and love mercy. But we were mistaken. Sunk in
luxury, corruption, and crime--born and bred into the "guilty
phantasy that man could hold property in man," we needed the
clash of arms, the cannon's roar, the shrieks and groans of
fallen heroes, the lamentations of mothers for their first-born,
the angel's trump, the voices of the mighty dead