Mrs. Whiston looked troubled for a moment, but she saw that a moment's
hesitation would be fatal to our scheme, so she brought out her words as
if each one were a maul-blow on the butt-end of a wedge:

"All--that--we--demand!"

"Then," said Mr. Wrangle, "I bid my support in exchange for the women's!
Just what the speaker demands, without exception or modification--equal
privileges, rights, duties and obligations, without regard to the
question of sex! Is that broad enough?"

I was all in a tremble when it came to that. Somehow Mr. Wrangle's
acceptance of the bid did not inspire me, although it promised so much.
I had anticipated opposition, dissatisfaction, tumult. So had Mrs.
Whiston, and I could see, and the crowd could see, that she was not
greatly elated.

Mr. Wrangle made a very significant bow to Mr. Tumbrill, and then sat
down. There were cries of "Tumbrill!" and that gentleman--none of us,
of course, believing him sincere, for we knew his private views--came
forward and made exactly the same pledge. I will do both parties
the justice to say that they faithfully kept their word; nay, it was
generally thought the repetition of their brief pleas for woman, at some
fifty meetings before election came, had gradually conducted them to
the belief that they were expressing their own personal sentiments. The
mechanical echo in public thus developed into an opinion in private.
My own political experience has since demonstrated to me that this is a
phenomenon very common among men.

The impulse generated at that meeting gradually spread all over the
State. We--the leaders of the Women's Movement--did not rest until we
had exacted the same pledge from all the candidates of both parties; and
the nearer it drew towards election-day, the more prominence was given,
in the public meetings, to the illustration and discussion of the
subject. Our State went for Lincoln by a majority of 2763 (as you will
find by consulting the "Tribune Almanac"), and Mr. Wrangle was elected
to Congress, having received a hundred and forty-two more votes than his
opponent. Mr. Tumbrill has always attributed his defeat to his want of
courage in not taking up at once the glove which Selina Whiston threw
down.

I think I have said enough to make it clear how the State of Atlantic
came to be the first to grant equal civil and political rights to women.
When the Legislature of 1860-'61 met at Gaston, we estimated that we
might count upon fifty-