o work for the
success of the Republican ticket. Immediately after the Philadelphia
convention, Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, wrote
Miss Anthony:

I have given my views to Mrs. Stanton as to the wisdom of
concentrating the woman suffragists in support of the Republican
candidates and platform. I think if this is done earnestly,
heartily and unselfishly, upon the ground of anti-slavery principle
and of progressive tendencies, a strong and general reaction will
set in and that, instead of "recognition," as in 1872, we shall
have endorsement and victory in 1876.... I believe you love the
cause better than yourself. I hope that you will see the wisdom of
accepting the resolution in the friendly, generous spirit of the
convention and, by accepting it, making it mean what we desire it
should, which we can do if we will.

To this she replied on June 14:

Your note is here. My view of our true position is to hold
ourselves as a balance of power, "to give aid and comfort," as the
Springfield Republican says, to the party which shall inscribe on
its banners "Freedom to Woman." If I am a Republican or Liberal or
Democrat per se and work for the party right or wrong, then I make
of myself and my co-workers no added power for or against the one
which adopts or rejects our claim for recognition.

I do not expect any _man_ to see and act with me here, but I do not
understand how any _woman_ can do otherwise than refuse to accept
any party which ignores her sex. I will not work with a party today
on the war issues or because it was true to them in the olden time;
but I will work with the one which accepts the living, vital issue
of today--freedom to woman--and I scarcely have a hope that
Baltimore will step ahead of Philadelphia in her platform. Grant's
recognition of citizens' rights evidently _means_ to include women,
and Wilson's letter openly and boldly declares the new mission of
Republicanism. I, therefore, now expect to take the field--the
stump, if you please to call it so--for the Republican party, but
not because of any of its nineteen planks save the fourteenth,
which makes mention of woman, although faintly. It is "the promise
of things not seen," hence I shall clutch it as the drowning man
the floating straw, and cling to it until something stronger and
surer shal