cher himself who, the
moment she explained her mission, said: "I'll take up a collection in
Plymouth church next Sunday." The result of this was $200. The
carefully kept books still in existence show that when the accounts of
the league were closed, there was a deficit of $4.72 to settle all
indebtedness, and this Miss Anthony paid out of her own pocket!

In January the brother Daniel R. came East for his beautiful young
bride, and the mother from her quiet farm-nook sends her petition to
New York. She can not manage the "infare" unless Susan comes home and
helps. So she drops the affairs of government long enough to skim
across the State and lend a hand in preparing for this interesting
event, and then back again to her incessant drudgery, made doubly hard
by financial anxiety.

[Autograph:

Faithfully yours,
Robert Dale Owen]

During all this work of the Loyal League, Miss Anthony found her
strongest and staunchest support in Robert Dale Owen, who was then in
New York by appointment of President Lincoln as chairman of the
Freedman's Inquiry Commission. She was also in constant communication
with Senator Charles Sumner, who was most anxious that the work should
be hastened. The blank petitions were sent in great sacks to him at
Washington, and distributed under his "frank" to all parts of the
Union. On February 9, 1864, he presented in the Senate the first
installment. The petitions from each State were tied by themselves in a
large bundle and endorsed with the number of signatures. Two
able-bodied negroes carried them into the Senate chamber, and Mr.
Sumner presented them, saying in part:

These petitions are signed by 100,000 men and women, who unite in
this unparalleled number to support their prayer. They are from all
parts of the country and from every condition of life.... They ask
nothing less than universal emancipation, and this they ask
directly at the hands of Congress. It is not for me to assign
reasons which the army of petitioners has forborne to assign; but I
may not improperly add that, naturally and obviously, they all feel
in their hearts, what reason and knowledge confirm, not only that
slavery is the guilty origin of the rebellion, but that its
influence everywhere, even outside the rebel States, has been
hostile to the Union, always impairing loyalty and sometimes openly
menacing the national government. The petitioners know well that to