rk of an Eastern
monarch, that his wife was sovereign of the empire, because she
ruled his little ones and his little ones ruled him. The sure
panacea for such ills as the Massachusetts petitioners complain of,
is a wicker-work cradle and a dimple-cheeked baby.

The New York Post, which under Mr. Bryant's editorship had favored the
enfranchisement of women, also took ground against it now, and this was
the attitude of Republican papers in all parts of the country. The
Democratic press was opposed, except when it could make capital against
the Republicans by espousing it.

In November Miss Anthony went to a great anti-slavery meeting in
Philadelphia. Between the two sessions, Lucretia Mott invited about
twenty of the leading men and women to lunch with her. At her request
Miss Anthony acted as spokesman and, in behalf of the women, begged Mr.
Phillips to reconsider his position and make the woman's and the
negro's cause identical, but here, in the presence of the women who had
stood shoulder to shoulder with him in all his hard-fought battles of
the last twenty years, he again refused, declaring that their time had
not yet come. Miss Anthony sent the most impassioned appeals to the
Joint Committee of Fifteen, with Thaddeus Stevens as chairman, which
had charge of the congressional policy on reconstruction, urging that
if they could not report favorably on the petitions, at least they
would not interpose any new barrier against woman's right to the
ballot; but, although Mr. Stevens had ever been friendly to the claims
of women, he refused to recognize them now. Everywhere they were met by
the cry, "This is the negro's hour!"

It was a long time before the women could believe that the Republicans
and Abolitionists, who had advocated their cause for years, would
forsake them at this critical moment. The letters written during this
period showed the agony of spirit they endured as they beheld one after
another repudiating their demands and setting them aside in favor of
the negro. Not only did the men thus abandon the cause of equal rights
but, by their specious arguments, they persuaded many of the women that
it was their duty to sacrifice their own claims and devote themselves
to securing suffrage for the colored men. This indignant letter from
Mrs. Stanton to one of the "old guard," who at first declined to
circulate petitions, will serve as an example of many which were sent
to the women:

I have