amiable Mrs. Stanton and the aggressive and jaded Miss Anthony, and
attribute it to the fact that one was a wife and the other a
spinster.[40]

At Albany Miss Anthony arranged with Charles J. Folger, chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, for an address by Mrs. Stanton, which was
given January 13, 1867, before the joint committees, in the Assembly
chamber, crowded with men and women. She based her claim on the
assumption that when a new constitution is demanded, the State is
resolved into its original elements and all the people have a right to
a voice in its reconstruction, supporting her position by an imposing
array of legal authorities. Of the discussion by the legislators, which
followed the address, Mr. Pillsbury wrote to the Hallowells: "Their
arguments against universal suffrage Susan could have extinguished with
her thimble."

While Miss Anthony was in Albany she learned that a member from New
York City had presented a bill to license houses of ill-repute, and she
protested to Judge Folger. He told her that this was a subject which
could not be publicly discussed, especially by women. She replied that
if there were any attempt to pass the bill she would arouse the women
and it should be discussed from one end of the State to the other. The
bill never was taken up.

In answer to an invitation to be present at Albany, Mr. Beecher sent
his regrets as follows:

I should certainly come and contribute my share of influence if I
were not tied hand and foot. I am to preside and speak on Wednesday
night in my own church; on Thursday I preside and introduce a
lecturer at the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn; on Friday, at Cooper
Institute, I have a speech to make for the starving people of the
South; and on Saturday, at the same place, a speech for the
Cretans. These are but the punctuations of my main business, which,
just now, is to write a novel for Bonner, at which I am working
every forenoon. I have also a matter of two sermons every week to
prepare. I write these details, because our friend Studwell
intimates to me that you feel I do not care to be identified with
this movement in such a way as to take the unpopularity of the
women chiefly engaged in it. I should be unwilling to have you
think so. I have never belonged even to an anti-slavery society,
Christian or heathen. I am willing to take my stand with anybody on
great issues or objects, bu