at Topeka on the
15th, to pledge the party to that single issue. As soon as we saw
it and the change of tone in some of the papers, we sent letters to
all those whom we had found true, urging them to be at Topeka and
vote for both words. Till this action of the Republicans is
settled, we can affirm nothing. Everywhere we go, we have the
largest and most enthusiastic meetings and any one of our audiences
would give a majority for women; but the negroes are all against
us. _These men ought not to be allowed to vote before we do_
because they will be so much more dead weight to lift.

Again she wrote of the situation in Kansas:

The Tribune and Independent alone, if they would urge universal
suffrage as they do negro suffrage, could carry this whole nation
upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to
hold and not use!.... They must take it up. I shall see them the
very first thing when I get home. At your meeting next Monday
evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used
for the Standard and anti-slavery purposes since slavery was
abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which
by the express terms of the will were to receive _all_ of the fund
when slavery should be ended. I trust you will not fail to rebuke
the cowardly use of the terms "universal," "impartial" and "equal,"
applied to hide a dark skin and an unpopular client.... I hope not
a man will be asked to speak at the convention. If they volunteer,
very well, but I have been for the last time on my knees to
Phillips, Higginson or any of them. If they help now, they should
ask us and not we them.

On May 9 and 10 the Equal Rights Association held its first anniversary
in New York, at the Church of the Puritans. Cordial and encouraging
letters were received from Lydia Maria Child, Anna Dickinson, Clara
Barton, Mary A. Livermore and many other distinguished women. While
there were the usual number of able speeches, the strongest discussion
was on the following resolution, offered by Miss Anthony: "The proposal
to reconstruct our government on the basis of manhood suffrage, which
emanated from the Republican party and has received the recent sanction
of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is but a continuation of the old
system of class and caste legislation, always cruel and proscriptive in
itself and ending,