press as "wise,"
"prudent," "noble," while rolling up 300,000 petitions for
emancipation, were now said to be "selfish," "impracticable,"
"unreasonable," because forsooth they demanded some new liberties for
themselves. More over said the Republicans, "these Democrats are
hypocritical, they do not believe in the extension of suffrage to any
class." To this the women replied, "If the Democrats advocate a grand
measure of public policy which they do not believe, they occupy much
higher ground than Republicans who refuse to press the same measure
which they claim to believe. At all events the hypocrisy of Democrats
serves us a better purpose in the present emergency than does the
treachery of Republicans."

But with all their long-time friends against them; such as Charles
Sumner and Henry Wilson in the Senate, William Lloyd Garrison and
Gerrit Smith in reform, Horace Greeley and most of the Liberals in the
press, the position of the women seemed so untenable to the majority
that at times a sense of utter loneliness and desertion made the
bravest of them doubt the possibility of maintaining the struggle or
making themselves fairly understood. And yet, what was done was sound
in principle and wise in policy. Every argument made by Republicans
and Abolitionists for the enfranchisement of the negro was pertinent
for woman. As Mr. Sumner said to us years after he made that great
speech on "Equal rights to all," "substitute sex for color, and you
have the best speech I could make on your platform." Our cause was
wise too in policy, for never before had we such an opportunity to
compel intelligent opposition in the halls of legislation and in
conventions of the people. Black men were at the white heat of anxiety
and expectation; Abolitionists, with bated breath, watched every move
and vote in Congress; Republicans felt that on the success or defeat
of "negro suffrage" hung the life or death of their party; and all
alike feared the slightest influence that might turn the scale, and
deplored the seeming coalition of the women and the Democrats. Hence
what an hour to proclaim our principles of government upon their
broadest basis, and to keep up the discussion of woman suffrage at
every point with so formidable an opposition!

Few[109] only were equal to the emergency. Even in the Equal Rights
Conventions the slightest opposition to the XIV Amendment called out
hisses and denunciation, and all resolutions on that point were
pro