union first, and letting the negro come last. She was not one who
needed to have her father or brothers starved in Southern prisons, to
make her aware of the humanity of the black man."

Miss Anthony is a clear, logical speaker, earnest and truthful, and
has long considered the questions of the day. Few _men_ in this or any
other city could more ably present the subject, or more closely chain
the audience that listened to her noble utterances, and one could not
but wish that she had spoken to thousands rather than hundreds. Miss
A. is recently from Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has been spending
some months past, aiding as she had opportunity, in the elevation of
the freed people, and occasionally by lectures, contributing to form a
true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from
absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism
of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the
fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really
endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing
but the admission of the black man to the franchise can save the
nation from future disgrace and ultimate ruin.--_National Anti-Slavery
Standard_, August, 1865.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1866 AND 1867.

_Report made to the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention._

BY CAROLINE H. DALL.

For the last five years the women of the United States have held few
public discussions. They have done wisely. Circumstances have proved
their friend. Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so
great a service to woman in so short a time, as this dreadful war out
of which we are so slowly emerging. Respect for woman came only with
the absolute need of her, and so many women of distinguished ability
made themselves of service to the Government, that we had no single
woman to honor as England had honored Florence Nightingale. With us
her name was _legion_. But with the prospect of peace comes the old
duty of agitation, and we find ourselves again summoned to a
Convention, and again anxiously awaiting its results--_anxiously_, for
a convention of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of
the curious, and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single
speaker has a retrograde effect which few women seem able to measure.

Our reform is unlike all others, for it must begin in the famil