Unconditional Emancipation," which courageously faced the
"whole question" of slavery. There was no compromise among
Garrisonians.

With the burning issue of slavery now uppermost in her mind, she began
seriously to reconsider the offer she had received from the American
Antislavery Society, shortly after her visit to Boston in 1855, to act
as their agent in central and western New York. Unable to accept at
that time because she was committed to her woman's rights program, she
had nevertheless felt highly honored that she had been chosen. Still
hesitating a little, she wrote Lucy Stone, wanting reassurance that no
woman's rights work demanded immediate attention. "They talk of
sending two companies of Lecturers into this state," she wrote Lucy,
"wish me to lay out the route of each one and accompany one. They seem
to think me possessed of a vast amount of executive ability. I shrink
from going into Conventions where speaking is expected of me.... I
know they want me to help about finance and that part I like and am
good for nothing else."[70]

She also had the farm home on her mind. With her father in the
insurance business, her brothers now both in Kansas, her sister Mary
teaching in the Rochester schools and "looking matrimonially-wise,"
and her mother at home all alone, Susan often wondered if it might not
be as much her duty to stay there to take care of her mother and
father as it would be to make a home comfortable for a husband.
Sometimes the quietness of such a life beckoned enticingly. But after
the disappointing November elections which put into the presidency the
conservative James Buchanan, from whom only a vacillating policy on
the slavery issue could be expected, she wrote Samuel May, Jr., the
secretary of the American Antislavery Society, "I shall be very glad
if I am able to render even the most humble service to this cause.
Heaven knows there is need of earnest, effective radical workers. The
heart sickens over the delusions of the recent campaign and turns
achingly to the unconsidered _whole question_."[71]

His reply came promptly, "We put all New York into your control and
want your name to all letters and your hand in all arrangements."

For $10 a week and expenses, Susan now arranged antislavery meetings,
displayed posters bearing the provocative words, "No Union with
Slaveholders," planned tours for a corps of speakers, among them
Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, Parker Pillsbury, and two free