convention Lucy Stone
made the suggestion that a prize be offered for a novel on women,
like _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, to arouse the whole nation to the unjust
situation of women whose slavery, she felt, was comparable to that of
the Negro. At another, William Lloyd Garrison maintained that women
had the right to sit in the Congress and in state legislatures and
that there should be an equal number of men and women in all national
councils. Inevitably Scriptural edicts regarding woman's sphere were
thrashed out with Antoinette Brown, in her clerical capacity, setting
at rest the minds of questioning women and quashing the protests of
clergymen who thought they were speaking for God. Usually Ernestine
Rose was on hand, ready to speak when needed, injecting into the
discussions her liberal clear-cut feminist views. Nor was the
international aspect of the woman's rights movement forgotten. The
interest in Great Britain in the franchise for women of such men as
Lord Brougham and John Stuart Mill was reported as were the efforts
there among women to gain admission to the medical profession.
Distributed widely as a tract was the "admirable" article in the
_Westminster Review_, "The Enfranchisement of Women," by Harriet
Taylor, now Mrs. John Stuart Mill.

In New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, where
state conventions were held annually, women carried back to their
homes and their friends new and stimulating ideas. National
conventions, which actually represented merely the northeastern states
and Ohio and occasionally attracted men and women from Indiana,
Missouri, and Kansas, were scheduled by Susan to meet every year in
New York, simultaneously with antislavery conventions. Thus she was
assured of a brilliant array of speakers, for the Garrisonian
abolitionists were sincere advocates of woman's rights.

Both Elizabeth Stanton and Lucy Stone were a great help to Susan in
preparing for these national gatherings for which she raised the
money. Elizabeth wrote the calls and resolutions, while Lucy could not
only be counted upon for an eloquent speech, but through her wide
contacts brought new speakers and new converts to the meetings.
However, national woman's rights conventions would probably have
lapsed completely during the troubled years prior to the Civil War,
had it not been for Susan's persistence. She was obliged to omit the
1857 convention because all of her best speakers were either having
babies o