the
tensions between the North and the South.

Dedicated to the immediate and unconditional emancipation of slavery,
Susan saw no hope in the promises of any political party. Even the
Republicans' opposition to the extension of slavery in the
territories, which had won over many abolitionists, including Henry
and Elizabeth Stanton, seemed to her a mild and ineffectual answer to
the burning questions of the hour. For her to further the election of
Abraham Lincoln was unthinkable, since he favored the enforcement of
the Fugitive Slave Law and had stated he was not in favor of Negro
citizenship.

At heart she was a nonvoting Garrisonian abolitionist and would not
support a political party which in any way sanctioned slavery. Had she
been eligible as a voter she undoubtedly would have refused to cast
her ballot until a righteous antislavery government had been
established. As she expressed it in a letter to Mrs. Stanton, she
could not, if she were a man, vote for "the least of two evils, one of
which the Nation must surely have in the presidential chair."[120]

She saw no possibility at this time of wiping out slavery by means of
political abolition, because in spite of the fact that slavery had for
years been one of the most pressing issues before the American people,
no great political party had yet endorsed abolition, nor had a single
prominent practical statesman[121] advocated immediate unconditional
emancipation. As the Liberty party experiment had proved, an
abolitionist running for office on an antislavery platform was doomed
to defeat. Therefore the gesture made in this critical campaign by a
small group of abolitionists in nominating Gerrit Smith for president
appeared utterly futile to Susan. Abolitionists, she believed,
followed the only course consistent with their principles when they
eschewed politics, abstained from voting, and devoted their energies
with the fervor of evangelists to a militant educational campaign.

So, whenever she could, she continued to hold antislavery meetings.
"Crowded house at Port Byron," her diary records. "I tried to say a
few words at opening, but soon curled up like a sensitive plant. It is
a terrible martyrdom for me to speak."[122] Yet so great was the need
to enlighten people on the evils of slavery that she endured this
martyrdom, stepping into the breach when no other speaker was
available. Taking as her subject, "What Is American Slavery?" she
declared, "It is the le