engulphing the drunkard's home. Women were applauded for these acts of
heroism by the press and temperance leagues; they were welcomed too as
speakers sometimes on their platforms, just as slaves were in the
olden days, to move an audience with their tales of woe. But when they
organized themselves into associations, adopted constitutions, passed
resolutions, and sent their delegates to men's conventions, asking to
be recognized as equals, then began the battle in the temperance
ranks, vindictive and protracted for years. The clergy were the most
bitter opponents of the public action of women; but throughout the
conflict they were sustained by the purest men in the nation, such as
Horace Greeley, Joshua R. Giddings, Rev. E. H. Chapin, Rev. Samuel J.
May, Thomas W. Higginson, William H. Channing, Gerrit Smith, Wendell
Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and others. All this persecution on
the ground of sex, intensified the love of liberty in woman's soul,
and deepened the oft repeated lesson of individual rights.

On January 28, 1852, "The Daughters of Temperance" assembled in Albany
to take part in a mass meeting of all the "Divisions" in the State.
Among the delegates present were Susan B. Anthony, Mary C. Vaughan,
and Lydia Fowler, who were received as members of the Convention. But
at the first attempt by Miss Anthony to speak, they were informed that
the ladies were invited to listen, and not to take part in the
proceedings. Those women present who were not satisfied with such a
position withdrew, announcing that they would hold a meeting that
evening in which men and women would stand on equal ground.

At the appointed time they assembled in the vestry-room of the
Presbyterian church on Hudson Street. Samuel J. May, who was in Albany
attending one of the "Jerrey Rescue Trials," was present, and opened
the meeting with prayer. Mrs. Vaughan was chosen President,[91] and on
taking the chair, said:

We have met to consider what we, as women, can do and may do, to
forward the temperance reform. We have met, because, as members
of the human family, we share in all the sufferings which error
and crime bring upon the race, and because we are learning that
our part in the drama of life is something beside inactive
suffering and passive endurance. We would act as well as endure;
and we meet here to-day because many of us have been trying to
act, and we would combine our individual ex