s, or congregated in
public places to hear the news and discuss the political situation.

From December, 1863, to March, 1866, I was in Washington, D. C.,
writing in the Military or Revenue Departments, or occupying the
position of Matron in the Home for Colored Orphans, which had been
opened in the second year of the rebellion, by the help of the
Government and the untiring energy of a few noble women intent on
saving the helpless waifs of slavery cast by thousands upon the bare
sands of military freedom.

In the autumn of 1867, the Legislature of Kansas having submitted to
the voters of the State a woman suffrage amendment to its
Constitution, I gave some four weeks to the canvass, which was engaged
in by some of the ablest friends of the cause from other States, among
them Lucy Stone, Rev. Olympia Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan
B. Anthony. In our own State, among others, Governor Robinson, John
Ritchie, and S. N. Wood of the old Free State Guard, rallied to the
work. With the canvass of Atchison and Jefferson Counties, and a few
lectures in Douglass, Shawnee, and Osage Counties, I retired from a
field overlaid with happy reminders of past trials merged in present
blessings. The work was in competent hands, but the time was
ill-chosen on account of the political complications with negro
suffrage, and failure was the result.

Since December, 1871, my home has been in California, where family
cares and the infirmities of age limit my efforts for a freer and a
nobler humanity to the pen. Trusting that love of God and man will
ever point it with truth and justice, I close this _expose_ of my
public life.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Mrs. Nichols had written up a case occurring among the
subscribers to the _Democrat_, in which $500, the whole estate, was
divided, the half of that amount being all the law allowed for the
support of a woman, then in the decline of life, and sent fifty marked
copies of the paper to members of the Legislature elect. One of them
introduced the bill, which passed the first day of the session.

[23] The violent throbbing of Mrs. Nichols' heart, caused by her
unusual position and her intense anxiety that her plea might be
successful, had stopped her speaking at the close of a brief preface
to her plea. She, however, soon rallied, though her voice was
tremulous throughout, from the conviction that only an eminently
successful presentation of her subject, could spike the enemy's
batteries