tly
right, in her opinion, that she could not but take her stand as their
advocates, and it was far easier for her to maintain them than to yield
one iota of her conscientious views.
Thus she always found herself in a minority, through all the struggling
years between 1832 and 1865. She had once an engagement with the editor
of a "State Journal" to write weekly for his columns during a year.
This, at that time seemed to her a great achievement. But a few plain
words from her upon the Fugitive Slave Law, brought a note saying her
services were no longer wanted; "He would not," the editor wrote,
"publish sentiments in his Journal, which, if carried out, would strike
at the foundations of all law, order, and government," and added much
good advice. Her reply was prompt:
"Yours of ---- is at hand. Thanking you for your unasked counsel, I
cheerfully retire from your columns.
"Respectfully yours,
"F. D. GAGE."
She has lived to see that editor change many of his views, and approach
her standard.
The great moral struggle of the thirty years preceding the war, in her
opinion, required for its continuance far more heroism than that which
marshalled our hosts along the Potomac, prompted Sheridan's raids, or
Sherman's triumphant "march to the sea."
In all her warfare against existing wrong, that which she waged for the
liberties of her own sex subjected her to the most trying persecution,
insult and neglect. In the region of Ohio where she then resided, she
stood almost alone, but she was never inclined to yield. Probably,
unknown to herself, this very discipline was preparing her for the
events of the future, and its supreme tests of her principles.
A member of Congress once called to urge her to persuade her husband to
yield a point of principle (which he said if adhered to would prove the
political ruin of Mr. Gage) holding out the bribe of a seat in Congress,
if he would stand by the old Whig party in some of its tergiversations,
and insisting that if he persisted in doing as he had threatened, he
would soon find himself standing alone. She promised the gentleman that
she would repeat to her husband what he had said, and as soon as he had
gone seized her pencil and wrote the following impromptu, which serves
well to illustrate her firm persistence in any course she believes
right, as well as the principle that animates her.
DARE TO STAND ALONE.
"Be bold, be firm, be str
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