hich divided them was the right of
women to take any prominent part in public affairs.

In that campaign, the great Whig argument against the election of Polk
was, that it would bring on a war with Mexico for the extension of
slavery, and when the war came, Whigs and Liberty Party men vied with
each other in their cry of "Our Country, right or wrong!" and rushed
into the army over every barrier set up by their late arguments. The
nation was seized by a military madness, and in the furore, the cause of
the slave went to the wall, and _The Spirit of Liberty_ was
discontinued. Its predecessor, _The Christian Witness_, had failed under
the successive management of William Burleigh, Dr. Elder, and Rev.
Edward Smith, three giants in those days, and there seemed no hope that
any anti-slavery paper could be supported in Pittsburg, while all
anti-slavery matter was carefully excluded from both religious and
secular press. It was a dark day for the slave, and it was difficult to
see hope for a brighter. To me, it seemed that all was lost, unless some
one were especially called to speak that truth, which alone could make
the people free, but certainly I could not be the messenger.

For years there had ran through my head the words, "Open thy mouth for
the dumb, plead the cause of the poor and needy." The streams sang them,
the winds shrieked them, and now a trumpet sounded them, but the words
could not mean more than talking in private. I would not, could not,
believe they meant more, for the Bible in which I read them bid me be
silent. My husband wanted me to lecture as did Abbey Kelley, but I
thought this would surely be wrong. The church had silenced me so
effectuately, that even now all my sense of the great need of words
could not induce me to attempt it; but if I could "plead the cause"
through the press, I must write. Even this was dreadful, as I must use
my own name, for my articles would certainly be libelous. If I wrote at
all, I must throw myself headlong into the great political maelstrom,
and would of course be swallowed up like a fishing-boat in the great
Norway horror which decorated our school geographies; for no woman had
ever done such a thing, and I could never again hold up my head under
the burden of shame and disgrace which would be heaped upon me. But what
matter? I had no children to dishonor; all save one who had ever loved
me were dead, and she no longer needed me, and if the Lord wanted some
one to thro