threw the weight of his first State paper on the
proposition, that this thing was possible, and, if he said
it was possible, there was no man who could gainsay it. The
legislature took the reform on its own sense of justice and
on the assurance of Richard D. Hubbard, that it would work.

On June 6, 1870, at a second hearing[165] before the Joint
Committee on Woman Suffrage, in the capitol at New Haven, Rev.
Phebe A. Hanaford of the Universalist church, Mrs. Benchley and
Mrs. Russell were the speakers. During that session of the
legislature Mrs. Hanaford acted as chaplain both in the Senate and
House of Representatives, and received a check for her services
which she valued chiefly as a recognition of woman's equality in
the clerical profession.

Mrs. Hooker was ably sustained in her new position by her husband,
a prominent lawyer of the State. Being equally familiar with civil
and canon law, with Blackstone and the Bible, he was well equipped
to meet the opponents of the reform at every point. While Mrs.
Hooker held meetings in churches and school-houses through the
State, her husband in his leisure hours sent the daily press
articles on the subject. And thus their united efforts stirred the
people to thought and at last roused a Democratic governor of the
State to his duty on this question. From the many able tracts
issued and articles published in the journals we give a few
extracts. In answer to the common objections of "free love" and
"easy divorce," in the _Evening Post_ of January 17, 1871, Mr.
Hooker said:

The persons who advocate easy divorce would advocate it just as
strongly if there was no woman suffrage movement. The two have no
necessary connection. Indeed one of the strongest arguments in
favor of woman suffrage is, that the marriage relation will be
safer with women to vote and legislate upon it than where the
voting and legislation are left wholly to the men. Women will
always be wives and mothers, above all things else. This law of
nature cannot be changed, and I know of nobody who desires to
change it. The marriage relation will therefore always be more to
woman than to man, and we, who would give her the right to vote,
have no fear to trust to her the sanctity and purity of that
relation. It is the opponents of woman suffrage who distrust the
fidelity of woman to her divine instincts and da