alifornia in search of
gold. Telegraphs and railroads were being rapidly constructed, thus
bringing widely separated localities into close communication. The
unsettled condition of Europe and the famine in Ireland had turned
toward America that tremendous tide of immigration which this year had
risen to 300,000. The admission of Texas into the Union had
precipitated the full force of the slavery question. Old parties were
disintegrating and sectional lines becoming closely drawn. New
territories were knocking at the door of the Union and the whole nation
was in a ferment as to whether they should be slave or free. Threats of
secession were heard in both the North and the South. A spirit of
compromise finally prevailed and deferred the crisis for a decade, but
the agitation and unrest continued to increase. The Abolitionists were
still a handful of radicals, repudiated alike by the Free Soil Whigs
and Free Soil Democrats. Slavery, as an institution, had not yet become
a political issue, but only its extension into the territories.

Such, in brief, was the situation at the beginning of 1850. It was a
period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of
intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action. It
is not surprising then that an educated, self-reliant, public-spirited
woman who had just reached thirty should chafe against the narrow
limits of a school-room and rebel at giving her time and strength to
the teaching of children, when all her mind and heart were drawn toward
the great issues then filling the press and the platform and even
finding their way into the pulpit. Miss Anthony's whole soul soon
became absorbed in the thought, "What service can I render humanity;
what can I do to help right the wrongs of society?" At this time the
one and only field of public work into which women had dared venture,
except in a few isolated cases, was that of temperance. Miss Anthony
had brought her credentials from the Daughters' Union at Canajoharie
and presented them at once to the society in Rochester; they were
gladly accepted and she soon became a leader. In these days John B.
Gough was delivering his magnificent lectures throughout the country,
and Philip S. White, of South Carolina, was winning fame as a
temperance orator.

The year 1850 was for her one of transition. A new world opened out
before her. The Anthony homestead was a favorite meeting place for
liberal-spirited men and wome