When she returned to New York, she realized that she could not continue to carry _The Revolution_ alone, in spite of increased subscriptions. Its $10,000 debt weighed heavily upon her. Parker Pillsbury's help could only be temporary; Mrs. Stanton's strenuous lecture tour left her little time to give to the paper; and Susan's own friends and family were unable to finance it further.
Fortunately the idea of editing a paper appealed strongly to the wealthy Laura Curtis Bullard, who had the promise of editorial help from Theodore Tilton. Susan now turned the paper over to them completely, receiving nothing in return but shares of stock, while she assumed the entire indebtedness.
Giving up the control of her beloved paper was one of the most humiliating experiences and one of the deepest sorrows she ever faced. _The Revolution_ had become to her the symbol of her crusade for women. Overwhelmed by a sense of failure, she confided to her diary on the date of the transfer, "It was like signing my own death warrant," and to a friend she wrote, "I feel a great, calm sadness like that of a mother binding out a dear child that she could not support."[257]
She made a valiant announcement of the transfer in _The Revolution_ of May 26, 1870, expressing her delight that the paper had at last found financial backing and a new, enthusiastic editor. "In view of the active demand for conventions, lectures, and discussions on Woman Suffrage," she added, "I have concluded that so far as my own personal efforts are concerned, I can be more useful on the platform than in a newspaper. So, on the 1st of June next, I shall cease to be the _sole_ proprietor of _The Revolution_, and shall be free to attend public meetings where ever so plain and matter of fact an old worker as I am can secure a hearing."[258]
Financial backing, however, did not put _The Revolution_ on its feet, although its forthright editorials and articles were replaced by spicy and brilliant observations on pleasant topics which offended no one. Before the year was up, Mrs. Bullard was making overtures to Susan to take the paper back. Susan wanted desperately "to keep the Old Ship Revolution's colors flying"[259] and to bring back Mrs. Stanton's stinging editorials. She also feared that Mrs. Bullard on Theodore Tilton's advice might turn the paper over to the Boston group to be consolidated with the _Woman's Journal_. As no funds were available, she had to turn her back on her beloved paper and hope for the best. "I suppose there is a wise Providence in my being stripped of power to go forward," she wrote at this time. "At any rate, I mean to try and make good come out of it."[260]
For one more year, _The Revolution_ struggled on under the editorship of Mrs. Bullard and Theodore Tilton and then was taken over by the _Christian Enquirer_. The $10,000 debt, incurred under Susan's management, she regarded as her responsibility, although her brother Daniel and many of her friends urged bankruptcy proceedings. "My pride for women, to say nothing of my conscience," she insisted, "says no."[261]
FOOTNOTES:
[240] Lucy Stone to Frank Sanborn, Aug. 18, 1869, Alma Lutz Collection.
[241] Lucy Stone to Esther Pugh, Aug. 30, 1869, Ida Husted Harper Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
[242] Mary Livermore to W. L. Garrison, Oct. 4, 1869, Boston Public Library. Wendell Phillips did not sign the call or attend the convention for "reasons that are good to him," wrote Lucy Stone to Garrison, Sept. 27, 1869, Boston Public Library.
[243] _The Revolution_, IV, Oct. 21, 1869, p. 265.
[244] _Ibid._, p. 266.
[245] The Empire Sewing Machine Co., Benedict's Watches, Madame Demorest's dress patterns, Sapolio, insurance companies, savings banks, the Union Pacific, offering first mortgage bonds.
[246] Harper, _Anthony_, I, pp. 354-355. In 1873, Anson Lapham cancelled notes, amounting to $4000, and praised Susan for her continued courageous work for women.
[247] _The Revolution_, IV, Dec. 2, 1869, p. 343.
[248] Harriet Beecher Stowe to Susan B. Anthony, Dec., 1869, Alma Lutz Collection.
[249] _The Revolution_, IV, Dec. 23, 1869, p. 385.
[250] _Woman's Journal_, Jan. 8, 1870.
[251] Ms., Diary, Jan. 18, 1870.
[252] Stanton and Blatch, _Stanton_, II, pp. 124-125.
[253] _The Revolution_, V, Feb. 24, 1870, pp. 117-118. Susan attributed the _Tribune_ editorial to Whitelaw Reid. Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, Library of Congress.
[254] Feb. 21, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress. Anna E. Dickinson sent Miss Anthony generous checks to help finance _The Revolution_. Although she lectured at Cooper Union for the National Woman Suffrage Association shortly after it was organized, she never became a member of the organization or attended its conventions. This was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony.
[255] Finally, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton against their best judgment were persuaded by younger members of the National Woman Suffrage Association to drop the name National and replace it with Union and then to try to negotiate further with the American Association. Theodore Tilton was elected president of the Union Woman Suffrage Society. This proved to be an organization in name only, and in a short time these same younger members clamored for the return to office of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton and reestablished the National Woman Suffrage Association.
[256] _The Revolution_, V, March 10, 1870, p. 153. Mrs. Stanton's Lyceum lectures were undertaken to finance the education of her 7 children.
[257] Harper, _Anthony_, I, p. 362.
[258] _The Revolution_, V, May 26, 1870, p. 328.
[259] Sept. 19, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.
[260] To E. A. Studwell, Sept. 15, 1870, Radcliffe Women's Archives, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[261] To Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Oct. 15, 1871, Lucy E. Anthony Collection
A NEW SLANT ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
While Susan was lecturing in the West, hoping to earn enough to pay off _The Revolution's_ debt, she was pondering a new approach to the enfranchisement of women which had been proposed by Francis Minor, a St. Louis attorney and the husband of her friend, Virginia Minor.
Francis Minor contended that while the Constitution gave the states the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gave them the power to prohibit it, and he believed that this conclusion was strengthened by the Fourteenth Amendment which provided that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
To claim the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment made a great appeal to both Susan and Elizabeth Stanton. Susan published Francis Minor's arguments in _The Revolution_ and also his suggestion that some woman test this interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment by attempting to vote at the next election; while Mrs. Stanton used this new approach as the basis of her speech before a Congressional committee in 1870.
With such a fresh and thrilling project to develop, Susan looked forward to the annual woman suffrage convention to be held in Washington in January 1871. So heavy was her lecture schedule that she reluctantly left preparations for the convention in the willing hands of Isabella Beecher Hooker, who was confident she could improve on Susan's meetings and guide the woman's rights movement into more ladylike and aristocratic channels, winning over scores of men and women who hitherto had remained aloof. At the last moment, however, she appealed in desperation to Susan for help, and Susan, canceling important lecture engagements, hurried to Washington. Here she found the newspapers full of Victoria C. Woodhull and her Memorial to Congress on woman suffrage, which had been presented by Senator Harris of Louisiana and Congressman Julian of Indiana. Capitalizing on the new approach to woman suffrage, Mrs. Woodhull based her arguments on the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, praying Congress to enact legislation to enable women to exercise the right to vote vested in them by these amendments. A hearing was scheduled before the House judiciary committee the very morning the convention opened.
[Illustration: Victoria C. Woodhull]
Convinced that she and her colleagues must attend that hearing, Susan consulted with her friends in Congress and overrode Mrs. Hooker's hesitancy about associating their organization with so questionable a woman as Victoria Woodhull. She engaged a constitutional lawyer, Albert G. Riddle,[262] to represent the 30,000 women who had petitioned Congress for the franchise. Then she and Mrs. Hooker attended the hearing and asked for prompt action on woman suffrage. This was the first Congressional hearing on federal enfranchisement. Previous hearings had considered trying the experiment only in the District of Columbia.
Susan had never before seen Victoria Woodhull. Early in 1870, however, she had called at the brokerage office which Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, had opened in New York on Broad Street. The press had been full of amused comments regarding the lady bankers, and Susan had wanted to see for herself what kind of women they were. Here she met and talked with Tennessee Claflin, publishing their interview in _The Revolution_, and also an advertisement of Woodhull, Claflin & Co., Bankers and Brokers.[263]