On Friday, December 2, 1859, John Brown was hanged. Through the North, church bells tolled and prayers were said for him. Everywhere people gathered together to mourn and honor or to condemn. In New York City, at a big meeting which overflowed to the streets, it was resolved "that we regard the recent outrage at Harper's Ferry as a crime, not only against the State of Virginia, but against the Union itself...." In Boston, however, Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke to a tremendous audience of "the new saint, than whom none purer or more brave was ever led by love of man into conflict and death ... who will make the gallows glorious," and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow recorded in his diary, "This will be a great day in our history; the date of a new revolution." Far away in France, Victor Hugo declared, "The eyes of Europe are fixed on America. The hanging of John Brown will open a latent fissure that will finally split the union asunder.... You preserve your shame, but you kill your glory."[88]
In Rochester, three hundred people assembled. All were friends of the cause and there was no unfriendly disturbance to mar the proceedings. Susan presided and Parker Pillsbury, in her opinion, made "the grandest speech of his life," for it was the only occasion he ever found fully wicked enough to warrant "his terrific invective."[89]
Thus these two militant abolitionists, Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury, joined hundreds of others throughout the nation in honoring John Brown, sensing the portent of his martyrdom and prophesying that his soul would go marching on.
THE TRUE WOMAN
Susan's preoccupation with antislavery work did not lessen her interest in women's advancement. Her own expanding courage and ability showed her the possibilities for all women in widened horizons and activities. These possibilities were the chief topic of conversation when she and Elizabeth Stanton were together. With Mrs. Stanton's young daughters, Margaret and Harriot, in mind, they were continually planning ways and means of developing the new woman, or the "true woman" as they liked to call her; and one of these ways was physical exercise in the fresh air, which was almost unheard of for women except on the frontier.
Taking off her hoops and working in the garden in the freedom of her long calico dress, Susan was refreshed and exhilarated. "Uncovered the strawberry and raspberry beds ..." her diary records. "Worked with Simon building frames for the grapevines in the peach orchards.... Set out 18 English black currants, 22 English gooseberries and Muscatine grape vines.... Finished setting out the apple trees & 600 blackberry bushes...."[90]
She knew how little this strengthening work and healing influence touched the lives of most women. Hemmed in by the walls of their homes, weighed down by bulky confining clothing, fed on the tradition of weakness, women could never gain the breadth of view, courage, and stamina needed to demand and appreciate emancipation. She thought a great deal about this and how it could be remedied, and wrote her friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson "The salvation of the race depends, in a great measure, upon rescuing women from their hot-house existence. Whether in kitchen, nursery or parlor, all alike are shut away from God's sunshine. Why did not your Caroline Plummer of Salem, why do not all of our wealthy women leave money for industrial and agricultural schools for girls, instead of ever and always providing for boys alone?"[91]
An exceptional opportunity was now offered Susan—to speak on the controversial subject of coeducation before the State Teachers' Association, which only a few years before had been shocked by the sound of a woman's voice. Deeply concerned over her ability to write the speech, she at once appealed to Elizabeth Stanton, "Do you please mark out a plan and give me as soon as you can...."[92]