During the winter of 1860 while the legislature was in session, Susan spent six weeks in Albany with Lydia Mott, and day after day she climbed the long hill to the capitol to interview legislators on amendments to the married women's property laws. When these amendments were passed by the Senate, Assemblyman Anson Bingham urged her to bring their mutual friend, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to Albany to speak before his committee to assure passage by the Assembly.
Once again Susan hurried to Seneca Falls, and unpacking her little portmanteau stuffed with papers and statistics, discussed the subject with Mrs. Stanton in front of the open fire late into the night. Then the next morning while Mrs. Stanton shut herself up in the quietest room in the house to write her speech, Susan gave the children their breakfast, sent the older ones off to school, watched over the babies, prepared the desserts, and made herself generally useful. By this time the children regarded her affectionately as "Aunt Thusan," and they knew they must obey her, for she was a stern disciplinarian whom even the mischievous Stanton boys dared not defy.
These visits of Susan's were happy, satisfying times for both these young women. A few days' respite from travel in a well-run home with a friend she admired did wonders for Susan, giving her perspective on the work she had already done and courage to tackle new problems, while for Mrs. Stanton this short period of stimulating companionship and freedom from household cares was a godsend. "Miss Anthony" had long ago become Susan to Elizabeth, but Susan all through her life called her very best friend "Mrs. Stanton," playfully to be sure, but with a remnant of that formality which it was hard for her to cast off.
The speech was soon finished. Mrs. Stanton's imagination, fired by her sympathetic understanding of women's problems, had turned Susan's cold hard facts into moving prose, while Susan, the best of critics, detected every weak argument or faltering phrase. They both felt they had achieved a masterpiece.
Mrs. Stanton delivered this address before a joint session of the New York legislature in March 1860. Susan beamed with pride as she watched the large audience crowd even the galleries and heard the long loud applause for the speech which she was convinced could not have been surpassed by any man in the United States.
The next day the Assembly passed the Married Women's Property Bill, and when shortly it was signed by the governor, Susan and Mrs. Stanton scored their first big victory, winning a legal revolution for the women of New York State. This new law was a challenge to women everywhere. Under it a married woman had the right to hold property, real and personal, without the interference of her husband, the right to carry on any trade or perform any service on her own account and to collect and use her own earnings; a married woman might now buy, sell, and make contracts, and if her husband had abandoned her or was insane, a convict, or a habitual drunkard, his consent was unnecessary; a married woman might sue and be sued, she was the joint guardian with her husband of her children, and on the decease of her husband the wife had the same rights that her husband would have at her death.
Susan did not then realize the full significance of what she had accomplished—that she had unleashed a new movement for freedom which would be the means of strengthening the democratic government of her country.