This was balm to Susan's soul, but with Lucy's next words she lost all hope that her old friend would cast her lot wholeheartedly with women at this time. "Woman has an ocean of wrongs too deep for any plummet," Lucy continued, "and the Negro too has an ocean of wrongs that cannot be fathomed. But I thank God for the Fifteenth Amendment, and hope that it will be adopted in every state. I will be thankful in my soul if anybody can get out of the terrible pit....
"I believe," she admitted, "that the national safety of the government would be more promoted by the admission of women as an element of restoration and harmony than the other. I believe that the influence of woman will save the country before every other influence. I see the signs of the times pointing to this consummation. I believe that in some parts of the country women will vote for the President of these United States in 1872."
Susan grew impatient as Lucy shifted from one side to the other, straddling the issue. Her own clear-cut approach, earning for her the reputation of always hitting the nail on the head, made Lucy's seem like temporizing.
The men now took control, criticizing the amount of time given to the discussion of woman's rights, and voted endorsement of the Fifteenth Amendment. Nevertheless, a small group of determined women continued their fight, Susan declaring with spirit that she protested against the Fifteenth Amendment because it was not Equal Rights and would put 2,000,000 more men in the position of tyrants over 2,000,000 women who until now had been the equals of the Negro men at their side.[237]
It was now clear to Susan and to the few women who worked closely with her that they needed a strong organization of their own and that it was folly to waste more time on the Equal Rights Association. Western delegates, disappointed in the convention's lack of interest in woman suffrage, expressed themselves freely. They had been sorely tried by the many speeches on extraneous subjects which cluttered the meetings, the heritage of a free-speech policy handed down by antislavery societies.
"That Equal Rights Association is an awful humbug," exploded Mary Livermore to Susan. "I would not have come on to the anniversary, nor would any of us, if we had known what it was. We supposed we were coming to a woman suffrage convention."[238]
At a reception for all the delegates held at the Women's Bureau at the close of the convention, this dissatisfaction culminated in a spontaneous demand for a new organization which would concentrate on woman suffrage and the Sixteenth Amendment. Alert to the possibilities, Susan directed this demand into concrete action by turning the reception temporarily into a business meeting. The result was the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association by women from nineteen states, with Mrs. Stanton as president and Susan as a member of the executive committee. The younger women of the West, trusting the judgment of Susan and Mrs. Stanton, looked to them for leadership, as did a few of the old workers in the East—Ernestine Rose, always in the vanguard, Paulina Wright Davis, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Lucretia Mott, who although holding no office in the new organization gave it her support, Martha C. Wright, and Matilda Joslyn Gage who never wavered in her allegiance. Lucy Stone, who would have found it hard even to step into the Revolution office, did not attend the reception at the Women's Bureau or take part in the formation of the new woman suffrage organization.
Paulina Wright Davis