"So help me, Heaven!" she continued with emotion. "I care not what may come out of this Convention, so that this great cause shall go forward to its consummation! And though this Convention by its action shall nullify the National Association of which I am a member, and though it shall tread its heel upon The Revolution, to carry on which I have struggled as never mortal woman or mortal man struggled for any cause ... still, if you will do the work in Washington so that this Amendment will be proposed, and will go with me to the several Legislatures and compel them to adopt it, I will thank God for this Convention as long as I have the breath of life."
Loud and continuous applause greeted these earnest words. However, instead of pledging themselves to work for a Sixteenth Amendment, the newly formed American Woman Suffrage Association, blind to the exceptional opportunity at this time for Congressional action on woman suffrage, decided to concentrate on work in the states where suffrage bills were pending. Instead of electing an outstanding woman as president, they chose Henry Ward Beecher, boasting that this was proof of their genuine belief in equal rights. Lucy Stone headed the executive committee.
Divisions soon began developing among the suffragists in the field. Many whose one thought previously had been the cause now spent time weighing the differences between the two organizations and between personalities, and antagonisms increased.
Hardest of all for Susan to bear was the definite announcement of a rival paper, the Woman's Journal, to be issued in Boston in January 1870 under the editorship of Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore, and Julia Ward Howe, with Henry Blackwell as business manager. Mary Livermore, who previously had planned to merge her paper, the Agitator, with The Revolution now merged it with the Woman's Journal. Financed by wealthy stockholders, all influential Republicans, the Journal, Susan knew, would be spared the financial struggles of The Revolution, but would be obliged to conform to Republican policy in its support of woman's rights. Had not the Woman's Journal been such an obvious affront to the heroic efforts of The Revolution and a threat to its very existence, she could have rejoiced with Lucy over one more paper carrying the message of woman suffrage.
More determined than ever to continue The Revolution, Susan redoubled her efforts, announcing an imposing list of contributors for 1870, including the British feminist, Lydia Becker, and as a special attraction, a serial by Alice Cary. Through the efforts of Mrs. Hooker, Harriet Beecher Stowe was persuaded to consider serving as contributing editor provided the paper's name was changed to The True Republic or to some other name satisfactory to her.[248]
Having struggled against the odds for so long, Susan had no intention of being stifled now by Mrs. Stowe's more conservative views, nor would she give her crusading sheet an innocuous name. However, the decision was taken out of her hands by The Revolution's coverage of the sensational McFarland-Richardson murder case, which so shocked both Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Stowe that they gave up all thought of being associated in a publishing venture with Susan or Mrs. Stanton.
The whole country was stirred in December 1869 by the fatal shooting in the Tribune office of the well-known journalist, Albert D. Richardson, by Daniel McFarland, to whose divorced wife Richardson had been attentive. When just before his death, Richardson was married to the divorced Mrs. McFarland by Henry Ward Beecher with Horace Greeley as a witness, the press was agog. So strong was the feeling against a divorced woman that Henry Ward Beecher was severely condemned for officiating at the marriage, and Mrs. Richardson was played up in the press and in court as the villain, although her divorce had been granted because of the brutality and instability of McFarland.
Indignant at the sophistry of the press and the general acceptance of a double standard of morals, The Revolution not only spoke out fearlessly in defense of Mrs. Richardson but in an editorial by Mrs. Stanton frankly analyzed the tragic human relations so obvious in the case. With Susan's full approval, Mrs. Stanton wrote, "I rejoice over every slave that escapes from a discordant marriage. With the education and elevation of women we shall have a mighty sundering of the unholy ties that hold men and women together who loathe and despise each other...."[249] When the court acquitted McFarland, giving him the custody of his twelve-year-old son, Susan called a protest meeting which attracted an audience of two thousand.
Such words and such activities disturbed many who sympathized with Mrs. Richardson but saw no reason for flaunting exultant approval of divorce in a woman suffrage paper, and they turned to the Woman's Journal as more to their taste.
Susan, however, reading the first number of the Woman's Journal, found its editorials lacking fire. She rebelled at Julia Ward Howe's counsel, "to lay down all partisan warfare and organize a peaceful Grand Army of the Republic of Women ... not ... as against men, but as against all that is pernicious to men and women."[250] Susan's fight had never been against men but against man-made laws that held women in bondage. There had always been men willing to help her. Experience had taught her that the struggle for woman's rights was no peaceful academic debate, but real warfare which demanded political strategy, self-sacrifice, and unremitting labor. She was prouder than ever of her Revolution and its liberal hard-hitting policy.