Early in March the Legislature of Kansas submitted two amendments, one enfranchising the negroes and one the women. State Senator Samuel N. Wood wrote Miss Anthony that an equal rights convention had been called to meet in Topeka, April 2, and urged her to send out the strongest speakers to canvass the State in behalf of the woman suffrage amendment. This was the first time the enfranchisement of women ever had been presented for a popular vote and its advocates were most anxious that it should be carried. Neither Miss Anthony nor Mrs. Stanton could go to Kansas at this time, so they appealed to Lucy Stone, begging her to make the campaign. Since her marriage, twelve years before, she had been practically out of public work, insisting that she had lost her power for speaking. Miss Anthony assured her that if she would take the platform it would come back to her, and Mr. Blackwell joined in the entreaty. He gave up his business position to accompany his wife and they made a thorough canvass of that State during April and May. Mr. Phillips was unwilling that any money from the Jackson fund should be used for this purpose, as he did not want the question agitated at this time, but as Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone constituted a majority of the committee, they appropriated $1,500 for it. Even thus early in the contest the Republican managers began to show their hand. Lucy Stone wrote from Atchison May 9:
I should be glad to be with you tomorrow at the equal rights convention in New York and to know this minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground which sound policy, as well as justice and statesmanship require. Just now there is a plot here to get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and canvass only for the word "white." A call has been signed by the chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, for a meeting at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge the party to that single issue. As soon as we saw it and the change of tone in some of the papers, we sent letters to all those whom we had found true, urging them to be at Topeka and vote for both words. Till this action of the Republicans is settled, we can affirm nothing. Everywhere we go, we have the largest and most enthusiastic meetings and any one of our audiences would give a majority for women; but the negroes are all against us. These men ought not to be allowed to vote before we do because they will be so much more dead weight to lift.
Again she wrote of the situation in Kansas:
The Tribune and Independent alone, if they would urge universal suffrage as they do negro suffrage, could carry this whole nation upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to hold and not use!.... They must take it up. I shall see them the very first thing when I get home. At your meeting next Monday evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used for the Standard and anti-slavery purposes since slavery was abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which by the express terms of the will were to receive all of the fund when slavery should be ended. I trust you will not fail to rebuke the cowardly use of the terms "universal," "impartial" and "equal," applied to hide a dark skin and an unpopular client.... I hope not a man will be asked to speak at the convention. If they volunteer, very well, but I have been for the last time on my knees to Phillips, Higginson or any of them. If they help now, they should ask us and not we them.
On May 9 and 10 the Equal Rights Association held its first anniversary in New York, at the Church of the Puritans. Cordial and encouraging letters were received from Lydia Maria Child, Anna Dickinson, Clara Barton, Mary A. Livermore and many other distinguished women. While there were the usual number of able speeches, the strongest discussion was on the following resolution, offered by Miss Anthony: "The proposal to reconstruct our government on the basis of manhood suffrage, which emanated from the Republican party and has received the recent sanction of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is but a continuation of the old system of class and caste legislation, always cruel and proscriptive in itself and ending, in all ages, in national degradation and revolution." Henry Ward Beecher spoke eloquently in its favor, saying in part:
L. Maria Child.
I am not a farmer, but I know that spring comes but once in the year. When the furrow is open is the time to put in your seed, if you would gather a harvest in its season. Now, when the red-hot plowshare of war has opened a furrow in this nation, is the time to put in the seed. If any say to me, "Why will you agitate the woman question when it is the hour for the black man?" I answer, it is the hour for every man and every woman, black or white. The bees go out in the morning to gather the honey from the morning-glories. They take it when they are open, for by 10 o'clock they are shut, never to open again. When the public mind is open, if you have anything to say, say it. If you have any radical principles to urge, any higher wisdom to make known, don't wait until quiet times come, until the public mind shuts up altogether.
We are in the favored hour; and if you have great principles to make known, this is the time to advocate them. I therefore say whatever truth is to be known for the next fifty years in this nation, let it be spoken now—let it be enforced now. The truth that I have to urge is not that women have the right of suffrage—not that Chinamen or Irishmen have that right—not that native born Yankees have it—but that suffrage is the inherent right of mankind.... I do not put back for a single day the black man's enfranchisement. I ask not that he should wait. I demand that this work should be done, not upon the ground that it is politically expedient now to enfranchise black men; but I propose that you take expediency out of the way, and put a principle which is more enduring in the place of it—manhood and womanhood suffrage for all. That is the question. You may just as well meet it now as at any other time. You will never have so favorable an occasion, so sympathetic a heart, never a public reason so willing to be convinced as today.... I believe it is just as easy to carry the enfranchisement of all as of any one class, and easier than to carry it class after class.
