Petersboro', N. Y., May, 1874.
Miss Anna Ella Carroll:
Surely nothing more can be needed than your pamphlet, entitled "Miss Carroll's Claim before Congress," to insure the prompt and generous payment of it. Our country will be deeply dishonored if you, its wise and faithful and grandly useful servant, shall be left unpaid.
Gerritt Smith.[18]
Washington, D. C. June 5, 1874.
Dear Miss Carroll:
I did not receive your polite note and the pamphlet in relation to your claim till this morning. The statement of your case is very strong, both as to the clear proof of "value received" from you by the Government, and on which was founded its promise to pay, and as to the favorable opinions of your literary and military services expressed by leading men. I know of no instance in which a woman not born to sovereign sway has done so much to avert the impending ruin of her country, and that not by cheap valor, like Joan of Arc, but by rare mental ability. As a Marylander, I am proud that the "Old Maryland line" was so worthily represented by you in the struggle for the Union.
You would have had your substantial reward long ago but for the very absurd opinion that by some fixed, mysterious law of nature the labor done by women is worth less than precisely similar work done by men. You should persist in your just claim, if only to establish the principle that the value of work should be estimated according to its merits and not with reference to the worker; but, whatever may be the fate of your demand on the Government, you cannot fail to receive the thanks of the people.
Very respectfully,
Sam'l T. Williams.