So Amelia came to live with Anne Royall, long-time relict of Captain William Royall. He had fought beside Washington in the Revolutionary War and had been the General’s lifelong friend. In her own way she waged a war too. Each week she cranked a clumsy printing press in her shed and turned out a pithy paper called the Huntress. It advocated free schools for children everywhere, free trade, and liberal appropriations for scientific investigation. Amelia helped her about the house and with her chickens, accompanied her on interviews, saw red-faced legislators dodge down side-streets to avoid her. Gradually she learned something of how news is gathered and dispensed, but she learned more about the ways of Washington, D. C.
Amelia had been in Washington three weeks when one evening Jack stopped by.
“I’m going up North!” he announced.
“Where? What for?”
“The boss heard something about a rebellion in New England. He’s tickled pink. Said maybe that would keep Yankee noses out of other people’s worries. He’s sending me out to puff the scandal!”
“Do you know anything about it?” Mrs. Royall’s ears were alert.
“From what I can gather, seems a lot of poor folks in Rhode Island want to vote. And the bigwigs don’t like it!”
All of New England had become involved. Two state administrations were claiming the election in Rhode Island, and a clash was imminent. Until 1841 Rhode Island had operated under its colonial charter, which prohibited anyone from voting who did not own 134 acres of land. Therefore, seats in the state legislature were controlled by the older conservative villages, while the growing industrial towns, where the larger portion of the population was disfranchised, were penalized. That year Thomas Wilson Dorr, a Whig and graduate of Harvard, started a reform movement; and a new constitution was drawn up. This constitution was framed to enlarge the basis of representation and abolish the odious property requirement. But it confined the right of suffrage to white male citizens, pointedly shutting out the Negroes who had settled in Rhode Island.
Quakers were non-resistance men; they held themselves aloof from politics, but they were always on the alert to protect the black man’s rights. All antislavery advocates wanted a new constitution, but they did not want a defective instrument which would require reform from the start. So they could not back Dorr. The Perry brothers, Providence manufacturers, wrote to their friend, John Brown, a wool merchant in Springfield, Massachusetts.