Dear Miss Anthony:—I feel that I must do something for the "Woman's Suffrage" movement in the West. There is much interest here concerning it, but no movement is yet made. Matters are being prepared, and when the movement is made in the West, it will sweep onward majestically. Kansas and Iowa will first give women the right to vote before any other States, East or West. "Man proposes, but God disposes." I have always had a theory of my own concerning this suffrage question. Ever since I began to think of it, and that has been since Dr. Harriot Hunt's first protest against woman being taxed when she had no representation, I have believed that, in my day, woman would vote. But I have thought they would first obtain the right to work and wages, and that the right to vote would naturally follow. For woman's right to work and wages I have labored indefatigably. But I see that my plan is not God's plan. The right to vote is to come first, and work and wages afterwards, and easily. I "stumped" the Northwest during the war. Two women of us, Mrs. Hoge and myself, organized over 1,000 Aid Societies, and raised, in money and supplies, nearly $100,000 for the soldiers; and to do it, we were compelled to get people together in masses, and tell our story and our plans, and make our appeals to hundreds at a time. So I can talk here, and can help you here, when you are ready to lead. In the meanwhile, I have begun to work for the cause through my husband's weekly paper, which has a large circulation in the Northwest. I have announced myself as henceforth committed to the cause of woman suffrage, and have become involved, instanter, in a controversy on the subject. I am associate editor of the paper, and have been these dozen years. I have just completed a reply to an objector to the doctrine, which goes into this week's issue. In my way, I am working with you. I have always believed in the ballot for woman at some future time—always, since reading Margaret Fuller's "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," which set me to thinking a quarter of a century ago. Boston is my native city, and I lived there till my marriage, and had one or two talks with Theodore Parker which helped me wonderfully.
Mary A. Livermore.
Yours truly,
Topeka, Kansas, April 5, 1867.
Dear Madam:—We are now arranging for a thorough canvass of our State for impartial suffrage, without regard to sex or color. We are satisfied that an argument in favor of colored suffrage is an argument in favor of woman suffrage. Both are based upon the same principle. It is the doctrine of our fathers "that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." We "white men" have no right to ask privileges or demand rights for ourselves that we are unwilling to grant to the whole human family. There never has been, and never can be, an argument, based upon principle, against colored or woman suffrage. Sneers and attempts at ridicule are not arguments. Henry B. Blackwell, of New Jersey, and Mrs. Lucy Stone, are now canvassing our State for impartial suffrage. Some of the most eminent men and women of the United States have been invited, and promised to visit our State this summer and fall; and we shall succeed. Kansas will be free, and occupy the proudest place, in all time to come, in the history of the world.
We desire to extend our meetings to every neighborhood in Kansas; reach, if possible, the ear of every voter. For this purpose we must enlist every home speaker possible. We shall arrange series of meetings in all parts of the State, commencing about September 1st, and running through September and October. We desire speakers to advocate the broad doctrine of impartial suffrage, but welcome those who advocate either. Those who desire colored suffrage alone, are invited to take the field; also those who favor only female suffrage. Each help the other. I am instructed by the State Impartial Suffrage Executive Committee to ask you to aid us, and speak at as many of our meetings as possible. Please answer at once, and let us know how much time you can spend in the campaign, and what part of the State you prefer to speak in.
S. N. Wood,
Cor. Sec'y Kansas Impartial Suffrage Association.
Yours truly,
Bangor, Me., May 9, 1867.
Dear Miss Anthony:—I should be truly glad to attend the Annual Meeting; but, as you see, I am far from New York. Mr. Davis and I are at work in another part of the great field of progress. While you and your noble friend, Mrs. Stanton, are endeavoring to move the adult population of our nation to just and righteous action, we are striving to establish on earth the beginning of the kingdom of heaven, by instituting a new and true method of moral and spiritual or religious education for the children and youth of the New Dispensation. Spiritualism, as a religious movement, has done more than any previous dispensation to give woman an equal career with man; and we trust that, through the influence of the "Children's Progressive Lyceums," the youth in our midst, rapidly advancing to the stage of action, will form a powerful phalanx on the side of "Equal Rights" and the elevation of humanity.