This meeting may be an important one and long to be remembered. It is hard to measure the possibilities of 1880. I hope this meeting will mark an epoch in American history equal to the convention held in Independence Hall in 1776. How valuable would be the attested manuscript record of that convention and the correspondence connected therewith! The records of the Farwell-hall meeting may be equally valuable one hundred years hence. Please let the records be kept in the city in which the convention or mass-meeting is held.
I am a Republican. I hope the party to which I belong will be consistent. On the highest stripe of its banner is inscribed "Freedom and Equal Rights." I hope the party will not be so inconsistent as to refuse to the "better half" of the people of the United States the rights enjoyed by the liberated slaves at the South.
The leaders should not be content to suffer it to be so, but should work with a will to make it so. I have but little confidence in the sincerity of the man who will shout himself hoarse about "shot guns" and "intimidation" at the South, when ridicule and sneers come from his "shot gun" pointed at those who advocate the doctrine that our mothers, wives and sisters are as well qualified to vote and hold official position as the average Senegambian of Mississippi.
We should be glad to have you and your friends call at these rooms, which are open and free for all.
A. D. Hager, Librarian.
Very Respectfully,
[63] By Mrs. Saxon of New Orleans, La.; Mrs. Meriwether of Memphis, Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, daughter of Cassius M. Clay of Richmond Ky.; and others. Mrs. Bennett related a little home incident. She said: A few days ago she was in her front yard planting with her own hands some roses, when "our ex-governor," passing by, exclaimed: "Mrs. Bennett, I admire that in you; whatever one wants well done he must do himself." She immediately answered: "That is true Governor, and that is why we women suffragists have determined to do our own voting hereafter." She then informed him that she wanted to speak to him on that great question. He was rather anxious to avoid the argument, and expressed his surprise and "was sorry to see a woman like her, surrounded by so many blessings, with a kind husband, numerous friends and loving children, advocating woman suffrage! She ought to be contented with these. She was not like Miss Anthony—" "Stop, Governor," I exclaimed, "Don't think of comparing me to that lady, for I feel that I am not worthy to touch the hem of her garments." She was, she said, indeed the mother of five dear children, but she [Miss Anthony] is the mother of a nation of women. She thought the women feared God rather than man, and it was only this which encouraged them to speak on this subject, so dear to their hearts, in public. One lady gave as a reason why she wanted to vote, that it was because "the men did not want them to," which evoked considerable merriment. This induced the chair to remind the audience of Napoleon's rule: "Go, see what your enemy does not want you to do and do it." Of the audience the Inter-Ocean said: "The speakers of all the sessions were listened to with rapt attention by the audience, and the points made were heartily applauded. It would be difficult to gather so large an audience of our sex whose appearance would be more suggestive of refinement and intelligence."
[64] Miss Anthony, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Haggart.
[65] Twenty delegates from eleven different States, who had been in attendance at Chicago, went to Cincinnati.
[66] Before which Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Meriwether, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blake spoke.