Part 37

Financial backing, however, did not put The Revolution on its feet, although its forthright editorials and articles were replaced by spicy and brilliant observations on pleasant topics which offended no one. Before the year was up, Mrs. Bullard was making overtures to Susan to take the paper back. Susan wanted desperately "to keep the Old Ship Revolution's colors flying" and to bring back Mrs. Stanton's stinging editorials. She also feared that Mrs. Bullard on Theodore Tilton's advice might turn the paper over to the Boston group to be consolidated with the Woman's Journal. As no funds were available, she had to turn her back on her beloved paper and hope for the best. "I suppose there is a wise Providence in my being stripped of power to go forward," she wrote at this time. "At any rate, I mean to try and make good come out of it."

For one more year, The Revolution struggled on under the editorship of Mrs. Bullard and Theodore Tilton and then was taken over by the Christian Enquirer. The $10,000 debt, incurred under Susan's management, she regarded as her responsibility, although her brother Daniel and many of her friends urged bankruptcy proceedings. "My pride for women, to say nothing of my conscience," she insisted, "says no."

FOOTNOTES:

Lucy Stone to Frank Sanborn, Aug. 18, 1869, Alma Lutz Collection.

Lucy Stone to Esther Pugh, Aug. 30, 1869, Ida Husted Harper Collection, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Mary Livermore to W. L. Garrison, Oct. 4, 1869, Boston Public Library. Wendell Phillips did not sign the call or attend the convention for "reasons that are good to him," wrote Lucy Stone to Garrison, Sept. 27, 1869, Boston Public Library.

The Revolution, IV, Oct. 21, 1869, p. 265.

Ibid., p. 266.

The Empire Sewing Machine Co., Benedict's Watches, Madame Demorest's dress patterns, Sapolio, insurance companies, savings banks, the Union Pacific, offering first mortgage bonds.

Harper, Anthony, I, pp. 354-355. In 1873, Anson Lapham cancelled notes, amounting to $4000, and praised Susan for her continued courageous work for women.

The Revolution, IV, Dec. 2, 1869, p. 343.

Harriet Beecher Stowe to Susan B. Anthony, Dec., 1869, Alma Lutz Collection.

The Revolution, IV, Dec. 23, 1869, p. 385.

Woman's Journal, Jan. 8, 1870.

Ms., Diary, Jan. 18, 1870.

Stanton and Blatch, Stanton, II, pp. 124-125.

The Revolution, V, Feb. 24, 1870, pp. 117-118. Susan attributed the Tribune editorial to Whitelaw Reid. Susan B. Anthony Scrapbook, Library of Congress.

Feb. 21, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress. Anna E. Dickinson sent Miss Anthony generous checks to help finance The Revolution. Although she lectured at Cooper Union for the National Woman Suffrage Association shortly after it was organized, she never became a member of the organization or attended its conventions. This was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony.

Finally, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton against their best judgment were persuaded by younger members of the National Woman Suffrage Association to drop the name National and replace it with Union and then to try to negotiate further with the American Association. Theodore Tilton was elected president of the Union Woman Suffrage Society. This proved to be an organization in name only, and in a short time these same younger members clamored for the return to office of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton and reestablished the National Woman Suffrage Association.

The Revolution, V, March 10, 1870, p. 153. Mrs. Stanton's Lyceum lectures were undertaken to finance the education of her 7 children.

Harper, Anthony, I, p. 362.

The Revolution, V, May 26, 1870, p. 328.

Sept. 19, 1870, Anna E. Dickinson Papers, Library of Congress.

To E. A. Studwell, Sept. 15, 1870, Radcliffe Women's Archives, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

To Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Oct. 15, 1871, Lucy E. Anthony Collection

A NEW SLANT ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

While Susan was lecturing in the West, hoping to earn enough to pay off The Revolution's debt, she was pondering a new approach to the enfranchisement of women which had been proposed by Francis Minor, a St. Louis attorney and the husband of her friend, Virginia Minor.

Francis Minor contended that while the Constitution gave the states the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gave them the power to prohibit it, and he believed that this conclusion was strengthened by the Fourteenth Amendment which provided that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."