Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/104

86 and women throughout the country, whose object shall be to discountenance and prevent the indulgence of all these, and similar useless luxuries during the war; thereby encouraging habits of economy, stimulating American industry, diminishing the foreign debt, and increasing our ability to meet the vast expenditures of the present crisis.

The following letters were read by Miss Anthony:

., April 29, 1864.


 * —Your favor of 23d inst. has come to hand with your call, which was published and endorsed by our paper, as you will see by the enclosed slip. Your sentiments are so high and noble that to doubt a favorable result and response from the West would be like doubting whether our women had courage enough to follow the truest instincts, the best impulses of their own pure nature. I, for one, have no such idea, no such fears; and if I should ever believe that the Cornelias and Thuseneldas were only to be found by going back thousands of years in history, and would not and could not be rivalled by patriotic mothers and heroic wives in this present crises of ours, I then would renounce at once all hopes of a national resurrection. Liberty, it is true, is immortal; but we would be bound to look for her in some other part of our globe, if we fail on American soil to enlist in our struggle the full heart of our women.

But there is no such thing as failure in battling for all that is high and good and sacred, and there is no such thing as failure in appealing for so good a cause to woman's noble mind and true heart. They will be with us, every one of them will, and whether a majority of our people be up to our standard this time or not, still, in the eyes of our women we would be what our German poet calls, "the conquering defeated."

Yours for Fremont and Freedom,

, May 6, 1864.


 * —I can not be with you in New York, according to the invitation with which you have honored me; for my post of duty is here. I am grateful to your Association for what you have done to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery. Now is the time to strike, and no effort should be spared. And yet there are many who lap themselves in the luxury of present success, and hold back. This is a mistake. The good work must be finished; and to my mind nothing seems to be done while anything remains to be done. There is one point to which attention must be directed. No effort should be spared to castigate and blast the whole idea of property in man, which is the corner-stone of the rebel pretension, and the constant assumption of the partisans of slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled out, and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion; and there will be no such abomination as slave-hunting, which is beyond question the most execrable feature of slavery itself. Accept my thanks, and believe me,

Madam, faithfully yours,

2em