Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/407

 "In the long and many-sided history of the woman's cause, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage made a deep and lasting mark. I recall her as she came first upon our platform at the Syracuse Woman's Rights Convention in 1852, a young mother of two children, yet with a heart also for a wider cause. Wendell Phillips said of her then, She came to us an unknown woman. She leaves us a co-worker whose reputation is established.

"The Hon. Nelson W. Dingley was able officially to help our movement with efficient good-will. His vote was recorded for the admission of States with a woman suffrage constitution."

Mrs. Blackwell paid personal tribute to most of those who had passed away, and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby continued the memorial, speaking at length of the splendid work of Mrs. Gage; of Mrs. Flora M. Kimball and Mrs. Abigail Bush, of California but early Eastern pioneers; Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball of Utah; Mrs. Frances Bagley and Dr. Charlotte Levanway of Michigan; and a long list of men and women in various States who had done their part in aiding the cause of equal suffrage. She concluded with eloquent words of appreciation of the services of Robert Purvis of Philadelphia, and presented the following resolutions sent by Mrs. Stanton:

During the period of reconstruction, the popular cry was, "This is the negro's hour," and Republicans and Abolitionists alike insisted that woman's claim to the suffrage must be held in abeyance until the negro was safe beyond peradventure. Distinguished politicians, lawyers and congressmen declared that woman as well as the negro was enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment, yet reformers and politicians denounced those women who would not keep silent, while the Republican and anti-slavery press ignored their demands altogether. In this dark hour of woman's struggle, forsaken by all those who once recognized her civil and political rights, two noble men steadfastly maintained that it was not only woman's right but her duty to push her claims while the constitutional door was open and the rights of citizens in a republic were under discussion; therefore,

Resolved, That women owe a debt of gratitude to Robert Purvis and Parker Pillsbury for their fearless advocacy of our cause, when to do so was considered to be treason to a great party measure, involving life and liberty for the colored race.

Resolved, That in the death of men of such exalted virtue, true to principle under the most trying circumstances, sacrificing the ties of friendship and the respect of their compeers, they are conspicuous as the moral heroes of the nineteenth century.