A few years after Judge Hurlbert had published his work on “Human Rights,” in which he advocated woman’s right to the suffrage, and I had addressed the legislature, we met at a dinner party in Albany.  Senator and Mrs. Seward were there.  The Senator was very merry on that occasion and made Judge Hurlbert and myself the target for all his ridicule on the woman’s rights question, in which the most of the company joined, so that we stood quite alone.  Sure that we had the right on our side and the arguments clearly defined in our minds, and both being cool and self-possessed, and in wit and sarcasm quite equal to any of them, we fought the Senator, inch by inch, until he had a very narrow platform to stand on.  Mrs. Seward maintained an unbroken silence, while those ladies who did open their lips were with the opposition, supposing, no doubt, that Senator Seward represented his wife’s opinions.

When we ladies withdrew from the table my embarrassment may be easily imagined.  Separated from the Judge, I would now be an hour with a bevy of ladies who evidently felt repugnance to all my most cherished opinions.  It was the first time I had met Mrs. Seward, and I did not then know the broad, liberal tendencies of her mind.  What a tide of disagreeable thoughts rushed through me in that short passage from the dining room to the parlor.  How gladly I would have glided out the front door!  But that was impossible, so I made up my mind to stroll round as if self-absorbed, and look at the books and paintings until the Judge appeared; as I took it for granted that, after all I had said at the table on the political, religious, and social equality of women, not a lady would have anything to say to me.

Imagine, then, my surprise when, the moment the parlor door was closed upon us, Mrs. Seward, approaching me most affectionately, said: 

“Let me thank you for the brave words you uttered at the dinner table, and for your speech before the legislature, that thrilled my soul as I read it over and over.”

I was filled with joy and astonishment.  Recovering myself, I said, “Is it possible, Mrs. Seward, that you agree with me?  Then why, when I was so hard pressed by foes on every side, did you not come to the defense?  I supposed that all you ladies were hostile to every one of my ideas on this question.”

“No, no!” said she; “I am with you thoroughly, but I am a born coward; there is nothing I dread more than Mr. Seward’s ridicule.  I would rather walk up to the cannon’s mouth than encounter it.”  “I, too, am with you,” “And I,” said two or three others, who had been silent at the table.

I never had a more serious, heartfelt conversation than with these ladies.  Mrs. Seward’s spontaneity and earnestness had moved them all deeply, and when the Senator appeared the first words he said were: 

“Before we part I must confess that I was fairly vanquished by you and the Judge, on my own principles” (for we had quoted some of his most radical utterances).  “You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic.”