CHAPTER XI.

CONDITIONS PRIOR TO THE WAR.

1859.

Among Miss Anthony’s many schemes for regenerating the world was one to have a Free church in Rochester, after the manner of Theodore Parker’s in Boston, similar to an ethical society, where no doctrines should be preached and all should be welcome, contributing what they chose.  This was in her mind for years, and at the beginning of 1859 she engaged Corinthian Hall for Sunday evenings, her good friend, William A. Reynolds, as usual making her a reduced rate; and here Antoinette Brown Blackwell and Parker Pillsbury each preached for a month.  She tried to engage Mrs. Stanton for a year and also Aaron M. Powell, but the financial support was too uncertain and the project had to be abandoned.  All her life, however, Miss Anthony cherished the hope of seeing this Free church established and sustained.  She arranged a series of lectures for this winter.  George William Curtis accepted her invitation in this characteristic letter: 

I think of no title for your course, but why have any?  Why not say simply, “A Course of Independent Lectures?” To call them woman’s rights would damn them in advance, so strong is prejudice.  The only one I have at all suited to your purpose is “Fair Play for Women."[26] I hate the words “woman’s rights,” nor do they properly describe my treatment of the question which, in my mind, is not one of sex but of humanity.  My lecture is a plea for the recognition of the equal humanity of women and an assertion that they have rights not as women but as human beings.  In respect to terms, I leave it with you.  I usually receive $50, but you will understand that I should prefer to pay the expenses myself rather than that you or any one interested should expend a penny; so if you can not justly give me anything, I shall be content.

[Autograph: 

  Yours very faithfully
  George William Curtis]

Miss Anthony always came out of these lecture courses in debt, but she would call upon her friends or borrow from sister or father enough to make up the deficit, and replace the loan out of her scanty earnings.  She persisted in having them to educate the public on the progressive questions of the day.  At this time the long, severe mental and physical strain of years began to be felt in her one weak spot, and the old trouble with her back asserted itself.  From every quarter came urgent appeals for her assistance.  At first she answered:  “If New York calls a constitutional convention for next spring, this will be a capital winter to strike heavy blows for freedom and equality such as we shall not have for a long time to come.  I am ready just as soon as the armies can be marshaled and equipped.”  But later she wrote: