which are in truth more beneficial to the whole North, and especially to the New England States, than to us, you are secretly plotting murderous inroads into our peaceful country and endeavoring to incite our slaves to cut the throats of our wives and children.  Can you believe that this state of things can last?  We now look upon you as our worst enemies and are ready to separate from you.  Measures are in progress as far as practicable to establish non-intercourse with you and to proscribe all articles of northern manufacture or origin, including New England teachers.  We can live without you; it remains to be seen how you will get along without us.  You will probably find that fanaticism is not an element of national wealth or conducive to the happiness or comfort of the people.

In conclusion, let me assure you this is written more in sorrow than in anger.  I am not a politician and have always been a strenuous friend of the Union.  I am now in favor of a separation, unless you immediately retrace your steps and give the necessary guarantees by the passage of appropriate laws that you will faithfully abide by the compromises of the Constitution, by which alone the slaveholding States can with honor or safety remain in the Union.  But that this will be done, I have very little hope, as “madness seems to rule the hour;” and as you have thus constituted yourselves our enemies, you must not be surprised at finding that we are yours.

[Footnote 26:  A critic said of this:  “It is the most faultless presentation of the question to which I have listened.  Mr. Curtis takes the broadest view of the subject, his logic in its sweep is convincing as demonstration itself.  His satire is cutting, but not bitter; his wit keen as a Damascus blade.  He came out bravely for the suffrage.”  For forty years the advocates of equal rights have been using this lecture as one of their strongest documents.]

[Footnote 27:  By an odd coincidence, while this chapter was being written a letter came to Miss Anthony from Dean M. Jenkins, of Detroit, which said:  “Enclosed please find my check to help on the good work to which you have devoted your life.  You see I have almost pardoned you for saying, ’I have never quite forgiven you for marrying Helen Philleo and taking her away from the suffrage work.’  In place of one worker you now have four.  Mrs. Jenkins made a convert of me.  Our daughter, Mrs. Spalding, is as earnest a worker for the suffrage cause as her mother, and our son is a defender of his mother’s principles....”]

[Footnote 28:  He had become temporarily insane on account of the persecution he suffered in connection with the John Brown raid.]

CHAPTER XII.

RIFT IN COMMON LAW—­DIVORCE QUESTION.

1860.