A few years later, Horace Greeley came to Seneca Falls to lecture on temperance.  As he stayed with us, we invited Mr. S., among others, to dinner.  The chief topic at the table was the idiosyncrasies of women.  Mr. Greeley told many amusing things about his wife, of her erratic movements and sudden decisions to do and dare what seemed most impracticable.  Perhaps, on rising some morning, she would say:  “I think I’ll go to Europe by the next steamer, Horace.  Will you get tickets to-day for me, the nurse, and children?” “Well,” said Mr. S., “she must be something like our hostess.  Every time her husband goes away she cuts a door or window.  They have only ten doors to lock every night, now.”

“Yes,” I said, “and your own wife, too, Mrs. S., has the credit of some high-handed measures when you are in Washington.”  Then I told the whole story, amid peals of laughter, just as related above.  The dinner table scene fairly convulsed the Congressman.  The thought that he had made such a fool of himself in the eyes of Charlotte that she could not even summon a tear in her defense, particularly pleased him.  When sufficiently recovered to speak, he said:  “Well, I never could understand how it was that Charlotte suddenly emerged from her thraldom and manifested such rare executive ability.  Now I see to whom I am indebted for the most comfortable part of my married life.  I am a thousand times obliged to you; you did just right and so did she, and she has been a happier woman ever since.  She now gets what she needs, and frets no more, to me, about ten thousand little things.  How can a man know what implements are necessary for the work he never does?  Of all agencies for upsetting the equanimity of family life, none can surpass an old, broken-down kitchen stove!”

In the winter of 1861, just after the election of Lincoln, the abolitionists decided to hold a series of conventions in the chief cities of the North.  All their available speakers were pledged for active service.  The Republican party, having absorbed the political abolitionists within its ranks by its declared hostility to the extension of slavery, had come into power with overwhelming majorities.  Hence the Garrisonian abolitionists, opposed to all compromises, felt that this was the opportune moment to rouse the people to the necessity of holding that party to its declared principles, and pushing it, if possible, a step or two forward.

I was invited to accompany Miss Anthony and Beriah Green to a few points in Central New York.  But we soon found, by the concerted action of Republicans all over the country, that anti-slavery conventions would not be tolerated.  Thus Republicans and Democrats made common cause against the abolitionists.  The John Brown raid, the year before, had intimidated Northern politicians as much as Southern slaveholders, and the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the North should be altogether suppressed.