Thus New York became the pioneer.  The movement spread, as I have mentioned, with amazing rapidity; but it was not so uniformly successful.  Conventions were held, for example, in Ohio, at Salem, April 19-20, 1850; at Akron, May 28-29, 1851; at Massillon on May 27, 1852.  Nevertheless, in 1857, the Legislature of Ohio passed a bill enacting that no married man should dispose of any personal property without having first obtained the consent of his wife; the wife was empowered, in case of a violation of this law, to commence a civil suit in her own name for the recovery of the property; and any married woman whose husband deserted her or neglected to provide for his family was to be entitled to his wages and to those of her minor children.  A bill to extend suffrage to women was defeated, by a vote of 44 to 44; the petition praying for its enactment had received 10,000 signatures.

The course of events as it has been described in New York and Ohio, is practically the same in the case of the other States.  The Civil War relegated these issues to a secondary place; but during that momentous conflict the heroism of Clara Barton on the battlefield and of thousands of women like her paved the way for a reassertion of the rights of woman in the light of her unquestioned exertions and unselfish labours for her country in its crisis.  After the war, attention began to be concentrated more on the right to vote.  By the Fourteenth Amendment the franchise was at once given to negroes; but the insertion of the word male effectually barred any national recognition of woman’s right to vote.  A vigorous effort was made by the suffrage leaders to have male stricken from the amendment; but the effort was futile.  Legislators thought that the black man’s vote ought to be secured first; as the New York Tribune (Dec. 12, 1866) puts it snugly:  “We want to see the ballot put in the hands of the black without one day’s delay added to the long postponement of his just claim.  When that is done, we shall be ready to take up the next question” (i.e., woman’s rights).

The first Women’s Rights Convention after the Civil War had been held in New York City, May 10, 1866, and had presented an address to Congress.  Such was the dauntless courage of the leaders, that Mrs. Stanton offered herself as a candidate for Congress at the November elections, in order to test the constitutional rights of a woman to run for office.  She received twenty-four votes.

Six years later, on November I, 1872, Miss Susan B. Anthony did a far more Audacious thing.  She went to the polls and asked to be registered.  The two Republican members of the board were won over by her exposition of the Fourteenth Amendment and agreed to receive her name, against the advice of their Democratic colleague and a United States supervisor.  Following Miss Anthony’s example, some fifty other women of Rochester registered.  Fourteen voted and were at once arrested under the enforcement act of Congress of May 31, 1870 (section 19).  The case of Miss Anthony was argued, ably by her attorney; but she was adjudged guilty.  A nolle prosequi was entered for the women who voted with her.