She spoke in various towns all the way to New York where she arrived in time to attend the Anti-Slavery Anniversary and make final arrangements for the convention in Mozart Hall, May 12.  She had written asking Lucretia Mott to preside, who answered, “I am sure there needs not a better presiding officer than thyself,” but agreed to come.  When the hour arrived the hall was so packed that it was impossible for Mrs. Mott to reach the platform and Miss Anthony was obliged to open the meeting.  This convention, like several which preceded it, was greatly disturbed by noise and interruptions from the audience, until finally it was turned over to Wendell Phillips who “knew better than any one else how to play with and lash a mob and thrust what he wished to say into their long ears.”  At the end of his speech Miss Anthony immediately adjourned the convention, to prevent violent demonstrations.  The Tribune said: 

The woman’s rights meeting last night was well calculated to advance the cause that the reformers met to plead.  The speakers were comparatively so temperate, while sundry voters were so intemperate in demonstrating their folly, rudeness, ignorance and indecency, that almost any cause which the one pleaded and the other objected to would be likely to find favor with order-loving people.  The presence of a single policeman might have preserved perfect order, saved the reputation of our city before crowds of strangers and given hundreds an opportunity to hear.  Of course it being a meeting that women were to address, as “women have no rights in public which men are bound to maintain,” there was no policeman present.

The disturbances at these conventions were not so much because the mob objected to the doctrine of woman’s rights as that they were addressed by the leading anti-slavery speakers and therefore had to bear the odium attached to that hated cause.

A strong memorial, asking for equal social, civil and political rights for women and based on the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence, was prepared by a committee consisting of Miss Anthony, Mr. Phillips and seven others, to be presented to every legislature in the Union.  By the time the legislatures met in 1860, political affairs had reached a crisis and the country was in a state of unrest and excitement which made it impossible to secure consideration for this or any other question outside the vital issues that were pressing, although it was presented in several States.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton wrote an eloquent appeal to be circulated with the petitions to rouse public sentiment.  Armed with this the former began correspondence with speakers in reference to a summer and fall campaign of the state.  The diary shows that she actually found time to attend a picnic, but as she was called upon for a speech while there the day was not wholly wasted.  There are also references to “moonlight rides,” and one entry records:  “Mr. ——­ walked home with me; marvelously attentive.  What a pity such powers of intellect should lack the moral spine!”