In the summer of 1862 Miss Anthony attended her last State Teachers’ Convention, which was held in Rochester, where she began her labors in this direction.  In 1853 she had forced this body to grant her a share in their deliberations, the first time a woman’s voice had been heard.  For ten years she never had missed an annual meeting, keeping up her membership dues and allowing no engagement to interfere.  Year after year she had followed them up, insisting that in the conventions women teachers should hold offices, serve on committees and exercise free speech; demanding that they should be eligible to all positions in the schools with equal pay for equal work; and compelling a general recognition of their rights.  All these points, with the exception of equal pay, had now been gained and there was much improvement in salaries.

Her mission here being ended, she turned her attention to other fields; but for the privileges which are enjoyed by the women teachers of the present day, they are indebted first of all to Susan B. Anthony.[31]

After speaking at intervals through the summer, she started on a regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott:  “I can not feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this.  I am speaking now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before.  I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me.  I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war.  What a stay, counsel and comfort you have been to me, dear Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance meeting in that cold, smoky chapel in 1852.  How you have compelled me to feel myself competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and distrust.  I never can express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you.”

A letter from Abby Kelly Foster at this time said:  “I am especially gratified to know that you have entered the field in earnest as your own speaker, which you ought to have done years ago instead of always pushing others to the front and taking the drudgery yourself.”  Miss Anthony was very successful, each day gaining more courage.  Her sole theme was “Emancipation the Duty-of the Government.”  A prominent citizen of Schuyler county wrote her after she had spoken at Mecklinburg:  “There is not a man among all the political speakers who can make that duty as plain as you have done.”  Her whole heart was in the work and she was constantly inspired by the thought that the day of deliverance for the slave was approaching.

[Illustration: 

  FATHER AND MOTHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 
  AGED 60, FROM DAGUERREOTYPES]

At the height of her enthusiasm came the heaviest blow it would have been possible for her to receive.  She had come home for a few days, and the Sunday morning after election was sitting with her father talking over the political situation.  They had been reading the Liberator and the Anti-Slavery Standard and were discussing the probable effect of Lincoln’s proclamation, when suddenly he was stricken with acute neuralgia of the stomach.  He had not had a day’s illness in forty years and had not the slightest premonition of this attack.  He lingered in great suffering for two weeks and died on November 25, 1862.