A business meeting was held in the afternoon to decide upon the practical work, and again the room was crowded.  Miss Anthony was in the chair.  There were women of all ages, classes and conditions, and the assembly was pervaded with deep and solemn feeling.  The following was unanimously adopted:  “We, loyal women of the nation, assembled in convention this 14th day of May, 1863, hereby pledge ourselves one to another in a Loyal League, to give support to the government in so far as it makes a war for freedom.”  Mrs. Stanton was elected president and Miss Anthony secretary of the permanent organization.  A great meeting was held in Cooper Institute in the evening.  An eloquent address to President Lincoln, read by Miss Anthony, was adopted and sent to him.[32] Powerful speeches were made by Ernestine L. Rose and Rev. Antoinette Blackwell, a patriotic address to the soldiers was adopted, and the convention closed amid great enthusiasm.

At subsequent meetings it was decided to confine the work of the League to the one object of securing signatures to petitions to the Senate and House of Representatives, praying for an act emancipating all persons of African descent held in involuntary servitude.  They set their standard at a million names.  Their scheme received the commendation of the entire anti-slavery press, and of prominent men and women in all parts of the country.  The first of June headquarters were opened in Room 20, Cooper Institute, and the great work was begun.  Miss Anthony prepared and sent out thousands of petitions accompanied by this letter: 

THE WOMEN’S NATIONAL LOYAL LEAGUE TO THE WOMEN OF THE REPUBLIC:  We ask you to sign and circulate this petition for the entire abolition of slavery.  Remember the President’s proclamation reaches only the slaves of rebels.  The jails of loyal Kentucky are today filled with Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama slaves, advertised to be sold for their jail fees “according to law,” precisely as before the war!  While slavery exists anywhere there can be freedom nowhere.  There must be a law abolishing slavery.  We have undertaken to canvass the nation for freedom.  Women, you can not vote or fight for your country.  Your only way to be a power in the government is through the exercise of this one, sacred, constitutional “right of petition;” and we ask you to use it now to the utmost.  Go to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the soldier, the civilian, the white, the black—­gather up the names of all who hate slavery, all who love liberty, and would have it the law of the land, and lay them at the feet of Congress, your silent but potent vote for human freedom guarded by law....

Every day and every hour were given to the Loyal League.  All through the hot summer Miss Anthony remained at her post in Cooper Institute, scattering her letters far and wide, pushing into the field every woman who was willing to work, sending out lecturers to stir up the people, directing affairs with the sagacity