Johnstown to spend Sunday with her mother.  How I wish I could slip out to Rochester to sit a few hours in my mother’s delightful east chamber, but I must hie me back to New York by tonight’s boat instead.

In a letter from George William Curtis, he declared:  “You may count upon me not to be silent when, whether by my action or another’s, this question comes before the convention.”  Petitions were presented by various members, signed by 28,000 men and women, asking that the constitution be so amended as to secure the right of suffrage to the women of New York.  One of these was headed by Margaret Livingston Cady, mother of Mrs. Stanton, one by Gerrit Smith, one by Henry Ward Beecher, and all contained many influential names.  Mr. Greeley was chairman of the committee on suffrage and, as Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton knew he would seize upon this occasion to repeat his hackneyed remark, “The best women I know do not want to vote,” they wrote Mrs. Greeley to roll up a big petition in Westchester.  So she got out her old chaise and, with her daughter Ida, drove over the county, collecting signatures.  After all the others had been presented, Mr. Curtis arose and said:  “Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hand a petition signed by Mrs. Horace Greeley and 300 other women of Westchester asking that the word ‘male’ be stricken from the constitution.”  As Mr. Greeley was about to make an adverse report, his anger and embarrassment, as well as the amusement of the audience, may be imagined.[41]

A magnificent argument in behalf of the petitions was made by Mr. Curtis, and the discussion lasted several days; but the committee handed in an adverse report, which was sustained by a large majority of the convention.  When this result was announced, Anna Dickinson wrote Miss Anthony: 

My blood boiled, my nerves thrilled, as I read from day to day the reports of the convention debate.  Reasons urged for the enfranchisement of paupers, of idiots, of the ignorant, the degraded, the infamous—­none for women!  The exquisite care with which men guard their own rights in the most vulnerable of their sex—­the silence, the scorn, the ridicule with which they pass by or allude to our claims—­great God! it is too much for endurance and patience.  Daily I pray for a tongue of flame and inspired lips to awaken the sleeping, arouse the careless, shake to trembling and overthrow the insolence of opposition....  After men and women have alike borne the burden and heat of battle, to mark the absolute silence with which these men regard the rights of half the race, while they squabble and wrangle, debate and contend, for exact justice to the poorest and meanest man—­to mark this spectacle is to be filled with alternate pity and disgust.

Naturally the women felt highly indignant at the treatment they had received, especially from the Republican party, which was so deeply indebted for their services and from which they had every reason to expect recognition