She is entirely unlike Mrs. Stanton, notwithstanding the twain have been fast friends and diligent co-laborers for a quarter of a century....  Miss Anthony is a woman whom no one can know thoroughly without respect.  Entirely honest, fearfully in earnest, energetic, self-sacrificing, kind-hearted, scorning difficulties of whatever magnitude, and rigidly sensible, she is the warm friend of the poor, oppressed, homeless and friendless of her own sex.  Her labors in their behalf are tireless and judicious.  You think her plain until she smiles, and then the worn face lights up so pleasantly and benignly that you forget to criticise and your heart warms towards her.  Knowing her great goodness, and how she has devoted her life to hard, unpaid work for the negro slave and for woman, we can never read jibes and jeers at her expense without a twinge of pain.  Let the press laugh at her as it may, she is a mighty power among both men and women, and those who really love as well as respect her are a host.

In this winter of 1869 the Press Club of New York made the startling innovation of giving a dinner to which ladies were invited.  Among the guests were Phoebe and Alice Gary, Mary L. Booth, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Olive Logan, Mary Kyle Dallas and Miss Anthony.  J. W. Simonton, of the Associated Press, was toast-master.  Not having had the slightest intimation that she was expected to speak, Miss Anthony was called upon to respond to the question, “Why don’t the women propose?” Without a moment’s hesitation she arose and said:  “Under present conditions, it would require a good deal of assurance for a woman to say to a man, ‘Please, sir, will you support me for the rest of my life?’ When all avocations are open to woman and she has an opportunity to acquire a competence, she will then be in a position where it will not be humiliating for her to ask the man she loves to share her prosperity.  Instead of requesting him to provide food, raiment and shelter for her, she can invite him into her home, contribute her share to the partnership and not be an utter dependent.  There will be also another advantage in this arrangement—­if he prove unworthy she can ask him to walk out.”  It will be seen by this original and daring reply that Miss Anthony could not attend a dinner party even without creating a sensation.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth establishing the citizenship of the negro, did not prove sufficient to protect him in his right of suffrage and, although Sumner and other Republican leaders contended that another amendment was not necessary for this, the majority of the party did not share this opinion and it became evident that one would have to be added.[48] Those proposed by Pomeroy and Julian securing universal suffrage were brushed aside without debate, and the following was submitted by Congress to the State legislatures, February 27, 1869: 

    The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
    denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on
    account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.