The forces of the latter, however, were greatly demoralized, the attendance at the convention was small, and Mrs. Stanton refused to serve longer as president.  Miss Anthony was elected in her stead and, just as she was about to adjourn the first evening session, to her amazement Mrs. Woodhull came gliding in from the side of the platform and moved that “this convention adjourn to meet tomorrow morning at Apollo Hall!” An ally in the audience seconded the motion, Miss Anthony refused to put it, an appeal was made from the decision of the chair, Mrs. Woodhull herself put the motion and it was carried overwhelmingly.  Miss Anthony declared the whole proceeding out of order, as the one making the motion, the second, and the vast majority of those voting were not members of the association.  She adjourned the convention to meet in the same place the next morning and, as Mrs. Woodhull persisted in talking, ordered the janitor to turn off the gas.

The next day, almost without assistance and deserted by those who should have stood by her, she went through with the remaining three sessions and brought the convention to a close.  In her diary that evening is written:  “A sad day for me; all came near being lost.  Our ship was so nearly stranded by leaving the helm to others, that we rescued it only by a hair’s breadth.”  She stopped at Lydia Mott’s and then at Martha Wright’s for comfort and sympathy, finding them in abundant measure, and reached home strengthened and refreshed, ready again to take up the work.

At the request of many suffrage advocates, Miss Anthony and Laura De Force Gordon went to the National Liberal Convention, at Cincinnati, May 2, 1872, with a resolution asking that as liberal Republicans they should hold fast to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and recognize the right of women to the franchise.  The ladies were politely treated and invited to seats on the platform, but were not allowed to appear before the committee and no attention was paid to their resolution.  They expected no favors from the presiding officer, Carl Schurz, the foreign born, always a bitter opponent of woman suffrage, but they had hoped for assistance from B. Gratz Brown, George W. Julian, Theodore Tilton and other leading spirits of the meeting, who had been open and avowed friends; but it was the old, old story—­political exigency required that women must be sacrificed, and this so-called Liberal convention was no more liberal on this subject than all which had preceded it.  Miss Anthony is quoted in an interview as saying: 

You see our cause is just where the anti-slavery cause was for a long time.  It had plenty of friends and supporters three years out of four, but every fourth year, when a President was to be elected, it was lost sight of; then the nation was to be saved and the slave must be sacrificed.  So it is with us women.  Politicians are willing to use us at their gatherings to fill empty seats, to wave our handkerchiefs and clap