As I endured the growling when I was charged with giving too much “aid and comfort” to the Democracy, because I thanked them for what they did to agitate our demand in Congress and out, I think I shall be equal to the fire now for affiliating with the Republicans.  You did me the grossest injustice in the Woman’s Journal, when you called me a “woman suffrage Democrat,” just as gross as the Liberals will be likely to do, when they shall call me a “woman suffrage Republican.”  I belong to neither party, and approve of one or the other only as it shall speak and work for the enfranchisement of woman.  Had Cincinnati declared for woman, and Philadelphia not, I should have worked with might and main for the Liberals.  All I know or care of parties now and until women are free, is “woman and her disfranchised—­crucified!”

It is most touching to observe Miss Anthony’s joy over this quasi-recognition on the part of Republicans, the more especially at the beginning of the campaign.  In her journal of July 26 she says:  “It is so strange that all can not see the immense gain to us to have the party in power commit itself to a respectful treatment of our claims.  Already the tone of the entire Republican press is elevated.  It is wonderful to see the change.  None but the Liberals deride us now, and Theodore Tilton stands at their head in light and scurrilous treatment.”  To her old friend Mrs. Bloomer, she sent this rallying cry:  “Ho for the battle now!  The lines are clearly drawn....  Slight as is the Republicans’ mention of our claim in their plank, it surely is vastly more and better than the disrespect of no mention at all by the Democrats, coupled with the fact that their nominee, Mr. Greeley, is an out-and-out opponent of our movement, and does not now refrain from saying to earnest suffrage women that he ’neither desires our help nor believes we are capable of giving any.’”

To Mrs. Stanton she wrote:  “The Democrats have now abandoned their old dogmas and accepted those of the Republicans, while the latter have stepped up higher to labor reform and woman suffrage.  Forney’s editorial in the Philadelphia Press of July 11 states positively that the woman suffrage cause is espoused by the Republican party.  I tell you the Fort Sumter gun of our war is fired, and we will go on to victory almost without a repulse from this date.”  But Mrs. Stanton could not share in her optimism, and replied:  “I do not feel jubilant over the situation; in fact I never was so blue in my life.  You and Mr. Blackwell write most enthusiastically, and I try to feel so and to see that the ‘Philadelphia splinter’ is something.  Between nothing and that, there is no choice, and we must accept it.  With my natural pride of character, it makes me feel intensely bitter to have my rights discussed by popinjay priests and politicians, to have woman’s work in church and State decided by striplings of twenty-one, and