was held in Albany, February 7 and S, and this was the last of those conventions for five years.
In the summer of 1862 Miss Anthony attended her last State Teachers' Convention, which was held in Rochester. For ten years she had
kept up her membership dues, and had not missed an annual meeting; ami since 1.S.53, when she first made her voice heard in the deliberations, she had advocated the rights of women teachers to hold office in the organization, to serve on committees, to exercise free speech, and to receive equal pay with men for equal work.
In the fall she entered the lecture field, speaking extempore on "Emancipation the Duty of the Government." A prominent citizen, after hearing her at Mecklenburg, wrote to her, "There is not a man among all the political speakers who can make that duty as plain as you have done."
In New York City, at an enthusiastic meeting held in Dr. Cheever's church on May 14, 1863, in a dark period of the Civil War, when speeches were made by Angelina Grimke W^eld, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others, was formed the Woman's National Loyal League, to give support to the government in its war for freedom. Mrs. Stanton was elected president. Miss Anthony secretary of the organization. Its object was to secure jjetitions to the Senate and House of Representatives, praying for an act emancipating all persons of African descent held in involuntary servitude. To this work Miss Anthony devoted her energies for a year and a half, sending out from the headquarters of the league. Room '20, Cooper Institute, where she remained all through the hot summer, thousands of blank petitions, accompanied by a circular letter asking for .'signers to the petitions. Charles Sunmer distributed these petitions under his frank; and on February 9, 1S64, he presented to the Senate the first instalment of the filled-out petitions, saying: "These petitions are signed by one hundred thousand men and women. They are from all parts of the country and from every condition of life. They ask nothing less than universal emancipation, and this they ask directly from the hands of Congress." In August, 1864, the number of signatures had reached nearly four hundred thousand. Charles Sunmer and Henry Wilson testified that " these petitions formed the bulwark of their demand for Congressional action to abolish slavery."
In January, ISfiS, a few weeks after the return of Miss Anthony from Kansas, where in the fall of 1867 she had taken part in the suffrage campaign for woman and the negro man, was issued in New York City the first number of the Revolution, a weekly paper conducted by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the interests of women, George Francis Train and David M. Melliss, of the New York World, agreeing to supply the needful funds until the paper should be on a paying basis. Its motto was: "Men, their rights and nothing more. Women, their rights and nothing less." Parker Pillsbury was one of the editors. The undertaking was considered ill-advised by the majority of suffragists. Miss Anthony writes: "All the old friends, with scarce an exception, are sure we are wrong. Only time can tell, but I believe we are right, hence bound to succeed." The New York Home Journal comments: "The Revolution is plucky, keen, and wide-awake. Some of its ways are not at all to our taste, yet we are glad to recognize in it the inspiration of the noblest aims, and the sagacity and talent to accomplish what it desires. It is on the right track, whether it has taken the right train or not."
The Independent, in concluding a "breezy editorial," said, "Its business management is in the good hands of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who has long been known as one of the most indefatigable, honest, obstinate, faithful, cross-grained, and noble-minded of the famous women of America."
After two and one-half years of hard work the Revolution was given up for financial reasons, Miss Anthony assuming personally the entire indebtedness, ten thousand dollars. She wasted no time in mourning over her disappointment and losses. Alone she started to earn the money to pay this debt with interest. For an evening lecture at Hornellsville four days later she received one hundred and fifty dollars. Says her biographer, "Miss Anthony worked unceasingly through winter's cold and summer's heat, lecturing sometimes under private
