CHAPTER SIXTEEN
APRIL 1870
Scarcely a fortnight passed between James’s first spluttering of “You want to what?” and my formal announcement of my candidacy for president. Each time I explained my reasons, along with my qualifications, it came down to the same set of basic points. Tired of repeating myself, I set them down in the first of a number of columns contracted in the New York Herald—thanks to Tennie’s relationship with Johnny.
“You couldn’t ask for better timing,” Stephen assured me when I voiced uncertainty about announcing my candidacy two and a half years before the election. “The suffrage movement is badly divided right now. Lucy Stone, Henry Ward Beecher, and their ilk want to step back and take the fight state by state, while Miss Anthony and her group are forging ahead wit
