# History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 2

Contents
CHAPTER II.
THE NATIONAL SUFFRAGE CONVENTION OF 1884.
The first Woman's Rights Convention on record was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in July, 1848; the second in Salem, O., in April, 1850; the third in Worcester, Mass., in October, 1850. By this time the movement for the civil, educational and political rights of women was fully initiated, and every year thenceforth to the beginning of the Civil War national conventions were held in various States for the purpose of agitating the question and creating a favorable public sentiment. These were addressed by the ablest men and women of the time, and the discussions included the whole scope of women's wrongs, which in those days were many and grievous.
Immediately after the war the political disabilities of the negro man were so closely akin to those of all women that the advocates of universal suffrage organized under the name of the Equal Rights Association. The "reconstruction period," however, engendered so many differences of opinion, and a platform so broad permitted such latitude of debate, the women soon became convinced that their own cause was being sacrificed. Therefore in May, 1869, under the leadership of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony, the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in New York City, having for its sole object the enfranchisement of women. From this time it held a convention in Washington, D. C., every winter.
The above mentioned associations and conventions, as well as the American Woman Suffrage Association, formed at Cleveland, O., in November, 1869, under the leadership of Mrs. Lucy Stone, are described in detail in the preceding volumes of this History. The present volume begins with the usual convention of the National Association in Washington in 1884. This place ​was selected for a twofold purpose: because here a more cosmopolitan audience could be secured than in any other city, including representatives from every State in the Union and from all the nations of the world; and because here the association could carry directly to the only tribunal which had power to act, its demand for a submission to the State Legislatures of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which should forbid disfranchisement on account of sex. During each of these conventions it was the custom for committees of the Senate and House to grant hearings to the leading advocates of this proposition.
The Sixteenth of these annual conventions met in Lincoln Hall, in response to the usual Call, March 4, 1884, continuing in session four days.
On the evening before the convention a handsome reception was given at the Riggs House by Charles W. and Mrs. Jane H. Spofford to Miss Susan B. Anthony, which was attended by several hundred prominent men and women. Delegates were present from twenty-six States and Territories. Miss Anthony was in the chair at the opening session and read a letter from Mrs. Stanton, who was detained at home, in which she paid a glowing tribute to Wendell Phillips, the staunch defender of the rights of women, who had died the preceding month.
Mrs. Mary B. Clay, in speaking of the work in her State, said:
In talking to a Kentuckian on the subject of woman's right to qualify under the law, you have to batter down his self-conceit that ​he is just and generous and chivalric toward woman, and that she can not possibly need other protection than he gives her with his own right arm—while he forgets that it is from man alone woman needs protection, and often does she need the right to protect herself from the avarice, brutality or neglect of the one nearest to her. The only remedy for her, as for man himself, in this republic, is the ballot in her hand. He thinks he is generous to woman when he supplies her wants, forgetting that he has first robbed her by law of all her property in marriage, and then may or may not give her that which is her own by right of inheritance. . .
Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck closed her record for Massachusetts by saying: "The dead wall of indifference is at last broken down and the women 'remonstrants,' by their active resistance to our advancing progress, are not only turning the attention of the public in our direction and making the whole community interested, but also are paving the way for future political action themselves. By remonstrating they have expressed their opinion and entered into politics."
Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway gave a full report of the situation in Oregon, and a hopeful outlook for the success of the pending suffrage amendment. This was followed later by a strong address. A letter was read from Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.). Dr. Clemence S. Lozier (N. Y.) spoke briefly, saying that for eleven years her parlor had been opened each month for suffrage meetings, and that "this question is the foundation of Christianity; for Christians can look up and truly say 'Our Father' only when they can treat each other as brothers and sis​ters." Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) gave an eloquent address on The Outlook, answering the four stock questions: Why do not more women ask for the ballot? Will not voting destroy the womanly instincts? Will not women be contaminated by going to the polls? Will they not take away employment from men?
At the opening of the evening session Miss Anthony read a letter from Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England, and an extract from a recent speech by her husband, Henry Fawcett, member of Parliament and Postmaster General, strongly advocating the removal of all political disabilities of women. Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ills.) spoke on The Statesmanship of Women, citing illustrious examples in all parts of the world. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) gave a trenchant and humorous speech on The Unknown Quantity in Politics, showing the indirect influence of women which unfortunately is not accompanied with responsibility. She took up leading candidates and their records, criticising or commending; illustrated how in every department women are neglected and forgotten, and closed as follows:
Mrs. Blake was followed by Mrs. Martha McClellan Brown, of Cincinnati Wesleyan College, who spoke on Disabilities of Woman. Miss Anthony read the report from Missouri by Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, who strongly supported her belief in the con​stitutional right of women to the franchise. A letter of greeting was read from Miss Fannie M. Bagby, managing editor St. Louis Chronicle; Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) gave a brilliant address entitled What Answer?
At the evening session the hall was crowded. The speech of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.), the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, was a severe criticism on the disfranchising of the women in Utah as proposed by bills now before Congress. It was a clear and strong legal argument which would be marred by an attempt at quotation.
In an address on Women Before the Law, the report says:
At noon on March 6 the delegates were courteously received at the White House by President Chester A. Arthur.
During the afternoon session the Pennsylvania report was presented by Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, and an exhaustive account of Woman's Work in Philadelphia by Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg. A letter from Mrs. Anna C. Wait (Kas.) was read by Mrs. Bertha H. Ellsworth, who closed with a tribute to Mrs. Wait and a poem dedicated to Kansas.
The guest of the convention, Mrs. Jessie M. Wellstood of Edinburgh, presented a report made by Miss Eliza Wigham, ​secretary of the Scotland Suffrage Association, prefaced with some earnest remarks in which she said:
To those who are sitting at ease, folding their hands and sweetly saying: "I have all the rights I want, why should I trouble about these matters?" let me quote the burning words of the grand old prophet Isaiah, which entered into my soul and stirred it to action: "Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech; many days shall ye be troubled, ye careless women, etc." It is just because we fold our hands and sit at ease that so many of our less fortunate fellow creatures are leading lives of misery, want, sin and shame.
In the evening Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) delivered a beautiful address on Forgotten Women, which she closed with these words: "It was not a grander thing to lead the forlorn hope in 1776, not a grander thing to strike the shackles from the black slaves in 1863, than it would be in 1884 to carry a presidential campaign on the basis of Political Equality to Women. The career, the fame, to match that of Washington, to match that of Lincoln, awaits the man who will espouse the cause of forgotten womanhood and introduce that womanhood to political influence and political freedom."
Interesting addresses were made by Mrs. Mary E. Haggart (Ind.), Why Do Not Women Vote? and by the Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, pastor of the Second Universalist Church, Jersey City, on New Jersey as a Leader—the first to grant suffrage to women. They voted from 1776 until the Legislature took away the right in 1807.
At the afternoon session of the last day Mrs. Lizzie D. Fyler, a lawyer of Arkansas, gave an extended résumé of the legal and educational position of women in that State, which was shown to be in advance of many of the eastern and western States. George W. Clark, one of the old Abolition singers contemporaneous with the Hutchinsons, expressed a strong belief in woman suffrage and offered a tribute of song to Wendell Phillips. Brief addresses were made by Mrs. J. Ellen Foster (Ia.) and Mrs. Morrison (Mass.). A letter of greeting was read from the corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster, Julia and Mrs. Julia Foster (Penn.), written in Florence, Italy. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers described School Suffrage in Lansingburgh, N. Y.
​An eloquent address was made by Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.), in which she said:
At the evening session the Rev. Florence Kollock (Ills.) spoke on The Ethics of Woman Suffrage, saying in part:
Mrs. Shattuck, in discussing the question, said:
A distinguishing feature of this convention was the large number of fetters and reports sent from abroad, undoubtedly due to the fact that Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony had spent the preceding year in Europe, making the acquaintance and arousing the interest of foreign men and women in the status of the suffrage question in the United States. Among these letters was one from Miss Frances Power Cobbe in which she said: "The final and complete emancipation of our sex ere long, I think, is absolutely certain. All is going well here and I hope with you in America; and with all my heart, dear Miss Anthony, I wish you and the woman's convention triumphant success."
Miss Jane Cobden, daughter of Richard Cobden, said in the course of her letter: "I feel all the more certain of the righteousness of the work in which I am so much engaged, because I know from words spoken and written by my father as far back as 1845, that had he been living at the present day I should have had his sympathy. He was nothing if not consistent, and so he said in a speech delivered in London that year on Free Trade: "There are many ladies present, I am happy to say. Now it is a ​very anomalous and singular fact that they can not vote themselves and yet they have the power of conferring votes upon other people. I wish they had the franchise, for they would often make a much better use of it than their husbands.'"
Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs, for many years editor of the Englishwoman's Review, sent a full report of the situation in England. There was a letter of greeting also from Miss Lydia Becker, editor of the Women's Suffrage Journal and member of the Manchester School Board. John P. Thomasson and Peter A. Taylor, members of Parliament, favored woman suffrage in the strongest terms, the latter saying: "Justice never can be done to the rising generations till the influence of the mother is freed from the ignominy of exclusion from the great political and social work of the day." Mrs. Thomasson, daughter of Margaret Bright Lucas, and Mrs. Taylor, known as the organizer of the women's suffrage movement in England, also sent cordial good wishes.
The wife of Jacob Bright, who was largely responsible for the Married Women's Property Bill, presented a review of present suffrage laws; his sister, Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, wife of Duncan McLaren, M. P., and the great Abolitionist, Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol of Edinburgh, sent long and valuable letters. Mrs. McLaren wrote:
I was in Exeter Hall, London, on the day our Parliament assembled; a prayer-meeting was held there the whole of that day. Earnest were the intercessions that the hearts of our rulers might be influenced to repeal every vestige of the Contagious Diseases Acts; and the women especially prayed that our men might be led to send representatives to Parliament of much higher morality than such Acts testified to, and that the eyes of the women of their country might be opened to see the iniquity of such legislation. I venture to express that the burden of my prayer had been, whilst sitting in that meeting, that the eyes of the women there assembled, and of the women throughout our country, might be opened to see that we could not expect men who did not consider morality to be a necessary part of their own character, to regard it as needful for the men who were to represent them in Parliament; that we needed a new ​moral power to be brought into exercise at our elections, and as Parliament was meeting that day and one of its first acts would be to bring in a new reform bill, that we might unite in prayer that the petitions so long put forth by many of the women of this land, that their claim to the suffrage should be included in this new Act for the extended representation of the people, might be righteously answered; and the power given to women not only to pray for what was just and right, but to have by the Parlimentary vote a direct power to promote that higher legislation which they all so much desired. I know nothing which calls for more faith and patience than to hear women pleading for justice, and refusing to help get it in the only legitimate way . . . . .
Congratulatory letters were received from Ewing Whittle, M. D., of the Royal Academy, Liverpool, and Miss Isabella M. S. Tod, the well-known reformer of Belfast. M. Leon Richer, the eminent writer of Paris, and Mlle. Hubertine Auclert, editor of La Citoyenne, sent cordial words of co-operation. There were also greetings from Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish exile, one of the first women lecturers in America; from the wife and daughter of A. A. Sargent, U. S. Minister to Berlin; from Theodore Stanton; Miss Florence Kelley, daughter of the Hon. William D. Kelley; the wife of Moncure D. Conway; Rosamond, daughter of Robert Dale Owen; Mrs. Charlotte B. Wilbour and Dr. Frances E. Dickinson, all Americans residing abroad.
Among the noted men and women of the United States who sent letters endorsing equal suffrage, were George William Curtis, William Lloyd Garrison, U. S. Senators Henry B. Anthony and Henry W. Blair, the Hon. George W. Julian, the Hon. William I. Bowditch, Robert Purvis, the Rev. Anna Oliver, Mrs. Zerelda ​G. Wallace, the "mother" of Ben Hur, and Mrs. Abby Hutchinson Patton.
To this assembly Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, sent almost his last public utterance:
The resolutions presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ills.), chairman of the committee, were adopted.
Whereas, This right can be secured only by the exercise of the suffrage; therefore
Resolved, That the ballot in the hand of every qualified citizen constitutes the true political status of the people, and to deprive one-half of the people of the use of the ballot is to deny the first principle of a republican government.
Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to submit a Sixteenth ​Amendment to the National Constitution, securing to women the right of suffrage; first, because the disfranchisement of one-half of the people deprives that half of the means of self-protection and support, limits their resources for self-development and weakens their influence on popular thought; second, because giving all men the absolute authority to decide the social, civil and political status of women, creates a spirit of caste, unrepublican in tendency; third, because in depriving the State of the united wisdom of man and woman, that important "consensus of the competent," our form of government becomes in fact an oligarchy of males instead of a republic of the people.
Resolved, That since the women citizens of the United States have thus far failed to receive proper recognition from any of the existing . political parties, we recommend the appointment by this convention of a committee on future political action.
Resolved, That as there is a general awakening to the rights of women in all European countries, the time has arrived to take the initiative steps for a grand International Woman Suffrage Convention, to be held in either England or America, and that for this purpose a committee of three be appointed at this convention to correspond with leading persons in different countries interested in the
Miss Couzins submitted the following, which was unanimously accepted:
lost one of its greatest moral heroes, its most eloquent orator and honest advocate of justice and equality for all classes; and woman in her struggle for enfranchisement has lost in him a steadfast friend and wise counselor. His consistency in the application of republican principles of government brought him to the woman suffrage platform at the inauguration of the movement, where he remained faithful to the end. The National Woman Suffrage Association in convention assembled, would express their gratitude for his brave words for woman before the Legislatures of so many States and on so many platforms, both in England and America, and would extend their sincere sympathy to her who was his constant inspiration to the utterance of the highest truth, his noble wife, Ann Green Phillips.
Resolved, That the services of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland, who directed the armies of the republic up the Tennessee river and then southward to the center of the Confederate power to its base in northern Alabama, cutting the Memphis and Charleston railroad and thus breaking the backbone of the rebellion, entitle her justly to the name of the military genius of the war; that her long struggle for recognition at the hands of our Government commends her to the sympathy of all who believe in truth and justice; and the continued refusal of the Government to acknowledge this woman's
The plan of work submitted by Mrs. Gougar, chairman of the committee, was adopted. This was supplemented by suggestions of the national board as to methods of organization.
​The following officers were elected: president, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N. Y.; vice-presidents-at-large, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N. Y., the Rev. Olympia Brown, Wis., Phoebe W. Couzins, Mo., Abigail Scott Duniway, Ore.; recording secretaries, Ellen H. Sheldon, D. C., Julia T. Foster, Penn.; Pearl Adams, Ills.; corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster (Avery), Penn.; foreign corresponding secretaries, Caroline Ashurst Biggs, Lydia E. Becker, England; Marguerite Berry Stanton, Hubertine Auclert, France; treasurer, Jane H. Spofford, D. C.; auditors, Ruth C. Dennison, Julia A. Wilbur, D. C.; chairman of executive committee, May Wright Sewall, Ind., and vice-presidents in every State.
The financial report showed the receipts for 1884 to be in round numbers $2,000, and a balance of $300 still remaining in the treasury.
In her address closing the convention Miss Anthony said:
An able address from Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) arrived too late for the convention. It was a denial of the superiority of man from a scientific standpoint, and was so original in thought that it deserves to be reproduced almost in full:
The first great battle fought by science for woman was a Geographical one lasting for twelve centuries. But finally, Columbus, sustained and sent on his way by Isabella in 1492, followed by Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe twenty years later, settled the question of the earth’s rotundity and was the first step toward woman’s enfranchisement.
Another great battle was in progress at the same time and the second victory was an Astronomical one. Copernicus was born, the telescope discovered, the earth sank to its subordinate place in the solar system and another battle for woman was won.
Chemistry, long opposed under the name of Alchemy, at last gained a victory, and by its union of diverse atoms began to teach men that nature is a system of nuptials, and that the feminine is everywhere present as an absolute necessity of life.
Geology continued this lesson. It not only taught the immense age of creation, but the motherhood of even the rocks.
Botany was destined for a fierce battle, as when Linnæus declared the sexual nature of plants, he was shunned as having degraded the works of God by a recognition of the feminine in plant life.
Philology owes its rank to Catherine II of Russia, who, in assembling her great congress of deputies from the numerous provinces of her empire, gave the first impetus to this science. Max Muller declares the evidence of language to be irrefragable, and it is the only history we possess prior to historic periods. Through Philology we ascend to the dawn of nations and learn of the domestic, religious and governmental habits of people who left neither monuments nor writing to speak for them. From it we learn the original meaning of our terms, father and mother. Father, says Muller, who is a recognized philological authority, is derived from the root “Pa,” which means to protect, to support, to nourish. Among the earliest Aryans, the word mater (mother), from the ​root "Ma," signified maker; creation being thus distinctively associated with the feminine. Taylor, in his Primitive Culture says the husband acknowledged the offspring of his wife as his own as thus only had he a right to claim the title of father.
While Philology has opened a new fount of historic knowledge, Biology, the seventh and most important witness, the latest science in Opposition to divine authority, is the first to deny the theory of man's original perfection. Science gained many triumphs, conquered many superstitions, before the world caught a glimpse of the result toward which each step was tending—the enfranchisement of woman.
Through Biology we learn-that the first manifestation of life is feminine. The albuminous protoplasm lying in silent darkness on the bottom of the sea, possessing within itself all the phenomena exhibited by the highest forms of life, as sensation, motion, nutrition.
and reproduction, produces its like, and in all forms of life the capacity. for reproduction undeniably stamps the feminine. Not only does science establish the fact that primordial life is feminine, but it also proves that a greater expenditure of vital force is requisite for the production of the feminine than for the masculine:
The experiments of Meehan, Gentry, Treat, Herrick, Wallace, Combe, Wood and many others, show sex to depend upon environment and nutrition. A meager, contracted environment, together with innutritious or scanty food, results in a weakened vitality and the birth of males; a broad, generous environment together with abundant nutrition, in the birth of females. The most perfect plant produces feminine flowers; the best nurtured insect or animal demonstrates the same law. From every summary of vital statistics we gather further proof that more abundant vitality, fewer infantile deaths and greater comparative longevity belong to woman. It is a recognized fact that quick reaction to a stimulus is proof of superior vitality. In England, where very complete vital statistics have been recorded for many years, it is shown that while the mean duration of man's life within the last thirty years has increased five per cent. that of woman has increased more than eight per cent. Our own last census (tenth) shows New Hampshire to be the State most favorable for longevity. While one in seventy-four of its inhabitants is eighty years old, among native white men the proportion is but one to eighty, while among native white women, the very great preponderance of one to fifty-eight is shown.
That the vitality of the world is at a depressed standard is proven by the fact that more boys are born than girls, the per cent. varying in different countries. Male infants are more often deformed, suffer from abnormal characteristics, and more speedily succumb to infantile diseases than female infants, so that within a few years, notwithstanding the large proportion of male births, the balance of life is upon the feminine side. Many children are born to a rising people, but this biological truth is curiously supplemented by the fact that Be proportion of girls born among such people, is always in ​excess of boys; while in races dying out, the very large proportion of boys' births over those of girls is equally noticeable.
From these hastily presented scientific facts it is manifest that woman possesses in a higher degree than man that adaptation to the conditions surrounding her which is everywhere accepted as evidence of superior vitality and higher physical rank in life; and when biology becomes more fully understood it will also be universally acknowledged that the primal creative power, like the first manifestation of life, is feminine.excess of boys; while in races dying out, the very large proportion of boys’ births over those of girls is equally noticeable.
* ↑ The Call ended as follows: "The satisfactory results of Unrestricted Suffrage for Women in Wyoming Territory, of School Suffrage in twelve States, of Municipal and School Suffrage in England and Scotland, of Municipal and Parliamentary Suffrage in the Isle of Man, with the recent triumph in Washington Territory; also the constant agitation of the suffrage question in this country and in England, and the demands that women are everywhere making for larger liberties, are most encouraging signs of the times. This is the supreme hour for 'all who are interested in the enfranchisement of women to dedicate their time and money to the success of this movement, and by their generous contributions to strengthen those upon whom rests the responsibility of carrying forward this beneficent reform. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President. "Susan B. Anthony, Vice-Pres't at Large. "May Wright Sewall, Ch. Ex. Committee. "Janz H. Sprorrorp, Treasurer."
* ↑ The report of this convention, edited by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, is the most complete of any ever issued by the association and has been placed in most of the public libraries of the United States.
* ↑ A list of delegates and those making State reports from year to year will be found in the last chapter of the Appendix.
* ↑ The history of the work in the various States, as detailed more or less fully in these reports from year to year, will be found recorded in the State chapters.
* ↑ Letters were received from S. Alfred Steinthal, treasurer of the Manchester society; F. Henrietta Miller, member of the London School Board; Frances Lord, poor-law guardian in London; Eliza Orme, England's first woman lawyer; Dr. Agnes McLaren, Hannah Ford, Mary A. Estlin, Anna M. and Mary Priestman, Margaret Priestman Tanner, Rebecca Moore, Margaret E. Parker, all distinguished English women.
* ↑ California—Clarina I. H. Nichols, Mrs. S. J. Manning, Sarah Knox Goodrich; Colorado—Dr. Alida C. Avery, Henry C. Dillon; Connecticut—Frances Ellen Burr; District of Columbia—Cornelia A. Sheldon; Illinois—Dr. Alice B. Stockham, Ada H. Kepley, Pearl Adams, Lucinda B. Chandler, Annette Porter, M. D.; Iowa—Caroline A. Ingham, Jonathan and Mary V. S. Cowgill, M. A. Root; Kansas—Ex-Governor and Mrs. J. P. St. John, Mary A. Humphrey, Lorenzo Westover, Susan E. Wattles, Mrs. Van Coleman; Kentucky—Ellen B. Dietrick; Massachusetts—Lilian Whiting; Michigan—Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Mrs. R. M. Young, Cordelia F. Briggs; Maine—Ellen French Foster, Lavina M. Snow; Minnesota—Eliza B. Gamble, Laura Howe Carpenter, Mrs. T. B. Walker; Missouri—Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Annie R. Irvine; Nebraska—Judge and Mrs. A. D. Yocum, Madame Charlton Edholm, Harriet S. Brooks; New Jersey— Theresa Walling Seabrook, Augusta Cooper; New Hampshire—Armenia S. White, Eliza Morrill; New York—Madame Clara Neymann, Mary F. Seymour, Jean Brooks Greenleaf, Mary F. Gilbert, Mathilde F. Wendt, Helen M. Loder, Augusta Lilienthal, Amy Post, Sarah H. Hallock, Elizabeth Oakes Smith; Ohio—Frances Dana Gage; Pennsylvania—Adeline Thomson, Deborah A. Pennock, Matilda Hindman, Hattie M. Du Bois, Mrs. Lovisa C. McCullough; Rhode Island—Catherine C. Knowles; Texas— Jennie Bland Beauchamp; Virginia—N. O. Town; Washington Ty.—Barbara J. Thompson; Wisconsin—Almeda B. Gray, Evaleen L. Mason, Mathilde Anneke; Canada— Dr. Emily H. Stowe.
* ↑ For a full account of Miss Carroll's services and such congressional action as was taken, see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, pp. 3 and 863. It is the story of a national disgrace.
* ↑ Resolved, That we hold a convention in every unorganized State and Territory during the present year, as far as possible, at the capital. Resolved, That we consider the enfranchisement of the women citizens of the United States the paramount issue of the hour; therefore Resolved, That we will, by all honorable methods, oppose the election of any presidential candidate who is a known opponent to woman suffrage, and we recommend similar action on the part of our State associations in regard to State and congressional candidates; and further Resolved, That the officers of this convention shall communicate with presidential nominees of the several political parties and ascertain their position upon this question. Resolved, That all Legislatures shall be requested to memorialize Congress upon the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution; this to be the duty of the vice-presidents of the States and Territories. Whereas, The National Government, through Congress and the Supreme Court, has persistently refused to protect the women of the several States and Territories in "the right of the citizen to vote;" therefore Resolved, That this association most earnestly protests against national interference to abolish the right where it has been secured by the Legislature—as, for example, the Edmunds-Tucker Bill, which proposes to disfranchise all the women of Utah, thus inflicting the most degrading penalty upon the innocent equally with the guilty, by robbing them of their most sacred right of citizenship.
* ↑ The method of organization must be governed by circumstances. In some localities it is best to call a public meeting, in others to invite the friends of the movement to a private conference. Both women and men should be members and co-operate, and the society should be organized on as broad and liberal a basis as possible. Hold conventions, picnics, teas, and occasionally have a lecture from some one who will draw a large crowd. Utilize your own talent; encourage your young women and men to speak, read essays and debate on the question. Hold public celebrations of the birthdays of eminent women, and in that way interest many who would not attend a pronounced suffrage meeting. Persons who can not be induced to attend a public meeting will often accept an invitation to a parlor conference or entertainment where woman suffrage can be made the subject of conversation. Cultured women and men, who "have given the matter no thought," can be interested through a paper presenting the life and work of such women as Margaret Fuller, Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott, etc., or showing the rise and progress of the woman suffrage movement, giving short biographies of the leaders. Advocate suffrage through your local papers. Send them short, pithy communications, and, when possible, secure a column in each, to be edited by the society. Invite pastors of churches to select from the numerous appropriate texts in the Bible, and preach occasionally upon this subject. A strong effort should be made to circulate literature. Every society should own a copy of the Woman Question in Europe, by Theodore Stanton; of the History of Woman Suffrage, by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gage; of Mrs. Robinson's Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement; of T. W. Higginson's Common Sense for Women; of John Stuart Mill's Subjection of Women, and of Frances Power Cobbe's Duties of Women. These will furnish ammunition for arguments and debates. Suffrage leaflets should be circulated in parlors and places of business; and "pockets" should be filled and hung in railroad stations, post-offices and hotels, that "he who runs may read." Over these should be printed "Woman Suffrage—Take and Read." All the above methods aim rather at the education of the popular mind than the judiciary and legislative branches of the Government. The next step is to educate the representatives in Congress and on the bench of the Supreme Court in the principles of constitutional law and republican government, that they may understand the justice of the demands for a Sixteenth Amendment which shall forbid the several States to deny or abridge the rights of women citizens of the United States.
* ↑ Mise Anthony never wrote her addresses and no stenographic reports were made. Brief and inadequate newspaper accounts are all that remain.