The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-03-08
LETTER FROM MISS ANTHONY.
ROCHESTER, Jan. 10th, 1872.


Convention, and a grand one it was too.
Three days of continued interest, audi
ences increasing each session, until the
last day large numbers could not find
seats in that vast Lincoln Hall. Mrs.
Stanton, Hooker, Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Mary F. Davis, Laura Cuppy Smith,
Laura DeForce Gordon, and many
others, all made strong and convincing
speeches, and Anthony told the East of
the glorious Northwest-Oregon and
Washington Territory-whieh she rep
resented. 1 send you the Washington
papers and copy of Hoodhulps Weekly,
which, am sorry to be compelled to
say, is the only Woman Suffrage paper
of the East that gives report of the
Washington Convention. The ReUOlu-
ton and WOmdn's Journal barely make
paragraphs of the fact The friends at
distance all want true and faithful
report of such an important National
Convention-its resolutions, the general
spirit of its proceedings and thepraetical
work suggested-and the paper that
gives them what they demand will be
the one they will seek. am not sorry
that Woodruff meets this demand, but
l do sincerely regret that the other
papers do not realize the importance of
carrying so splendid a meeting to the
hearths and homes of the true and
earnest friends of the cause, away in the
remOtest hooks and corners of tue nation.
Our hearing before the Senate Judic-
iary Committee was fitting climax to
the work of the preceding Washington
Conventions. In January 1869, with
the venerated Lucretia Mott President,
we held our First National Convention
at the Capital. 1t was good meeting,
though we failed to secure a hearing
from either House, for our demand for a
10th Amendment. Our second was i'm
January, 1870. Both the Senate and
House Committee refused to grant us
the desired hearing, but the District of
Columbia Committees gave us a joint
hearing on suffrage for women in the
District. Speeches were made by Mrs
Stanton, Paulina Wright Davis, Matilda
Joslyn Gage, Madam Anneke and An
thOny-of which Charles Summer said
he had been on Committees for the past
twenty years and listened to speeches
and appeals on every possible question,
but never had he heard such impressive
and 'nldasiCerd6le arguments as were
those. Mrs. Stanton at that time made
her claim for Woman Suffrage under
the guarantees of the 18th and 18th
Amendments. Our third Convention,
1871, gave US, through Mrs. Wood
hull, a hearing before the House Judic-
iary Committee. Mrs Woodruff, Hon.
a. G. Riddle, Mrs. Hooker and Anthony
were the speakers. The impression on
the Committee and the nation was most
startling. By this move our question
was at once lifted from the sphere of
prejudice and precedent into that of law
and logic. The question was no longer
whether men were willing to allow
women TO vote, but whether women
were Of the "all persons" who are citi-
zens, and whether to be crowned with
the privileges and immunities of citizens
was to have the one fundamental citi-
zen's right to vote denied? And what
an entire revolution it has made in our
movement! We now appeal to Congress
and the Courts to decide and declare
woman's political status. We no longer
beg at the feet of the masses of washed
and unwashed "male" citizens to grant us
our rights.
1872 gives us our fourth National gath
ering at Washington, and n hearing be-
fore the Senate Judiciary step higher
you see. Mrs. Hooker opened with the
most condensed and lucid statement O
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend
ment argument 1 have seen or heard
especially did she clear up Senator Car
penters stumbling-block-the worC
"male'' in the I'd section of the Four
| teenth Amendment, and / hope tina
gentleman will be large enough to ac
knowledge himself helped out of hi
doubts by il. Mrs. Stanton followed
going over the same ground, but will
her own matchless rhetoric and dictiol
that made one oblivious to the fact
Then Anthony followed Stanton, no
with an argument, but with a recount
ing of grievances at the hands of tn
Republican party since the war and b.
the reconstruction legislation that un
der the old regime, prior to the wal
when the question of the extension {
the ballot to new classes of Ble,l was al
ways submitted 10 the rank and file {
those already voters, women thought {
no other method of gaining their right
But when the Republican party lifte
the question of mans suffrage above til
States, and so amended the "Suprem
Law of the Land'' as to prohibit an
State from interfering with the right
r of the United States citizen, we at ono
: saw that the question of woman's su
frage was alike taken out of the pow,
Of the States to deny or abridge. In ii
olden time of States Rights it was oil
pride and our boast that the FEEDER,
Constitution had not a word or liz
' that could be construed into a permit
D disfranchise women any more ths
: men, and we always used to say OF
r work would be done so soon as we eoul