1. It is claimed, on good authority, that Anna Dickinson was the first to suggest that such an amendment would be required, as early as 1866, in a consultation with Theodore Tilton and Frederick Douglass at the National Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia, as the only sure method of protecting the freedmen. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.
2. In reference to this unwarranted attack, the noted writer, William Winter, said in the New York Tribune:
"Noble, virtuous, honorable women are a country's greatest wealth, and when, from petty envy or jealousy, any one attempts with private innuendoes or public assaults to blacken a fair name which has long stood before the nation representing a principle, it is an injury not only to the individual but to the moral sense of the nation, and all true people are interested in maintaining its integrity and power. Susan B. Anthony has stood before this nation twenty years, earnestly devoted to every good work. As a teacher in the schools of New York for fifteen years, she bears from superintendents the highest testimonials to her faithfulness and ability. Her noble labors in the temperance cause are known throughout the State, and in association with the true men and women who fought the anti-slavery battle, she was equally faithful and earnest, finishing her work by getting up a petition for the black man's freedom of 400,000 names—the largest ever presented in Congress. For woman's enfranchisement her labors have been unremitting and unwearied for the last eighteen years. She is a frank, generous, self-sacrificing woman, of a kind, tender nature, firm principle, great executive ability, and in every relation of life true as the needle to the pole. Her motto has ever been, 'Let the weal and the woe of humanity be everything to me; their praise and their blame of no effect.'"
3. Maine 3, Vermont 1, New Hampshire 1, Massachusetts 5, Rhode Island 2, Connecticut 1, New Jersey 7, Pennsylvania 3, Illinois 3, Ohio 3, Wisconsin 1, Minnesota 1, Missouri 3, Kansas 2, Nebraska 1, California 5, District of Columbia 3, Washington Territory 1-46. The remainder of the one hundred members who joined the association that evening resided in different parts of the State of New York.
4. President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Vice-presidents, Elizabeth B. Phelps, N.Y.; Anna Dickinson, Penn.; Kate N. Doggett, Ill.; Madame Anneke, Wis.; Lucy Elmes, Conn.; Mattie Griffith Brown, Mass.; Mrs. Nicholas Smith, Kan.; Lucy A. Snow, Maine; Elizabeth B. Schenck, Cal.; Josephine S. Griffing, D.C.; Paulina Wright Davis, R.I.; Mary Foote Henderson, Phoebe W. Cousins, Mo. Corresponding secretaries, Laura Curtis Bullard, Ida Greeley, Adelaide Hallock. Recording secretaries, Abby Burton Crosby, Sarah E. Fuller. Treasurer, Elizabeth Smith Miller. Executive committee, Ernestine L. Rose, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Mathilda F. Wendt, Mary F. Gilbert, Susan B. Anthony. Advisory counsel, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N.Y.; Mrs. Francis Minor, Mo.; Adeline Thomson, Penn,; Mrs. M.B. Longley, Ohio; Mrs. J.P. Root, Kan.; Lilie Peckham, Wis.
Chapter XX:
Fiftieth Birthday—End of Equal Rights Society
(1870)
Washington Convention; Miss Anthony's speech on striking "male" from District of Columbia Bill; descriptions by Mrs. Fannie Howland, Hearth and Home, Mrs. Hooker, Mary Clemmer; Fiftieth Birthday celebration and comments of N.Y. Press; Phoebe Gary's poem; Miss Anthony's letter to mother; begins with Lyceum Bureau; Robert G. Ingersoll comes to her assistance; attack by Detroit Free Press; tribute of Chicago Legal News; efforts to unite the two National Suffrage organizations; Union Suffrage Society formed; end of Equal Rights Association.
Conventions and conventions for fifty years, without a break, planned and managed by one woman—was there ever a similar record? The year 1870 opened with the Second National Woman Suffrage Convention, in Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C., January 19. It had been advertised for two days, but the interest was so great that it was continued through the third day and evening. Mrs. Stanton was in the chair and the papers united in praising the beauty, dignity and elegant attire of the women on the platform. A long table at the Arlington Hotel was reserved for them, and Miss Anthony relates that as they were all going into the dining-room one day, Jessie Benton Fremont beckoned to her and when she went over to the table where the general and she were sitting, she said in her bright, pretty way: "Now tell me, did you hunt the country over and pick out a score of the most beautiful women you could find to melt the hearts of our congressmen?"
Letters of warm approval were read from John Stuart Mill and Helen Taylor, of England; Professor Homer B. Sprague, of Cornell University; Bishop Simpson, of the Methodist church; Senator Matthew H. Carpenter, and many other distinguished persons. A number of senators and representatives addressed the meetings, as did also Hon. A.G. Riddle, of the District of Columbia, Rev. Samuel J. May, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and the usual corps of well-known suffrage speakers. Jennie Collins, the Lowell factory girl, electrified the audience by discussing the great question from the standpoint of the workingwomen. All the New York dailies sent women reporters, a comparatively new feature at conventions.
A hearing was arranged before the joint committees for the District of Columbia, and a number of the ladies made short addresses. Mrs. Stanton based her remarks on the unanswerable argument of Francis Minor at the St. Louis convention a few months before, the first assertion of woman's right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. Miss Anthony said:
We are here for the express purpose of urging you to present in your respective bodies, a bill to strike the word "male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage Act and thereby enfranchise the women of the District. We ask that the experiment of woman suffrage shall be made here, under the eye of Congress, as was that of negro suffrage. Indeed, the District has ever been the experimental ground of each step toward freedom. The auction-block was here first banished, slavery here first abolished, the freedmen here first enfranchised; and we now ask that women here shall be first admitted to the ballot. There was great fear and trepidation all over the country as to the results of negro suffrage, and you deemed it right and safe to inaugurate the experiment here; and you all remember that three days' discussion in 1866 on Senator Cowan's proposition to strike out the word "male." Well do I recollect with what anxious hope we watched the daily reports of that debate, and how we longed that Congress might then declare for the establishment in this District of a real republic. But conscience or courage or something was wanting, and women were bidden still to wait.
When, on that March day of 1867, the negroes of the District first voted, the success of that election inspired Congress with confidence to pass the proposition for the Fifteenth Amendment, and the different States to ratify it, until it has become a fixed fact that black men all over the nation not only may vote but sit in legislative assemblies and constitutional conventions. We now ask Congress to do the same for women. We ask you to enfranchise the women of the District this very winter, so that next March they may go to the ballot-box, and all the people of this nation may see that it is possible for women to vote and the republic yet stand. There is no reason, no argument, nothing but prejudice, against our demand; and there is no way to break down this prejudice but to make the experiment. Therefore, we most earnestly urge it, in full faith that so soon as Congress and the people shall have witnessed its beneficial results, they will go forward with a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit any State from disfranchising any of its citizens on account of sex.
A letter from Mrs. Fannie Howland in the Hartford Courant thus describes the hearing:
Senator