mitted by Mrs. Blake, Miss Hindman and Mrs. Colby.[1] At the last session Miss Anthony made a strong, practical speech on the Present Status of the Woman Suffrage Question, and Mrs. Stanton closed the convention.
A number of ministers on the following Sunday took as a text the resolution which had been discussed so vigorously, and used it as an argument against the enfranchisement of women, some of them going so far as to denounce the suffrage advocates as infidels and the movement itself as atheistic and immoral. They wholly ignored the facts—first, that the resolution was merely against the dogmas which had been incorporated into the creeds, and was simply a demand that Christian ministers should teach and enforce only the fundamental declarations of the Scriptures; second, that there was an emphatic division of opinion among the members on the resolution; third, that by consent it was laid on the table; and fourth, that even had it been adopted, it was neither atheistic nor immoral.
On February 6, 1885, Thomas W. Palmer (Mich.) brought up in the Senate the joint resolution for a Sixteenth Amendment which had been favorably reported by the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage the previous winter, and in its support made a masterly argument which has not been surpassed in the fifteen years that have since elapsed, saying in part:
- ↑ The primal object of the National Woman Suffrage Association has been from its foundation to secure the submission by the Congress of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex. To this end all State societies should see that senators and members of Congress are constantly appealed to by their constituents to labor for the passage of this amendment by the next Congress. Woman suffrage associations in the several States are advised to push the question to a vote in their respective Legislatures. The time for agitation alone has passed, and the time for aggressive action has come. It will be found by a close examination of many State constitutions that by the liberal provisions of their Bill of Rights—often embodied in Article 1—the women of the State can be enfranchised without waiting for the tedious and hopeless proviso of a constitutional amendment. .... In States where there has been little or no agitation we recommend the passage of laws granting School Suffrage to women. This first step in politics is an incentive to larger usefulness and aids greatly in familiarizing women with the use of the ballot. We do not specially recommend Municipal Suffrage, as we think that the agitation expended for the fractional measure had better be directed towards obtaining the passage of a Full Suffrage Bill, but we leave this to the discretion of the States. The acting Vice-President in every State must hold a yearly convention in the capital or some large town. No efficient organization can exist without some such annual reunion of the friends. In each county there should be a county woman suffrage society auxiliary to the State; in each town or village a local society auxiliary to the county. Friends desirous of forming a society should meet, even though few in number, and organize.
