cises it. The records of Wyoming and Washington demonstrate this fact.
Mr. Blair then quoted the statistics embodied in the report of the committee, showing the slow but sure progress of the enfranchisement of women, and concluded:
It is sometimes urged against this movement for the submission of a resolution for a National Constitutional Amendment that women should go to the States and fight it out there. But we did not send the colored man to the States. No other amendment touching the general national interest has been left to be fought out by individual action in the separate States. ....
We only ask for woman an opportunity to bring her suit in the great court for the amendment of fundamental law. It is impossible for any right mind to escape the impression of solemn responsibility which attaches to our decision. Ridicule and wit of whatever quality are here as much out of place as in the debates upon the Declaration of Independence. We are affirming or denying the right of petition which by all law belongs as much to women as to men. ....
Let us by our action to-day indorse, if we do not initiate, a movement which, in the development of our race, shall guarantee liberty to all without distinction of sex, even as our glorious Constitution already grants the suffrage to every male citizen without distinction of color or race.
As Senator Brown was absent, Senator Cockrell objected to a consideration of the resolution and it was postponed. The minority report of the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage signed by these two Senators consisted wholly of extracts from a series of anonymous articles which had appeared in the Chicago Tribune, entitled "Letters from a Chimney-Corner."On January 25, 1887, Senator Blair again called up his resolution and a spirited debate followed. Senators Joseph E. Brown (Ga.) and George G. Vest (Mo.) represented the negative; Henry W. Blair (N. H.) and Joseph N. Dolph (Ore.) the affirmative. Senator Brown opened the discussion by presenting, word for word, the report signed by Senator Francis M. Cockrell (Mo.) and himself in 1884. It embodied the stock objections to woman suffrage, practically all in fact which are ever made, and was in part as follows:[1]
Mr. President, the joint resolution introduced by my friend, the
- ↑ The italics are made by the editors of the History.
