The formal opening of the Council, Monday morning, March 25, was thus described: "The vast auditorium, perfect in its proportions and arrangements, was richly decorated with the flags of all nations and of every State in the Union. The platform was fragrant with evergreens and flowers, brilliant with rich furniture, crowded with distinguished women, while soft music with its universal language attuned all hearts to harmony. The beautiful portrait of the sainted Lucretia Mott, surrounded with smilax and lilies of the valley, seemed to sanctify the whole scene and to give a touch of pathos to all the proceedings."
This great meeting, like so many before and since that time, was opened by Miss Anthony. After the invocation and the hymn, she said in part:
Men have granted us, in the civil rights which we have been demanding, everything almost but the pivotal right, the one that underlies all other rights, the one with which citizens of this republic may protect themselves—the right to vote.
I have the pleasure of introducing to you this morning the woman who not only joined with Lucretia Mott in calling the first convention, but who for the greater part of twenty years has been president of the National Suffrage Association—Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.The entire audience arose with clapping of hands and waving of handkerchiefs to greet this leader, who had come from England to attend the Council. In the course of a long and dignified address of welcome, she said:
