tution, which the Supreme Court
in the Minor decision declares "does not confer the right of suffrage
upon any one"? Volume II of this History of Woman Suffrage, containing
nearly 1,000 pages, is devoted mainly to a recital of the efforts on
the part of women to obtain and exercise the franchise through the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. This decision of the Supreme
Court destroyed the last hope, although it did not shake the belief of
the leaders of this movement in the justice and legality of their
claim.

A number of the women contended that, if the National Constitution did
not confer Full Suffrage, it did at least guarantee Federal
Suffrage--the right to vote for Congressional Representatives--and in
this opinion they were sustained by eminent lawyers. The National
Association, however, never made an issue of this question,
considering that it would be useless, but it has a Standing Committee
on Federal Suffrage empowered to make such efforts in this direction
as it deems advisable.[6]

The assertion is made that if Congress had no authority over the
election of its own members, it would be wholly unable to perpetuate
itself should the States at any time decide that they no longer care
to be under the authority of a central governing body, and refuse to
elect Representatives. Many able reports have been made by this
Standing Committee, and the question was clearly stated in an article
in _The Arena_, December, 1891, by Francis Minor, who gave the
question of woman suffrage a more thorough legal examination,
perhaps, than any other man. He prepared the following bill which was
presented in the House of Representatives, April 25, 1892, by the Hon.
Clarence D. Clark, member from Wyoming:

AN ACT TO PROTECT THE RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES TO
REGISTER AND TO VOTE FOR MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

WHEREAS, The right to choose Members of the House of
Representatives is vested by the Constitution in the people of
the several States, without distinction of sex, but for want of
proper legislation has hitherto been restricted to one-half of
the people; for the purpose, therefore, of correcting this error
and of giving effect to the Constitution:

_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled:_ That at all
elections hereafter held in the several States of this Union for