r
a Declaratory Act which would permit women to vote under the
Fourteenth Amendment. Since that decision it has asked for a Sixteenth
Amendment. In both cases it has been supported by petitions of
hundreds of thousands of names.

The ablest women this nation has produced have presented the arguments
and pleadings. Many of the older advocates have passed away, but new
ones have taken their place. It is the unvarying testimony of the
Senate and House Committees who have granted these hearings, that no
body of men has appeared before them for any purpose whose dignity,
logic and acumen have exceeded, if indeed they have equaled, those of
the members of this association. They have been heard always with
respect, often with cordiality, but their appeals have fallen, if not
upon deaf, at least upon indifferent ears. They have asked these
committees to report to their respective Houses a resolution to submit
this Sixteenth Amendment. Sometimes the majority of the committee has
been hostile to woman suffrage and presented an adverse report:
sometimes it has been friendly and presented one favorable; sometimes
there have been an opposing majority and a friendly minority report,
or vice versa; but more often no action whatever has been taken.
During these thirty years eleven favorable reports have been
made--five from Senate, six from House Committees.[9]

In the History of Woman Suffrage, Vols. II and III, will be found a
full record of various debates which occurred in Senate and House on
different phases of the movement to secure suffrage for women previous
to 1884, when the present volume begins. In 1885 Thomas W. Palmer gave
his great speech in the United States Senate in advocacy of their
enfranchisement; and in 1887 occurred the first and only discussion
and vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment for this purpose, both
of which are described herein under their respective dates.

In the following chapters will be found an account of the annual
conventions of the National Suffrage Association since 1883, and of
the American until the two societies united in 1890, with many of the
resolutions and speeches for which these meetings have been
distinguished. They contain also portions of the addresses, covering
every phase of this subject, made at the hearings before Congressional
Committees, and the arguments advanced for and against woman suffrage
in the favorable and adverse reports of these committees, thus
presenting