the arena of
public discussion in the various States, and before their
Legislatures be heard upon the issue, "Shall the Federal
Constitution be so amended as to extend this right of suffrage?"
If, with this opportunity, those who believe in woman suffrage
shall fail, then they must be content; for I agree with the
Senators upon the opposite side of the chamber and with all who
hold that if the suffrage is to be extended at all, it must be by
the operation of existing law. I believe it to be an innate
right; yet even an innate right must be exercised only by the
consent of the controlling forces of the State. That is all woman
asks--that an amendment be submitted.

The opposition had presented three documents, each representing the
views of one woman, and one of these anonymous. Senator Blair
presented a petition for the suffrage from the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union of 200,000 members, signed by Miss Frances E.
Willard, president, and the entire official board. This was
accompanied by a strong personal appeal from a number of distinguished
women, and hundreds of thousands of petitions had been previously
sent. The Senator also received permission to have printed in the
_Congressional Record_ the arguments made by the representatives of
the suffrage movement before the Senate committee in 1880 and
1884.[60]

A vote was then taken on the resolution to submit to the State
Legislatures an amendment to the Federal Constitution forbidding the
disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex, which
resulted in 16 yeas, 34 nays, 26 absent.[61] Of the absentees
Senators Chace, Dawes, Plumb and Stanford announced that they would
have voted "yea;" Jones of Arkansas and Butler that they would have
voted "nay."

Thus on January 25, 1887, occurred the first and only discussion and
vote in the United States Senate on the submission of an amendment to
the Federal Constitution which should forbid disfranchisement on
account of sex, that took place up to the end of the nineteenth
century.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] The only time the direct question of woman suffrage ever had been
discussed and voted on in the U. S. Senate was in December, 1866,
on the Bill to Regulate the Franchise for the District of
Columbia--History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 102; and in May,
1874, on the Bill to Establish the Territory of Pembina--the same, p.
545; but these were entirely