e Democrats were claiming the credit and
the general election was only two months away. The Republicans,
especially those in Connecticut, keenly felt the situation. Governor
Holcomb was obliged to call a special session to enact legislation for
registering the women. The Legislature was called to meet September 14
and the Governor warned it that it must restrict itself to the
business outlined in the call. No such restriction had ever before
been laid upon a Connecticut Legislature and the Governor himself two
years before had urged that he was powerless to prevent it from
enacting any bills that it pleased when once it had been called in
special session. The members of House and Senate were almost unanimous
in resenting this attempt to fetter their action and plans were laid
to ratify the Federal Amendment.

Before September 14, however, developments in regard to the Tennessee
ratification seemed to threaten its validity and Governor Holcomb and
the Republican leaders perceived that there was an emergency which
called for ratification by Connecticut to prevent difficulty in the
coming elections. This was especially apparent to U. S. Senator Frank
B. Brandegee, who had been an uncompromising opponent of the Federal
Suffrage Amendment and voted against it every time it came before the
Senate. He sent an urgent letter to Colonel Ullman, chairman of the
Men's Ratification League, in which he said: "In view of the fact that
the validity of the ratification of the amendment by the State of
Tennessee has been questioned and that the result of the entire
election throughout the country may be imperilled thereby, and in
consideration of the fact that the amendment is certain to be ratified
by more than the required number of States as soon as their
Legislatures assemble in 1921, I earnestly hope that the Legislature
of Connecticut will ratify it."[24]

As soon as the special session opened Governor Holcomb went before it
and asked it to adjourn without action, as he intended to issue
another call for it to meet a week hence to ratify the amendment as
well as to enact the necessary legislation. Both House and Senate
refused to accede to his request but by unanimous vote in the Senate
and by a vote of 216 to 11 in the House, the Federal Suffrage
Amendment was ratified, although the Governor had not submitted the
certified copy to them.[25] After passing a number of other bills, all
of which were outside of the limits set by the