led that the
power to amend the Constitution of the United States granted by the
Fifth Article thereof is without limit except as to the words, "equal
suffrage in the Senate." He added: "The court is further of the
opinion from all the exhibits and other evidence submitted that there
was due, legal and proper ratification of the amendment by the
required number of State Legislatures." Mr. Wheeler contended that
three-fourths of the States had not legally ratified, to which the
Court answered: "There was one legal and proper ratification of the
amendment by the required number of State Legislatures."

The case was carried up to the State Court of Appeals and argued on
April 7. On June 28 the Judge affirmed the decision of the lower
court. The case was then taken to the U. S. Supreme Court, which gave
a decision adverse to all these claims and established the validity of
the Federal Suffrage Amendment beyond all further controversy.

MARYLAND. PART II.[76]

The Woman Suffrage League of Maryland was organized Feb. 27, 1917, in
Baltimore at a meeting called with the approval of the National
American Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. J. Ross Thompson of Garrett
Park was elected president and served for two years. The league
started with a sustaining membership of 1,400, including organizations
in Baltimore and thirteen counties. By 1920 the city was organized by
congressional districts and some of these by wards; twenty of the
twenty-three counties had organizations, some of them strong branch
leagues, others merely small groups with a chairman.

The history of the league must be traced through its mother, the Equal
Suffrage League of Baltimore, back to the Mary A. Livermore League, a
society of Friends, which had been founded in 1905 with Mrs. Edward
O. Janney as president. In the spring of 1909 this league, in order to
broaden its scope, became the Equal Suffrage League of Baltimore. Mrs.
Elisabeth King Ellicott was elected president and filled this office
with wisdom and rare executive ability until her death in May, 1914.
The league, as a branch of the State Suffrage Association, sent Miss
Julia Rogers as a delegate to the national convention held in Seattle
in 1909. This year a mass meeting was held in McCoy Hall, Johns
Hopkins University, Dr. Thayer of the Medical School presiding. Miss
Ethel Arnold of England was the speaker and made many converts.

In 1910 the league had a bill introduced in the Legislature giv