he constitution but from the
legislature, and that the latter has exercised the power of
extending suffrage in hundreds of cases. This document received
high praise from General James W. Husted and Major James
Haggerty, who have manfully championed our bills in the Assembly,
General Husted reading from it in his speech and it was signally
sanctioned by the Assembly which, after being supplied with
copies, voted down by more than three to one a motion to
substitute a constitutional amendment.

But while working at this document, I was fortunate enough to
make a still greater discovery--that portions of statute law
which formerly prevented women's voting were repealed long since;
that the constitution and statutes in their present shape secure
women the legal right to vote.

February 19, 1885, a hearing was granted to Mrs. Stanton, Mrs.
Rogers and Mrs. Blake in the assembly-chamber before the Committee
on Grievances, on the "Bill to Prohibit Disfranchisement." The
splendid auditorium was crowded for two hours, and members of the
committee lingered a long time after the audience had dispersed to
discuss the whole question still further with the speakers. On the
next day Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell and Governor John W. Hoyt of
Wyoming Territory had a second hearing. The committee reported for
consideration. When the bill came up for a third reading, General
Martin L. Curtis of St. Lawrence moved that it be sent to
the Judiciary Committee with instructions to substitute a
constitutional amendment; lost, ayes 25, noes 75; carried to a
third reading by _viva voce_ vote. The vote on the final passage
was, ayes 57, noes 56; the constitutional majority in this State
being 65 of the 128 members, it was lost by eight votes. Of the 73
Republicans, 29 voted for the bill; of the 55 Democrats, 28 voted
for the bill, showing that more than half the Democratic vote was
in favor, and only two-fifths of the Republican; thus our defeat
was due to the Republican party.

Thus stands the question of woman suffrage in the Empire State
to-day, where women are in the majority.[254] After long years of
unremitting efforts who can read this chapter of woman's faith and
patience, under such oft-repeated disappointments, but with pity
for her humiliations and admiration for her courage and
persistence. For nearly half a century the petitions, the appeals,
the arguments of the women of