otic and earnest women of Illinois
were quietly acting upon the advice of their representatives, and
relying upon their "quiet, moral influence" to secure a just
recognition of their rights in the constitutional convention, a
conservative woman of Michigan, who, afraid that the women of
Illinois were about to lose their womanliness by asking for the
right to have their opinions counted, deserted her home in the
Peninsular State, went to Springfield, secured the hall of the
convention, and gave two lectures against woman suffrage. A
meeting was called at the close of the second lecture, and in a
resolution moved by a member of the convention, as Mrs. Bradwell
pertinently says, "the people of the State were told that _one
woman_ had proved herself competent and well qualified to
enlighten the constitutional convention upon the evils of woman
suffrage."[361] Such was the effect of this self-appointed
obtruder from another State that the members of the convention,
without giving a woman of their own State opportunity for reply,
not only struck out the clause submitting the question to the
people in a separate article, but actually incorporated in the
body of the constitution a clause which would not allow a woman
to hold any office, public position, place of trust or emolument
in the State. Through the efforts of such staunch friends as
Judge Bradwell, Judge Waite and others, this latter clause was
stricken out, and one inserted which, under a fair construction,
will allow a woman to hold almost any office, provided she
receives a sufficient number of votes.

By the accidental insertion of another clause in the constitution
under consideration, Section 1, of Article VII., any foreign born
woman, naturalized previous to January, 1870, was given the right
to vote. So that Illinois was the first State in the Union, since
the time when the women of New Jersey were disfranchised, to give
to foreign-born women the elective franchise. This mistake of the
wise Solons was guarded as a State secret.

Previous to the great fire of 1871, the most popular and
influential woman's club in Chicago was the organization known as
Sorosis. This club, by the generous aid of many prominent
gentlemen of the city, established pleasant headquarters, where,
in addit