n. The members of the Missouri
Society took sides in this division as preference dictated. Mr.
and Mrs. Minor, Miss Forbes, Miss Couzins and others were already
members of the National Association, and sympathized with its
views and modes of pushing the question.

In order that there might be no division in the Missouri
Association, a resolution was introduced by Mr. Minor and
unanimously adopted, declaring that each member of the society
should be free to join the National body of his or her choice,
and that the Missouri Association, as a society, should not
become auxiliary to either the "National" or the "American." The
good faith of the association was thus pledged to respect the
feelings and wishes of each member, and as long as this course
was observed all went well. But, at the annual meeting in 1871,
just after Mrs. Minor had for the fifth time been unanimously
reelected president, in violation of the previous action of the
association a resolution was introduced and passed, declaring
that the association should henceforth become auxiliary to the
American. This gross disregard of the wishes and feelings of
those who were members of the National Association left them no
alternative, with any feeling of self-respect, but to withdraw;
and accordingly Mrs. Minor at once tendered her resignation as
president and her withdrawal as a member of the association. She
was followed in this course by Mr. Minor, Miss Couzins, Miss
Forbes and others.[382] However, the work went steadily on.
Meetings were held regularly from week to week, with occasional
grand conventions, tracts and petitions were circulated, and
constant agitation in some way kept up.

In answer to an earnest solicitation for facts and incidents of the
suffrage movement in Missouri, Mrs. Rebecca N. Hazard, one of the
earliest and most active friends in that State, sends us the
following:

I think the cruel war had much to do in educating the women of
Missouri into a sense of their responsibilities and duties as
citizens; at least all who first took part in the suffrage
movement had been active on the Union side during the war, and
that having ended in the preservation of the government, they
naturally began to inquire as to their own rights and privileges
in the restored Union. My own fee