ve and hopes to see you." She spoke at Chicago, January 13, in the
First Methodist church, where she was introduced by the well-known Rev.
H. W. Thomas.[30] She went from there to the Michigan convention at
Lansing, January 14, and here was presented to the audience by Governor
Cyrus G. Luce.

She reached Washington January 17, 1887, and rushed the preparations for
the Nineteenth National Convention, which opened on the 25th at the
Metropolitan M. E. church. Zerelda G. Wallace gave a noteworthy address;
Senator Carey, of Wyoming, made an able speech and Mrs. Carey sat by
Miss Anthony during the proceedings. The second day of the convention,
January 26, marked a great epoch, the first vote ever taken in Congress
on a Sixteenth Amendment. The previous month, December 8, 1886, Henry W.
Blair had asked the Senate to consider the following joint resolution:
"The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." He
supported this in a long and comprehensive speech covering the whole
ground on which the demand is based, quoting from the favorable reports
of the judiciary committees, exposing the weakness and fallacy of the
objections, and making an unanswerable argument on the justice of
granting political liberty to women.

At the urgent request of opposing senators the matter had been postponed
until January 25, when it was again called up by Mr. Blair. The
opposition was led by Joseph A. Brown, of Georgia, who described in
detail the intentions of the Creator when he made woman, and declared
that females had not the physical strength to perform military duty,
build railroads, raise crops, sit on juries or attend night caucuses,
but that God had endowed men with strength and faculties for all these
things. He stated that it was a grave mistake to say that woman is taxed
without being represented, and added, "It is very doubtful whether the
male or the female sex has more influence in the administration of the
affairs of government and the enactment of laws!" He asserted that "the
baser class of females would rush to the polls, and this would compel
the intelligent, virtuous and refined females, including wives and
mothers, to relinquish for a time their God-given trust and go, contrary
to their wishes, to the polls and vote to counteract the other class;"
and followed this by saying that "the ignorant female voters would be at
the polls e