every one who claims to be a
National to continue to stand for this principle. We have come now
to another turning-point and, if it is necessary, I will fight
forty years more to make our platform free for the Christian to
stand upon whether she be a Catholic and counts her beads, or a
Protestant of the straitest orthodox creed, just as I have fought
for the rights of the infidels the last forty years. These are the
principles I want you to maintain, that our platform may be kept as
broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives
of all creeds and no creeds--Jew or Christian, Protestant or
Catholic, Gentile or Mormon, pagan or atheist.

At the joint executive session after the union was formally declared to
be consummated, the vote was: For president, Mrs. Stanton, 131; Miss
Anthony, 90; for vice-president-at-large, Miss Anthony, 213. Lucy Stone
was unanimously elected chairman of the executive committee; Rachel
Foster Avery, corresponding secretary; Alice Stone Blackwell, recording
secretary;[38] Jane H. Spofford, treasurer; Eliza T. Ward and Rev.
Frederick W. Hinckley, auditors. This uniting of the two associations
was begun in 1887 and finished in 1890, in the most thoroughly official
manner, according to the most highly approved parliamentary methods, and
the final result was satisfactory to a large majority of the members of
both societies, who since that time have worked together in unbroken
harmony.

The action of the American Association was almost unanimous, but the
members of the National were widely divided. Letters of protest were
received from many States, and several of its members attempted to form
new organizations. The executive sessions in Washington were the most
stormy in the history of the association, and only the unsurpassed
parliamentary knowledge of the chairman, May Wright Sewall, aided by the
firm co-operation of Miss Anthony, could have harmonized the opposing
elements and secured a majority vote in favor of the union. There had
been no time during the twenty years' division when Miss Anthony was not
ready to sink all personal feeling and unite the two societies for the
sake of promoting the cause which she placed before all else in the
world; and from the first prospect of combining the forces, she used
every effort toward its accomplishment. It was a source of especial
gratification that this was practically assured by the