made in favor of the
practical application of the great underlying principles of our
government, were those of Benjamin F. Butler, A.G. Riddle, Henry R.
Selden, William Loughridge, Francis Minor, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage on the right of women to vote
under the Fourteenth Amendment. These were reviewed by the newspapers
and law journals and widely discussed by the people, while the
congressional debates, published in the Record, became a part of
history.

Although from the standpoint of justice these arguments were
unanswerable, they did not succeed in establishing the political rights
of women, and the advocates therefore were compelled to return to their
former policy of demanding a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
which should protect them as the Fifteenth protected the negroes. To
this end, in November, 1876, an earnest appeal was sent out by Mrs.
Stanton, president; Miss Anthony, secretary; and Mrs. Gage, chairman of
the executive committee of the National Association, asking the women
to secure petitions for the amendment and send them to the annual
meeting. Two letters received by Miss Anthony in January, 1877,
illustrate the wide difference of opinion which prevailed. Wm. Lloyd
Garrison wrote:

You desire me to send you a letter, to be read at the Washington
convention, in favor of a petition to Congress, asking that body to
submit to the several States a Sixteenth Amendment securing
suffrage for all, irrespective of sex. On fully considering the
subject, I must decline doing so, because such a petition I deem to
be quite premature. If its request were complied with by the
present Congress--a supposition simply preposterous--the proposed
amendment would be rejected by every State in the Union, and in
nearly every instance by such an overwhelming majority as to bring
the movement into needless contempt. Even as a matter of
"agitation," I do not think it would pay. Look over the whole
country and see in the present state of public sentiment on the
question of woman suffrage what a mighty primary work remains to be
done in enlightening the masses, who know nothing and care nothing
about it and, consequently, are not at all prepared to cast their
vote for any such thing. I think it is a mistake to look for a
favorable consideration of the question on the part of legislators
under such circumstan