Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/244

210 The pro tempore: The morning hour has expired, and the unfinished business is before the Senate.

20, 1881.

Mr. : I now call up the resolution for appointing a special committee on woman suffrage. The pro tempore: The morning hour having expired, the senator from Massachusetts calls up the resolution which was under consideration yesterday.

Mr. : What is the regular order?

The pro tempore: There is no regular unfinished business. The senator from Florida [Mr. Call] gave notice yesterday that he would ask the indulgence of the Senate to-day to consider the subject of homestead rights.

Mr. : I hope this matter may be disposed of. It is very unpleasant to me to stand before the Senate in this way, taking up its time with this matter in a five minutes' debate every day in succession for an unlimited period of time. It is a matter which every senator understands. It has nothing to do with the merits of the woman suffrage question at all. It is a mere desire on the part of these people to have a particular form of hearing, which seems to me the most convenient for the Senate, and I hope the Senate will be willing to vote on the resolution and let it pass. Mr. : I have no objection to proceeding to the consideration of the resolution, but I desire to address the Senate upon it.

Mr. : I think I must ask now as a favor of the senator from Alabama that he let the resolution be disposed of promptly.

The pro tempore: The senator from Alabama states that he has no objection to the present consideration of the resolution, but he asks leave to make some remarks upon it. The Chair hearing no objection to the consideration of the resolution, it is before the Senate.

Mr. : I object to the consideration of the resolution.

Mr. : I move to take it up.

The pro tempore: The senator from Massachusetts calls it up as a matter of right. If a majority of the Senate agree to take up the resolution it is before the Senate, and the Chair will put the question. The question is on agreeing to the motion of the senator from Massachusetts to proceed to the consideration of the resolution. [The motion was agreed to; and the Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported from the Committee on Rules by Mr. Hoar on the 13th instant, which was read.]

The pro tempore: The pending question is on the motion of the senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] to refer the subject to the Committee on the Judiciary, on which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. : Mr. President, I stand in a different relation to this question from that of the senator from Kentucky [Mr. Beck], who said yesterday that he had received a number of communications from very respectable ladies in his own State upon this very important subject, and yet felt constrained by a sense of duty to deny the action which they solicited at