Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 5.djvu/657

 majority of the individual voters. They had seen an entire class enfranchised through the quicker and easier way of amending the Federal Constitution and they determined to invoke this power in their own behalf. From the office of The Revolution in New York in the autumn of 1868 went out thousands of petitions to be signed and sent to Congress for the submission of an amendment to enfranchise women. Immediately after its assembling in December, 1868, Senator S. C. Pomeroy of Kansas introduced a resolution providing that "the basis of suffrage shall be that of citizenship and all native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the same rights and privileges of the elective franchise but each State shall determine the age, etc." A few days later Representative George W. Julian of Indiana offered one in the House which declared: "The right of suffrage shall be based on citizenshipand all citizens, native or naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally without any distinction or discrimination founded on sex." These were the first propositions ever made in Congress for woman suffrage by National Amendment.

In order to impress Congress with the seriousness of the demand, a woman's convention—the first of its kind to meet in the national capital—was held in Washington in January, 1869. It continued several days with large audiences and an array of eminent speakers, including Lucretia Mott, Clara Barton, Mrs. Stanton, a number of men and Miss Anthony, the moving spirit of the whole. In response Congress the next month submitted the 15th Amendment with even a stronger discrimination against women than the 14th contained.

The annual gatherings of the Equal Rights Association had been growing more and more stormy while the 14th and 15th Amendments were pending and the point was reached where any criticism of them made by the women was met by their advocates with hisses and denunciation. Finally at the meeting of May 12, 1869, in New York City, with Mrs. Stanton presiding, an attempt was made, led by Frederick Douglass, to force through a resolution of endorsement. Miss Anthony opposed it in an impassioned speech in which she said: "If you will not give the whole loaf of justice to the entire people, then give it first to women, to the