first
and last time that a woman was ever granted the privilege of speaking
there.

To Anna Dickinson belongs the honor of suggesting a XV amendment.
Although the XIV amendment to the National Constitution gave to that
document for the first time a concise definition of a "citizen," and
forbade any State to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States, yet this amendment was found inadequate to
protect the political rights of the colored men; and the Republican
party was anxiously casting about for a method of perfecting their
work, when the puzzle was solved by a proposition for a XV amendment,
which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude. The suggestion for this amendment
originated at the National Loyalists' Convention held at Philadelphia,
September, 1866, in a consultation between Anna Dickinson, Frederick
Douglass, and Theodore Tilton, and was in time accepted by the
Republican party. It was reported in Congress Feb. 26, 1869, and
received the necessary ratification March 30, 1870. Thus a woman and a
colored man were two important factors in perfecting the work of
reconstruction through a constitutional provision prohibiting
disfranchisement on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.

As when the XIV amendment was pending, the efforts of women were
directed toward securing the omission of the invidious word "male," so
on the submission of the XV amendment their efforts were again
directed toward securing the enfranchisement of woman by the
introduction of the word "sex" in the last line of Section 1. But
Congress with the usual short-sightedness of injustice, refused to
secure the political freedom of one half the entire people, even
forgetting to enfranchise a portion of the colored race from their
"previous condition of servitude" because of sex.

The sound position taken by Anna Dickinson at this period is
substantiated by Frederick Douglass, not only in his "Life and Times,"
but in the following letters:

WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 31, 1882.

DEAR MRS. STANTON:-- ... Mrs. Gage's version of the origin of the
15th Amendment is in substance true. To dear Anna E. Dickinson
and brave Theodore Tilton belongs the credit of forcing that
amendment upon the attention of the Nation at the right moment
and in the right way to make it successful. I have gi