Mr. Tilton, after
consulting with Miss Dickinson and myself, introduced the
suffrage question. His action was received as a very large
fire-brand, and caused a storm of tumult and confusion, in the
midst of which the President, Mr. Speed, and other officers left
their places on the platform, declaring the Convention adjourned.
At this critical juncture, with the tact and skill of a veteran,
Mr. Tilton seized the helm, declared the Convention not
adjourned, and moved that Honorable John Minor Botts take the
Chair. The Border States delegates took their hats and heels out
of the Convention without standing upon the order of their going,
while the men from the Gulf States nobly stood their ground. The
Convention was still large. The going out of the Border States
unfettered the platform. Anna E. Dickinson came on the stand with
all her wonted ability, and thrilled the audience by her
eloquent plea for negro suffrage. Hers was the speech, not of a
brilliant declaimer, but the solid logic of a statesman. When she
sat down I felt that the battle was more than half won. Next
after Miss Dickinson came Theodore Tilton. It was plain from the
moment he took the stand that the situation suited him, and that
we were to hear from him that day such words of wisdom, truth and
soberness as only genius could supply. We were not disappointed.
He was the full master of the subject and the occasion, I
followed Mr. Tilton, and resolutions favoring what has since
become the 15th Amendment were passed with very little
opposition.

You will notice on page 480 of my book, that I don't forget my
walk with you from the house of Mr. Joseph Southwick, where you
quietly brought to my notice your arguments for womanhood
suffrage. That is forty years ago. You had just returned from
your European tour. From that conversation with you I have been
convinced of the wisdom of woman suffrage, and have never denied
the faith....

Very truly yours, FRED'K. DOUGLASS.

When Anna Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, and Theodore Tilton pressed
the question of negro suffrage on the Loyalists' convention, they were
met by the same arguments and appeals against it, that were urged upon
those who pressed woman suffrage when the Fourteenth Amendment was
pending. Douglass knew t