Apollo Hall, the owners of
Irving Hall annulling their contract when they learned that colored
people were not only to be admitted to the audience, but welcomed to
the platform as speakers. The Rev. Phebe Hanaford opened the meeting
with prayer, Mrs. Charlotte Wilbour read the call, and announced the
various committees, Miss Anthony reported the work done during the
past year; excellent addresses were made by the many able speakers
present, and strong resolutions were discussed and adopted.

It was during this convention that a proposition was made, that as the
American Association had chosen Henry Ward Beecher for President, Mrs.
Stanton and Miss Anthony should resign their offices for a season, and
place some popular man at the head of the National Society. They
readily assented, hoping thereby to heal the division so distracting
to friends in every State, and unite all the forces in a grand Union
Association. Theodore Tilton, editor of the _Independent_, was chosen
for the position. He and Mr. Beecher exchanged amicable letters, and a
meeting of pacification[132] was held at the Fifth Avenue hotel where
both sides were fairly represented. Complimentary greetings were
exchanged, but nothing was gained.

The one wise step in this episode was the meeting of the National
Woman Suffrage Association: in Washington, January, 1871, as usual
under its long-tried leaders, as if no mistaken policy had been
suggested or considered. Emerson says the power of the human mind is
shown in its ability to recover after a blunder. The Association
showed its real strength in taking up again and carrying forward its
grand National work.

THE SECOND DECADE CELEBRATION.

At half past ten o'clock Friday morning October 19, 1870, the
twentieth anniversary convention assembled in Apollo Hall, New York.
A large number of the life-long friends were on the platform and a
fine audience in attendance. Mrs. Stanton called the meeting to order
and read the call.[133] She said, after due consultation the committee
had decided that as Mrs. Davis had called the first National
Convention twenty years ago, and presided over its deliberations, it
was peculiarly fitting that she should preside over this also. A
motion was made and seconded to that effect, and unanimously adopted.
On taking the chair Mrs. Davis gave the following resume of the
Woman's Rights movement:

In assembling to review the past twenty years, it is a fitting
questio