sentence: "Oh! of all the names given to us to warn off the demon
and invoke the angel, let us hold fast to this word--service!"

The Convention reassembled at two o'clock, the hall being filled
in every part. Before proceeding to business, the President
invited to seats upon the platform, Stephen S. Foster, Miss Susan
B. Anthony, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Andrew Jackson
Davis, Mrs. Leland, of Wisconsin; Mr. and Mrs. John Gage, of
Vineland, New Jersey, all of whom he designated as faithful
veteran laborers in the good cause. He also invited all officers
of Woman Suffrage Associations, members of the press and the
clergy without distinction of sex or color.

The proceedings were opened with an impressive prayer by Rev.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of New Jersey. The Committee on
Permanent Organization reported the list of officers[184] of the
Convention, which was adopted. The announcement of the name of T.
W. Higginson as President was received with loud applause. On
taking the Chair, he spoke substantially as follows:

_Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow Citizens_: I feel truly grateful
to the members of this Convention for the honor they have done me
by choosing me for this responsible position. I take it not as a
personal compliment to myself, but as a graceful act of courtesy
on the part of the West, which is so largely represented, to the
East, which is but slightly represented--perhaps our California
friends would rather hear us say from the great central Keystone
States of the Nation, to the little border States on the Atlantic
coast. It is eminently fit and proper that this Convention should
select for its place of meeting the great State of Ohio, which
takes the lead in the woman suffrage movement, as well as in
other good things. It was the first to organize a State Woman
Suffrage Association, and the first in which a committee of the
Legislature recommended extending to woman the right of suffrage.
It is befitting, then, that this Convention should desire Ohio as
the stepping stone from which an American Suffrage Association
shall rise into existence.

[Illustration: Lucy Stone.]

My own State is but a small one. At the commencement of the war
it was hardly thought worth while to attempt to raise troops in
Rhode Island,