ing number of naturalized
immigrants, who had little understanding of democratic government or
sympathy with the rights of women. A federal amendment, on the other
hand, depending for its adoption upon Congress and ratifying
legislatures, was in the hands of a far more liberal, intelligent, and
preponderantly American group. "We have puttered with State rights for
thirty years," she sputtered, "without a foothold except in the
territories."[335]

Year by year she continued her Washington conventions, convinced that
these gatherings in the national capital could not fail to impress
Congressmen with the seriousness of their purpose. As women from many
states lobbied for the Sixteenth Amendment, reporting a growing
sentiment everywhere for woman suffrage, as they received in the press
respectful friendly publicity, Congressmen began to take notice. At
the large receptions held at the Riggs House, through the generosity
of the proprietors, Jane Spofford and her husband, Congressmen became
better acquainted with the suffragists, finding that they were not
cranks, as they had supposed, but intelligent women and socially
charming.

Mrs. Stanton's poise as presiding officer and the warmth of her
personality made her the natural choice for president of the National
Woman Suffrage Association through the years. Her popularity, now well
established throughout the country after her ten years of lecturing
on the Lyceum circuit, lent prestige to the cause. To Susan, her
presence brought strength and the assurance that "the brave and true
word" would be spoken.[336] A new office had been created for Susan,
that of vice-president at large, and in that capacity she guided,
steadied, and prodded her flock.

The subjects which the conventions discussed covered a wide field
going far beyond their persistent demands for a federal woman suffrage
amendment. Not only did they at this time urge an educational
qualification for voters to combat the argument that woman suffrage
would increase the ignorant vote, but they also protested the counting
of women in the basis of representation so long as they were
disfranchised. They criticized the church for barring women from the
ministry and from a share in church government. They took up the case
of Anna Ella Carroll,[337] who had been denied recognition and a
pension for her services to her country during the Civil War, and they
urged pensions for all women who had nursed soldiers during the wa