to vote should be disfranchised and made aliens, but their
offense should not be visited on vigilant and patriotic citizens.
Neither male nor female suffragists can be forced to use the
ballot, and while the individuals of each class may fail to
appreciate the privilege or recognize the duty the franchise
confers, in the main it will result otherwise.

The conservative woman who feels that her present duties are as
burdensome as she can bear, when she realizes what she can
accomplish for her country and for mankind by the ballot, will as
reverently thank God for the opportunity and will as zealously
discharge her new obligations, as will her more radical sister
who has long and wearily labored and fervently prayed for the
coming of the day of equality of rights, duties and hopes.

E. B. TAYLOR.
W. P. HEPBURN.
L. B. CASWELL.

I concur in the opinion of the minority that the resolution ought
to be adopted.

A. A. RANNEY.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] John Randolph Tucker, Va.; Nathaniel J. Hammond, Ga.; David B.
Culberson, Tex.; Patrick A. Collins, Mass.; George E. Seney, O.;
William C. Oates, Ala.; John H. Rogers, Ark.; John R. Eden, Ill.;
Risden T. Bennett, N. C.; Ezra B. Taylor, O.; Abraham X. Parker, N.
Y.; Ambrose A. Ranney, Mass.; William P. Hepburn, Ia.; John W.
Stewart, Vt.; Lucien B. Caswell, Wis.

[29] See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 715.

[30] This had been done when Miss Anthony voted in Rochester, N. Y.,
in 1872.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST DISCUSSION AND VOTE IN THE U. S. SENATE--1887.

Although the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage had reported
several times in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal
Constitution which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex,
and although Thomas W. Palmer, in 1885, had delivered a speech on the
question in the Senate, it never had been brought to a discussion and
vote.[31] Urged by the members of the National Association, and by his
own strong convictions as to the justice of the cause, Senator Henry
W. Blair (N. H.), on Dec. 8, 1886, called up the following, which he
had reported for the majority of the committee on February 2 of that
year:

JOINT RESOLUTION PROPOSING AN AMENDME