g in a full report, announced at the close of the
evening session, that having reached 5,000, they desisted from
further enumeration.

No effort was spared to make the demonstration truly
representative of the suffrage interest throughout the State. All
the sessions were presided over by Mrs. Sewall, who called the
roll by congressional districts, some one of whose
representatives responded. The ease and dignity with which women,
many of whom had never spoken before any audience save their own
neighbors gathered in Sunday-school or prayer-meeting, reported
the status of their respective communities on the suffrage
question, was matter of astonishment as well as of
admiration.[337] So exceptional in all regards was the conduct of
the meeting that the papers united in expressing surprise at the
strength of the suffrage sentiment in the State as indicated by
the mass-convention.

This meeting of May 19, 1882, struck the key on which the friends
in the State spoke during the summer and fall of that year. Large
numbers of societies were organized and numerous meetings held;
the immediate object being to secure the election of a
legislature that should vote to submit the amendment passed by
the General Assembly of 1881 to the decision of what is mis-named
"a popular vote." The degree to which this action influenced the
politicians of the State cannot be accurately known, but we are
compelled to believe that it was one of the causes which induced
the Republicans in convention assembled to declare for the
"submission of the pending amendments." The Republican State
convention was held August 8, 1882, and the first plank in the
platform reads thus:

_Resolved, First_--That reposing trust in the people as the
fountain of power, we demand that the pending amendments to
the constitution shall be agreed to and submitted by the
next legislature to the voters of the State for their
decision thereon. These amendments were not partisan in
their origin, and are not so in character, and should not be
made so in voting upon them. Recognizing the fact that the
people are divided in sentiment in regard to the propriety
of their adoption or rejection, and cherishing the right of
private judgment, we fav