* * * My
interest in anti-slavery was awakened about the same time,
and I regarded it as the _previous_ question, and as less
abstract and far more important and absorbing than that of
suffrage for women. For the sake of the negro I accepted
Mr. Lincoln's philosophy of "one war at a time," though
always ready to own and defend my position as to woman's
right to the ballot.

The sincerity of Mr. Julian's belief in woman suffrage is proved
by his repeated efforts to further the cause in the United States
congress. On December 8, 1868, he submitted an amendment to the
constitution, guaranteeing suffrage to all United States
citizens, which, as the negro had not then been enfranchised, he
numbered article fifteen. On March 15, 1869, he submitted the
same amendment, with the exception that the words "race" and
"color" were omitted; on the same day Mr. Julian offered a bill
providing for the immediate enfranchisement of women in all the
territories of the United States, thus doubling on one day his
claim to the gratitude of American women. On April 4, 1870, he
offered another amendment, numbered article sixteen, which
followed the exact form and phraseology of the fifteenth. On
January 20, 1871, he offered an amendment to the bill, providing
a government for the District of Columbia, striking out the word
"male" in the section defining the right of suffrage. It is
interesting to note that even so long ago that amendment received
55 yeas against 117 nays.[345] The bills which Mr. Julian thus
submitted to congress when he was a member of that body prove his
constancy to a cause early espoused, his conversion to which was
due to that remarkable English woman whose claims to the
gratitude of her American sisters are thus enhanced. Mr. Julian
has not worked much with the suffrage societies of his own State,
but he has never failed in his repeated canvasses to utter the
seasonable word. His conviction that it is the duty of the
national government to take the initiative in defining the
political rights of its citizens has naturally led him to present
this question to the nation as represented in its congress,
rather than to agitate it in the State.

Oliver P. Morton and Joseph E. McDonald are two other names