s read the first and second time in the Council
and referred to the Committee on Elections, where it now
remains for want of time to bring it up again. A gentleman
who was opposed to the passage of a bill to locate the seat
of justice of Washington county, obtained the floor, and
delivered a speech of many hours on some unimportant bill
then under consideration, in order to "kill time" and
prevent the Washington county bill from coming up. The hour
for adjournment _sine die_ arrived before he concluded, and
the Woman Suffrage bill, and many others of great
importance, remained upon the clerk's table without being
acted upon. It is admitted by every one that want of time
only defeated the passage of the bill through the Council.
The citizens of Nebraska are ready to make a trial of its
provisions, which speaks volumes for the intelligence of the
free and independent squatters of this beautiful territory.

Mrs. Bloomer says that assurance was given by members of the
Council that the bill would have passed that body triumphantly
had more time been allowed, or had it been introduced earlier in
the session. The general sentiment was in favor of it, and the
gentlemen who talked the last hours away to kill other bills were
alone responsible for its defeat. Mrs. Bloomer followed up her
work by lectures in Omaha and Nebraska City two years later.

The exigencies attending the settlement of the territory and the
absorbing interests of the civil war occupied the next decade.
The character of the settlers may be inferred from the fact that,
with only about 5,000 voters, Nebraska gave over 3,000 soldiers
for the defense of the Union and of their home borders, where the
Indians had seized the occasion to break out into active
hostilities. The war over, Nebraska sought to be admitted as a
State, and a constitution was prepared on the old basis of white
male suffrage. Congress admitted Nebraska, but provided that the
act should not take effect until the constitution should be
changed to harmonize with the fourteenth amendment. After some
discussion the condition was accepted, and Nebraska was thus the
first State to recognize in its constitution the sovereignty of
all male persons. So