form the duties of the afore-designated clerks and
employes, and shall receive the compensation therefor
prescribed by law.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That this act shall not
be so construed as to require the displacement of any person
now employed, but shall apply to all vacancies hereafter
occurring, for any cause.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That all acts and parts
of acts, in conflict with any of the provisions of this act
be, and the same are hereby, expressly repealed.

Thousands of petitions for this bill were circulated. Mrs.
Lockwood went to New York, and secured seven hundred signatures,
visiting both of the suffrage conventions then in session in that
city, the National and the American. The bill was shortly
afterward passed in a modified form, and has ever since been in
force in all of the government departments.

In February, 1871, congress passed the organic act for the
district, making of it a territory and granting suffrage to the
male members of the commonwealth. There was also granted under
this bill a right to a delegate in congress. In the meetings
which followed for the nomination of delegates a number of women
took part. Mrs. Lockwood often broke the monotony with a short
speech, and on one occasion only lacked one vote of an election
to the general convention for the nomination of a delegate to
congress.

The women of the district were not permitted to vote under the
organic act, but soon after the organization of its legislature,
bills to provide for this were introduced into both Houses. Mrs.
Lockwood prepared an exhaustive address upon these pending bills,
and was granted a hearing before both Houses of the legislature,
but they were finally lost. In 1875 congress withdrew the
legislative power from the people of the District of Columbia.

It was also in 1871 that the National University Law School, then
principally under the control of Prof. Wm. B. Wedgewood,
organized a law class for women, in which fifteen matriculated.
Mrs. Lockwood had been denied admission the previous year to the
law class of Columbia College for the reason, as given by the
trustees, "that it would distract the attention of the young
men." About this time a young col