ls addressed to the convention from all parts of the country
from women who desired to vote, that the whole time of each session
could have been spent in reading them--one day's mail alone
bringing letters and postals from twenty-three States and three
territories. Some of these letters contained hundreds of names,
others represented town, county, and State societies. Many were
addressed to the different nominating conventions, Republican,
Greenback, Democratic, while the reasons given for desiring to
vote, ranged from the simple demand, through all the scale of
reasons connected with good government and morality. So highly
important a contribution to history did the Chicago Historical
Society[62] deem these expressions of woman's desire to vote, that
it made a formal request to be put in possession of _all_ letters
and postals, with a promise that they should be carefully guarded
in a fire-proof safe.

After the eloquent speeches[63] of the closing session, Miss Alice
S. Mitchell sang Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic,"
Mrs. Harbert playing the accompaniment, and the immense audience of
3,000 people joining in the chorus. This convention held three
sessions each day, and at all except the last an admission fee was
charged, and yet the hall was densely crowded throughout. For
enthusiasm, nothing ever surpassed these meetings in the history of
the suffrage movement. A platform and resolution were adopted as
the voice of the convention.

The special object of the National Woman Suffrage Association is
to secure national protection for women in the exercise of their
right of suffrage. It recognizes the fact that our government was
formed on the political basis of the consent of the governed, and
that the Declaration of Independence struck a blow at every
existing form by declaring the individual to be the source of all
power. The members of this association, outside of our great
question, have diverse political affiliations, but for the
purpose of gaining this great right to the ballot, its members
hold their party predilections in abeyance; therefore,

_Resolved_, That in this year of presidential nominations and
political campaigns, we announce our determination to support no
party by whatever name called, unless such party shall, in its
platform, first emphatically endorse our demand for a recognition
of the exact and permanent p