ton January
16, 1882, to attend the Fourteenth Annual Convention. The effort to
secure a special committee on woman suffrage which had failed in the
Forty-sixth Congress was successful in the Forty-seventh, through the
championship of Senators Hoar and John A. Logan, Representatives John D.
White, of Kentucky, Thomas B. Reed and others. There was bitter
opposition by Senator Vest, of Missouri, who declared it to be "a step
toward the recognition of woman suffrage, which has nothing in it but
mischief to the institutions and to the society of the whole country."
In his zeal he dropped into poetry, saying,

"A woman's noblest station is retreat,
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight,"

and so, of course, she had no need of a special committee. It was
vigorously opposed also by Senator Beck, of Kentucky, who said "the
colored women's votes could be bought for fifty cents apiece;" and by
Senator Morgan, of Alabama, who made a stump speech on "dissevered
homes, disbanded families, pot-house politicians seated at the fireside
with another man's wife, women fighting their way to the polls through
crowds of negroes and ruffians," etc.[6] It was carried in the Senate by
a vote of 35 to 23; in the House, a month later, by a vote of 115 to 84.
Miss Anthony says of this in her diary: "If the best of worldly good had
come to me personally, I could not feel more joyous and blest."

In addition to the usual distinguished array of speakers were Rev.
Frederick Hinckley, Representative G. S. Orth, of Indiana, Senator
Saunders, of Nebraska, Clara B. Colby, Harriette R. Shattuck and Helen
M. Gougar, all new on the National platform. The Senate committee on
woman suffrage just appointed, granted a hearing January 20, and at its
close expressed a desire to hear other speakers among the ladies on the
following day. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton presented each of the
members of the committee with the first volume of the History of Woman
Suffrage.

The convention closed with the usual handsome reception at the Riggs
House and immediately afterwards most of the speakers went to
Philadelphia, where Rachel Foster had arranged for another
convention.[7] This was held at St. George's Hall, January 23, 24, 25,
welcomed by Rev. Charles G. Ames, and was highly successful. A pleasant
feature of this occasion was a luncheon given by that revered Quaker and
temperance worker, Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, of Germantown, to twelve
of the prom