as only a few of the clear
thinkers, the far seeing, who realized at the beginning that the
principal cause of women's inferior position and helplessness lay in
their disfranchisement and until they could be made to see it they
were a dead weight on the movement. Men fully understood the power
that the vote would place in the hands of women, with a lessening of
their own, and in the mass they did not intend to concede it.

The pioneers in the movement for the rights of women, of which the
suffrage was only one, contested every inch of ground and little by
little the old prejudice weakened, public sentiment was educated,
barriers were broken down and women pressed forward. At the opening of
the present century, while they had not obtained entire equality of
rights, their status had been completely transformed in most respects
and they were prepared to get what was lacking. None of these gains,
however, had required the permission of the masses of men but only of
selected groups, boards of trustees, committees, legislators. It was
when women found that with all their rights they were at tremendous
disadvantage without political influence and asked for the suffrage
that they learned the difficulty of changing constitutions. They found
that either National or State constitutions had to be amended and in
the latter case the consent of a majority of all men was necessary. In
Volume VI the attempt to obtain the vote through State action is
described in 48 chapters and their reading is recommended to those who
insisted that this was the way women should be enfranchised. Fifty-six
strenuous campaigns were conducted, with their heavy demands on time,
strength and money, and as a result 13 States gave suffrage to women!
Wyoming and Utah entered the Union with it in their constitutions.
Compare this result with the proclamation of the adoption of a Federal
Amendment, which in a moment and a sentence conferred the complete
franchise on the women of all the other States.

The leaders recognized this advantage and the National Suffrage
Association was formed for the express purpose of securing a Federal
Amendment in 1869, as soon as it was learned through the
enfranchisement of negro men that this method was possible. A short
experience with Congress convinced them that there would have to be
some demonstration of woman suffrage in the States before they could
hope for Federal action and therefore they carried on the work along
both