tion was adopted, and provision made that hereafter only regularly accredited delegates should be entitled to vote.
The resolution calling upon Congress to take the necessary measures to secure the ballot for women through an amendment to the Federal Constitution, was vigorously opposed by the Southern delegates as contrary to States' Rights, but was finally adopted. There was some discussion also on the resolution which condemned the disfranchising of Gentile as well as Mormon women, but which approved the action of Congress in making disfranchisement a punishment for the crime of polygamy. A difference of opinion was shown in regard to the latter clause. This closed the convention.
As a favorable Senate report was pending, no hearing was held before that committee.
The House Judiciary Committee[1] granted a hearing on the morning of February 20. The speakers, as usual, were introduced to the chairman of the committee by Miss Anthony. The first of these, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, had attempted to vote in St. Louis, been refused permission, carried her case to the Supreme Court and received an adverse decision.[2] Miss Anthony said in reference to this decision: "Chief Justice Waite declared the United States had no voters. The Dred Scott Decision was that the negro, not being a voter, was not a citizen. The Supreme Court decided that women, although citizens, were not protected in the rights of citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment." Mrs. Minor said in part:
- ↑ "John Randolph Tucker, Va.; Nathaniel J. Hammond, Ga.; David B. Culberson, Tex.; Patrick A. Collins, Mass.; George E. Seney, O.; William C. Oates, Ala.; John H. Rogers, Ark.; John R. Eden, Ill.; Risden T. Bennett, N. C.; Ezra B. Taylor, O; Abraham X. Parker, N. Y.; Ambrose A. Ranney, Mass.; William P. Hepburn, Ia.; John W. Stewart, Vt.; Lucien B. Caswell, Wis.
- ↑ See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 715.