Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/800

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764
History of Woman Suffrage

employ lecturers and agents, and to take any measures the Executive Committee may think fit, to forward the objects of the Association.

ARTICLE III.—ORGANIZATION.

Sec. 1. The officers of this Association shall be a President, eight Vice--Presidents at Large, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Foreign Corresponding Secretary, two Recording Secretaries, and a Treasurer, all of whom shall be ex-officio members of the Executive Committee from each State and Territory, and from the District of Columbia, ag hereinafter provided.

Sec. 2. Every President of an auxiliary State society shall be ex-officio a vice-president of this Association.

Sec. 3. Every chairman of the Executive Committee of an auxiliary State society shall be ex-officio a member of the Executive Committee of this Association.

Sec. 4. In cases where no auxiliary State society exists, a suitable person may be selected by the annual meeting, by the Executive Committee, as Vice-President or member of the Executive Committee, to serve only until the organization of said State Association.

Sec. 5. The Executive Committee may fill all vacancies that may occur prior to the next annual meeting.

Sec. 6. All officers shall be elected annually at any annual meeting of delegates, on the basis of the Congressional representation of the respective States and Territories, except as above provided.

Sec. 7. No distinction on account of sex shall ever be made in the membership or in the selection of officers of this Society; but the general principle shall be that one half of the officers shall, as nearly as convenient, be men, and one half women.

Sec. 8. No money shall be paid by the Treasurer except under such restrictions as the Executive Committee may provide.

Sec. 9. Five members of the Executive Committee, when convened by the Chairman, after fifteen days written notice previously mailed to each of its members, shall constitute a quorum. But no action thus taken shall be final, until such proceedings shall have been ratified in writing by at least fifteen members of the Committee.

Sec. 10. The Chairman shall convene a meeting whenever requested to do so by five members of the Executive Committee.

ARTICLE IV.

This Association shall have a branch office in every State in connection with the office of the auxiliary State Society therein, and shall have a central office at such place as the Executive Committee may determine.

ARTICLE V.

This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting, by a vote of three-fifths of the delegates present therein.

ARTICLE VI.

Any person may become a member of the American Woman Suffrage Association by signing the Constitution and paying the sum of $1 annually, or life members by paying the sum of $10, which membership shall entitle the individual to attend the business meetings of delegates and participate in their deliberations.

ARTICLE VII.

Honorary members may be appointed by the annual meeting or by the Executive Committee, in consideration of services rendered.

The officers of the Association were then appointed:

President—Henry Ward Beecher.

Vice Presidents at Large—T. W. Higginson, Mary A. Livermore, William Lloyd Garrison, Mrs. W. T. Hazard, George W. Curtis, Celia M. Burleigh, George W. Julian, Margaret V. Longley.

Chairman of Executive Committee—Lucy Stone.

Foreign Corresponding Secretary—Julia Ward Howe.