asked me to look up the point and inform the committee, supposing a constitutional amendment needful. When the point was made on this bill, I for the first time closely examined the constitution, and finding there was nought to prevent the legislature enfranchising anyone, promptly apprised the committee of the discovery. The acting-chairman, Major Wm. D. Brennan, requested me to furnish the committee a legal brief on the matter. This (Feb. 19, 1880) I did, and arranged a public hearing before them in the assembly-chamber, which was attended by Governor Cornell, Lieutenant-Governor Hoskins, many senators, assemblymen, and State officers; at which Mrs. Blake, the sainted Helen M. Slocum and Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon were the speakers. From that year to the present there has been a "Bill to Prohibit Disfranchisement" before each legislature. In 1881, it was carried to a majority vote in the Assembly. In 1883, two-thirds of the Assembly were ready to pass the bill when the attorney-general declared it unconstitutional. In 1884, Governor Cleveland had approved two suffrage acts, and promised to sign all the friends could carry. In 1885, growing tired of the senseless clamor of "unconstitutionality," I resolved to show how little law the clamorers knew. To the knowledge gained by five years' discussion, I added that obtained by several months' research in the State Library at Albany, that of the New York Bar Association, those of the New York Law Institute and Columbia College, and elsewhere. The result was the publication of "Cases of the Legislature's Power over Suffrage," wherein it was shown, condensed from a great number of authorities, that all classes have received suffrage, not from the constitution but from the legislature, and that the latter has exercised the power of extending suffrage in hundreds of cases. This document received high praise from General James W. Husted and Major James Haggerty, who have manfully championed our bills in the Assembly, General Husted reading from it in his speech and it was signally sanctioned by the Assembly which, after being supplied with copies, voted down by more than three to one a motion to substitute a constitutional amendment.
But while working at this document, I was fortunate enough to make a still greater discovery—that portions of statute law which formerly prevented women's voting were repealed long since; that the constitution and statutes in their present shape secure women the legal right to vote.February 19, 1885, a hearing was granted to Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Blake in the assembly-chamber before the Committee on Grievances, on the "Bill to Prohibit Disfranchisement." The splendid auditorium was crowded for two hours, and members of the committee lingered a long time after the audience had dispersed to discuss the whole question still further with the speakers. On the next day Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell and Governor John W. Hoyt of Wyoming Territory had a second hearing. The committee reported for consideration. When the bill came up for a
