At the sixteenth national convention, held in Washington, March, 1884, the State was well represented;[1]Mrs. Hanaford gave an address on "New Jersey as a Leader." In her letter to the convention, Mrs. Hussey wrote:
An old gentleman, Aaron Burr Harrison, a resident of East Orange, has just passed on to his long home, full of years—eighty-eight—and with a good record. He told me about his sister's voting in New jersey, when he was a child—probably about 1807. The last time I took a petition for woman suffrage to him, he signed it willingly, and his daughter also.
February 12, 1884, a special committee of the New Jersey Assembly granted a hearing[2]on the petition of Mrs. Celia B. Whitehead, and 220 other citizens of Bloomfield, asking the restoration of woman's right to vote; fully one-half of the members of the Assembly were present. Mrs. Seagrove handed the committee an ancient printed copy of the original constitution of New Jersey, dated July 2, 1776. The name of James Seagrove, her husband's grandfather, is endorsed upon it in his own hand-writing. In the suffrage clause of this document the words "all inhabitants" were substituted for those of "male freeholders" in the provincial charter. Hence the constitution of 1776 gave suffrage to women and men of color. Mrs. Seagrove made an appeal on behalf of the women of the State. Mr. Blackwell gave a résumé of the unconstitutional action of the legislature in its depriving women of their right to vote. Mrs. Hanaford, in answer to a question of the committee, claimed the right for women not only to vote but to hold office; and instanced from her own observation the need of women as police officers, and especially as matrons in the police stations. The result of these appeals may be seen in a paragraph from the Boston Commonwealth, a paper in hearty sympathy:
In the lower House of the New Jersey legislature a Democratic member recently moved that the word "male" be stricken from the constitution of the State. After some positive discussion a non-partisan vote of 27 to 24 defeated the motion. This occurrence, it is to be observed, is chronicled of one of the most conservative States in the Union. The arguments used on both sides were not new or remarkable. But the vote was very close. If such a measure could in so conservative a State be nearly carried, we can have reasonable hope of its favorable reception, in more radical sections. In New Jersey we did not expect success for the resolution proposed. The favorable votes really surprised us. We do not mistake the omen. Gradually the point of woman's responsibility is being conceded. The arbitrary lines now drawn politically and socially are without reason. Indeed, one of the members of the New Jersey Assembly called attention to the fact that to grant suffrage now would not be the conferring of a new gift on women, but only a restoration of rights exercised in colonial times.
