NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1913
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adopted were two of prime importance: 1. That in order that the convention may give its support to the Federal Amendment before Congress, it shall instruct the affiliated organizations to carry on as active a campaign as possible in their respective States and to see that all candidates for Congress be pledged to woman suffrage before the next election. 2. That the convention endorse the Suffrage School as a method of work and the National Association offer to organize and send out a traveling school when requested by six or more States, provided they agree to share the expense. To the Official Board was referred the question of appointing a committee to devise and put into operation a scheme for establishing more definite connection between the enfranchised women of the States and the National Association.
After all the years of patient effort to persuade Legislatures to grant Presidential suffrage to women under the inspiration of Henry B. Blackwell, chairman of the committee, his successor, Miss Elizabeth Upham Yates, could announce the first success and she emphasized the important bearing which this and others would have on securing a Federal Amendment. Her report said:
The extraordinary victory in Illinois has emphasized the fact, not duly apprehended hitherto, that State Legislatures have power to grant Presidential suffrage to women. No man derives his right to vote for presidential electors from the constitution of his State but the U. S. Constitution delegates the power and duty to qualify citizens to vote for them to the Legislatures, in the first section of Article II, in these words: "Each State shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress." Probably U. S. Senator George F. Hoar was the first to discover that this power given to Legislatures involved the possibility of the enfranchisement of women for presidential electors.
The conspicuous position that women suddenly attained in American politics in 1912 was due to the fact that in six States women were able to determine the choice of thirty-seven presidential electors. The large interests involved in a presidential administration, among which are 300,000 offices of honor and emolument, cause keen political concern from the fact that women voters may hold the balance of power in a close election. The whole number of electoral votes in the nine States where women now have full suffrage is fifty-four. These were attained by campaigns for constitutional amendments that involved vast outlay of time and treasure. Simply by act of Legislature, Illinois has added twenty-nine to the list, an increase
