CHAPTER XXII.
NATIONAL CONVENTIONS—1869.
First Convention in Washington—First hearing before Congress—Delegates Invited from Every State—Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas—Debate between Colored Men and Women —Grace Greenwood's Graphic Description—What the Members of the Convention Saw and Heard in Washington—Robert Purvis—A Western Trip—Conventions in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Springfield and Madison—Editorial Correspondence in The Revolution—Anniversaries in New York and Brooklyn—Conventions in Newport and Saratoga.
In the Autumn of 1868 a call[1] was issued for the first Woman Suffrage Convention ever held in Washington. It was a period of intense excitement, as many important measures of reconstruction were under consideration. The XIV Amendment was ratified, the XV was still pending, and several bills were before Congress on the suffrage question. Petitions and protests against all amendments to the Constitution regulating suffrage on the basis of sex were being sent in by thousands in charge of the Washington Association, of which Josephine S. Griffing was President. A large number of persons from every part of the Union were crowding into the Capital. Many Southerners being present to whom the demand for woman suffrage was new, the arguments were listened to with interest, while the tracts and documents were eagerly purchased and distributed among their friends at home. All these things combined to make this Convention most enthusiastic and influential, not only in its immediate effect on those present, but from the highly complimentary reports of the press scattered over the nation. We find a brief summing up of the Convention in letters to The Revolution.
Editorial Correspondence.
Washington, January 22, 1869.
Dear Revolution: The first National Woman's Suffrage Convention ever held in Washington, closed on Wednesday night. There were repre-
- ↑ A National Woman's Suffrage Convention will be held in Carroll Hall, Washington, D. C., on the 19th and 20th of January, 1869. All associations friendly to Woman's Rights are invited to send delegates from every State. Friends of the cause are Invited to attend and take part in the discussions. Committee of Arrangements.—Josephine S. Grifflng, William Hutchinson, Lydia S. Hall, John H. Crane, Mary T. Corner, George F. Needham, James K. Wilcox.
