I don't know that I can exactly explain how it happened, for what the men call “parliamentary tactics” always made me fidgetty. But the “previous question” turned up (as it always seemed to me to do, at the wrong time), and cut her off before she had spoken ten words. “Mr. Speaker!” she protested; “there is no question, previous to this, which needs the consideration of the house! This is first in importance, and demands your immediate--” “Order! order!” came from all parts of the house. “I am in order--the right is always in order!” she exclaimed, getting more and more excited. “We women are not going to be contented with the mere show of our rights on this floor; we demand the substance--” And so she was going on, when there arose the most fearful tumult. The upshot of it was, that the speaker ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Mrs. Whiston; one of the members, more considerate, walked across the floor to her, and tried to explain in what manner she was violating the rules; and in another minute she sat down, so white, rigid and silent that it made me shake in my shoes to look at her. “I have made a great blunder,” she said to me, that evening; “and it may set us back a little; but I shall recover my ground.” Which she did, I assure you. She cultivated the acquaintance of the leaders of both parties, studied their tactics, and quietly waited for a good opportunity to bring in her bill. At first, we thought it would pass; but one of the male members presently came out with a speech, which dashed our hopes to nothing. He simply took the ground that there must be absolute equality in citizenship; that every privilege was balanced by a duty, every trust accompanied with its responsibility. He had no objection to women possessing equal rights with men--but to give them all civil rights and exempt them from the most important obligation of service, would be, he said, to create a privileged class--a female aristocracy. It was contrary to the spirit of our institutions. The women had complained of taxation without representation; did they now claim the latter without the former? The people never look more than half-way into a subject, and so this speech was immensely popular. I will not give Mrs. Whiston's admirable reply; for Mr. Spelter informs me that you will not accept an article, if it should make more than seventy or eighty printed pages. It is enough that our bill was “killed,” as the men say (a brutal word); and the women of the State laid the blame of the failure upon us. You may imagine that we suffered under this injustice; but worse was to come.