Although the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage had reported several times in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex, and although Thomas W. Palmer, in 1885, had delivered a speech on the question in the Senate, it never had been brought to a discussion and vote.[31] Urged by the members of the National Association, and by his own strong convictions as to the justice of the cause, Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.), on Dec. 8, 1886, called up the following, which he had reported for the majority of the committee on February 2 of that year: JOINT RESOLUTION PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES EXTENDING THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO WOMEN. _Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein)_, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely: SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article. Senator Blair supported this resolution in a long and comprehensive speech, that will be recorded in history as one of the ablest ever made on this subject, in the course of which he said:[32] Upon solemn occasions concerning grave public affairs, and when large numbers of the citizens of the country desire to test the sentiments of the people upon an amendment of the organic law in the manner provided by the provisions of that law, it may well become the duty of Congress to submit the proposition to the amending power, which is the same as that which created the original instrument itself--the electors of the several States. It can hardly be claimed that two-thirds of each branch of Congress must necessarily be convinced that the Constitution should be amended, before it submits the same to the judgment of the States. If there be any principle upon which our form of government is founded, and wherein it is different from aristocracies, monarchies and despotisms, that principle is this: Every human being of mature powers, not disqualified by ignorance, vice or crime, is the equal of and is entitled to all the rights and privileges which belong to any other human being under the law.