The convention opened in Metzerott's Music Hall, February 18, 1890, continuing four days. The feature of this occasion which will distinguish it in history was the formal union of the National and the American Associations under the joint name. For the past twenty-one years two distinctive societies had been in existence, both national as to scope but differing as to methods. Negotiations had been in progress for several years toward a uniting of the forces and, the preliminaries having been satisfactorily arranged by committees from the two bodies,[78] the officers and members of both participated in this national convention of 1890. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the newly-elected president of the united societies, faced a brilliant assemblage of men and women as she arose to make the opening address. Having declared that in going to England as president of the National-American Association she felt more honored than if sent as minister plenipotentiary of the United States, she spoke to a set of resolutions which she presented to the convention.[79] After reviewing the history of the movement for the rights of woman and naming some of its brilliant leaders she said: For fifty years we have been plaintiffs in the courts of justice, but as the bench, the bar and the jury are all men, we are nonsuited every time. Some men tell us we must be patient and persuasive; that we must be womanly. My friends, what is man's idea of womanliness? It is to have a manner which pleases him--quiet, deferential, submissive, approaching him as a subject does a master. He wants no self-assertion on our part, no defiance, no vehement arraignment of him as a robber and a criminal. While the grand motto, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," has echoed and re-echoed around the globe, electrifying the lovers of liberty in every latitude and making crowned heads tremble on their thrones; while every right achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force; while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on women--shall men still tell us to be patient, persuasive, womanly?