The ablest women this nation has produced have presented the arguments and pleadings. Many of the older advocates have passed away, but new ones have taken their place. It is the unvarying testimony of the Senate and House Committees who have granted these hearings, that no body of men has appeared before them for any purpose whose dignity, logic and acumen have exceeded, if indeed they have equaled, those of the members of this association. They have been heard always with respect, often with cordiality, but their appeals have fallen, if not upon deaf, at least upon indifferent ears. They have asked these committees to report to their respective Houses a resolution to submit this Sixteenth Amendment. Sometimes the majority of the committee has been hostile to woman suffrage and presented an adverse report: sometimes it has been friendly and presented one favorable; sometimes there have been an opposing majority and a friendly minority report, or vice versa; but more often no action whatever has been taken. During these thirty years eleven favorable reports have been made--five from Senate, six from House Committees.[9] In the History of Woman Suffrage, Vols. II and III, will be found a full record of various debates which occurred in Senate and House on different phases of the movement to secure suffrage for women previous to 1884, when the present volume begins. In 1885 Thomas W. Palmer gave his great speech in the United States Senate in advocacy of their enfranchisement; and in 1887 occurred the first and only discussion and vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment for this purpose, both of which are described herein under their respective dates. In the following chapters will be found an account of the annual conventions of the National Suffrage Association since 1883, and of the American until the two societies united in 1890, with many of the resolutions and speeches for which these meetings have been distinguished. They contain also portions of the addresses, covering every phase of this subject, made at the hearings before Congressional Committees, and the arguments advanced for and against woman suffrage in the favorable and adverse reports of these committees, thus presenting both sides of the question. Readers who follow the story will be obliged to acknowledge that the very considerable progress which has been made toward obtaining the franchise is due to the unceasing and long-continued efforts of this association far more than to all other agencies combined; and that the women who compose this body have demonstrated their capacity and their right to a voice in the Government infinitely beyond any class to whom it has been granted since the republic was founded. FOOTNOTES: [3] The part of this record with which Miss Anthony herself was directly connected, and which comprises by far the greater portion of the whole, is given with many personal incidents in her Life and Work. [Husted-Harper.] [4] ARTICLE XIV.