Senator Hamlin, who sat at the head of the Senate committee, and consequently at the speaker’s right hand, turned his ear in a calm and patient attitude, with a suppressed merry twinkling of the eye altogether incompatible with the hour. Senator Pratt, of Indiana, laid his head on the back of his chair, rolled his eyes heavenward, and looked as if he felt his genuine modesty more than ever. Mr. Rice, of Arkansas, sat holding his chin, apparently fearful that unless taken just the right kind of care of it might drop down, leaving the floor open with all sorts of consequences. Judge Cook, of Illinois, folded his hands over his breast, seemingly as resigned as if for the last time, whilst Judge Welker, of Ohio, looked just as if he wanted to say “boo to a goose.” Just before Mrs. Stanton began Senator Hamlin read two petitions--the first signed by some of the women of the District, praying that suffrage be extended to them, and another from Massachusetts, of the same purport. After he had finished he calmly sat down, and told the women he was prepared, with the other gentlemen, to hear what they had to say. Mrs. Stanton came to time as usual, and began the story which all thoughtful persons have by heart who have heard her three times. She read it, however, and one sitting by her side could see slips of paper cut from newspapers pasted between portions of the manuscript, and it was said these slips were taken from the time of the Revolution. The essay began about eternal principles. That it was best to do right, and leave the rest to God. That Congress should legislate for equality. The Republican party had put the word “male” into the Federal Constitution. The States had the right to regulate, but not to prohibit suffrage. It is despotism of the most odious kind to prevent woman from the exercise of those powers which God has given her. She said there was a proposition before Congress to change the whole code of laws which govern the District of Columbia; and when this was done the only way to regenerate and purify the spot was to remove disabilities, and let all vote--male and female, black and white. She wanted this mooted question of suffrage ended. She went over the ground of the late war, and said that woman had not been a disinterested observer for the last hundred years; that she came over in the Mayflower, side by side with man in the old Revolution; and can woman now stand silent and see the selling of her birthright of liberty? The emancipated serfs of Russia were clamoring for more liberty, and they would get it, too. Do you intend to stand by these old landmarks, instead of advancing with a newer civilization? Mrs. Stanton then proposed for the committee to ask any questions which they might think proper to do. An ominous silence followed. Mrs. Stanton then said she did not choose to be represented by John Morrissey and two men in the New York legislature who could neither read nor write.