[26] This chapter closes with the speech in favor of woman suffrage by Thomas W. Palmer in the U. S. Senate.
[27] The primal object of the National Woman Suffrage Association has been from its foundation to secure the submission by the Congress of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex. To this end all State societies should see that senators and members of Congress are constantly appealed to by their constituents to labor for the passage of this amendment by the next Congress.
Woman suffrage associations in the several States are advised to push the question to a vote in their respective Legislatures. The time for agitation alone has passed, and the time for aggressive action has come. It will be found by a close examination of many State constitutions that by the liberal provisions of their Bill of Rights—often embodied in Article I—the women of the State can be enfranchised without waiting for the tedious and hopeless proviso of a constitutional amendment....
In States where there has been little or no agitation we recommend the passage of laws granting School Suffrage to women. This first step in politics is an incentive to larger usefulness and aids greatly in familiarizing women with the use of the ballot.
We do not specially recommend Municipal Suffrage, as we think that the agitation expended for the fractional measure had better be directed towards obtaining the passage of a Full Suffrage Bill, but we leave this to the discretion of the States.
The acting Vice-President in every State must hold a yearly convention in the capital or some large town. No efficient organization can exist without some such annual reunion of the friends.
In each county there should be a county woman suffrage society auxiliary to the State; in each town or village a local society auxiliary to the county. Friends desirous of forming a society should meet, even though few in number, and organize.