The Ladies Plead Their Cause at the Capitol.

Washington, January 22, 1870.

At a proper fashionable hour this morning the women delegates began slowly to gather in the moderately sized room occupied by the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. Last of all came the most prominent delegates. Mrs. Stanton went to a side table and laid down her dainty little bonnet and shook out her curls. Then she took her seat at the head of the table. Susan B. stood next, then Mrs. Beecher Hooker, Pauline Davis, Josephine Griffing, Phoebe Couzins and Mrs. Wright. The usual buzz of conversation was carried on whisperingly, for the dignity of the Senate chamber extended to that floor. The small audience was of the most exclusive and aristocratic kind. The factory girl had been sent off North early in the morning, lest her roar should alarm the Congressional doves. In the awful stillness might have been seen wall flowers, to whose fragrance a whole nation can testify. Grace Greenwood was there, in a lovely winter costume; but there is no time to describe the attractive beauties of the scene.

After a little Senators Hamlin, Patterson, Pratt, and other gentlemen connected with the committee came in, and a general introduction and handshaking took place. The committee of the Senate were arranged on one side of the long table, and the House committee on the other, whilst the head of it was left for each woman who should make her speech. The solemn occasion was opened, as usual, by Mrs. Stanton.

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. Laws have been changing at woman’s instigation for the last thirty years, which proves that woman knows what is good for her. We are obliged to build sidewalks and other improvements and have we not a right to say how our money shall be expended? You have seen dogs in the street quarreling over a bone; if you throw them two bones the quarrel is over. The “drunken scene” was left out, like everything else which in a way could have a personal application.

After some more talk Mrs. Stanton sat down, and Susan B.—bless her heart!—faced the Congressional guns. The great pumping power which this woman carries in her brain had lifted the blood into her cheeks, and her eyes blazed with the fire of early day. Lilac kid gloves covered her kind, strong hands and it was astonishing to us all to see how much she looked like a woman. She put her hands behind her as if it was best to have them in a safe place, and commenced by telling the gentlemen that they had it in their power to strike the word “male” out of the Constitution. (Susan has a way of saying the word “male” so that it sounds like the snapping of small arms.) In the District the experiment was tried of giving colored men their rights, and it seems as if this is a fitting place for the inauguration of a grander experiment—that of doing for the woman what you did for the negro. It is only a long custom which you hate to break.

Mrs. Stanton now prompted Susan to speak of Kansas. She then told the story of the schoolhouse, and it was ascertained that the reason why the women had to rise at 11 o’clock at night to vote was because the men had determined to settle the question that day. The men wrangled and could not come to a conclusion, so the women were called as the last feather to break the camel’s back.

A little time before Senator Sumner had come in and taken a seat at the foot of the table. Susan now asked the Senator a question, and forgot and called him “Mr. Sumner,” just as if he was like other men. But she was called to order by Mrs. Stanton, and made haste to repair the wrong by begging his pardon and saying “Senator” with a snap to it. She asked the Senator how it worked in Massachusetts by having women vote on the school question. The Senator said it worked well. As there seemed no chance for an argument, she paused for fresh inspiration, but she was interrupted by Phoebe Couzins, and prompted to say something she had already said.

Whilst they were parleying, Mrs. Pauline Davis took the floor and said a few words in a voice too low to be heard except by those at the table. Before Miss Anthony sat down, Mrs. Beecher Hooker touched her by the arm and begged her not to be too severe. Susan said she did not mean to be severe.

Mrs. Hooker then took her seat at the head of the table, as her modesty would not let her stand up before this august tribunal. Mrs. Hooker leaned over the table and made the daintiest kind of a picture. Senator Hamlin straightened himself up and pulled down his vest. Senator Pratt opened his sleepy eyes to the widest extent, and Senator Sumner gave his undivided attention. Mrs. Hooker said that woman looked to the Government for her rights. “I assure you, Christ uses the word thou shalt do this, and thou shalt do that, which means to apply to women quite as much as to men. The Bible says, ‘Honor thy father and mother, and thy days shall be long in the land.’ How can a son honor his mother when he chooses to use his young thoughts to legislate for her whilst he is so much younger than she is. It cannot be right.” She did not believe so much in woman’s rights as woman’s duty. At this moment her voice stole away from her like the dying notes of a swan, and she removed to another seat, her white forehead bedewed with perspiration.

Madame Anneke was now introduced, and commenced by saying: “Honorary Sirs: Perhaps you will be kind enough to listen to my poor talk. I come delegate from Wisconsin; from oder places too. You have lifted up the slaves, shentlemen, you hear t’ousand and t’ousand voices. In Europe you hear the cry, help us, gentlemens, and den we help ourselves.” After some more such logic, Madame Anneke ponderously withdrew.

Senator Patterson now modestly proposed a question: Suppose a difference of opinion should arise in the family, what will prevent the mischief of discord?

Mrs. Stanton, who had the cunning answer already to spring upon him, said there is already discord there. “I do not think this can make any more. There is always the superior mind in every family. If it belongs to the man, he decides it; if to the woman, she does the same. The smallest men are most tenacious of their rights.” Senator Patterson, seemingly afraid to be classed in this category, closed his lips.

Judge Cook now asked, “What evidence have you that the great body of women in the country want to vote?”

Mrs. Stanton replied that in New York, where she had scattered tracts and otherwise labored, she had been rewarded with petitions signed by 20,000 women.

Judge Welker then asked, “How large a number want to vote in the District of Columbia?”

Mrs. Stanton said they had just closed a convention attended by fifteen hundred persons who were enthusiastic on the subject.

Mrs. Davis then said: “People are tired of asking for this thing and that thing. It is time that legislators knew their business without being petitioned.”

Miss Anthony then reiterated the glories of the late convention, and went off into one of those spasmodic efforts practically impossible to any one but Susan.

Mrs. Beecher again cautioned her, and told her not to forget the place where she was. This brought Susan to terra firma.

Mrs. Gage then said she held a petition in her hand, signed by 3,000 people, but no one seemed inclined to take it away from her, and she quietly sat down.

The Honorable Hannibal Hamlin then arose to correct Mrs. Stanton in what she had said about changing the laws for the District of Columbia; that no such bill was before the committee to which Mrs. Stanton had alluded. There was a bill, but it was unlike the one reported in the newspapers. The District of Columbia was governed by laws made a hundred years ago, and the age had outgrown them. He believed they should be modified, and he advocated the change to be made by the citizens, subject to the will of Congress. He only spoke for himself and not for his associates.

Judge Cook, of Illinois, chairman of the committee of the House, said that Congress was no place to bring up such a great question. There is too much to do here already. We have no time—absolutely no time—for the consideration of the subject. At the same time he seemed to be looking about for a hole to escape.

Mrs. Hooker said that time should be made for such a subject.

Mrs. Stanton said, “Present the sixteenth amendment.”

Honorable Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, chairman of the Senate Committee, said, “We will take this question into consideration. When Saul went up into Damascus he said unto Paul, ‘I am almost persuaded to become a Christian.’” The reporters’ table was illuminated by smiles, and one man was malicious enough to say a little Scripture reading would do the Senator good, for he meant Agrippa instead of Saul. Another answered that the Senator was figuratively speaking, and he might as well use one name as another.

The council was broken by the Congressional lions going stealthily away, but before they all had a chance to get out, Susan buttonholed two or three. “Sixteenth amendment” was distilled from her lips like honey from flowers. Senator Sumner came around genial as a summer’s sun, yet it was noticed that during the whole ordeal he never opened his lips, but endured all with the resignation of martyrdom. And thus the meeting of the Amazon warriors passed away.

Olivia.