other day, in which he said, “God grant that there were a thousand Susan B. Anthonys in this city to vote and work for temperance.”  When a Catholic priest says that there is a great moral necessity pressing down upon this nation demanding the enfranchisement of women.  I ask you that you shall not drive us back to beg our rights at the feet of the most ignorant and depraved men of the nation, but that you, the representative men of the nation, will hold the question in the hollow of your hands.  We ask you to lift this question out of the hands of the rabble.

You who are here upon the floor of Congress in both Houses are the picked men of the nation.  You may say what you please about John Morrissey, the gambler, &c.; he was head and shoulders above the rank and file of his constituency.  The world may gabble ever so much about members of Congress being corrupt and being bought and sold; they are as a rule head and shoulders among the great majority who compose their State governments.  There is no doubt about it.  Therefore I ask of you, as representative men, as men who think, as men who study, as men who philosophize, as men who know, that you will not drive us back to the States any more, but that you will carry out this method of procedure which has been practiced from the beginning of the Government; that is, that you will put a prohibitory amendment in the Constitution and submit the proposition to the several State legislatures.  The amendment which has been presented before you reads: 

        ARTICLE XVI.

SECTION 1.  The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizenship, and the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of sex, or for any reason not equally applicable to all citizens of the United States.

        SEC. 2.  Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
        appropriate legislation.

In this way we would get the right of suffrage just as much by what you call the consent of the States, or the States’ rights method, as by any other method.  The only point is that it is a decision by the representative men of the States instead of by the rank and file of the ignorant men of the States.  If you would submit this proposition for a sixteenth amendment, by a two-thirds vote of the two Houses to the several legislatures, and the several legislatures ratify it, that would be just as much by the consent of the States as if Tom, Dick, and Harry voted “yes” or “no.”  Is it not, Senator?  I want to talk to Democrats as well as Republicans, to show that it is a State’s rights method.

    SENATOR EDMUNDS.  Does anybody propose any other, in case it is
    done at all by the nation?

MISS ANTHONY.  Not by the nation, but they are continually driving us back to get it from, the States, State by State.  That is the point I want to make.  We do not want you to drive us back to the States.  We want you men to take the question out of the hands of the rabble of the State.

    THE CHAIRMAN.  May I interrupt you?