At each recurring anniversary the conviction had been growing that the term “equal rights” was too comprehensive, permitting entirely too much latitude as to speakers and subjects.  Ever themselves having been repressed and silenced, when at last women made a platform on which they had a right to stand, they declared first of all for “free speech.”  They would not refuse to any human being what so long had been denied to them and, as a result, fanatics, visionaries and advocates of all reforms flocked to this platform, delighted to find such audiences.  According to the tenets of the association, all speakers must have equal rights on their platform and there was no escape.  Sometimes it was nothing more harmful than a man with a map to explain how the national debt could be paid without money, or a woman with a system of celestial kites by which she proposed to communicate with the other world.  Occasionally the advocates of various political theories would secure possession, consuming the time and diverting attention from the main issue.  At the convention just closed, the hobby-riders were present in greater force than ever before and it seemed imperative that some means should be adopted to shut them out thereafter.  It was proposed to change the name to Woman Suffrage Association, which would bar all discussion of a miscellaneous character.  There was a strong objection to this, however, because such action required three months’ notice.

At the close of the convention a reception was held at the Woman’s Bureau, Saturday evening, May 15, 1869, and attended by women from nineteen States who had come as representatives to the Equal Rights Association.[50] At their earnest request, it was decided to form a new organization to be called the National Woman Suffrage Association, whose especial object should be a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, securing the ballot to the women of the nation on equal terms with men.  A convention of officially appointed delegates was at that time impracticable, as there were but few local suffrage societies and still fewer State organizations.  It was thought that although it might not be formed by delegates elected for this specific object, it would be sufficient for working purposes until the next spring when, the required three months’ notice having been given, a permanent organization might be effected.  Accordingly, a constitution was adopted and officers elected.[51] The following week at Cooper Institute Anna Dickinson made her great speech for the rights of women, entitled “Nothing Unreasonable,” to inaugurate the new National Woman Suffrage Association, and before an immense audience she pleaded for woman with the same beauty and eloquence as in days past she had pictured the wrongs of the slave and urged his emancipation.