I have proposed taking the Washington convention into my own hands, expenses and all; arranging program, and presiding or securing help in that direction, if I should need it.  I shall hope to get Robert Collyer, and a good many who might not care to speak for “the Union” but would speak for me.  I should want from you a pure suffrage argument, much like that you made before the committee at Washington last winter.  I know you are tired of this branch, but you are fitted to do a great work still in that direction....  Won’t you promise to come to my convention, without charge save travelling expenses, provided I have one?  I am waiting to hear from Susan, Mrs. Pomeroy and you, and then shall get Tilton’s approval and the withdrawal of the society from the work, if they have undertaken it, and go ahead.

Mrs. Stanton consented gladly and wrote the other friends to do likewise, saying:  “I should like to have Susan for president, as she has worked and toiled as no other woman has, but if we think best not to blow her horn, then let us exalt Mrs. Hooker, who thinks she could manage the cause more discreetly, more genteelly than we do.  I am ready to rest and see the salvation of the Lord.”  On their rounds the letters came to Martha Wright, the gentle Quaker, who commented with the fine irony of which she was master:  “It strikes me favorably.  It would be a fine thing for Mrs. Hooker to preside over the Washington convention, while her sister, Catharine Beecher, was inveighing against suffrage, for the benefit of Mrs. Dahlgren and others.  Perhaps she is right in thinking that Robert Collyer and a good many others who would not care to speak for ‘the Union,’ would speak for her—­I for one would be glad to have her try it!  If ‘Captain Susan’ would consent to be placed at the head of the association, there could not be a more suitable and just appointment.”

Mrs. Stanton wrote that her lecture engagements would not permit her to go to Washington and she would send $100 instead.  Mrs. Hooker replied: 

Your offer just suits me, and of myself I should accept $100 with thankfulness, and excuse you, as you desire, but Susan looked disgusted and said, “She must appear before the Congressional committees, at any rate.”  I had not thought of that, but of course, if you were in Washington, it would be absurd not to be on our platform; and so I don’t know what to say.  You will talk more forcibly than any one else, and in committee you are invaluable.  Still, I want your money, and I could do without you on the platform....  I fully expect, to accomplish far more by a convention devoted to the purely political aspect of the woman question, than by a woman’s rights convention, however well-managed; and this, because the time has come for this practical work—­discussion has prepared the way, now we must have the thing, the vote itself.  It just occurs to me that you might write an argument for the committee,