At the close of her lecture season in 1879 she was able to spend Christmas and New Year’s at her own home for the first time in many years; but she left on January 2 to fill engagements, reaching Washington on the eve of the National Convention, which assembled at Lincoln Hall, January 21, 1880.  As Mrs. Stanton was absent, Miss Anthony presided over the sessions.  During this meeting, 250 new petitions for a Sixteenth Amendment, signed by over 12,000 women, were sent to Congress, besides over 300 petitions from individual women praying for a removal of their political disabilities.  These were presented by sixty-five different representatives.  Hon. T.W.  Ferry, of Michigan, in the Senate, and Hon. George B. Loring, of Massachusetts, in the House, introduced a resolution for a Sixteenth Amendment.  This with all the petitions was referred to the judiciary committees, each of which granted a hearing of two hours to the ladies.  Among the delegates who addressed them was Julia Smith Parker, of Glastonbury, Conn., at that time over eighty years old, who with her sister Abby annually resisted the payment of taxes because they were denied representation, and whose property was in consequence annually seized and sold.  Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, the mother so beautifully pictured in Ben Hur, addressed a congressional committee for the first time, and among the other speakers were Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Blake, Miss Couzins, Mrs. Emma Mont McRae, of Indiana, and Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, of Louisiana.  It was at this hearing that Senator Edmunds complimented Miss Anthony by saying, “Most speeches on this question are platform oratory; yours is argument.”  Through the influence of Hon. E.G.  Lapham, all these addresses were printed in pamphlet form.

During this convention Miss Anthony was the guest of Mrs. Spofford, whose husband was proprietor of the Riggs House.  The place of hostess, which had been so beautifully filled by Mrs. Sargent, was assumed at once by Mrs. Spofford, a lady of culture and position.  For twelve years a suite of rooms was set apart for Miss Anthony in this commodious hotel whenever she was at the capital, whether for days or for months, and she received every possible courtesy and attention, without price.  Miss Anthony wrote her many times:  “You can not begin to know what a blessing your home is to me, or how grateful I am to you for its comfort and luxury.  You are indeed Mrs. Sargent’s successor in love and hospitality, and my hope is always to deserve them.”

After a brilliant reception at the Riggs House to the delegates, Miss Anthony left for Philadelphia, in company with the venerable Julia Smith Parker, and went to Roadside, the suburban home of Lucretia Mott, “where,” she writes, “it was a wonderful sight to see the two octogenarians talking together, so bright and wide awake to the questions of the present.”  She never again saw Lucretia Mott or heard her sweet voice.

[Illustration HW:  Jane H. Spofford]