volume 1, chapter 2.

"The hereditary succession was never abandoned. A recommendation to that effect was indeed made to the several State Societies, at the first General Meeting in Philadelphia. ... But the proposition, unwillingly urged, was accepted in deprecatory terms by some, and by others it was totally rejected. ... At the second General Meeting, it was resolved 'that the alterations could not take effect until they had been agreed to by all the State Societies.' They never were so agreed to, and consequently the original Institution remains in full force. Those Societies that accepted the proposed alterations unconditionally, of course perished with their own generation."

_A. Johnston, Some Accounts of the Society of the Cincinnati (Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs,