"The slumber is broken, the sleeper is risen, The day of the Goth and the Vandal is o'er. And old Earth feels the tread of Freedom once more."

Fail not, Women of the Empire State, to swell our Petitions. Let no religious scruples hold you back. Take no heed to man's interpretation of Paul's injunctions to women. To any thinking mind, there is no difficulty in explaining those passages of the Apostle as applicable to the times in which they were written, as having no reference whatever to the Women of the nineteenth century.

"Honor the King," heroes of '76! Those leaden tea-chests of Boston Harbor cry out, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." When the men of 1854, with their Priests and Rabbis, shall rebuke the disobedience of their forefathers—when they shall cease to set at defiance the British lion and the Apostle Paul in their National Policy, then it will be time enough for us to bow down to man's interpretation of law touching our social relations, and acknowledge that God gave us powers and rights, merely that we might show forth our faith in Him by being helpless and dumb.

The writings of Paul, like our State Constitutions, are susceptible of various interpretations. But when the human soul is roused with holy indignation against injustice and oppression, it stops not to translate human parchments, but follows out the law of its inner being, written by the finger of God in the first hour of its creation.

Our Petitions will be sent to every county in the State, and we hope that they will find at least ten righteous Women to circulate them. But should there be any county so benighted that a petition can not be circulated throughout its length and breadth, giving to every man and woman an opportunity to sign their names, then we pray, not that "God will send down fire and brimstone" upon it, but that the "Napoleon" of this movement will flood it with Woman's Rights Tracts and Missionaries.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, Chairman N. Y. State Woman's Rights Committee.

SENECA FALLS, Dec. 11, 1854.

N. B.—All orders for forms of Petitions and Woman's Rights Tracts, and all communications relating to the movement in this State, should be addressed to our General Agent, Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y. Let the Petitions be returned, as soon as possible, to Lydia Mott, Albany, N. Y., as we wish to present them early in the session, and thereby give our Legislature due time for the consideration of this important question.

NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, COOPER INSTITUTE, 1856.

LETTER FROM MRS. STANTON.

SENECA FALLS, November 24, 1856.

DEAR LUCY STONE:—We may continue to hold our Conventions, we may talk of our right to vote, to legislate, to hold property, but until we can arouse in woman a proper self-respect, she will hold in contempt the demands we now make for our sex. We shall never get what we ask for until the majority of women are openly with us; and they will never claim their civil rights until they know their social wrongs. From time to time I put these questions to myself: How is it that woman can longer silently consent to her present false position? How can she calmly contemplate the barbarous code of laws which govern her civil and political existence? How can she devoutly subscribe to a theology which makes her the conscientious victim of another's will, forever subject to the triple bondage of the man, the priest, and the law? How can she tolerate our social customs, by which womankind is stripped of all true virtue, dignity, and nobility? How can she endure our present marriage relations, by which woman's life, health, and happiness are held so cheap, that she herself feels that God has given her no charter of rights, no individuality of her own. I answer, she patiently bears all this because in her blindness she sees no way of escape. Her bondage, though it differs from that of the negro slave, frets and chafes her just the same. She too sighs and groans in her chains; and lives but in the hope of better things to come. She looks to heaven; whilst the more philosophical slave sets out for Canada. Let it be the object of this Convention to show that there is hope for woman this side of heaven, and that there is a work for her to do before she leaves for the celestial city.

Marriage is a divine institution, intended by God for the greater freedom and happiness of both parties—whatever therefore conflicts with woman's happiness is not legitimate to that relation. Woman has yet to learn that she has a right to be happy in and of herself; that she has a right to the free use, improvement, and development of all her faculties, for her own benefit and pleasure. The woman is greater than the wife or the mother; and in consenting to take upon herself these relations, she should never sacrifice one iota of her individuality to any senseless conventionalisms, or false codes of feminine delicacy and refinement.

Marriage, as we now have it, is opposed to all God's laws. It is by no means an equal partnership. The silent partner loses everything. On the domestic sign, the existence of a second person is not recognized by even the ordinary abbreviation, Co. There is the establishment of John Jones. Perhaps his partner supplies all the cents and the senses—but no one knows who she is or whence she came. If John is a luminous body, she shines in his reflection; if not, she hides herself in his shadow. But she is nameless, for a woman has no name! She is Mrs. John or James, Peter or Paul, just as she changes masters; like the Southern slave, she takes the name of her owner. Many people consider this a very small matter; but it is the symbol of the most cursed monopoly on this footstool; a monopoly by man of all the rights, the life, the liberty, and happiness of one-half of the human family—all womankind. For what man can honestly deny that he has not a secret feeling that where his pleasure and woman's seems to conflict, the woman must be sacrificed; and what is worse, woman herself has come to think so too. She believes that all she tastes of joy in life is from the generosity and benevolence of man; and the bitter cup of sorrow, which she too often drinks to the very dregs, is of the good providence of God, sent by a kind hand for her improvement and development. This sentiment pervades the laws, customs, and religions of all countries, both Christian and heathen. Is it any wonder, then, that woman regards herself as a mere machine, a tool for men's pleasure? Verily is she a hopeless victim of his morbidly developed passions. But, thank God, she suffers not alone! Man too pays the penalty of his crimes in his enfeebled mind, dwarfed body, and the shocking monstrosities of his deformed and crippled offspring.

Call yourselves Christian women, you who sacrifice all that is great and good for an ignoble peace, who betray the best interests of the race for a temporary ease? It were nobler far to go and throw yourselves into the Ganges than to curse the earth with a miserable progeny, conceived in disgust and brought forth in agony. What mean these asylums all over the land for the deaf and dumb, the maim and blind, the idiot and the raving maniac? What all these advertisements in our public prints, these family guides, these female medicines, these Madame Restells? Do not all these things show to what a depth of degradation the women of this Republic have fallen, how false they have been to the holy instincts of their nature, to the sacred trust given them by God as the mothers of the race? Let Christians and moralists pause in their efforts at reform, and let some scholar teach them how to apply the laws of science to human life. Let us but use as much care and forethought in producing the highest order of intelligence, as we do in raising a cabbage or a calf, and in a few generations we shall reap an abundant harvest of giants, scholars, and Christians.

The first step in this improvement is the elevation of woman. She is the protector of national virtue; the rightful lawgiver in all our most sacred relations.

Yours truly, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

LETTER FROM N. H. WHITING.

MARSHFIELD, MASS., September 29, 1856.

DEAR FRIEND:—I do not see that I can do much to aid you in your effort for self-emancipation from the injustice your sex encounters in the present social and political arrangements of the world. You know the old maxim, "The gods help them who help themselves." This is true of all times and circumstances. The two inevitable conditions that are found in, and are essential to all bondage, are the spirit of oppression, the desire to exercise unlawful dominion on the one side, and ignorance, servility, the willingness, if not the desire to be enslaved on the other. The absence of either is fatal to the existence of the thing itself.

I apprehend the principal thing you want from our sex, as a preliminary to your growth and equal position in the great struggle of life, is what Diogenes wanted of Alexander, viz., that we shall "get out of your sunshine." In other words, that we shall remove the obstacles we have placed in your way. To this end, politically, all laws which discriminate between man and woman, to the injury of the latter, should at once be blotted out. Women should have an equal voice in the creation and administration of that government to which they are subject. This will be a fair start in that direction. The first thing to be done, socially, is to so regulate and arrange the industrial machinery that women shall have an equal chance to labor in all the departments, and that the same work shall receive the same pay whether done by man or woman. This will do much to clear the track, so that all can have a fair chance. This is all you ask, as I take it. This you should have. Justice demands it....

But, save in the removal of the outward forms of society, which now environ and hedge up your way, the active work in all this change in the most important human relations must be done by yourselves. "They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." What woman is capable of we shall never know until she has a fair chance in the wide arena of universal human life.

If the love of frivolity and show and of empty admiration, which now so generally obtains, is an unfailing characteristic in the female sex, legislation can not help you. Encouragement, sympathy, can not help you. It is of no use to fight against the eternal laws. But if this be only a perversion or misdirection of noble and lovely powers and faculties, the result of accidental circumstances and vicious institutions, as I believe, then, when the outward pressure is removed, the elastic spring of the genuine human spirit, encased in the form of woman, shall return; the great curse of civil and domestic strife shall cease; the true marriage of the male and female heart can then take place, because that perfect equality, under which alone it can exist, will be recognized and established.

You are engaged in a great work. May you have faith and resolution to continue to the end. It is a long way before you. Man is a plant of slow growth. His education and development are the work of ages. It is only by a landmark extending far back into the dim and misty past we can trace his upward path.

But though the race grows so slow, and the forward wave is go often pressed backward by the prevailing currents of ignorance, superstition, and oppression, still, it is cheering to know that no true word was ever spoken, or good deed ever done, but it cast some rays of light into the surrounding darkness, while it gave strength and vigor to the spirit that sent it forth. That is a grand truth whose utterance is attributed to Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." By that gift we may relieve the want of others, but we gain far more to ourselves by creating from the chaos of human crime and misery a beautiful and godlike act. That act is wrought into the fibers of our own individual life, and we are nobler, better, happier than before.

So you, in the thankless task before you, subject to ribald jest, to the cold, heartless sneer, to obloquy and abuse of all sorts from our and even your sex, who are most immediately to be benefited by your labors, will have this great truth to console and stimulate you, that in every step of this grand procession in which you are marching, you will gather rich and substantial food for the sustenance and growth of your own mental and moral natures.

Truly yours, N. H. WHITING.

NEW YORK, November 25, 1856.

To the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention:

The central claim for Woman is her right to be, and to do, as well as to suffer. Allow her everywhere to represent herself and her own interests.

Custom and law both deny her this right. If she is too cowardly to contend with custom, and to overcome it, let her remain its slave. But the law has bound her hand and foot. Here she can not act. The law-makers have forged her chains and riveted them upon her. They alone can take them off. Shall we not, then, at once demand of them—demand of every sovereign State in the Union—the elective franchise for woman? With this franchise she can make for herself a civil and political equality with man. Without it she is utterly without power to protect herself. She does not need to be protected like a child. She does need freedom to use the powers of self-protection with which her own nature is endowed.

Each of the several States has its specific laws—statutes and constitution—varying in details, but all more or less unjust to her as wife, mother, property-holder; in short, unjust to her in all her relations as citizen. Every State denies to her the right to represent herself politically. Once give her this, and she can take all the rest.

Would it not be wholly appropriate, then, for this National Convention to demand the right of suffrage for her from the Legislature of each State in the Nation? We can not petition the General Government on this point. Allow me, therefore, respectfully to suggest the propriety of appointing a committee, which shall be instructed to prepare a memorial adapted to the circumstances of each legislative body; and demanding of each, in the name of this Convention, the elective franchise for woman.

Such a memorial, presented to the several States during the coming winter, could not fail of doing good. It would be pressing home this great question upon all the powers that be in the whole nation; and, with comparatively little effort, would, at least, create a healthful agitation. Who shall say that the just men of some State will not even accord to us the franchise we claim? With this hint to the wise, I remain, as ever,

Yours, for equal human rights, ANTOINETTE L. BROWN BLACKWELL.

Mr. HATTELLE moved that a Committee be at once appointed to draft such a memorial, which was adopted.

WENDELL PHILLIPS rose to offer as an amendment, that a recommendation go forth from this Convention to the women of each State, to inaugurate their presentation of the subject to their several Legislatures.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson proposed that the friends of Woman Suffrage should publish an almanac each year giving the advance steps in their movement. He issued one for 1858, from which we clip the following:

THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS ALMANAC.

THE HISTORY OF WOMAN IN THREE PICTURES.

I. HINDOO LAWS. 2000 B. C.—"A man, both day and night, must keep his wife so much in subjection, that she by no means be mistress of her own actions. If the wife have her own free-will, notwithstanding she be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss."

"The Creator formed woman for this purpose, that man might have sexual intercourse with her, and that children might be born from thence."

"A woman shall never go out of the house without the consent of her husband.... and shall act according to the orders of her husband, and shall pay a proper respect to the Deity, her husband's father, the spiritual guide, and the guests; and shall not eat until she has served them with victuals (if it is physic, she may take it before they eat); a woman also shall never go to a stranger's house, and shall not stand at the door, and must never look out of a window."

"If a woman, following her own inclinations, goes whithersoever she choose, and does not regard the words of her master, such a woman shall be turned away."

"If a man goes on a journey, his wife shall not divert herself by play, nor shall see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress herself with jewels and fine clothes, nor shall see dancing, nor hear music, nor shall sit in the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall behold anything choice or rare, but shall fasten well the house-door and remain private; and shall not eat any dainty victuals, and shall not view herself in a mirror; she shall never exercise herself in any such agreeable employment during the absence of her husband."

"It is proper for every woman, after her husband's death, to burn herself in the fire with his corpse."

It will be seen that the following laws scarcely vary at all, in principle, from the preceding:

II. ANGLO-SAXON LAWS. 1848.—"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and covert she performs everything; and is, therefore, called in our Law-French a feme-covert, is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. Upon this principle, of an union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities that either of them acquire by the marriage."—1 Blackstone Com., 356.

"The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children. But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife, aliter quam ad virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae licite et rationabiliter pertinet (except as lawfully and reasonably belongs to a husband, for the sake of governing and disciplining his wife). The civil law gave the husband the same, or a larger authority over his wife, allowing him, for some misdemeanors, flagellis et Fustibus acriter verberare uxorem (to beat his wife severely with whips and cudgels); for others only modicam castigationem adhibere (to administer moderate chastisement). But with us, in the politer reign of Charles II., this power of correction began to be doubted, and a wife may now have security of peace against the husband, or, in return, a husband against his wife. Yet the lower rank of people, who were always fond of the old common law, still claim and exact their ancient privilege, and the courts of law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty in case of any gross misbehavior."—1 Blackstone, 366.

"The legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the principle of the common law by which the husband and wife are regarded as one person, and her legal existence and authority are in a degree lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union."—2 Kent's Comm. on Am. Law, 129.

"Even now, in countries of the most polished habits, a considerable latitude is allowed to marital coercion. In England the husband has the right of imposing such corporal restraints as he may deem necessary, for securing to himself the fulfillment of the obligations imposed on the wife by virtue of the marriage contract. He may, in the plenitude of his power, adopt every act of physical coercion which does not endanger the life or health of the wife, or render cohabitation unsafe."—Petersdorff's Abridgement, note.

"The husband hath, by law, power and dominion over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner."—Bacon's Abridgement, title "Baron aud Feme," B. 9.

"The wife is only the servant of her husband."—Baron Alderson (Wharton's Laws relating to the Women of England), p. 168.

"It is probably not generally known, that whenever a woman has accepted an offer of marriage, all she has, or expects to have, becomes virtually the property of the man thus accepted as a husband; and no gift or deed executed by her between the period of acceptance and the marriage is held to be valid; for were she permitted to give away or otherwise settle her property, he might be disappointed in the wealth he looked to in making the offer."—Roper, Law of Husband and Wife, Book I., ch. xiii.

"A lady whose husband had been unsuccessful in business, established herself as a milliner in Manchester. After some years of toil, she realized sufficient for the family to live upon comfortably, the husband having done nothing meanwhile. They lived for a time in easy circumstances, after she gave up business, and then the husband died, bequeathing all his wife's earnings to his own illegitimate children. At the age of sixty-two, she was compelled, in order to gain her bread, to return to business."—Westminster Review, Oct., 1856.

MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE'S JUDGMENT "in re Cochrane."—The facts were briefly these. A writ of habeas corpus had been granted to the wife, who, having been brought into the power of the husband by strategem, had since that time been kept in confinement by him. By the return to the writ, it appeared that the parties had lived together for about three years after their marriage on terms of apparent affection, and had two children; that in May, 1836, Mrs. Cochrane withdrew herself and offspring from his house and protection, and had resided away from him against his will, for nearly four years. While absent from her husband, Mrs. Cochrane had always resided with her mother, nor was there the slightest imputation on her honor. In ordering her to be restored to her husband, the learned judge, after stating the question to be whether by the common law, the husband, in order to prevent his wife from eloping, has a right to confine her in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite time, using no cruelty nor imposing any hardship or unnecessary restraint on his part, and on hers there being no reason from her past conduct to apprehend that she will avail herself of her absence from his control to injure either his honor or his property, stated, "That there could be no doubt of the general dominion which the law of England attributes to the husband over the wife."—8 Dowling's P. C. 360. Quoted in Westminster Review, Oct., 1856.

III. SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 1857.—It is obvious that the English common law, as above stated, is scarcely a step beyond barbarism. Yet this law remained almost unaltered in the United States, as respects woman, till the year 1848—the year of the first local Woman's Rights Convention, the first National one being held in 1850. Since then every year has brought improvements, and even those who denounce the Woman's Rights Movement, admit the value of these its results.

There is near Trenton, says The Newark Advertiser, a woman who is a skillful mechanic. She has made a carriage, and can make a violin or a gun. She is only 35 years old.

This is told as though it were something wonderful for a woman to have mechanical genius; when the fact is, that there are thousands all over the country who would make as good mechanics and handle tools with as much skill and dexterity as men, if they were only allowed to make manifest their ingenuity and inclinations. A girl's hands and head are formed very much like those of a boy, and if put to a trade at the age when boys are usually apprenticed, she will master her business quite as soon as the boy—be the trade what it may.

SALE OF A WIFE AT WORCESTER, ENGLAND.—One of these immoral and illegal transactions was recently completed at Worcester. The agreement between the fellow who sold and the fellow who bought is given in The Worcester Chronicle:

"Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife, Mary Middleton, to Phillip Rostins, and sold her for one shilling and a quart of ale, and parted wholly and solely for life, not trouble one another for life. Witness, Signed Thomas x Middleton. Witness, Mary Middleton, his wife. Witness, Phillip x Rostins. Witness, S. H. Stone, Crown Inn, Friar Street."

FEMALE INVENTORS.—"Man, having excluded woman from all opportunity of mechanical education, turns and reproaches her with having invented nothing. But one remarkable fact is overlooked. Society limits woman's sphere to the needle, the spindle, and the basket; and tradition reports that she herself invented all three. If she has invented her tools as fast as she has found opportunity to use them, can more be asked?"—T. W. Higginson.

In the ancient Hindoo dramas, wives do not speak the same language with their husbands, but employ the dialect of slaves.

A correspondent of The London Spectator suggests:—"The employment of women as clerks at railway stations would not be an unprecedented innovation; they not unfrequently fill that position abroad; and I can recall at least one instance, when, at a principal station in France, a female clerk displayed under difficult circumstances an amount of zeal and intelligence which showed her to be admirably suited to her office—'the right woman in the right place.'"

The word courage is, in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, a feminine noun.

Upwards of ten thousand females in New York, forty thousand in Paris, and eighty thousand in London, are said, by statisticians, to regularly earn a daily living by immoral practices. And yet all these are Christian cities!

A widow lady of Bury, Mary Chapman, who would appear to have been a warlike dame, making her will in 1649, leaves to one of her sons, among other things, "also my muskett, rest, bandileers, sword, and headpiece, my jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and a hutche."

Addison, in The Spectator, refers to a French author, who mentions that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it ill-breeding and a kind of female pedantry, to pronounce a hard word right, for which reason they took frequent occasion to use hard words, that they might show a politeness in murdering them. The author further adds, that a lady of some quality at court, having accidentally made use of a hard word in a proper place, and pronounced it right, the whole assembly was out of countenance for her.

SEWING IN NEW YORK.—"I am informed from one source, that based on a calculation some two years ago, the number of those who live by sewing in New York exceeds fifteen thousand. Another, who has good means of information, tells me there are forty thousand earning fifteen shillings ($1.87-1/2) per week, and paying twelve shillings ($1.50) for board, making shirts at four cents."—E. H. Chapin, "Moral Aspects of City Life."

The first "pilgrim" who stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock is said, by tradition, to have been a young girl, named Mary Chilton.

The St. Louis Republican mentions that there is one feature about the steamer Illinois Belle, of peculiar attractiveness—a lady clerk. "Look at her bills of lading, and 'Mary J. Patterson, clerk,' will be seen traced to a delicate and very neat style of chirography. A lady clerk on a Western steamer! It speaks strongly of our moral progress."

George Borrow, in his singular narrative, "The Romany Rye," states that the sale of a wife, with a halter round her neck, is still a legal transaction in England. It must be done in the cattle-market, as if she were a mare, "all women being considered as mares by old English law, and indeed called mares in certain counties where genuine old English is still preserved."

TESTIMONIAL TO MISS MITCHELL.—The fame of our talented countrywoman, Miss Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket, has spread far and wide among astronomers, and is cherished with pride by all Americans. We are glad to learn that it is proposed to present her a testimonial which will be at once an appropriate tribute to her talents, and an aid to the future prosecution of her astronomical researches. An observatory on Nantucket Island is for sale on very favorable terms, and a plan is on foot for its purchase, to be presented to her. The sum needed is $3,000, of which more than a third has been raised by ladies in Philadelphia and its neighborhood.

Miss Mitchell is now in Europe, visiting the principal observatories and astronomers there, and it is hoped that she will soon be gratefully surprised by learning that the very imperfect means hitherto at her disposal in pursuing her favorite science are to be replaced on her return by a collection of instruments which she will be delighted to possess. Drs. Bond, of Harvard College Observatory, and Hall, of Providence, have interested themselves in securing this object, and express strongly their opinion that valuable results to science can not fail to be realized by furnishing so skillful and diligent an observer as Miss Mitchell the proposed aids to her researches. Dr. Bond expresses the conviction that Nantucket enjoys special advantages as an astronomical site, on account of its comparative exemption from thermometrical disturbances of the atmosphere.

We hope this worthy tribute to our countrywoman's scientific merit will not fail to be paid. Miss Mitchell's friends have the refusal of the observatory only till September 1st, and several other purchasers are ready to take it at once. Dr. Geo. Choate, of Salem, has consented to receive the pledges of such as desire to be enrolled among the subscribers to the fund, among whose names are already the honored ones of Edward Everett, J. I. Bowditch, John C. Brown, of Providence, and F. Peabody, of Salem, besides other munificent patrons of science.—Journal of Commerce.

LEARN TO SWIM.—When the steamer Alida was sinking from her collision with the Fashion, a Kentucky girl of seventeen was standing on the guard, looking upon the confusion of the passengers, and occasionally turning and looking anxiously toward the shore. A gallant young man stepped up to her and offered to convey her safely to shore. "Thank you," replied the lady, "you need not trouble yourself; I am only waiting for the crowd to get out of the way, when I can take care of myself." Soon the crowd cleared the space, and the lady plunged into the water, and swam to the shore with ease, and without any apparent fear.

A LADY HORSEBREAKER IN FRANCE.—In consequence of the success obtained by Madame Isabelle in breaking in horses for the Russian army, the French Minister of War lately authorized her to proceed officially before a commission, composed of general and superior officers of cavalry, with General Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely at their head, to a practical demonstration of her method on a certain number of young cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so perfectly broken in, that the minister no longer hesitated to enter into an arrangement with Madame Isabelle to introduce her system into all the imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of Saumur.—Galignani's Messenger.

Since the passage of what is called the Married Woman's Act, in 1848, in Pennsylvania, there have been brought, in the Court of Common Pleas, one thousand one hundred and thirty-five suits for divorce. A large majority of the cases are brought by the wives, on the ground of cruel treatment and desertion.

"Women ruled all, and ministers of state Were at the doors of women forced to wait— Women, who've oft as sovereigns graced the land, But never governed well at second-hand."

Churchill's Satires, A.D. 1761.

SENATOR ANTHONY.

"A Woman's Rights Convention is in session in New York. A collection of women arguing for political rights, and for the privileges usually conceded only to the other sex, is one of the easiest things in the world to make fun of. There is no end to the smart speeches and the witty remarks that may be made on the subject. But when we seriously attempt to show that a woman who pays taxes ought not to have a voice in the manner in which the taxes are expended, that a woman whose property and liberty and person are controlled by the laws, should have no voice in framing those laws, it is not so easy. If women are fit to rule in monarchies, it is difficult to say why they are not qualified to vote in a republic; nor can there be greater indelicacy in a woman going up to the ballot-box than there is in a woman opening a legislature or issuing orders to an army.

"We do not say that women ought to vote; but we say that it is a great deal easier to laugh down the idea than to argue it down. Moreover, there are a great many things besides voting that are confined to men, and that women can do quite as well, or even better. There are many employments which ought to be opened to women, there are many ways in which women can be made to contribute more largely to their own independence and comfort, and to the general good of society. All well-directed plans to this end should receive the support of thinking men. The danger is that conventions of this kind are apt to overlook the present and attainable good, in their efforts for results which are of less certain value and far less practicable."—Providence Journal, Edited by Ex-Governor Anthony.

WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE, 1857.

WISCONSIN REPORT ON THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION.—The following extract from the report on the extension of the right of suffrage in Wisconsin, we find in The Milwaukee Free Democrat:

"Perhaps no question ever submitted to a community would call forth so much of its mental activity, such a crusade into the realms of history, such a balancing of good and evil, of the past with the present, such an examination of the social and political rights and relations, as the question whether the right of suffrage ought to be extended to all citizens over the age of twenty-one, which would, of course, include both sexes. The giddy devotee of fashion would be surprised in the midst of her frivolity, and be compelled to think and reason, in view of a new responsibility which is menacing her. Even if opposed to the proposition, she would be compelled to organize and inspire the public opinion necessary to defeat it. Whatever might be the event, woman's intellectual position would be changed, and changed forever, and with hers that of all other classes....

"Let no one imagine that he can dispose of this question by a contemptuous fling at strong-minded women and hen-pecked husbands. The principle will gain more strength from the character of the arguments of its opponents than from any number of Bloomer conventions. The modern idea of the fashionable belle, floating like a bird of paradise through the soiree; the impersonation of motion and grace in the ball-room, indulging alternately in syncope and rapture over the marvelous adventures and despair of the hero of a mushroom romance, her rapid transition from one excitement to another, to fill up the dreary vacuum of life, provoking as it does the secret derision of sensible men; all this comes from that legislation, from that public opinion, which drives women away from real life; from the discussion of questions in which her happiness and destiny are involved. A senseless, though a false fondness, denies her a participation in all questions of the actual world around her. The novel writers therefore create a fictitious world, filled with fantastic and hollow characters, for her to range in. Awhile she believes she is an angel, till some unfortunate husband finds her to be a moth on his fortune, and a baleful shadow stretching across his pathway, without curiosity or interests in all those practical realities, which the world, outside of her charmed existence, is attending to. These are the abortions of a false public opinion. For ages they have been regarded as the natural results of female organism. Hence, woman has become famed as a gossip, because she would degrade herself by discussing Judge A.'s qualifications for Judge of Probate, though Judge A. may yet appoint a guardian for her children. In the sewing society, she sews scandal, or reads brocades, silks, and crinolines, because it would be extremely coarse and vulgar in her to read the statutes of Wisconsin, where her rights of person and property, marriage and divorce, are regulated. In those statutes she would find that though $350,000 are appropriated to build a University, she is as effectually excluded from that institution as though it was a convent of monks. So there is some inconvenience at last in being regarded as a bona-fide angel, for angels have no use for Universities. Some indignant school-ma'am begins to suspect the hollow compliments of moon-struck admirers, and demands a direct voice in the laws which provide for the mutual improvement of her sex. But the grave doctor of law puts on his spectacles, and tells her she is fully and exactly represented in man, only more so. When he eats, she eats; when he thinks, she thinks; when he gets drunk, she gets drunk; that it would be as absurd to provide for the board and education of one's own shadow as to provide a separate establishment for woman, who possesses all things, enjoys all things, and sways all things in man, as fully as though she did it herself. And a single woman, or widow, may pay taxes, but it would be outrageous for her to have a choice in the men who are to spend the money and then cry out for more. When married, ten years ago, her education was equal to her husband's, now she can not write a grammatical letter: her husband's mind has been enlarged by the influx of new ideas, and by contacts with the electric atmosphere of thought in the great world without; but denied as she has been the right of expressing her will by a direct vote, she has lost all interest in passing events; the globe has dwindled to a half-acre lot and the village church. Her partner finds the match unequal, spends his time with more congenial society, and is out-and-out in favor of Moses' law of a galloping divorce. The old stager has filled the political arena with frauds and brawls, and bruises and blood; and having levelled the morals of the ballot-box with those of the race-ground or box-ring, he has yet virtue enough left to declare that woman shall not enter this moral Aceldama.

"Yet it may be that democracy, for self-preservation, will be compelled to invite women to the ballot-box, to restrain and overawe the ruffianism of man. Though man smiles with secret derision at the competition of woman, in dress and show, yet he is too tender of her reputation to allow her the same field with himself wherein to exercise her powers. We believe that this contortion of character is justly attributable to the denial of the right of voting, the great mode by which the questions of the day are decided in this country. Politics are our national life. As civilization advances, its issues will penetrate still deeper into social and every-day life of the people; and no man or woman can be regarded as an entity, as a power in society, who has not a direct agency in governing its results. Without a direct voice in molding the spirit of the age, the age will disown us.

"But the objection is argued seriously. Political rivalry will arm the wife against the husband; a man's foes will be those of his own household. But we believe that political equality will, by lending the thoughts and purposes of the sexes, to a just degree, into the same channel, more completely carry out the designs of nature. Women will be possessed of a positive power, and hollow compliments and rose-water flatteries will be exchanged for a pure admiration and a well-grounded respect, when we see her nobly discharging her part in the great intellectual and moral struggles of the age, that wait their solution by a direct appeal to the ballot-box. Woman's power is, at present, poetical and unsubstantial; let it be practical and real. There is no reality in any power that can not be coined into votes. The demagogue has a sincere respect and a salutary fear of the voter; and he that can direct the lightning flash of the ballot-box is greater than he who possesses a continent of vapor, gilded with moonshine.

"It is true, the right of voting would carry with it the right to hold office; but since it is true that the sexes have appropriate spheres, the discretion of individual voters would recognize this fact, and seldom elect a woman to an office, for which she is unfitted by nature and education, as incompetent men are now elected. But the cruelty of our laws is seen in this—that where nature makes exceptions, the laws are inexorable.

"We have shown that woman is not correctly represented by man at the ballot-box. Could her voice be heard, it would alter the choice of public men and their character. With legislators compelled to respect her opinions, the law itself, constitutions, and politics reflect, to a just extent, her peculiar views and interests. Nor is it for us to decide whether these would be for the better or worse. Let the majority rule. Vox populi vox Dei. Woman's intellect would enlarge with her more commanding political condition, and though she might blight the hopes of many a promising aspirant, yet the Union would not be dissolved under her administration. Believing the time has come when an appeal on her behalf to the voters of this State will not be in vain, we have prepared to submit the question to the people, by our amendment to the Senate bill.

"DAVID NOGGLE. "J. T. MILLS.

"I altogether prefer the Committee's amendment to the Senate bill.

"February 27, 1857. HOPEWELL COXE."

ONE YEAR'S WORK.—The following are a portion of the results of the Woman's Rights petitions, presented during the winter of 1856-7:

In Ohio and Wisconsin, Legislative Committees have reported favorably to the Right of Suffrage, and extracts from the reports are given above.

Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri have passed laws giving to married women the right to control their own earnings. The Ohio and Maine statutes are printed below; also a Maine act, giving the husband title to an allowance from a deceased wife's property, similar to that now given by the law to widows.

The memorial presented to the New York Legislature, owing to some mistake, was not offered till too late for action.

OHIO STATUTE.—Bill passed by the Ohio Legislature, April 17, 1857.

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, that no married man shall sell, dispose of, or in any manner part with, any personal property, which is now, or may hereafter be, exempt from sale upon execution, without having first obtained the consent of his wife thereto.

Sec. 2. If any married man shall violate the provisions of the foregoing section, his wife may, in her own name, commence and prosecute to final judgment and execution, in civil action, for the recovery of such property or its value in money.

Sec. 8. Any married woman, whose husband shall desert her, or from intemperance or other cause become incapacitated, or neglect to provide for his family, may, in her own name, make contracts for her own labor and the labor of her minor children, and in her own name, sue for and collect her own or their earnings.

MAINE STATUTE.—At the recent session of the Legislature of Maine, the following acts were passed:

"An Act relating to the property of deceased married women. Be it enacted," etc.

"When a wife dies intestate and insolvent, her surviving husband shall be entitled to an allowance from her personal estate, and a distributive share in the residue thereof, in the same manner as a widow is in the estate of her husband; and if she leaves issue he shall have the use of one-third, if no issue, one-half of her real estate for life, to be received and assigned in the manner and with the rights of dower." Approved April 13, 1857.

"An Act in relation to the rights of married women.

"Any married woman may demand and receive the wages of personal labor performed other than for her own family, and may hold the same in her own right against her husband or any other person, and may maintain an action therefore in her own name." Approved April 17, 1857.

FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN KENTUCKY.—Kentucky Revised Statutes, 1852, ch. 88. "Schools and Seminaries." Art. 6, Sec. 1:

"An election shall be held at the school-house of each school district, from nine o'clock in the morning till two o'clock in the evening, of the first Saturday of April of each year, for the election of three Trustees for the District for one year, and until others are elected and qualified. The qualified voters in each District shall be the electors, and any widow having a child between six and eighteen years of age, may also vote in person or by written proxy."

[But if the suffrage is not limited to widows who have a child between six and eighteen, but extended to unmarried, married, and childless men, why not give it to women in those positions also? Such a partial concession, though valuable as recognizing a principle, is not likely to be extensively used. For in this case, as in that of women who are stockholders in corporations, the female voters will be deterred by their own small numbers and by the prejudices of society. But give woman the equal right of suffrage, and the prejudice will soon be swept away].

FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN CANADA.—[The following is the Canadian law under which women vote. The omission of the word male was intentional, and was done to secure the weight of the Protestant property in the hands of women, against the Roman Catholic aggressions and demands for separate schools. The law works well. "A friend of mine in Canada West told me," said Lucy Stone recently, "that when the law was first passed giving women who owned a certain amount of property, or who paid a given rental, a right to vote, he went trembling to the polls to see the result. The first woman who came was a large property holder in Toronto; with marked respect the crowd gave way as she advanced. She spoke her vote and walked quietly away, sheltered by her womanhood. It was all the protection she needed."]

XVIII. and XIV. VICTORIA, CAP 48.—An Act for the better establishment and maintenance of Common Schools in Upper Canada. Passed July 24, 1850.

Sec. 1. Preamble—Repeals former acts.

Sec. 2. Enacts that the election of School Trustees shall take place on the second Wednesday of January in each year.

Sec. 22. And be it enacted, that in each Ward, into which any City or Town is or shall be divided according to Law, two fit and proper persona shall be elected School Trustees by a majority of all the taxable inhabitants.

Sec. 25. Enacts that on the second Wednesday in January there shall be a meeting of all the taxable inhabitants of every incorporated village, and at such meeting six fit and proper persons, from among the resident householders, shall be elected School Trustees.

Sec. 5. Provides that in all Country School Districts three trustees shall be similarly elected by a majority of the freeholders or householders of such school section.

"THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN."—A very curious controversy, on paper, is going on at present in the Reveu Philosophique et Religieuse, between M. Proudhon and Mme. Jenny D'Hericourt. The latter defends, with great warmth, the moral, civil, and political emancipation of woman. Proudhon, in reply, declares that all the theories of Mme. D'Hericourt are inapplicable, in consequence of the inherent weakness of her sex. The periodical in which the contest is going on was founded and is conducted by the old St. Simoniens.

* * * * *

REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO SENATE, ON GIVING THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO FEMALES.

COLUMBUS, 1858.

The following petition, numerously signed by both men and women, citizens of this State, was, at the first session of the Legislature, referred to the undersigned Select Committee:

"WHEREAS, The women of the State of Ohio are disfranchised by the Constitution solely on account of their sex;

"We do, respectfully, demand for them the right of suffrage—a right which involves all other rights of citizenship—one that can not, justly, be withheld, as the following admitted principles of government show:

"First. 'All men are born free and equal.'

"Second. 'Government derives its just power from the consent of the governed.'

"Third. 'Taxation and representation are inseparable.'

"We, the undersigned, therefore, petition your honorable body to take the necessary steps for a revision of the Constitution, so that all citizens may enjoy equal political rights."

Your Committee have given the subject referred to them a careful examination, and now

REPORT.

Your Committee believe that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted. Our opinion is based both upon grounds of principle and expediency, which we will endeavor to present as briefly as is consistent with a due consideration of this subject.

The founders of this Republic claimed and asserted with great emphasis, the essential equality of human rights as a self-evident truth. They scouted the venerable old dogma of the divine right of kings and titled aristocracies to rule the submissive multitude. They were equally explicit in their claim that "taxation and representation are inseparable."

The House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1764, declared, "That the imposition of duties and taxes, by the Parliament of Great Britain, upon a people not represented in the House of Commons, is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights." A pamphlet entitled "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted," was sent to the agent of the Colony in England, to show him the state of the public mind, and along with it an energetic letter. "The silence of the province," said this letter, alluding to the suggestion of the agent that he had taken silence for consent, "should have been imputed to any cause—even to despair—rather than be construed into a tacit cession of their rights, or the acknowledgment of a right in the Parliament of Great Britain, to impose duties and taxes on a people who are not represented In the House of Commons." "If we are not represented we are slaves!" Some of England's ablest jurists acknowledge the truth of this doctrine. Chief Justice Pratt said: "My position is this—taxation and representation are inseparable. The position is founded in the law of nature. It is more; it is itself an eternal law of nature." In defence of this doctrine they waged a seven years' war: and yet, when they had wrung from the grasp of Great Britain the Colonies she would not govern upon this principle, and undertook to organize them according to their favorite theory, most of the Colonies, by a single stroke of the pen, cut off one-half of the people from any representation in the government which claimed their obedience to its laws, the right to tax them for its support, and the right to punish them for disobedience.

This disparity between their theory and practice does not seem to have excited much, if any notice, at the time, nor until its bitter fruits had long been eaten in obscurity and sorrow by thousands who suffered, but did not complain. Indeed, so apathetic has been the public mind upon this subject, that no one is surprised to see such a remark as the following by a distinguished commentator upon American institutions: "In the free States, except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise." It seems women are not even a class of persons. They are fairly dropped from the human race, and very naturally, since we have grown accustomed to recognize as universal suffrage, that which excludes by constitutional taboo one-half of the people. To declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and then give it only to a part—and that the part to which the claimant himself belongs—is to renounce even the appearance of principle. As ought to have been foreseen, the class of persons thus cut off from the means of self-protection, have become victims of unequal and oppressive legislation, which runs through our whole code. We first bind the hands, by the organic law, and then proceed with deliberate safety, by the statute, to spoil the goods of the victim. Whatever palliation for the past hoary custom, false theology, and narrow prejudice may furnish, it is certainly time now to remedy those evils, and reduce to practice our favorite theory of government.

The citizens thus robbed of a natural right complain of the injustice. They protest against taxation without representation. They claim that all just government must derive its power from the consent of the governed. A forcible female writer says: "Even this so-called free government of the united States, as at present administered, is nothing but a political, hereditary despotism to woman; she has no instrumentality whatever in making the laws by which she is governed, while her property is taxed without representation."

But this feeling, it is claimed, is entertained but by few women; on the contrary, they generally disown such claim when made in their behalf. Supposing the fact to be true to the fullest extent ever asserted, if it proves that American women ought to remain as they are, it proves exactly the same with respect to Asiatic women; for they, too, instead of murmuring at their seclusion and at the restraint imposed upon them, pride themselves on it, and are astonished at the effrontery of women who receive visits from male acquaintances, and are seen in the streets unveiled. Habits of submission make women, as well as men, servile-minded. The vast population of Asia do not desire or value—probably would not accept—political liberty, nor the savages of the forest civilization; which does not prove that either of these things is undesirable for them, or that they will not, at some future time, enjoy it. Custom hardens human beings to any kind of degradation, by deadening that part of their nature which would resist it. And the case of woman is, in this respect even, a peculiar one, for no other inferior caste that we have heard of has been taught to regard its degradation as their, its, honor. The argument, however, implies a secret consciousness that the alleged preference of women for their dependent state is merely apparent, and arises from their being allowed no choice; for, if the preference be natural, there can be no necessity for enforcing it by law. To make laws compelling people to follow their inclinations, has not, hitherto, been thought necessary by any legislator.

The plea that women do not desire any change is the same that has been urged, times out of mind, against the proposal of abolishing any social evil. "There is no complaint," which is generally, and in this case certainly not true, and when true, only so because there is not that hope of success, without which complaint seldom makes itself audible to unwilling ears. How does the objector know that women do not desire equality of freedom? It would be very simple to suppose that if they do desire it they will all say so. Their position is like that of the tenants and laborers who vote against their own political interests to please their landlords or employers, with the unique admission that submission is inculcated in them from childhood, as the peculiar attraction and grace of their character. They are taught to think that to repel actively even an admitted injustice, done to themselves, is somewhat unfeminine, and had better be left to some male friend or protector. To be accused of rebelling against anything which admits of being called an ordinance of society, they are taught to regard as an imputation of a serious offence, to say the least, against the propriety of their sex. It requires unusual moral courage, as well as disinterestedness in a woman, to express opinions favorable to woman's enfranchisement, until, at least, there is some prospect of obtaining it.

The comfort of her individual life and her social consideration, usually depend on the good-will of those who hold the undue power; and to the possessors of power, any complaint, however bitter, of the misuse of it, is scarcely a less flagrant act of insubordination than to protest against the power itself. The professions of women in this matter remind us of the State offenders of old, who, on the point of execution, used to protest their love and devotion to the sovereign by whose unjust mandate they suffered. Grlselda, himself, might be matched from the speeches put by Shakespeare into the mouths of male victims of kingly caprice and tyranny; the Duke of Buckingham, for example, in "Henry VIII.," and even Wolsey.

The literary class of women are often ostentatious in disclaiming the desire for equality of citizenship, and proclaiming their complete satisfaction with the place which society assigns them; exercising in this, as in many other respects, a most noxious influence over the feelings and opinions of men, who unsuspectingly accept the servilities of toadyism as concessions to the force of truth, not considering that it is the personal interest of these women to profess whatever opinions they expect will be agreeable to men. It is not among men of talent, sprung from the people, and patronized and flattered by the aristocracy, that we look for the leaders of a democratic movement. Successful literary women are just as unlikely to prefer the cause of woman to their own social consideration. They depend on men's opinion for their literary, as well as for their feminine successes; and such is their bad opinion of men, that they believe there is not more than one in a thousand who does not dislike and fear strength, sincerity, and high spirit in a woman. They are, therefore, anxious to earn pardon and toleration for whatever of these qualities their writings may exhibit on other subjects, by a studied display of submission on this; that they may give no occasion for vulgar men to say—what nothing will prevent vulgar men from saying—that learning makes woman unfeminine, and that literary ladies are likely to be bad wives.

But even if a large majority of women do not desire any change in the Constitution, that would be a very bad reason for withholding the elective franchise from those who do desire it. Freedom of choice, liberty to choose their own sphere, is what is asked. We have not heard that the most ardent apostles of female suffrage propose to compel any woman to make stump speeches against her will, or to march a fainting sisterhood to the polls under a police, in Bloomer costume. Women who condemn their sisters for discontent with the laws as they are, have their prototype in those men of America who, in our revolutionary struggle with England, vehemently denounced and stigmatized as fanatics and rebels the leaders and malcontents of that day. But neither their patriotism nor wisdom have ever been much admired by the American people, perhaps not even by the English.

The objection urged against female suffrage with the greatest confidence and by the greatest number, is that such a right is incompatible with the refinement and delicacy of the sex. That it would make them harsh and disputative, like male voters. This objection loses most, if not all of its force, when it is compared with the well-established usages of society as relates to woman. She already fills places and discharges duties with the approbation of most men, which are, to say the least, quite as dangerous to her refinement and retiring modesty, as the act of voting or even holding office would be. In our political campaigns all parties are anxious to secure the co-operation of women. They are urged to attend our political meetings, and even in our mass meetings, when whole acres of men are assembled, they are importunately urged to take a conspicuous part, sometimes as the representatives of the several States, and sometimes as the donors of banners and flags, accompanied with patriotic speeches by the fair donors. And in great moral questions, such as temperance, for example, in the right disposition of which woman is more interested than man, she often discharges a large amount of the labor of the campaign; but yet, when it comes to the crowning act of voting, she must stand aside—delicacy forbids—that is too masculine, too public, too exposing, though it could be done, in most cases, with as little difficulty and exposure as a letter can be taken out or put in the post-office.

Then there is that large class of concert singers and readers of the drama, who are eulogized and petted by those who are most shocked at the idea of women submitting themselves to the exposure of voting. In fact, the whole question of publicity is settled to the fullest extent; at least every man must be silent who acquiesces in the concert, the drama, or the opera. We need not dwell on the exposures of the stage or the indelicacies of the ballet, but if Jenny Lind was "an angel of purity and benevolence" for consenting to stand, chanting and enchanting, before three thousand excited admirers; if Madame Sontag could give a full-dress rehearsal (which does not commonly imply a superfluity of apparel) for the special edification of the clergy of Boston, and be rewarded with duplicate Bibles, it is difficult to see why a woman may not vote on questions vitally affecting the interests of herself, or children, or kindred.

But, with all our dainty notions of female proprieties, women are, by common consent, dragged into court as witnesses, and subjected to the most scrutinizing and often indelicate examinations and questions, if either party imagines he can gain a sixpence, or dull the edge of a criminal prosecution, by her testimony. The interest, convenience, and prejudices of men, and not any true regard for the delicacy of the sex, seem to be the standard by which woman's rights and duties are to be measured. It is prejudice, custom, long-established usage, and not reason, which demand the sacrifice of woman's natural rights of self-government; a relic of barbarism still lingering in all political, and nearly all religions organizations. Among the purely savage tribes, woman takes position as a domestic drudge—a mere beast of burden, whilst the sensual civilization of Asia regard her more in the light of a domestic luxury, to be jealously guarded from the profane sight of all men but her husband. Both positions equally and widely remote from the noble one God intended her to fill.

In Persia and Turkey women grossly offend the public taste if they suffer their faces to be seen in the streets. In the latter country they are prohibited by law, in common with "pigs, dogs, and other unclean animals," as the law styles them, from so much as entering their mosques. Our ideas of the proper sphere, duties, and capabilities of woman do not differ from these so much in kind as degree. They are all based upon the assumption that man has the right to decide what are the rights, to point out the duties, and to fix the boundaries of woman's sphere; which, taking for true, our cherished theory of government, to wit: the inalienability and equality of human rights can hardly be characterized by a milder term than that of an impudent and oppressive usurpation. Who has authorized us, whilst railing at miters, and crosiers, and scepters, and shouting in the ears of the British Lion, as self-evident truths, "representation and taxation are, and shall be, inseparable,"—"governments, to be just, must have the consent of the governed;" to say woman, one-half of the whole race, shall, nevertheless, be taxed without representation and governed without her consent? Who hath made us a judge betwixt her and her Maker?

It is said woman's mental and moral organization is peculiar, differing widely from that of man. Perhaps so. She must then have a peculiar fitness of qualification to judge what will be wise and just government for her. Let her be free to choose for herself, in the light of her peculiar organization, to what she is best adapted. She is better qualified to judge of her proper sphere than man can be. She knows her own wants and capabilities. Let us leave her, as God created her, a free agent, accountable to Him for any violation of the laws of her nature. He has mingled the sexes in the family relation; they are associated on terms of equality in some churches. They are active working and voting members of literary and benevolent societies. They vote as share-holders in stock companies, and in countries where less is said about freedom, and equality, and representation, they are often called to, and fill, with distinguished ability, very important positions, and often discharge the highest political trusts known to their laws. Which of England's kings has shown more executive ability than Elizabeth, or which has been more conscientious and discreet than Annie and Victoria? Spain, too, had her Isabella, and France her Maid of Orleans, her Madame Roland, yes, and her Charlotte Corday. Austria and Hungary their Maria Theresa. Russia her Catharine; and even the jealous Jewish Theocracy was judged forty years by a woman. It is too late, by thirty centuries, to put in the plea of her incompetency in political affairs.

But it is objected that it would not do for woman, particularly a married woman, to be allowed to vote. It might bring discord into the family if she differed from her husband. If this objection were worth anything at all, it would lie with tenfold greater force against religious than political organizations. No animosities are so bitter and implacable as those growing out of religions disagreements; yet we allow women to choose their religious creeds, attend their favorite places of worship, and in some of them take an equal part in the church business, and all this, though the husband is of another religion, or of no religion, and no one this side of Turkey claims that the law should compel woman to have no religion, or adopt that of her husband. But, even if that objection were a good one, more than half the adult women of the State are unmarried.

It is said, too, that as woman is not required to perform military duty, and work on the roads, she ought not to vote. None but "able-bodied" men, under a certain age, are required to do military duty, and the effect is practically the same in regard to the two days' work on the roads, whilst women pay tax for military and road purposes the same as man. A man's right to vote does not depend on his ability to perform physical labor, why should a woman's? By the exclusion of woman from her due influence and voice in the government, we lose that elevating and refining influence which she gives to religious, social, and domestic life. Her presence at our political meetings, all agree, contributes greatly to their order, decorum, and decency. Why should not the polls, also, be civilized by her presence?

Does not the morality of our politics demonstrate a great want of the two qualities so characteristic of woman, heart and conscience? The female element which works such miracles of reform in the rude manners of men, in all the departments of life where she has the freedom to go, is nowhere more needed than in our politics, or at the polls.

We have endeavored to show that the constitutional prohibition of female suffrage is not only a violation of natural right, but equally at war with the fundamental principles of the government. Let us now look at the practical results of this organic wrong. After having taken away from woman the means of protecting her person and property, by the peaceable, but powerful ballot, how have we discharged the self-imposed duty of legislating for her? By every principle of honor, or even of common honesty, we are bound to see that her interests do not suffer in our hands. That, if we depart at all from the principle of strict equality, it should be in her favor. Let as see what are the facts.

When a woman marries she becomes almost annihilated in the eyes of the law, except as a subject of punishment. She loses the right to receive and control the wages of her own labor. If she be an administratrix, or executrix, she is counted as dead, and another must be appointed. If she have children, they may be taken from her against her will, and placed in the care of any one, no matter how unfit, whom the father may select. He may even give them away by will. "The personal property of the wife, such as money, goods, cattle, and other chattels, which she had in possession at the time of her marriage, in her own right, and not in the right of another, vest immediately in the husband, and he can dispose of them as he pleases. On his death, they go to his representatives, like the residue of his property. So, if any such goods or chattels come to her possession in her own right, after the marriage, they, in like manner, immediately vest in the husband." "Such property of the wife, as bonds, notes, arrears of rent, legacies, which are termed choses in action, do not vest in the husband by mere operation of marriage. To entitle him to them, he must first reduce them into possession, by recovering the money, or altering the security, as by making them payable to himself. If the husband appoint an attorney to receive a debt or claim due the wife, and the attorney received it, or if he mortgaged the claim or debt, or assign it for a valuable consideration, or recover judgment by suit, in his own name, or if he release it, in all these cases the right of the wife, upon the decease of the husband, is gone."

The real estate of the wife, such as houses and lands, is in nearly the same state of subjection to the husband's will. He is entitled to all the rents and profits while they both live, and the husband can hold the estate during his life, even though the wife be dead. A woman may thus be stripped of every available cent she ever had in the world, and even see it squandered in ministering to the low appetite or passions of a drunken debauchee of a husband. And when, by economy and toil, she may have acquired the means of present subsistence, this, too, may be lawfully taken from her, and applied to the same base purpose. Even her Family Bible, the last gift of a dying mother, her only remaining comfort, can be lawfully taken and sold by the husband, to buy the means of intoxication. This very thing has been done. Can any one believe that laws, so wickedly one-sided as these, were ever honestly designed for the equal benefit of woman with man? Yet wives are said to have quite a sufficient representation in the government, through their husbands, to secure them protection.

But the cruel inequality of the laws relating to woman as wife are quite outdone by those relating to her as widow. It is these stricken and sorrowful victims, the law seems especially to have selected as its prey. Upon the death of the husband, the law takes possession of the whole of the estate. The smallest items of property must be turned out for valuation, to be handled by strangers. The clothes that the deceased had worn, the chair in which he sat, the bed on which he died, all these sacred memorials of the dead, must undergo the cold scrutiny of officers of the law. The widow is counted but as an alien, and an incumbrance on the estate, the bulk of which is designed for other hands. She is to have doled out to her, like a pauper, by paltry sixes, the furniture of her own kitchen. "One table, six chairs, six knives and forks, six plates, six tea-cups and saucers, one sugar-dish, one milk-pail, one tea-pot, and twelve spoons!" All this munificent provision for, perhaps, a family of only a dozen-persons. Think of it, ye widows, and learn to be grateful for man's provident care of you in your hour of need!

Then comes the sale of "the effects of the deceased," as they are called; and amid the fullness and freshness of her grief, the widow is compelled to see sold into the hands of strangers, amid the coarse jokes and levity of a public auction, articles to her beyond all price, and around which so many tender memories cling. Experience alone can fully teach the torture of this fiery ordeal. But this is only the beginning of her sorrows. If she have children, the estate is considered to belong to them, while she is but an "incumbrance" upon it. She is to have the rents and profits of one-third part of the real estate her lifetime, which, to the vast majority of cases, is so unproductive as to compel her to leave that spot, endeared to her by so many tender ties—the home of her early love, the birthplace of her children—for a cheaper and less comfortable home. But, bereaved of her husband and robbed of her property,

"The law hath yet another hold on her."

Following up the insulting and injurious assumption of her incompetency and untrustworthiness, implied in the denial of her right of suffrage, the guardianship of her children is taken from her. Her daughter, at the age of twelve, and her son, at fifteen, are to go through the mockery of choosing for themselves a competent guardian—a proceeding calculated to destroy the beautiful trust and confidence in the wisdom and fitness of the mother to govern and direct them, so natural and so essential to the happiness of children. When the justifying pretext for the infliction of all this misery is the benefit of the children, her maternal nature will struggle hard to endure it with patience. But, until the passage of the law of 1863, "regulating descents and distributions," when there were no children of either parent, the law did not abate its rigor toward her, in the disposition of the real estate, which is generally all that is left, after paying the debts and costs of "settlement," though the whole of the houses and lands might have been bought with her money, two-thirds were immediately handed over to the relatives of the husband, however above need; and though they might have been strangers, or even enemies, to her. She had but a life estate in the other third, which, at her death, also went, as the other, to her husband's heirs. She could not indulge her benevolent feelings or gratify her friendships, by devising by will, to approved charities or favorite friends, the means she no longer needed. With a bitter sense of injustice and despairing sorrow, she might well adopt the language of the unhappy Jew:

"Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live."

Such is the famous right of dower, which has been the subject of so many stupid eulogies by lawyers and commentators.

Take an example of the effect of these laws upon an overburdened heart, which occurred just before the passage of the Act of 1853. A young couple, by their united means and patient industry, had secured for themselves a small, but comfortable home. It furnished the means of supplying all their simple wants. It was their own; doubly endeared by the struggles and sacrifices it had cost them. They were content. They had no children, but they had each other, and were happy in their mutual love. Death seemed a great way off; and life—it was a real joy. They knew little of the laws of estates. Owing nothing, they feared no intrusion upon the sanctity of their home. But the husband was killed by the falling of a tree; and, after some hours, was found dead by the agonized wife. There was no will. The wrung heart of the childless widow, in her utter bereavement, still clung to her home, which, though blighted and desolate, was still dear to her. There, at least, she would find shelter. But soon the inexorable law laid its cold, unwelcome hand upon that darkened home. There must be letters of administration had—an inventory of the "effects"—an appraisement. Everything was explained by sympathizing counsel. The "right of dower" set conspicuously in the foreground—"one equal third part"—at length she comprehended it all. Her home was to pass into other hands: henceforth she was to be counted only as an incumbrance on it. Looking from the misery of the present down the gloom of the future, she could see only widowhood and penury. And whilst the appraisers were performing their ungracious task of overhauling cupboards and drawers, and estimating the value in cash of presents received in her courtship, she, in her quiet despair at this last bitter drop added to her full cup, arrayed herself in her best apparel (which the law generously provides "she shall retain"), and, without uttering a word of complaint or farewell, walked to the nearest water and drowned herself.

If "oppression maketh even a wise man mad," ought we to wonder that a woman, almost crazed by a sudden and terrible bereavement, upon finding that her calamity, instead of giving her the jealous and compassionate protection of the law, was to be made the pretext for robbing her of what yet remained of earthly comforts, should, in the madness of her despair, cast away the burden of a life no longer tolerable? In India she would have been burned upon the funeral pile of her dead husband; we drive her to madness and suicide by the slower, but no less cruel torture, of starvation and a breaking heart. Whilst persisting in such legislation, how could we expect to escape the woe, denounced by the compassionate and long-suffering Saviour, against the "hypocrites who devour widows' houses"?

It is said woman can accomplish any object of her desire better by persuasion, by her smiles and tears and eloquence, than she could ever compel by her vote. But with all her powers of coaxing and eloquence, she has never yet coaxed her partner into doing her simple justice. Shall we never get beyond the absurd theory that every woman is legally and politically represented by her husband, and hence has an adequate guarantee? The answer is, that she has been so represented ever since representation began, and the result appears to be that, among the Anglo-Saxon race generally, the entire system of laws in regard to women is, at this moment, so utterly wrong, that Lord Brougham is reported to have declared it useless to attempt to amend it—"There must be a total reconstruction before a woman can have any justice." The wrong lies not so much in any special statute as in the fundamental theory of the law, yet no man can read the statutes on this subject of the most enlightened nation, without admitting that they were obviously made by man, not with a view to woman's interest, but his own. Our Ohio laws may not be so bad as the law repealed in Vermont in 1850, which confiscated to the State one-half the property of every childless widow, unless the husband had other heirs. But they must compel from every generous man the admission, that neither justice nor gallantry has yet availed to procure anything like impartiality in the legal provisions for the two sexes. With what decent show of justice, then, can man, thus dishonored, claim a continuance of this suicidal confidence? There is something respectable in the frank barbarism of the old Russian nuptial consecration, "Here, wolf, take thy lamb." But we can not easily extend the same charity to the civilized wolf of England and America, clad in the sheep's clothing of a volume of revised statutes, caressing the person of the bride and devouring her property.

It is said the husband can, by will, provide against these cases of hardship and injustice. True, he can, if he will, but does he? The number is few, some of the more thoughtful and conscientious; but this is only obtaining justice as a favor, and not as a natural right. But it is a majority of husbands who make these laws, and they generally have no desire to amend them by will. Besides, the will of the husband is sometimes even worse than the law itself. Such cases are by no means rare. Almost every man's memory may furnish one or more examples that have fallen under his immediate notice. One or two only we will mention. A woman, advanced in life, who owned a valuable farm in her own right, in the border of a flourishing town, married a man who had little or no property. The farm was soon cut up into town lots and sold at high prices. In a few years the husband died, leaving no children, but, by will, directed the division of nearly the whole of the estate among his relatives, persons who the wife never saw. The only remedy in this case was to fall back upon her right of dower, and submit to the robbery of the law, in order to escape the worse robbery of the will. This will was not the result of any disagreement between the husband and the wife. It was only the natural outgrowth of the whole policy of our laws as regards the property rights of woman. Permit us to notice one other case, which occurred in a neighboring State. Many similar ones, no doubt, have occurred in our own, the law in both States being the same.

A woman who had a fortune of fifty thousand dollars in "personal property," married. All this, by the law, belonged absolutely to the husband. In a year he died, leaving a will directing that the widow should have the proceeds of a certain part of this money, so long as she remained unmarried. If she married again, or at her death, it was to go to his heirs.

How different in all these cases is the condition of the husband upon the death of the wife. There in then no officious intermeddling of the law in his domestic affairs. His house, sad and desolate though it be, is still sacred and secure from the foot of unbidden guests. There is no legal "settlement" to eat up his estate. He is not told that "one equal third part" of all his lands and tenements shall be set apart for his use during his lifetime. "He has all, everything, even his wife's bridal presents too are his. If the wife had lands in her own right, and if they have ever had a living child, he has a life estate in the whole of it, not a beggarly 'third part.'"

Such is the result of man's government of woman without her consent. Such is the protection he affords her. She now asks the means of protecting herself, by the same instrumentality which man considers so essential to his freedom and security, representation, political equality—THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. The removal of this constitutional restriction is of great consequence, because it casts upon woman a stigma of inferiority, of incompetency, of unworthiness of trust. It ranks her with criminals and madmen and idiots. It is essential to her, practically, as being the key to all her rights, which will open to her the door of equality and justice.

Does any one believe that if woman had possessed an equal voice in making our laws, we should have standing on our statute books, for generations, laws so palpably unequal and unjust toward her? The idea is preposterous.

If our sense of natural justice and our theory of government both agree, that the being who is to suffer under laws shall first personally assent to them, and that the being whose industry the government is to burden should have a voice in fixing the character and amount of that burden, then, while woman is admitted to the gallows, the jail, and the tax-list, we have no right to debar her from the ballot-box.

Your Committee recommend the adoption of the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report to the Senate, a bill to submit to the qualified electors at the next election for senators and representatives, an amendment to the Constitution whereby the elective franchise shall be extended to the citizens of Ohio, without distinction of sex.

J. D. CATTELL, H. CANFIELD.



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Transcriber's note:

The transcriber made changes as below indicated to the text to correct obvious errors:

1. p. 18, "worhips" —> "worships" 2. p. 25, "evironments" —> "environments" 3. P. 54, "resoultion" —> "resolution" 4. p. 236, "spoliage" —> "spoilage" 5. p. 236, "pacifcally" —> "pacifically" 6. p. 269, "politicans" —> "politicians" 7. p. 303, "wilness" —> "wilderness" 8. p. 347, "itoxicating" —> "intoxicating" 9. p. 347, "probibitory" —> "prohibitory" 10. p. 349, "Legiture" —> "Legislature" 11. p. 373, "dipossessed" —> "dispossessed" 12. p. 383, "monoply" —> "monopoly" 13. p. 384, "Jospeh" —> "Joseph" 14. p. 405, "penalities" —> "penalties" 15. p. 448, "coup d'etat" —> "coup d'etat" 16. p. 491, "recolletion" —> "recollection" 17. P. 507, "beleive" —> "believe" 18. p. 534, "wrold" —> "world" 19. p. 539, "familar" —> "familiar" 20. p. 584, "lawer" —> "lawyer" 21. p. 595, "prentence" —> "pretence" 22. p. 730, "womahood" —> "womanhood" 23. p. 742, "gods" —> "goods" 24. p. 792, "moden" —> "modern" 25. p. 834, "congratlate" —> "congratulate" 26. p. 837, "nonsenical" —> "nonsensical" 27. p. 838, "characacteristic" —> "characteristic" 28. p. 840, "virtuons" —> "virtuous"

THE END