But I shall be told, in the language of the Report of the Committee, that the proposition is openly at war with the distribution of functions and duties between the sexes. Translated into English, Mr. Chairman, this means that it is unwomanly to vote. Well, sir, I know that at the very mention of the political rights of women, there arises in many minds a dreadful vision of a mighty exodus of the whole female world, in bloomers and spectacles, from the nursery and kitchen to the polls. It seems to be thought that if women practically took part in politics, the home would be left a howling wilderness of cradles, and a chaos of undarned stockings and buttonless shirts. But how is it with men? Do they desert their workshops, their plows, and offices, to pass their time at the polls? Is it a credit to a man to be called a professional politician? The pursuits of men in the world, to which they are directed by the natural aptitude of sex, and to which they must devote their lives, are as foreign from political functions as those of women. To take an extreme case: there is nothing more incompatible with political duties in cooking and taking care of children than there is in digging ditches or making shoes, or in any other necessary employment, while in every superior interest of society growing out of the family, the stake of women is not less than men, and their knowledge is greater. In England, a woman who owns shares in the East-India Company may vote. In this country she may vote as a stockholder upon a railroad from one end of the country to another. But if she sells her stock, and buys a house with the money, she has no voice in the laying out of the road before her door, which her house is taxed to keep and pay for. And why, in the name of good sense, if a responsible human being may vote upon specific industrial projects, may she not vote upon the industrial regulation of the State? There is no more reason that men should assume to decide participation in politics to be unwomanly than that woman should decide for men that it is unmanly. It is not our prerogative to keep women feminine. I think, sir, they may be trusted to defend the delicacy of their own sex. Our success in managing ours has not been so conspicuous that we should urgently desire more labor of the same kind. Nature is quite as wise as we. Whatever their sex incapacitates women from doing they will not do. Whatever duty is consistent with their sex and their relation to society, they will properly demand to do until they are permitted.

The reply to the assertion that participation in political power is unwomanly, and tends to subvert the family relation, is simple and unanswerable. It is that we can not know what is womanly until we see the folly of insisting that the theories of men settle the question. We know now what the convenience and feelings of men decide to be womanly. We shall know what is womanly in the same sense that we know what is manly, only when women have the same equality of development and the same liberty of choice as men. The amendment I offer is merely a prayer that you will remove from women a disability, and secure to them the same freedom of choice that we enjoy. If the instincts of sex, of maternity, of domesticity, are not persuasive enough to keep them in the truest sense women, it is the most serious defect yet discovered in the divine order of nature. When, therefore, the Committee declare that voting is at war with the distribution of functions between the sexes, what do they mean? Are not women as much interested in good government as men? There is fraud in the Legislature; there is corruption in the courts; there are hospitals, and tenement-houses, and prisons; there are gambling-houses, and billiard-rooms, and brothels; there are grog-shops at every corner, and I know not what enormous proportion of crime in the State proceeds from them; there are 40,000 drunkards in the State, and their hundreds of thousands of children—all these things are subjects of legislation, and under the exclusive legislation of men the crime associated with all these things becomes vast and complicated. Have the wives, and mothers, and sisters of New York less vital interest in them, less practical knowledge of them and their proper treatment, than the husbands and fathers? No man is so insane as to pretend it. Is there then any natural incapacity in women to understand politics? It is not asserted. Are they lacking in the necessary intelligence? But the moment that you erect a standard of intelligence which is sufficient to exclude women as a sex, that moment most of the male sex would be disfranchised. Is it that they ought not to go to public political meetings? But we earnestly invite them. Or that they should not go to the polls? Some polls, I allow, in the larger cities, are dirty and dangerous places; and those it is the duty of the police to reform. But no decent man wishes to vote in a grog-shop, nor to have his head broken while he is doing it, while the mere act of dropping a ballot in a box is about the simplest, shortest, and cleanest that can be done. Last winter Senator Frelinghuysen, repeating, I am sure thoughtlessly, the common rhetoric of the question, spoke of the high and holy mission of women. But if people, with a high and holy mission, may innocently sit bare-necked in hot theatres to be studied through pocket-telescopes until midnight by any one who chooses, how can their high and holy mission be harmed by their quietly dropping a ballot in a box? What is the high and holy mission of any woman but to be the best and most efficient human being possible? To enlarge the sphere of duty and the range of responsibility, where there are adequate power and intelligence, is to heighten, not to lessen, the holiness of life.

But if women vote, they must sit on juries. Why not? Nothing is plainer than that thousands of women who are tried every year as criminals are not tried by their peers. And if a woman is bad enough to commit a heinous crime, must we absurdly assume that women are too good to know that there is such a crime? If they may not sit on juries, certainly they ought not to be witnesses. A note in Howell's State Trials, to which my attention was drawn by one of my distinguished colleagues in the convention, quotes an ancient work, "Probation by Witnesses," by Sir George Mackenzie, in which he says: "The reason why women are excluded from witnessing must be either that they are subject to too much compassion, and so ought not to be more received in criminal cases than in civil cases; or else the law was unwilling to trouble them, and thought it might learn them too much confidence, and make them subject to too much familiarity with men and strangers, if they were necessitated to vague up and down at all courts upon all occasions." Hume says this rule was held as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century. But if too much familiarity with men be so pernicious, are men so pure that they alone should make laws for women, and so honorable that they alone should try women for breaking them? It is within a very few years at the Liverpool Assizes in a case involving peculiar evidence, that Mr. Russell said: "The evidence of women is, in some respects, superior to that of men. Their power of judging of minute details is better, and when there are more than two facts and something be wanting, their intuitions supply the deficiency." "And precisely the qualities which fit them to give evidence," says Mrs. Dall, to whom we owe this fact, "fit them to sift and test it."

But, the objectors continue, would you have women hold office? If they are capable and desirous, why not? They hold office now most acceptably. In my immediate neighborhood, a postmistress has been so faithful an officer for seven years, that when there was a rumor of her removal, it was a matter of public concern. This is a familiar instance in this country. Scott's "Antiquary" shows that a similar service was not unknown in Scotland. In "Notes and Queries," ten years ago (Vol. II., Sec. 2, 1856, pp. 83, 204), Alexander Andrews says: "It was by no means unusual for females to serve the office of overseer in small rural parishes," and a communication in the same publication (First Series, Vol. II., p. 383) speaks of a curious entry in the Harleian Miscellany (MS. 980, fol. 153): "The Countess of Richmond, mother to Henry VII., was a Justice of the Peace. Mr. Atturney said if it was so, it ought to have been by commission, for which he had made many an hower's search for the record, but could never find it, but he had seen many arbitriments that were made by her. Justice Joanes affirmed that he had often heard from his mother of the Lady Bartlett, mother to the Lord Bartlett, that she was a Justice of the Peace, and did set usually upon the bench with the other Justices in Gloucestershire; that she was made so by Queen Mary, upon her complaint to her of the injuries she sustained by some of that county, and desiring for redress thereof; that as she herself, was Chief-Justice of all England, so this lady might be in her own county, which accordingly the Queen granted. Another example was alleged of one —— Rowse, in Suffolk, who usually at the assizes and sessions there held, set upon the bench among the Justices gladio cincta." The Countess of Pembroke was hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised her office. Henry the VIIIth granted a commission of inquiry, under the great seal, to Lady Ann Berkeley, who opened it at Gloucester, and passed sentence under it. Henry VIII's daughter, Elizabeth Tudor, was Queen of England, in name and in fact, during the most illustrious epoch of English history. Was Elizabeth incompetent? Did Elizabeth unsex herself? Or do you say that she was an exceptional woman? So she was, but no more an exceptional woman than Alfred, Marcus Aurelius, or Napoleon were exceptional men. It was held by some of the old English writers that a woman might serve in almost any of the great offices of the kingdom. And, indeed, if Victoria may deliberate in council with her ministers, why may not any intelligent English woman deliberate in Parliament, or any such American woman in Congress? I mention Elizabeth, Maria Theresa, Catherine, and all the famous Empresses and Queens, not to prove the capacity of women for the most arduous and responsible office, for that is undeniable, but to show the hollowness of the assertion that there is an instinctive objection to the fulfillment of such offices by women. Men who say so do not really think so. The whole history of the voting and office-holding of women shows that whenever men's theories of the relation of property to the political franchise, or of the lineal succession of the government, require that women shall vote or hold office, the objection of impropriety and incapacity wholly disappears. If it be unwomanly for a woman to vote, or to hold office, it is unwomanly for Victoria to be Queen of England. Surely if our neighbors had thought they would be better represented in this convention by certain women, there is no good reason why they should have been compelled to send us. Why should I or any person be forbidden to select the agent whom we think the most competent and truly representative of our will? There is no talent or training required in the making of laws which is peculiar to the male sex. What is needed is intelligence and experience. The rest is routine.

The capacity for making laws is necessarily assumed when women are permitted to hold and manage property and to submit to taxation. How often the woman, widowed, or married, or single, is the guiding genius of the family—educating the children, directing the estate, originating, counseling, deciding. Is there anything essentially different in such duties and the powers necessary to perform them from the functions of legislation? In New Jersey the Constitution of 1776 admitted to vote all inhabitants of a certain age, residence, and property. In 1797, in an act to regulate elections, the ninth section provides: "Every voter shall openly and in full view deliver his or her ballot, which shall be a single written ticket, containing the names of the persons for whom he or she votes." An old citizen of New Jersey says that "the right was recognized, and very little said or thought about it in any way." But in 1807 the suffrage was restricted to white male adult citizens of a certain age, residence, and property, and in 1844 the property qualification was abolished. At the hearing before the committee, the other evening, a gentleman asked whether the change of the qualification excluding women did not show that their voting was found to be inconvenient or undesirable. Not at all. It merely showed that the male property-holders out-voted the female. It certainly showed nothing as to the right or expediency of the voting of women. Mr. Douglas, as I said, had a theory that the white male adult squatters in a territory might decide whether the colored people in the territory should be enslaved. They might, indeed, so decide, and with adequate power they might enforce their decision. But it proved very little as to the right, the expediency, or the constitutionality of slavery in a territory. The truth is that men deal with the practical question of female suffrage to suit their own purposes. About twenty-five years ago the Canadian government by statute rigorously and in terms forbade women to vote. But in 1850, to subserve a sectarian purpose, they were permitted to vote for school trustees. I am ashamed to argue a point so plain. What public affairs need in this State is "conscience," and woman is the conscience of the race. If we in this convention shall make a wise Constitution, if the Legislatures that follow us in this chamber shall purify the laws and see that they are honorably executed, it will be just in the degree that we shall have accustomed ourselves to the refined, moral, and mental atmosphere in which women habitually converse.

But would you, seriously, I am asked, would you drag women down into the mire of politics? No, sir, I would have them lift us out of it. The duty of this Convention is to devise means for the improvement of the government of this State. Now, the science of government is not an ignoble science, and the practice of politics is not necessarily mean and degrading. If the making and administering of law has become so corrupt as to justify calling politics filthy, and a thing in which no clean hands can meddle without danger, may we not wisely remember, as we begin our work of purification, that politics have been wholly managed by men? How can we purify them? Is there no radical method, no force yet untried, a power not only of skillful checks, which I do not undervalue, but of controlling character? Mr. Chairman, if we sat in this chamber with closed windows until the air became thick and fetid, should we not be fools if we brought in deodorizers—if we sprinkled chloride of lime and burned assafoetida, while we disdained the great purifier? If we would cleanse the foul chamber, let us throw the windows wide open, and the sweet summer air would sweep all impurity away and fill our lungs with fresher life. If we would purge politics let us turn upon them the great stream of the purest human influence we know.

But I hear some one say, if they vote they must do military duty. Undoubtedly when a nation goes to war it may rightfully claim the service of all its citizens, men and women. But the question of fighting is not the blow merely, but its quality and persistence. The important point is, to make the blow effective. Did any brave Englishman who rode into the jaws of death at Balaklava serve England on the field more truly than Florence Nightingale? That which sustains and serves and repairs the physical force is just as essential as the force itself. Thus the law, in view of the moral service they are supposed to render, excuses clergymen from the field, and in the field it details ten per cent of the army to serve the rest, and they do not carry muskets nor fight. Women, as citizens, have always done, and always will do that work in the public defense for which their sex peculiarly fits them, and men do no more. The care of the young warriors, the nameless and innumerable duties of the hospital and home, are just as essential to the national safety as fighting in the field. A nation of men alone could not carry on a contest any longer than a nation of women. Each would be obliged to divide its forces and delegate half to the duties of the other sex.

But while the physical services of war are equally divided between the sexes, the moral forces are stronger with women. It was the women of the South, we are constantly and doubtless very truly told, who sustained the rebellion, and certainly without the women of the North the Government had not been saved. From the first moment to the last, in all the roaring cities, in the remote valleys, in the deep woods, on the country hill-sides, on the open prairie, wherever there were wives, mothers, sisters, lovers, there were the busy fingers which, by day and by night, for four long years, like the great forces of spring-time and harvest, never failed. The mother paused only to bless her sons, eager for the battle; the wife to kiss her children's father, as he went; the sister smiled upon her brother, and prayed for the lover who marched away. Out of how many hundreds of thousands of homes and hearts they went who never returned. But those homes were both the inspiration and the consolation of the field. They nerved the arm that struck for them. When the son and husband fell in the wild storm of battle, the brave woman-heart broke in silence, but the busy fingers did not falter. When the comely brother and lover were tortured into idiocy and despair, that woman-heart of love kept the man's faith steady, and her unceasing toil repaired his wasted frame. It was not love of the soldier only, great as that was; it was knowledge of the cause. It was that supreme moral force operating through innumerable channels like the sunshine in nature, without which successful war would have been impossible. There are thousands and thousands of these women who ask for a voice in the government they have so defended. Shall we refuse them?

I appeal again to my honorable friend, the Chairman of the Committee. He has made the land ring with his cry of universal suffrage and universal amnesty. Suffrage and amnesty to whom? To those who sought to smother the government in the blood of its noblest citizens, to those who ruined the happy homes and broke the faithful hearts of which I spoke. Sir, I am not condemning his cry. I am not opposing his policy. I have no more thirst for vengeance than he, and quite as anxiously as my honorable friend do I wish to see the harvests of peace waving over the battle-fields. But, sir, here is a New York mother, who trained her son in fidelity to God and to his country. When that country called, they answered. Mother and son gave, each after his kind, their whole service to defend her. By the sad fate of war the boy is thrown into the ghastly den at Andersonville. Mad with thirst, he crawls in the pitiless sun toward a muddy pool. He reaches the dead-line, and is shot by the guard—murdered for fidelity to his country. "I demand amnesty for that guard, I demand that he shall vote," cries the honorable Chairman of the Committee. I do not say that it is an unwise demand. But I ask him, I ask you, sir, I ask every honorable and patriotic man in this State, upon what conceivable ground of justice, expediency, or common sense shall we give the ballot to the New York boy's murderer and refuse it to his mother?

Mr. Chairman, I have thus stated what I conceive to be the essential reasonableness of the amendment which I have offered. It is not good for man to be alone. United with woman in the creation of human society, their rights and interests in its government are identical, nor can the highest and truest development of society be reasonably conceived, so long as one sex assumes to prescribe limits to the scope and functions of the other. The test of civilization is the position of women. Where they are wholly slaves, man is wholly barbarous; and the measure of progress from barbarism to civilization is the recognition of their equal right with man to an unconstrained development. Therefore, when Mr. Mill unrolls his petition in Parliament to secure the political equality of women, it bears the names of those English men and women whose thoughts foretell the course of civilization. The measure which the report of the Committee declares to be radically revolutionary and perilous to the very functions of sex, is described by the most sagacious of living political philosophers as reasonable, conservative, necessary, and inevitable; and he obtains for it seventy-three votes in the same House in which out of about the same whole number of voters Charles James Fox, the idol of the British Whigs, used to be able to rally only forty votes against the policy of Pitt. The dawn in England will soon be day here. Before the American principle of equal rights, barrier after barrier in the path of human progress falls. If we are still far from its full comprehension and further from perfect conformity to its law, it is in that only like the spirit of Christianity, to whose full glory even Christendom but slowly approaches. From the heat and tumult of our politics we can still lift our eyes to the eternal light of that principle; can see that the usurpation of sex is the last form of caste that lingers in our society; that in America the most humane thinker is the most practical man, and the organizer of justice the most sagacious statesman.

Mr. Gould, of Columbia, followed with a long speech in opposition, and the discussion[104] continued through several days; but Mr. Curtis's amendment, in the Committee of the Whole, received 24 ayes against 63 nays; and on the final vote in the Convention, 19 ayes[105] against 125 nays.

Mr. Greeley, seemingly to atone for the disappointment of the women of the State in his adverse report, published the following editorial in The Tribune of July 26th, 1867:

WOMEN IN POLITICS.

The Constitutional Convention of our State, yesterday, negatived—yeas 19, nays 125—the proposition that women should share with men the duties and responsibilities of voters at elections. This decision was preceded by an earnest, protracted discussion, in which the right and expediency of extending the elective franchise to women were most eloquently urged by George William Curtis, and less elaborately by several others. The judgment pronounced yesterday by the Convention must therefore be regarded as final.

We do not, however, regard it as a verdict against a participation in public affairs by women. On the contrary, we hold that woman's influence not only is, but should be felt in legislation and government, and must increase in power as the race becomes more enlightened and humane. We only insist that she shall speak and be heard distinctly as woman, not mingled and confused with man. To make women voters at our elections as now held, and eligible to office in competition with men, would be far better calculated to corrupt woman than to reform man and purify politics. To have women mingle freely with men in primary meetings, caucuses, nominating conventions, investigating committees, juries, etc., etc., is not in our judgment calculated to elevate woman more than to reform existing abuses in legislation and practical politics. We should greatly prefer a system like this:

Let the women of our State, after due discussion and consultation, hold a convention composed of delegates from the several counties, equal in number to the members of Assembly. To this Convention let none but women be admitted, whether as officers or spectators. Let this convention, keeping its debates wholly private, decide what department of legislative government may be safely assigned and set apart to woman. We would suggest all that relates to the family; marriage, divorce, separation from bed and board, the control and maintenance of children, education, the property rights of married women, inheritance, dower, etc., etc., as subjects that could wisely and safely be set apart to be legislated upon by woman alone. And we believe that if she (not a few women, but the sex) shall ever suggest and require such an apportionment of legislative powers and duties, man will cheerfully concede it.

"But would you have woman hold elections like ours"? No! we would not! We would have her teach us how to take the sense of the electors far more quietly and cheaply. When a department of legislation shall be assigned to woman, we would have her collect through school-district, or kindred organizations, the names of all female citizens who possess the qualifications, other than of sex, required from male voters at our elections. These being duly, lucidly registered, let, then, women in each Assembly district be designated to collect the votes of its women. Let them simply advertise the address to which votes should be sent and appoint a week wherein to collect them. Now, let every female citizen write her ballot and enclose it, signing her name to the address indicated; and due time having been allowed for votes to arrive by mail or otherwise, let the votes be duly canvassed, and the result ascertained and declared, and certificates of election issued accordingly.

Under this plan, the invalid, the bed-ridden, the bereaved, and even the absent, could vote as well as others, and the cost of holding an election throughout the State need not reach $10,000. Such are the outlines of our views regarding woman in politics. They are doubtless susceptible of improvement; but we think not by effacing in politics the natural and time-honored distinctions between women and men. A female legislature, a jury of women, we could abide; a legislature of men and women, a jury promiscuously drawn from the sexes we do not believe in.

The New York Independent published the following criticism on Mr. Greeley's report a few days after its publication:

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

Your committee does not recommend an extension of the elective franchise to woman. However defensible in theory, we are satisfied that public sentiment does not demand, and would not sustain, an innovation so revolutionary and sweeping; so openly at war with a distribution of duties and functions between the sexes as venerable as the Government itself, and involving transformations so radical in social and domestic life. Should we prove to be in error on this head, the Convention may overrule us by changing a few words in the first section of our proposed article.

In the above extract from the majority report of the Committee on Suffrage we have substantially four reasons why the committee did not recommend an extension of the elective franchise to women.

1st. Public sentiment does not demand it.

2d. It would be an innovation revolutionary and sweeping.

3d. It is at war with a distribution of duties and functions between the sexes.

4th. The enfranchisement of women would disturb relations as venerable as government itself, and radically change our domestic life.

Shades of Jeremy Bentham and Sidney Smith forgive! After publishing to the world that immortal oration of Noodledom, and refuting for all time such fallacies as the above, how amazing that Radical Republicans in the capital of the Empire State should repeat in the ears of the nineteenth century stale platitudes from the effete civilizations of the Old World—that to their starving wives and mothers, knocking at the door of the political citadel, instead of bread and the ballot, they should give stones and twenty years more of degradation in disfranchisement. But if it be true that public sentiment is not prepared for this just and beneficent measure, then it is the duty of our leaders, instead of stereotyping the ignorant prejudices of the people into statutes and constitutions, to educate this public sentiment, by the utterance of sound ideas, by the example of honest action. When God gives new truths to the few, it is that they may win the response of the many. There is no blunder more constantly made by politicians than the assumption that the people are never ready for an onward step.

The people were ready for emancipation so long before the Government declared it that, when it did come, the measure called forth but little enthusiasm. It is not so much the will of the people that troubles the politician as the safety of the party in power. This committee denies the ballot to woman, and gives it to the black man, for the same reason—party success; not because they think public sentiment is ready for either, for in their uncertainty they dare not submit the question of the black man separately to a vote of the people. "But the measure is so revolutionary and sweeping." When we abjured King George, and declared all men equal, we inaugurated a very revolutionary measure, undermined kingdoms and empires, deranged the political, commercial, and social interests of two continents, and upset innumerable family relations, by crowding husbands and fathers into untimely graves. Had the Honorable Suffrage Committee been in Boston Harbor, they would have objected to throwing the tea overboard as too revolutionary a measure; they would have scouted Jefferson's radical declaration as absurd, in view of the royal facts on every throne in Europe, and the divine command, "Honor the king." After revolutionizing, as we have just done, the entire system of labor at the South, the social and political status of a race, and in pressing a measure for which public sentiment seemed unprepared, deluging the land in blood, how futile is such reasoning as the above in the mouths of those who inaugurated this second revolution.

Again, "The enfranchisement of woman is at war with the distribution of duties and functions between the sexes." The plea of tyrants in all ages. Says the English peer, "I'll make laws and govern; let the peasant till the earth and provide the sinews of war." Says the proud slaveholder, "I'll read and write and think; let the negro hoe the sugar, rice, and corn." Says the New York Suffrage Committee, "We will do the voting; let women pay the taxes. We will be judges, jurors, sheriffs; and give woman the right to be hung on the gallows." Napoleon once said to Madame de Stael, "Why will you women meddle with politics?" "Sire," she replied, "if you will hang us, we must ask the reason why."

The functions of the sexes! What particular function does it require to vote? In the discussion on this point, we hear of property, education, morality, sanity; yet "white males" vote without these, and women possessing all are denied the right. While different men have different duties, different functions, different spheres, ranging from the heights of Parnassus to the bowels of the earth, why legislate all women into a nutshell? Because a man is a father, must he needs be nothing else? Are lawyers, merchants, tailors, cobblers, bootblacks less skilled in their specialties because they vote? Because some women are mothers, shall all women concentrate every thought in that direction? and can those who are mothers be nothing else? Have not those who are training up sons and daughters an interest beyond the home, in the great outer world, where they are soon to act their part? If women should vote one day in the year, must every duty and function of their being be subordinated to that one act during the whole 365?

Many men, possessing the right of suffrage, never exercise it: many more use it indifferently once a year, or sell it to the highest bidder; and on what principle does the theory rest, that if woman had this right, she would desert husband, child, and home, and reserve all her love and care, her smiles and enthusiasm, for the ballot-box? No; woman's love for man is not based on the statutes of the State, nor the maternal instinct on the second article of the Constitution. Whatever distribution of duties and functions are fixed by nature we need no legislation to enforce. So long as the fact of motherhood does not release woman from taxation, and the necessity of earning her own bread, it should not deprive her of that right most needed for her protection. If the 40,000 drunkards' wives in this State have the necessary functions to provide food, clothes, and shelter for worthless husbands and helpless children, they have the necessary functions to go to the polls and vote for such social and sanitary laws as shall end the vice of intemperance.

"But," says the Committee, "this measure would disturb relations as venerable as government itself."

So said objectors twenty years ago in this State when woman was first secured in her rights of property. Some of our must distinguished lawyers prophesied a social convulsion on the adoption of that measure. But it came without earthquake or tornado. In a single hour, by a stroke of the pen, the women of the Empire State were crowned property-holders. But only those who had felt the iron teeth of the law took note of the onward legislation. It was a mighty wave on the shores of progress, that made scarce a ripple on the surface, washing the feet of the lonely traveler on the sand, though unheeded by the multitude on the bosom of its waters.

The ballot in the hand of woman will bring neither the millennium nor pandemonium the next day; but it will surely right many wrongs. It will open to her the colleges, the professions, the profitable and honorable walks of life, and give her better wages for her work. In securing to woman self-respect, independence and power, we shall purify and exalt our social relations. Helpless and dependent, woman must ever be the victim of society. "Give a man a right over my subsistence," says Alexander Hamilton, "and he has a right over my whole moral being."

February 13, 1868, Mr. Graves offered a resolution: "That the article on suffrage be recommitted to be revised, by striking out the word 'male' after the word 'every' in the first line of Section 1, Article II."

Mr. GRAVES said: In offering this resolution I am not unmindful of the opinion that has been expressed in this Convention on the question. Yet, sir, I see a willingness expressed on all sides, to extend the suffrage to the black man at the South and the equally ignorant foreigner, alike without education, without knowledge of our laws and Constitution, incapable of appreciating the genius of republican institutions, and who, neither by manner, by effort, by example, by influence, can do aught to promote the best interests of this Government.

If this constitution as it now is shall be approved by the people, you allow the black men of the South, fresh from the chains of slavery, to go to the ballot-box and vote on all the great questions involving the interests of this nation, while you deny the same right to educated, patriotic women—our own wives and mothers, who are educating our children, who give tone and character to society, and who are first and foremost in all moral movements.

You deny them the right to select officers who are to discharge the duties of government, and, worse still, a voice in the laws they are compelled to obey. Yes, sir, you say to the drunken husband who spends his time in whisky saloons, who goes reeling home at night to abuse his wife and children, that he is fit to vote on the interests of the family and the town, while you deny that right to the clear-headed, industrious wife, who feeds, clothes and shelters the worthless husband and educates the half-orphaned children.

What a travesty on common sense and justice is such legislation! I know there are men in this Convention shaking in their boots for fear their mothers, wives, and daughters shall have equal power with themselves; cowardly men without gallantry, who fear that woman's voice in legislation might end some of the pet vices of society—might be more potent than their own.

Mr. SEAVER rose to a point of order, and asked, "Who are the men shaking in their boots?"

Mr. GRAVES retorted, "Wounded birds will flutter."

Mr. VEDDER wanted the gentleman's words recorded.

Mr. GRAVES: I was about to say that educated women should be permitted to go to the ballot-box, and by their votes help to maintain our form of government. Why is it that every father in this country is educating his daughter as well as his son in all branches of science? Why does he expend his money in preparing his daughter for the most responsible positions, and then deny her the right to exercise her powers in the most intricate and exalted of sciences—that of government? I know it is said that the right of suffrage conferred on woman would destroy all domestic peace; which is to say a man can not tolerate an equal at his fireside. Does domestic peace exist in the exact ratio of a woman's inferiority to the man she calls her husband? The intelligent, educated wife must exert an influence for good over the husband. The wise, far-seeing, self-disciplined mother must exert an influence for good over her children; why, then, may not this influence be equally potent in the State?

The resolution was lost.

The struggle in New York ended, all thoughts were turned towards Kansas, where, as already shown, the friends of woman suffrage were doomed to another disappointment. However, the year was one of active effort; tracts and petitions were diligently circulated; a thorough campaign made in Kansas; a series of meetings held in all the chief cities from Leavenworth to New York, and a newspaper established, demanding far more time and money than its founders anticipated. Thus the intervening months were fully occupied until the May Anniversaries, when all religious and reformatory associations were accustomed to hold their annual meetings in New York city.

EQUAL RIGHTS ANNIVERSARY.

The American Equal Rights Association held its annual meeting in Cooper Institute, New York, May 14, 1868. Its officers[106], with but few changes, were the same as before.

The HUTCHINSON FAMILY, the branch of John, was present, and with their sister, Abby Hutchinson Patten, opened the meeting with their song, "We Come to Greet You." Lucy Stone read a letter from John Stuart Mill, expressing sympathy with the movement. Letters were also read from Rev. Robert Collyer of Chicago, Maria Giddings, the daughter of Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, Frances Dana Gage, and several others. Miss Anthony invited all delegates of Equal Rights Societies to seats on the platform; she also moved that Mrs. Rose, Mrs. Stanton, Mr. Burleigh and Mr. Foster be a committee to prepare resolutions.

HENRY B. BLACKWELL reported the success of the campaign of the women of this Society in Kansas, where Rev. Olympia Brown, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had canvassed. Their eloquence and determination gave great promise of success; but in an inopportune moment, Horace Greeley and others saw fit in the Constitutional Convention to report unfavorably on the proposition to extend suffrage to the women of the Empire State, and that influenced the sentiment of the younger Western States, and their enterprise was crushed. Even the Republicans in Kansas, after witnessing this example, set their faces against the extension of suffrage to women. The negroes got but a few more votes than did the women.

LUCY STONE gave a resume of the progress of the cause in this country and in England. Col. Higginson and Mrs. Rose made excellent remarks. "Keep the ball rolling" was gracefully rendered by Mrs. Abby Hutchinson Patton, the whole audience joining in the chorus. Mrs. Stone presented two forms of petition to Congress; one to extend suffrage to women in the District of Columbia and the Territories, the other for the submission of a proposition for a 16th Amendment to prohibit the States from disfranchising citizens on account of sex. Frederick Douglass made an acceptable speech in favor of the petitions. The President announced that Mrs. Patten headed the subscription list to aid the association in its work for the coming year with $50. Miss Anthony presented the various tracts published by the Society, and The Revolution, urging the friends of the cause to aid in the circulation of the paper, as it was the only one owned and edited by women, wholly devoted to the cause of Equal Rights. Rev. Dr. Blanchard, of Brooklyn, opened the evening session with prayer; a resolution was proposed and adopted, on the death of James Mott, husband of Lucretia Mott, President of the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls.

Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN: It is said that Nature is against us. In the Massachusetts Legislature, Mr. Dana, Chairman of the Committee before whom we had a hearing, said: "Nature is against it. It will take the romance out of life to grant what you desire"! If the romance of life is a falsehood and a fiction, we want to get back to truth, nature and God. We all love liberty and desire to possess it. No one worthy the name of man or woman is willing to surrender liberty and become subservient to another. Woman may be shut out of politics by law, but her influence will be felt there. Some of our leading reformers work for other objects first; the enfranchisement of the negro, the eight hour law, the temperance cause; and leave the woman suffrage question in the background; but woman will be enfranchised in spite of them. It is no use to tell us to wait until something else is done. Now is the accepted time for the enfranchisement of woman. The abolition of slavery was thought to be premature, but that mistake is now clearly seen. Now is the time for every disfranchised class to make known its wants. The Republican party is no better than the Democratic. It sacrificed principle and nominated a man for President to save the party, whom they were afraid the Democrats would nominate if they did not! The Republican party controlled Kansas, and yet repudiated woman's rights in the canvass of last year. We want a party (and would like the Republican party) who will adopt a platform of Universal Suffrage for every color and every sex. "The Republican party must be saved," is the cry; but its great danger is in not being true to principle. We will push on, keeping in view the rights of our common nature until woman is the peer of man in every sphere of life.

ELIZABETH A. KINGSLEY, of Philadelphia, CHARLES BURLEIGH, Rev. HENRY BLANCHARD and Mrs. ROSE made brief addresses.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS deprecated the seeming assertion of Rev. O. B. Frothingham, that one good cause was in opposition to another. I champion the right of the negro to vote. It is with us a matter of life and death, and therefore can not be postponed. I have always championed woman's right to vote; but it will be seen that the present claim for the negro is one of the most urgent necessity. The assertion of the right of women to vote meets nothing but ridicule; there is no deep seated malignity in the hearts of the people against her; but name the right of the negro to vote, all hell is turned loose and the Ku-klux and Regulators hunt and slay the unoffending black man. The government of this country loves women. They are the sisters, mothers, wives and daughters of our rulers; but the negro is loathed. Women should not censure Mr. Phillips, Mr. Greeley, or Mr. Tilton, all have spoken eloquently for woman's rights. We are all talking for woman's rights, and we should be just to all our friends and enemies. There is a difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.

OLYMPIA BROWN: What is it?

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: The Democratic party has, during the whole war, been in sympathy with the rebellion, while the Republican party has supported the Government.

OLYMPIA BROWN: How is it now?

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: The Democratic party opposes impeachment, and desires a white man's government.

OLYMPIA BROWN: What is the difference in principle between the position of the Democratic party opposing the enfranchisement of 2,000,000 negro men, and the Republican party opposing the emancipation of 17,000,000 white women?

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: The Democratic party opposes suffrage to both: but the Republican party is in favor of enfranchising the negro, and is largely in favor of enfranchising woman. Where is the Democrat who favors woman suffrage? (A voice in the audience, "Train!") Yes, he hates the negro, and that is what stimulates him to substitute the cry of emancipation for women. The negro needs suffrage to protect his life and property, and to ensure him respect and education. He needs it for the safety of reconstruction and the salvation of the Union; for his own elevation from the position of a drudge to that of an influential member of society. If you want women to forget and forsake frivolity, and the negro to take pride in becoming a useful and respectable member of society, give them both the ballot.

OLYMPIA BROWN: Why did Republican Kansas vote down negro suffrage?

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Because of your ally, George Francis Train!

OLYMPIA BROWN: How about Minnesota without Train? The Republican party is a party and cares for nothing but party! It has repudiated both negro suffrage and woman suffrage.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Minnesota lacked only 1,200 votes of carrying negro suffrage. All the Democrats voted against it, while only a small portion of the Republicans did so. And this was substantially the same in Ohio and Connecticut. The Republican party is about to bring ten States into the Union; and Thaddeus Stevens has reported a bill to admit seven, all on the fundamental basis of constitutions guaranteeing negro suffrage forever.

OLYMPIA BROWN again insisted that the party was false, and that now was the time for every true patriot to demand that no new State should be admitted except on the basis of suffrage to women as well as negroes.

LUCY STONE controverted Mr. Douglass' statement that women were not persecuted for endeavoring to obtain their rights, and depicted in glowing colors the wrongs of women and the inadequacy of the laws to redress them. Mrs. Stone also charged the Republican party as false to principle unless it protected women as well as colored men in the exercise of their right to vote.

The Tribune said the resolutions adopted declare that suffrage is an inalienable right without qualification of sex or race; that our State and National Governments are anti-Republican in form, and anti-Democratic in fact; that the only way to decide whether women want to vote is to give them an opportunity of doing so; that the Republicans are bound to extend the application of manhood suffrage to women; that Reconstruction will fail to secure peace, unless it gives women the right to vote; they invite the National Conventions of both parties to put a woman suffrage plank in their platforms; petition[107] Congress to extend suffrage to the women of the District of Columbia, and to propose a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting political distinctions on account of sex; assert that the laws depriving married women of the equal custody of their children and of the control of their property, are a disgrace to civilization; and thank the men of Kansas who voted for Woman Suffrage.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] Following this hearing, Mr. Folger presented a resolution in the Senate for the women of the State to vote for delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and nine members voted in its favor.

[93] The Albany Evening Journal of January 24th, says: "Mrs. Stanton had a large audience to hear her argument in favor of so amending the Constitution as to permit women and colored men to vote and hold office. She said all that could be said and said it well in support of her position, but it is still a problem whether the Judiciary Committee were convinced. Like most men of old-fashioned notions, they are slow to believe that women would be elevated, either in usefulness, or dignity, by being transferred from the drawing room and the nursery to the ballot-box and the forum!!

[94] Horace Greeley, Westchester Co., Leslie W. Russel, Lawrence Co., William Cassidy, Albany Co., William H. Merrill, Wyoming Co., George Williams, Oneida Co., John G. Schumaker, Kings Co., Isaac L. Eudress, Livingston Co.

[95] June 20, 1867.—Mr. CORBETT presented a memorial from citizens of Syracuse for securing the right of suffrage for women on equal terms with men.

Mr. GRAVES—Petition of Mrs. F. D. Fish and 180 other citizens—worthy and intelligent men and women—of the city of Utica, asking equal suffrage for men and women.

Referred to the Committee on Suffrage.

June 26, 1867.—Mr. RATHBUN—Petition for universal suffrage for women as well as men.

C. E. PARKER—Petition for citizens of Tioga County.

Mr. CURTIS—A petition from Mrs. Daniel Cady, of Johnstown, and 200 others, asking to have "male" stricken from the State Constitution.

E. G. LAPHAM presented a petition.

Mr. EZRA GRAVES presented thirty-seven petitions—Brooklyn, 1; Mt. Morris, 4; Troy, 1; Lima, 1; New York City, 8; Buffalo, 3; Skaneateles, 2; Lockport, 1; Poughkeepsie, 1; Dutchess County, 1; Utica, 1; Fairfield, Herkimer Co., 1. In all, 2,040 persons asking for equal suffrage.

Friday, June 28th.—C. C. DWIGHT—Mrs. Eliza Wright Osborn and 22 others, of Auburn, asking suffrage for women. Mr. COOKE—Mrs. Lina Vandenburg and 350 others. Mr. ARCHER—Sundry citizens. Mr. MEAD—Mrs. E. A. Kingsbury and 20 others. Mr. SCHOONMAKER—M. I. Ingraham and others. Mr. HOUSTON—Lucia Sutton. Mr. RATHBUN—Mrs. A. H. Sabin and 20 others. J. BROOKS—Emma Suydam and 15 others.

Mr. GRAVES—Two memorials. 1st. Schoharie County, 204 men and women for constitutional amendment prohibiting sale of intoxicating liquors. 2d. Lucia Humphrey and 30 others for equal suffrage. All went to Committee on Suffrage, except Mr. Graves' first, which went to Committee on Adulterated Liquors.

[96] Mr. GREELEY, June 26th, from the Committee on Suffrage, offered a resolution that "The use of this hall on the 27th, Thursday evening of this week, be granted to the Standing Committee on the Right of Suffrage, that they may accord a public hearing to the advocates of female suffrage," which was adopted.

[97] The Albany Evening Journal of June 28, 1867, says, editorially:

WOMANHOOD SUFFRAGE.—The Assembly Chamber was well filled last evening to listen to Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony. Mrs. Stanton made a stirring appeal, and Miss Anthony followed. In response to queries, she said she expected that women would yet serve as jurors and be drafted. Several hundred had fought in the late war, but when their sex was discovered they were dismissed in disgrace; and to the shame of the Government be it said, they were never paid for their services.

[98] Mr. Folger offered a resolution—That the use of this Chamber be granted to the American Equal Rights Association for a meeting on the evening of Wednesday, the 10th inst.

[99] GEO. FRANCIS TRAIN BEFORE THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AT ALBANY.—The Constitutional Convention at Albany has not had many variations from its customary slate of topics, but it is a noteworthy fact that no New York paper mentioned that Geo. Francis Train addressed the Convention for two hours on the subject of woman voting and the financial policy of the nation. Mr. Train having been the only man to volunteer his services in Kansas and before the Convention, it is worthy of note, when the argument advanced by our chivalrous press is a sneer, a sarcasm, or an insult, that Mr. Train's defense of women voting was received by the Convention by loud and repeated applause. The following was the resolution, passed unanimously, offering the hall:

STATE OF NEW YORK, IN CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, } ALBANY, December 4, 1867. }

On motion of Mr. Ballard:

Resolved, That the use of the Assembly Chamber be granted to Geo. Francis Train, Esq., at 4 P.M. this day.

By order. LUTHER CALDWELL, Secretary.

[100] In 1846 the question of negro suffrage was submitted to a popular vote, and negatived by 223,884 to 85,306; in 1850 it was again defeated by a vote of 337,984 to 197,503; a similar submission was provided for by a concurrent resolution of the Legislature of 1859, which by neglect of the State officer to provide for its publication, was defeated; but its fate may fairly be regarded as further evidence of the indifference of the public toward a change.

[101] July 1st.—Mr. FOWLER presented a petition from Miss Laura Bosworth and others for woman suffrage.

July 9th.—From Gerrit Smith and 180 others of Madison County, for female suffrage.

Mr. ENDRESS—Emma C. Lawrence and 50 others of Westchester, for female suffrage.

Mr. MURPHY—Thomas N. Cashow and 20 others, of Kings County, for woman suffrage.

Mr. FULLERTON—Mary J. Quackenbosh and many others, from Newburgh.

Mr. VAN CAMPEN—Mary E. Mead and many others, of Westchester County.

Mr. BEADLE—Mrs. W. S. Shute, Mary C. Bristol, and 120 others from Horse Heads.

Mr. HAMMOND—Mrs. J. C. Holmes and many others from Westchester County.

July 10th.—Mr. TUCKER—A petition from a large number of men and women for extending the right of suffrage to woman.

Mr. GRAVES—Fifty-four ladies of New York City, asking suffrage for women.

July 11th.—Mr. CURTIS—From Charles J. Seymour, Mrs. Mary Newman and 500 others from Broome County, for equal suffrage.

July 12th.—Mr. CORBETT—Henry Ward Beecher, Edwin A. Studwell, and many others, of Kings County, for woman suffrage.

July 16th.—Mr. FOLGER presented a petition from Emily P. Collins, of Rochester, and others, asking that women be granted the privilege of voting, that in 1869 the proposition be submitted for all who can read and write.

July 18th.—Mr. GREELEY—From Mrs. Louisa Howland and many others, of Mt. Vernon, Westchester County, for woman suffrage.

Mr. CURTIS—From Mrs. Eliza Benton and others of New York City, asking for equal suffrage. Another from Caroline E. Hubbard and 20 others, of Westchester County.

July 31st.—Mr. POTTER—Lydia Baldwin, F. Brucklin, and others, of Erie County, asking for the extension of the suffrage to women.

Mr. GRAVES—Jane E. Turner, Rev. C. H. Bebee, and 56 others, Bridgewater, Oneida County. Another from Julia M. Sherwood and 22 others, Westchester County, asking for woman suffrage.

[102] The ladies suggested to Mr. Curtis to present Mrs. Greeley's petition last, and with emphasis, that it might attract the attention of the reporters, and thus have Mrs. Greeley's petition and Mr. Greeley's report to antidote each other, and appear side by side in the Metropolitan journals. After the Convention adjourned that day, some of the ladies lingered in the vestibule to congratulate Mr. Greeley on his conservative report; but he had disappeared through some side door, and could not be found. A few weeks after he met Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony at one of Alice Cary's Sunday evening receptions. They noticed him slowly making his way toward them, and prepared for the coming storm. As he approached, both arose, and with extended hands, exclaimed most cordially, "Good evening, Mr. Greeley." But his hands hung limp and undemonstrative by his side, as he said in low and measured words, "You two ladies are the most maneuvering politicians in the State of New York. You set out to annoy me in the Constitutional Convention, and you did it effectually. I saw in the manner my wife's petition was presented, that Mr. Curtis was acting under instructions. I saw the reporters prick up their ears and knew that my report and Mrs. Greeley's petition would come out together, with large headings in the city papers, and probably be called out by the newsboys in the street."

Turning to Mrs. Stanton, he said, "You are so tenacious about your own name, why did you not inscribe my wife's maiden name, Mary Cheney Greeley on her petition?" "Because," I replied, "I wanted all the world to know that it was the wife of Horace Greeley who protested against her husband's report." "Well," said he, "I understand the animus of that whole proceeding, and now let me tell you what I intend to do. I have given positive instructions that no word of praise shall ever again be awarded you in the Tribune, and that if your name is ever necessarily mentioned, it shall be as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton!" And so it has been ever since.

From that time Mr. Greeley was seemingly hostile to the woman suffrage movement, just as he was toward the anti-slavery cause, after the Abolitionists in rolling up 60,000 votes for James G. Birney, defeated Henry Clay, and gave the ascendency to the Democrats by electing Polk. Clay being a strong Protectionist was a great favorite with Mr. Greeley, and his defeat was a sore disappointment, and for years he denounced Abolitionists individually and collectively in his scathing editorials. Still in his happier moods he firmly believed in the civil and political equality of both women and negroes.

[103] This amendment was on the following section of Mr. Greeley's Report:

SECTION I. Every man of the age of twenty-one years who shall have been an inhabitant of this State for one year next preceding an election, and for the last thirty days a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the election district where he may offer his vote, shall be entitled to vote at such election, in said district and not elsewhere, for all officers elected by the people.

Provided, That idiots, lunatics, persons under guardianship, felons, and persons convicted of bribery, unless pardoned or otherwise restored to civil rights, shall not be entitled to vote....

[104] The Albany Evening Journal of July 25, 1867, in speaking of the "Suffrage Discussion," said: "All men and women have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If when deprived of the ballot the consequence is that this inalienable right is abridged, then society owes it to the class thus practically enslaved to bestow suffrage upon them. At the South there is no safety for the negro from oppressive laws but in the ballot. It is idle to argue ignorance. Political enfranchisement is the best educator."

[105] Beals, Bell, Corning, Curtis, Duganne, Farnum, Field, Folger, Fowler, Graves, Hadley, Hammond, Kinney, Lapham, M. H. Lawrence, Pond, Tucker, Vedder, Wales.

[106] President—Lucretia Mott.

Vice-Presidents—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N.Y.; Frederick Douglass, N.Y.; Henry Ward Beecher, N.Y.; Martha C. Wright N.Y.; Elizabeth B. Chace. R.I.; C. Prince, Ct; Frances D. Gage, N.Y.; Robert Purvis, Penn.; Parker Pillsbury, N.H.; Antoinette Brown Blackwell, N.J.; Josephine S. Griffing, D.C.; Thomas Garrett, Del.; Stephen H. Camp, Ohio; Euphemia Cochrane, Mich.; Mary A. Livermore, Ill.; Mrs. Isaac H. Sturgeon, Mo.; Amelia Bloomer, Iowa; Helen Ekin Starrett, Kansas; Virginia Penny, Kentucky; Olympia Brown, Mass.

Corresponding Secretary—Mary E. Gage.

Recording Secretaries—Henry B. Blackwell, Hattie Purvis.

Treasurer—John J. Merritt.

Executive Committee—Lucy Stone, Edward S. Bunker, Elizabeth R. Tilton, Ernestine L. Rose, Robert J. Johnston, Edwin A. Studwell, Anna Cromwell Field, Susan B. Anthony, Theodore Tilton, Margaret E. Winchester, Abby Hutchinson Patton.

[107] ST. LOUIS, May 4, 1868.

MRS. E. C. STANTON—Dear Friend: Our gentlemen friends urge us to memorialize Congress on the question of Suffrage in the District. Well knowing how a single petition is suffocated, would it not be well for all the States to unite, and be presented at the same time? New York, being the banner State, must head the move and be spokesman. Out list of names is waiting the interminable Impeachment to be handed in (oh, for old Ben. Wade in the White House), but it seems to me one State should not go alone; if all the State organizations were notified to send in their lists immediately to whoever you think will be most likely to do justice to the cause, we could make quite a formidable display combined.

Your sincere friend, MRS. FRANCIS MINOR, President of the St. Louis Woman's Suffrage Association.

* * * * *

ENFRANCHISEMENT IN THE DISTRICT.—MAY 21, 1868.—To the Friends of Equal Rights: The whole government of the District of Columbia is to be revised by Congress, in consequence of the expiration of local charters, within the next nine months. A rare opportunity is thus afforded to bring the enfranchisement of woman to the attention of Congress and the country. We urge you to send in petitions as fast as possible, with as many signatures as you can obtain. They should be sent to Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, 213 North Capitol street, Washington, D. C., who will acknowledge their receipt and attend to their presentation.

FORM OF PETITION.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress Assembled:

The undersigned ——, of the —— of ——, in the State of ——, respectfully petition, that in your revision of the government of the District of Columbia, you will protect the women of the District from being debarred the exercise of their right of suffrage.



CHAPTER XXI.

RECONSTRUCTION.

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments—Universal Suffrage and Universal Amnesty the Key-note of Reconstruction—Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips Hesitate—A Trying Period in the Woman Suffrage Movement—Those Opposed to the word "Male" in the Fourteenth Amendment Voted Down in Conventions—The Negro's Hour—Virginia L. Minor on Suffrage in the District of Columbia—Women Advised to be Silent—The Hypocrisy of the Democrats preferable to that of the Republicans—Senator Pomeroy's Amendment—Protests against a Man's Government—Negro Suffrage a Political Necessity—Charles Sumner Opposed to the Fourteenth Amendment, but Voted for it as a Party Measure—Woman Suffrage for Utah—Discussion in the House as to who Constitute Electors—Bills for Woman Suffrage presented by the Hon. George W. Julian and Senators Wilson and Pomeroy—The Fifteenth Amendment—Anna E. Dickinson's Suggestion—Opinions of Women on the Fifteenth Amendment—The Sixteenth Amendment—Miss Anthony chosen a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention July 4, 1868—Her Address Read by a Unanimous Vote—Horatio Seymour in the Chair—Comments of the Press—The Revolution.

The war settled two questions: 1st. That we are a Nation, and not a mere confederacy of States. 2d. That all "persons" born or naturalized in the United States are "citizens," and stand equal before the law. Freedom, United States citizenship, the limit of State authority, and national protection of the fundamental rights of citizens in the several States, are clearly set forth in the following amendments:

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, DECEMBER 18, 1865.

"1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

"2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, JULY 28, 1868.

Section 1. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Section 2. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

Section 3. "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an Executive or Judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

* * * * *

Section 5. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

Section 1. "The right of citizens of the United to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Section 2. "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The women understood the principles involved in these amendments, and accepted the logical conclusions. Under the first they applied to Congress for protection against the tyranny of the States in depriving them of the right of suffrage, but they were remanded to the States, and were told that Congress had no jurisdiction in the matter. Under the second, when women claimed the rights of citizens as tax-payers who helped to support the Government, they were told that neither the fathers nor their sons ever thought of women in framing their Constitutions, and that some special legislation was needed before their rights of citizenship could be recognized or accorded.

During the prolonged debates on these amendments, those who watched the progress of political sentiment and understood the drift of events, struck the key-note of reconstruction in "universal suffrage and universal amnesty," but they were speedily silenced or condemned. Abraham Lincoln saw that this was the true policy, and counseled it in private. But he was influenced by those who misjudged the signs of the times, and for the success of his party and his own re-election, he yielded to weak counselors. Horace Greeley, with the suffering and humiliation of the South, as well as the guilt and selfishness of the North before him, declared "universal suffrage and universal amnesty" to be the true basis of reconstruction, but a few cracks of the party whip brought him into line. Henry Ward Beecher foreshadowed the same policy in an able letter, which called down upon him the nation's scorn and denunciation, for which he was stabbed by the friends of his own household. He was the one leading man in the nation who, in all his public speeches, demanded universal suffrage in the reconstruction. And by universal suffrage Mr. Beecher meant political equality for all, without distinction of race, color, or sex. Women would have been dull scholars indeed had they not readily seen that the watchword "universal suffrage" stripped of the limitations that lay in the minds of party politicians, included women also.

Under Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment they saw that being "persons" and born in the United States, they were "citizens," whom the National Government was bound to protect against the tyranny of the State.

Section 2 called their attention to another principle of justice, that those who were counted in the basis of representation should have a voice in the rulers whose election their numbers helped to secure. To be sure, the word "male" thrown in seemed to nullify all applications of the several amendments to one sex, nevertheless the women understood the breadth of the principle, and made their demands for an equal recognition on the ground that they too were counted in the basis of representation.

Again, in the discussion on removing the "political disabilities" of those who had made war on the Government, when the injustice of taxing that large class denied the suffrage was pointed out and the exercise of that right demanded for thousands of rebels, the women saw the application of that principle to themselves, and echoed the old war-cry in our first Revolution, "taxation without representation is tyranny." In the exhaustive discussions on the emancipation and enfranchisement of the black man and the restoration of the rebels to political equality, the fundamental principles of republican government were more clearly comprehended by the American people than ever before. Hence, it was in harmony with the order of events that educated women, appreciating the genius of our institutions, with their interest in politics intensified by all the complications of the war, should think and reason and express their opinions on all these great questions of popular thought. They saw that "universal suffrage and universal amnesty" was the broad, safe foundation for the new republic. They saw that the enfranchisement of the women of the South would not only double the vote, but give a new impulse to thought and education throughout the Southern States, and mitigate the hostility they would naturally feel in seeing their slaves suddenly made their political superiors, their rulers, law-makers, judges, and jurors! They saw that with the incoming tide of ignorant voters from Southern plantations and from the nations of the Old World, that the Government needed the intelligent votes and moral influence of woman to outweigh the ignorance and vice fast crowding round our polling booths.

Seeing all this, they pressed with earnestness the well-considered demand for woman's enfranchisement, not from any selfish or personal considerations, but for the elevation of all womankind, and to vindicate the principles that underlie republican government. They who have the responsibility of action are usually more timid in counsel than those who can exert only an indirect influence. Hence the statesmen of that period did not dare to trust their own principles to their logical results, and instead of the broad demand of equal rights for all, they proposed reconstruction on the basis of "manhood suffrage"; a half-way measure that satisfied nobody, glossed over by the party in power as "universal suffrage," "equal suffrage," "impartial suffrage," until compelled to call the proposition by its true name, "manhood suffrage."

Having served the Government during the war in such varied capacities, and taken an active part in the discussion of its vital principles on so many reform platforms, women naturally felt that in reconstruction their rights as citizens should be protected and secured. They who had so diligently rolled up petitions for the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves now demanded the same liberties, not only for the white women of the nation, but for the newly made freed-women from Southern plantations, who had borne more grievous burdens and endured keener sufferings in the flesh and far more aggravating humiliations in spirit, than the man slave could ever know. And yet Abolitionists who had drawn their most eloquent appeals for emancipation from the hopeless degradation of woman in slavery, ignored alike the African and the Saxon in reconstruction, and refused to sign the petition for "woman suffrage." Even such just and liberal men as Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips, in their haste to see the consummation of the black man's freedom, to which they had devoted their life-long efforts, lost sight of the ever-binding principles of justice, and accepted an amendment to the National Constitution that made all men rulers, all women subjects. Gerrit Smith, who had often said, "It is always safe to do right"; "now is the time for action, you can not be sure of to-morrow"; "speak the truth though the heavens fall," acted from policy rather than principle in refusing to sign the following petition:

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled:

The undersigned, citizens of the State of New York, earnestly but respectfully request, that in any change or amendment of the Constitution you may propose to extend or regulate suffrage, there shall be no distinctions made between men and women.

PETERBORO, Dec. 30, 1868.

MY DEAR SUSAN B. ANTHONY:—I this evening received your earnest letter. It pains me to be obliged to disappoint you. But I can not sign the petition you send me. Cheerfully, gladly can I sign a petition for the enfranchisement of women. But I can not sign a paper against the enfranchisement of the negro man, unless at the same time woman shall be enfranchised. The removal of the political disabilities of race is my first desire—of sex, my second. If put on the same level and urged in the same connection neither will be soon accomplished. The former will very soon be, if untrammeled by the other, and its success will prepare the way for the accomplishment of the other.

With great regard, your friend, GERRIT SMITH.

To which letter Mrs. Stanton replied in The Revolution Jan. 14, 1869:

The above is the petition to which our friend Gerrit Smith, as an abolitionist, can not conscientiously put his name, while Republicans and Democrats are signing it all over the country. He does not clearly read the signs of the times, or he would see that there is to be no reconstruction of this nation, except on the basis of universal suffrage, as the natural, inalienable right of every citizen. The uprising of the women on both continents, in France, England, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States, all show that advancing civilization demands a new element in the government of nations. As the aristocracy in this country is the "male sex," and as Mr. Smith belongs to the privileged order, he naturally considers it important for the best interests of the nation, that every type and shade of degraded, ignorant manhood should be enfranchised, before even the higher classes of womanhood should be admitted to the polls. This does not surprise us. Men always judge more wisely of objective wrongs and oppressions, than of those in which they are themselves involved. Tyranny on a Southern plantation is far more easily seen by white men at the North than the wrongs of the women of their own households.

Then, again, when men have devoted their lives to one reform, there is a natural feeling of pride, as well as an earnest principle, in seeing that one thing accomplished. Hence, in criticising such good and noble men as Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips for their apathy on woman's enfranchisement at this hour, it is not because we think their course at all remarkable, nor that we have the least hope of influencing them, but simply to rouse the women of the country to the fact that they must not look to these men as their champions at this hour. While philosophy and science alike point to woman as the new power destined to redeem the world, how can Mr. Smith fail to see that it is just this we need to restore honor and virtue in the Government? There is sex in the spiritual as well as the physical, and what we need to-day in government, in the world of morals and thought, is the recognition of the feminine element, as it is this alone that can hold the masculine in check.

Again; Mr. Smith refuses to sign the petition because he thinks to press the broader question of "universal suffrage" would defeat the partial one of "manhood suffrage"; in other words, to demand protection for woman against her oppressors, would jeopardize the black man's chance of securing protection against his oppressors. If it is a question of precedence merely, on what principle of justice or courtesy should woman yield her right of enfranchisement to the negro? If men can not be trusted to legislate for their own sex, how can they legislate for the opposite sex, of whose wants and needs they know nothing? It has always been considered good philosophy in pressing any measure to claim the uttermost in order to get something. Being in Ireland at the time of the Repeal excitement, we asked Daniel O'Connell one day if he expected to secure a repeal of the Union. "Oh, no!" said he, "but I claim everything that I may be sure of getting something." But their intense interest in the negro blinded our former champions so that they forsook principle for policy, and in giving woman the cold shoulder raised a more deadly opposition to the negro than any we had yet encountered, creating an antagonism between him and the very element most needed to be propitiated in his behalf. It was this feeling that defeated "negro suffrage" in Kansas.

But Mr. Smith abandons the principle clearly involved, and intrenches himself on policy. He would undoubtedly plead the necessity of the ballot for the negro at the south for his protection, and point us to innumerable acts of cruelty he suffers to-day. But all these things fall as heavily on the women of the black race, yea far more so, for no man can ever know the deep, the damning degradation to which woman is subject in her youth, in helplessness and poverty. The enfranchisement of the men of her race, Mr. Smith would say, is her protection. Our Saxon men have held the ballot in this country for a century, and what honest man can claim that it has been used for woman's protection? Alas! we have given the very hey day of our life to undoing the cruel and unjust laws that the men of New York had made for their own mothers, wives, and daughters.

As to the "rights of races," on which so much stress is laid just now, we have listened to debates in anti-slavery conventions, for twenty years or more, and we never heard Gerrit Smith plead the negro cause on any lower ground than his manhood; his individual, inalienable right to freedom and equality, and thus, we conjure every thoughtful man to plead woman's cause to-day. Politicians will find, when they come to test this question of "negro supremacy" in the several States, that there is a far stronger feeling among the women of the nation than they supposed. We doubt whether a constitutional amendment securing "manhood suffrage" alone could be fairly passed in a single State in this Union. Women everywhere are waking up to their own God-given rights, to their true dignity as citizens of a republic, as mothers of the race.

Although those who demand "woman's suffrage" on principle are few, those who would oppose "negro suffrage" from prejudice are many, hence the only way to secure the latter, is to end all this talk of class legislation, bury the negro in the citizen, and claim the suffrage for all men and women, as a natural, inalienable right. The friends of the negro never made a greater blunder than when, at the close of the war, they timidly refused to lead the nation in demanding suffrage for all. If even Wendell Phillips and Gerrit Smith, the very apostles of liberty on this continent, failed at that point, how can we wonder at the vacillation and confusion of politicians at this hour. We had hoped that the elections of '67, with their overwhelming majorities in every State against negro suffrage, would have proved to all alike, how futile is compromise, how short-sighted is policy. We have pressed these considerations so often on Mr. Phillips and Mr. Smith during the last four years, that we fear we have entirely forfeited the friendship of the one, and diminished the confidence of the other in our good judgment; but time, that rights all wrongs, will surely bring them back to the standpoint of principle.

As soon as we had a mouthpiece in The Revolution we found that many noble women in every State understood the situation, and saw that while the question of reconstruction was under debate, woman was false to herself not to put in her claims. In face of all opposition, those who did see the policy and justice of claiming this time as the woman's hour also, made the most persistent, brave fight possible. Again were appeals and petitions sent to Congress and the people, but now for woman's enfranchisement. When the whole nation was as it were resolved into its original elements, and the fundamental rights of citizens the topic for discussion in the halls of legislation and at every fireside, the time seemed so opportune for the settlement of the broad question of representation, that the persistency and determination of a few women to secure their rights was neither surprising nor unreasonable.

This was one of the most trying periods in the woman suffrage movement. Negro suffrage being a party measure, a political necessity and the culmination of the anti-slavery conflict, Republicans and Abolitionists could bid each other a most sincere and heartfelt Godspeed. And with them, too, stood the majority of the woman suffrage associations. Wives and daughters of Republicans and Abolitionists, imbued with the ideas of politicians, "one measure at a time," "one reform for a generation," lost sight of the true philosophy, that justice is always in order, and the fact that "universal suffrage" was the one reform that belonged specifically to the period of reconstruction. But women educated to self-sacrifice and self-abnegation readily accepted the idea that it was divine and beautiful to hold their claims for rights and privileges in abeyance to all orders and classes of men. They forgot that the highest patriotism, and the best interests of man himself demanded the enfranchisement of woman.

The few who insisted on absolute right stood firmly together under a steady fire of ridicule and reproach even from their life-long friends most loved and honored. They knew their position was unassailable, for they had well learned the lesson taught in the early days of anti-slavery and the Republican party, that all compromises with principle are dangerous. Statesmen and reformers alike admitted that the demands of the women were just and proper, though not opportune. But when the whole question of suffrage was up for discussion, there could not be a better time to get all the agitation possible in regard to woman's claims. The subject once settled on the narrow ground of class, it would not be renewed for a generation. Time has proved their fears well grounded. Nearly twenty years have passed, and there has been no such agitation and excitement as then on the question. If all the women, to say nothing of the Republicans and Abolitionists who claimed to believe in the truth of the idea, had stood firm, woman would have been enfranchised with the negro. But few could withstand the persecution, the ridicule, the pathetic appeals to keep silent, and in a large measure when the Anti-Slavery Society disbanded the woman suffrage movement became the toy of the Republican party, and has been trifled with ever since, like the cat with the mouse in the fable.

But Democrats seeing the inconsistency of Republicans, did advocate our cause, present our petitions in Congress, and frank our documents to all parts of the country. And because these women, denied help and encouragement from other sources, accepted aid from the Democrats, they were called "Copperheads";[108] disloyal to the Government. Women who had been complimented by the Republican press as "wise," "prudent," "noble," while rolling up 300,000 petitions for emancipation, were now said to be "selfish," "impracticable," "unreasonable," because forsooth they demanded some new liberties for themselves. More over said the Republicans, "these Democrats are hypocritical, they do not believe in the extension of suffrage to any class." To this the women replied, "If the Democrats advocate a grand measure of public policy which they do not believe, they occupy much higher ground than Republicans who refuse to press the same measure which they claim to believe. At all events the hypocrisy of Democrats serves us a better purpose in the present emergency than does the treachery of Republicans."

But with all their long-time friends against them; such as Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson in the Senate, William Lloyd Garrison and Gerrit Smith in reform, Horace Greeley and most of the Liberals in the press, the position of the women seemed so untenable to the majority that at times a sense of utter loneliness and desertion made the bravest of them doubt the possibility of maintaining the struggle or making themselves fairly understood. And yet, what was done was sound in principle and wise in policy. Every argument made by Republicans and Abolitionists for the enfranchisement of the negro was pertinent for woman. As Mr. Sumner said to us years after he made that great speech on "Equal rights to all," "substitute sex for color, and you have the best speech I could make on your platform." Our cause was wise too in policy, for never before had we such an opportunity to compel intelligent opposition in the halls of legislation and in conventions of the people. Black men were at the white heat of anxiety and expectation; Abolitionists, with bated breath, watched every move and vote in Congress; Republicans felt that on the success or defeat of "negro suffrage" hung the life or death of their party; and all alike feared the slightest influence that might turn the scale, and deplored the seeming coalition of the women and the Democrats. Hence what an hour to proclaim our principles of government upon their broadest basis, and to keep up the discussion of woman suffrage at every point with so formidable an opposition!

Few[109] only were equal to the emergency. Even in the Equal Rights Conventions the slightest opposition to the XIV Amendment called out hisses and denunciation, and all resolutions on that point were promptly voted down. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were waylaid again and again in the ante-rooms, and implored to avoid all discussions on the pending amendments, and were persistently opposed by black men, Abolitionists, Republicans and women who did not understand either the principle or policy involved in the discussion. This opposition of the few did not grow out of any hostility to "negro suffrage," for they were all Abolitionists, and had labored untiringly for the emancipation of the slaves; but they were opposed to the enfranchisement of another class of ignorant men to be lifted above their heads, to be their law-makers and Governors; to prescribe the moral code and political status of their daughters. The hue and cry against those who claimed that "that was the woman's hour," for accepting the aid of Democrats in the establishment of a paper through which they could plead their own case, were so many plausible pretexts in the mouths of those who could not consistently attack their principles of action. But from this opposition on all sides true woman suffragists learned their power to stand alone, and to maintain the right against large and honorable majorities.

Again said our professed friends we can carry "negro suffrage" now; it is a political necessity; do not trammel us with another issue—this done, depend upon it, men have too much chivalry to forget the services of the loyal women all through the war, and through the long political struggle in Congress. Women in our conventions echoed the same assuring sentiments, and voted down resolutions of protest and rebuke. They were deceived with the plausible promises made by Republicans and Abolitionists—promises still unredeemed, for Republicans have been busy ever since trying to save the life of their party; and Abolitionists, with few exceptions, have thrown their influence into Labor Reform, Temperance, Finance, and Literature. But of what do you complain, asked our statesmen. Of many things, we replied:

1st. Our National Constitution was broad and liberal in letter and spirit, put no limits on suffrage, made no distinctions in sex, until the Republicans, by their amendments, introduced the word "male," and thus blocked woman's path to equality.

2d. Republicans in Congress either suppressed our petitions for suffrage, or presented them under protest, after holding them for weeks in their possession.

3d. By their speeches and votes in Congress, and their decisions in the courts on questions involving our civil and political rights, they have stultified their own grand declarations of the equal rights of citizens in a republic.

When the XIV Amendment was first proposed, the Hon. Charles Sumner opposed it, because, he said, there was already enough of Justice, Liberty, and Equality in the Constitution to protect the humblest citizen under our flag. He had always taken the ground that the Constitution was an Anti-Slavery document, hence to vote for an amendment was to contradict his former position. We opposed the amendments because, in the Constitution as it was there were no distinctions of sex recognized, while the amendments declaring "manhood suffrage," established an aristocracy of sex. However, in due season, Mr. Sumner withdrew his opposition; and without changing his opinion, voted for the amendments because negro suffrage was a party measure, and the political necessity of the hour. We, having no party, no votes, no political right but to petition and discuss the measures up for consideration, saw no reason for changing our opinions, hence we used the best possible means to keep up the agitation until the amendments were passed, and beyond reconsideration. Nevertheless, in the midst of this general hostility, the sound policy of the agitation carried on against the Republican party and its measures was evident in the numerous bills some of its liberal members soon after presented in Congress. In The Revolution, December 10, 1868, we find the following:

NOW'S THE HOUR.—Not the "negro's hour" alone, but everybody's hour. All honor to Senator Pomeroy! He has taken the first step to redeem the Constitution from all odious distinctions on account of race or sex. He lost no time in presenting, at the opening of Congressional proceedings, the following as an amendment to the Federal Constitution to regulate suffrage throughout the country:

Article 15. The basis of suffrage in the United States shall be that of citizenship; and all native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the same rights and privileges of the elective franchise; but each State shall determine by law the age of a citizen and the time of residence required for the exercise of the right of suffrage which shall apply equally to all citizens; and also shall make all laws concerning the times, places, and manner of holding elections.

Laid on the table and ordered to be printed.

Now let the work of petitioning and agitating for this amendment be prosecuted with a vigor and energy unknown before. And let Senator Pomeroy be honored with receiving and presenting to the Senate such a deluge of names as shall convince him that his noble step in the direction of a true democracy, is appreciated; and such too as shall be a rebuke to all half-way measures that would leave woman (white and colored) behind the colored male; and moreover, that shall convince Congress and the whole government that we can be trifled with no longer on a subject so vital to the peace, prosperity, and perpetuity of our own people, and the establishment of free institutions among the nations of the earth.

CONGRESS WIDE AWAKE.—Last week we gave good account of Mr. Julian, of Indiana, on behalf of suffrage for woman. This week we can report similar progress in the Senate also. The following is Senator Wilson's bill to amend an act entitled an act to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia:

Be it enacted, etc., That the word "male" in the first section of the act entitled "An act to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, passed on the 8th day of January, 1867," be struck out, and that every word in said act applicable to persons of the male sex shall apply equally to persons of the female sex, so that hereafter women, who are inhabitants of the said District of Columbia and citizens of the United States, may vote at all elections and be eligible to civil offices in said District on the same terms and conditions in all respects as men.

Mr. Julian, in the House, on leave, introduced the following bill further to extend the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That from and after the passage of this act the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia shall be based upon citizenship; and all citizens of the United States, native and naturalized, resident in said District, who are twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and who have not forfeited this right by crime, shall enjoy the same equally, irrespective of sex.

SEC. 2, And be it further enacted, That all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed.

Mr. Julian, on leave, introduced the following bill further to extend the right of suffrage in the Territories of the United States:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That from and after the passage of this act the right of suffrage in all the Territories of the United States, now or hereafter to be organized, shall be based upon citizenship; and all citizens of the United States, native or naturalized, resident in said Territories, who are twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and who have not forfeited their right by crime, shall enjoy the same equally, irrespective of sex.

SEC. 2, And be it further enacted, That all acts or parts of acts, either by Congress or the legislative assemblies of said Territories, inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby declared null and void.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN UTAH.—March 25, 1869.—Mr. Julian introduced the following bill into Congress to discourage polygamy in Utah by granting the right of suffrage to the women of that Territory:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That from and after the passage of this act the right of Suffrage in the Territory of Utah shall belong to, and may be exercised by, the people thereof, without any distinction or discrimination whatever founded on sex.

The bill was read twice, referred to the Committee on Territories, and ordered to be printed.

The New York Herald is no more than an average of the voice of the intelligent portion of the press in the following excerpts from its columns: Senator Wilson has introduced a bill so to amend the suffrage laws of the District of Columbia as to give to women of all colors and races, as well as men, the right of suffrage. As Congress has exclusive powers of legislation over the District of Columbia in all cases whatsoever, here is a fair chance to try the two houses upon this very interesting question. There are a few out-spoken members of the Senate in favor of Woman Suffrage, and first and foremost among them is "Old Ben Wade," who goes for the whole programme of negroes' rights and women's rights. Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, has so far advanced in the cause of Woman Suffrage that he has proposed to make it a part of the supreme law of the land. But we like the idea of Mr. Wilson of first trying the experiment in the District of Columbia.

We remember the time when, in full view from the west front of the Capitol, there was a regular slave pen which was also a market where negroes were bought and sold. The abolitionists first raised a hue and cry against that pen, and they kept it up to 1850, when among the compromise measures of Henry Clay passed that year was a provision abolishing the slave trade in the District. Some twelve years later, during the rebellion, the bolder and broader experiment was tried of abolishing slavery in toto in said District. These measures over a reserved bit of territory over which Congress possesses absolute authority were deemed judicious experiments and were demanded for the sake of consistency, in view of the legislation resolved upon in Southern reconstruction. So now, in view of a constitutional amendment establishing not only manhood suffrage, but womanhood suffrage throughout the United States, Mr. Wilson doubtless thinks it wise first to try the experiment of Woman Suffrage in the aforesaid District, to see how it will work. As the District of Columbia has not only survived but has flourished and continues to flourish under emancipation and negro suffrage, we can not imagine why there should be any hesitation in trying therein the experiment of Woman Suffrage. At all events let Senator Wilson push forward his bill, so that the country may know, so that General Grant may know, and so that the women may know who in the Senate in favor of negroes' rights will dare to oppose woman's rights.