Miss ANTHONY read the following telegram from Lucy Stone:

"ATCHISON, KANSAS, May 10, 1867.

"Impartial Suffrage, without regard to color or sex, will succeed by overwhelming majorities. Kansas leads the world! LUCY STONE."

Miss ANTHONY also read a hopeful and interesting letter from Hon. S. N. Wood, of Kansas, showing his plans for the canvass of that State.

JOSEPHINE GRIFFING said: I am well satisfied that this Convention ought not to adjourn until a similar plan is laid out for all the States in the Union, and especially for the District of Columbia. This being a national convention, it seems peculiarly appropriate that it should begin its work at the District of Columbia. The proposition has already been made there, and the parties have discussed its merits. The question of the franchise arose from the great fact that at the South there were four millions of people unrepresented. The fact of woman's being also unrepresented is now becoming slowly understood. It is easier now to talk and act upon that subject in the District of Columbia than ever before, or than it will be again. Even the President has said that if woman in the District of Columbia shall intelligently ask for the right of franchise, he shall by no means veto it. To my mind the enfranchisement of woman is a settled fact. We can not reconstruct this government until the franchise shall be given not merely to the four millions but to the fifteen millions. We can not successfully reconstruct our government unless we go to the foundation. Let us apply all the force we can to the lever, for we have a great body to lift. No matter how ready the public is, we can accomplish nothing unless we have some plan, and unless we have workers. I presume none of us are aware how many laws there are upon the statute books disabling our rights. When the Judges in the District of Columbia were to decide who were to vote and who were not to vote, the question arose who could be appointed officers of the city; and it was found that there was a law that no one could be appointed a judge of elections who had not paid a tax upon real estate in the District of Columbia, a law which almost defeats all the work which has been done during the canvass of the last eight weeks in that District. There is work yet to be done there, and so we shall find it at every step. I am thankful with all my heart and soul that the people have at last consented to the enfranchisement of two millions of black men. I recognize that, as the load is raised one inch, we must work by degrees, accepting every inch, every hair's breadth gained toward the right. I welcome the enfranchisement of the negro as a step toward the enfranchisement of woman.

Miss ANTHONY said we seem to be blessed with telegrams, with cheering news from Kansas, and read the following from S. N. Wood:

ATCHISON, KANSAS, May 10, 1867.

"With the help of God and Lucy Stone, we shall carry Kansas! The world moves! SAM WOOD."

These telegrams were received with much applause. The resolutions were then put to vote, and unanimously carried, and officers were elected for the ensuing year.[73]

SOJOURNER TRUTH was called for and said: I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs, and while the water is stirring I will step into the pool. Now that there is a great stir about colored men's getting their rights is the time for women to step in and have theirs. I am sometimes told that "Women aint fit to vote. Why, don't you know that a woman had seven devils in her: and do you suppose a woman is fit to rule the nation?" Seven devils aint no account; a man had a legion in him. [Great laughter]. The devils didn't know where to go; and so they asked that they might go into the swine. They thought that was as good a place as they came out from. [Renewed laughter]. They didn't ask to go into sheep—no, into the hog; that was the selfishest beast; and man is so selfish that he has got women's rights and his own too, and yet he won't give women their rights. He keeps them all to himself. If a woman did have seven devils, see how lovely she was when they were cast out, how much she loved Jesus, how she followed Him. When the devils were gone out of the man, he wanted to follow Jesus, too, but Jesus told him to go home, and didn't seem to want to have him round. And when the men went to look for Jesus at the sepulchre they didn't stop long enough to find out whether he was there or not; but Mary stood there and waited, and said to Him, thinking it was the gardener, "Tell me where they have laid Him and I will carry Him away." See what a spirit there is. Just so let women be true to this object, and the truth will reign triumphant.

ALFRED H. LOVE (President of the Universal Peace Society) said: Your President paid the Universal Peace Society two visits; and some of us, in turn, are here to reciprocate. The Universal Peace Society, knowing that we must have purity before we can have peace, knowing that we need our mothers, wives, and daughters with us, knowing that we need the morality, the courage, and the patience of the colored man with us, adopted as our first resolution that the ballot is a peacemaker, and that with equality there can be no war; and in another resolution we have said that women and colored men are entitled to the ballot. Therefore, you have us upon the same platform, working for you in the best way we can. We mean no cowardly peace; we mean such a peace as demands justice and equality, and world-wide philanthropy. I put the ballot of to-day under my foot, and say I can not use it until the mother that reared me can have the same privilege; until the colored man, who is my equal, can have it.

E. H. HEYWOOD of Boston, said he could hardly see what business men had upon this platform, considering how largely responsible they are for the conditions against which women struggle, except to confess their sins. Men had usurped the government, and shut up women in the kitchen. It was a sad fact that woman did not speak for herself. It was because she was crowded so low that she could not speak. Woman wanted not merely the right to vote, but the right to labor. The average life of the factory girl in Lowell was only four years, as shown by a legislative investigation. New avenues for labor must be opened. It is said that the women on this platform are coquetting with the Democrats. Why shouldn't they? The Democrats say, "Talk of negro suffrage, and then refuse women the right to vote. All I have to say is, when the negroes of Connecticut go to the polls, my wife and daughter will go, too."

EVENING SESSION.

The meeting was called to order by Mrs. Stanton.

Miss Anthony read another letter from Hon. S. N. Wood, of Kansas, received since the Morning Session.

FRANCES D. GAGE was then introduced: It is not to-day as it was before the war. It is not to-day as it was before woman took her destiny in her hand and went out upon the battle-fields, and into the camp, and endured hunger and cold for the sake of her country. The whole country has been vitalized by this war. What if woman did not carry the bayonet on the battle-field? She carried that which gave more strength and energy. Traveling through Illinois, I saw the women bind the sheaf, bring in the harvest and plow the fields, that men might fight the battles. When such women come up now and ask for the right of suffrage, who will deny their request? In the winter of 1860, the law was passed in New York giving to married women the right to their own earnings. It was said frequently then that women did not want the right to their own earnings. We were asked if we wanted to create separation in families. But did any revolution or any special trouble grow out of this recognition of woman's right? You see women everywhere to-day earnestly striving to find a place to earn their bread. Madame Demorest has become a leader of fashion, teaching women to make up what Stewart imports; and she has a branch establishment in every large city in the Union clear to Montana. I do not know but some of those ladies cutting out garments, and setting the fashions of the day, might aspire to the Presidential chair; and perhaps they would be quite as capable as the present incumbent—a tailor. [Applause].

Three years ago I found myself without the means of life. I wanted a home. I had read about the beauties of a home, and woman's appropriate sphere; and so I got a little home, and went into it, and tried to get work. My old eyes would not see to sew nicely, I was too feeble to wash, and so I tended the garden. After a year had gone by I found that staying in this beautiful home, and placing myself in woman's sphere had not brought me a dollar to pay my bills. So setting all these theories at defiance, I said I will go and lecture; and I went out into the lecturing field. I have money to pay my bills to-day; but I could not have it were I to cling to the sphere of home. If a woman is doing the work of a good man's home, she is doing her part, and she will not desire to go out from it for any ordinary cause. But if she can make two dollars to his one, allowing him to carry out his part of the appointments of life, why should not she do it? When we can be allowed to do the thousand things that womanly hands can do as well as those of men, we shall make our lives useful. But take my word for it, as an old mother, with her grandchildren gathered about her, you will not find woman deserting the highest instincts of her nature, or leaving the home of her husband and children.

Why do you scold us, poor weak women, for being fashionable and dressy, when snares are set at every corner to tempt us? What would become of your dry-goods merchants and your commerce if we did not wear handsome dresses—if the women of this country were to become thus sensible to-day? Your great stores on Broadway would be closed, and your stalwart six-feet men would have to find something else to do besides measuring tapes and ribbons. The whole country would undergo a transformation. But it would be better for the country. It would not take five years to pay the national debt, interest and all, if you will apply the money spent by men for tobacco and whisky—if men will learn to be decent. I think it is a great deal better to wear a pretty flower or ribbon than to smoke cigars. It is a great deal better, and less damaging to the conscience, to wear a handsome silk dress, than for a man to put "an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains."

I honestly and conscientiously believe that we ought to make the rights of humanity equal for all classes of the community of adult years and of sound mind. I do not ask that the girl should vote at eighteen, but at twenty-one—the same age with the boy; and having raised both boys and girls, I think I have a right to say that. Give us freedom from these miserable prejudices, these restrictions and tyrannies of society, and let us judge for ourselves. If it is true, as science asserts, that girls inherit more of the character of their father, while the boys follow in a more direct line their mother, then how is it possible that women should not have the same aspirations as men? I was born a mechanic, and made a barrel before I was ten years old. The cooper told my father, "Fanny made that barrel, and has done it quicker and better than any boy I have had after six months' training." My father looked at it and said, "What a pity that you were not born a boy, so that you could be good for something. Run into the house, child, and go to knitting." So I went and knit stockings, and my father hired an apprentice boy, and paid him two dollars a week for making barrels. Now, I was born to make barrels, but they would not let me. Thousands of girls are born with mechanical fingers. Thousands of girls have a muscular development that could do the work of the world as well as men; and there are thousands of men born to effeminacy and weakness.

Mrs. STANTON then addressed the meeting. As her line of argument was a summary of that recently made before the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature, and already published, it need not here be repeated.

Miss ANTHONY announced that they would have another opportunity to hear Sojourner Truth, and, for the information of those who did not know, she would say that Sojourner was for forty years a slave in this State. She is not a product of the barbarism of South Carolina, but of the barbarism of New York, and one of her fingers was chopped off by her cruel master in a moment of anger.

SOJOURNER TRUTH said: I have lived on through all that has taken place these forty years in the anti-slavery cause, and I have plead with all the force I had that the day might come that the colored people might own their soul and body. Well, the day has come, although it came through blood. It makes no difference how it came—it did come. (Applause). I am sorry it came in that way. We are now trying for liberty that requires no blood—that women shall have their rights—not rights from you. Give them what belongs to them; they ask it kindly too. (Laughter). I ask it kindly. Now I want it done very quick. It can be done in a few years. How good it would be. I would like to go up to the polls myself. (Laughter). I own a little house in Battle Creek, Michigan. Well, every year I got a tax to pay. Taxes, you see, be taxes. Well, a road tax sounds large. Road tax, school tax, and all these things. Well, there was women there that had a house as well as I. They taxed them to build a road, and they went on the road and worked. It took 'em a good while to get a stump up. (Laughter). Now, that shows that women can work. If they can dig up stumps they can vote. (Laughter). It is easier to vote than dig stumps. (Laughter). It doesn't seem hard work to vote, though I have seen some men that had a hard time of it. (Laughter). But I believe that when women can vote there won't be so many men that have a rough time gettin' to the polls. (Great laughter). There is danger of their life sometimes. I guess many have seen it in this city. I lived fourteen years in this city. I don't want to take up time, but I calculate to live. Now, if you want me to get out of the world, you had better get the women votin' soon. (Laughter). I shan't go till I can do that.

CHARLES LENOX REMOND said: It requires a rash man to rise at this stage of the meeting, with the hope of detaining the audience even for a few moments. But in response to your call I rise to add my humble word to the many eloquent words already uttered in favor of universal suffrage. The present moment is one of no ordinary interest. Since this platform is the only place in this country where the whole question of human rights may now be considered, it seemed to me fitting that the right of the colored man to a vote should have a place at the close of the meeting; and especially in this State, since the men who are to compose the Convention called for the amendment of the Constitution of this State, will, within a few short weeks, pass either favorably or unfavorably upon that subject. I remember that Henry B. Stanton once said at a foreign Court, "Let it be understood that I come from a country where every man is a sovereign." At that time the language of our friend was but a glittering generality, for there were very many who could not be styled sovereigns in any sense of the term. But I desire that the remark of Mr. Stanton shall be verified in the State of New York this very year. I demand that you so amend your Constitution as to recognize the equality of the black man at the ballot box, at least until he shall have proved himself a detriment to the interests and welfare of our common country. It is no novelty that two colored men were members of the last Legislature of Massachusetts; for more than forty years ago a black man was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature. People seem to have forgotten our past history. The first blood shed in the Revolutionary war ran from the veins of a black man; and it is remarkable that the first blood shed in the recent rebellion also ran from the veins of a black man. What does it mean, that black men, first and foremost in the defense of the American nation and in devotion to the country, are to-day disfranchised in the State of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay?

These were the last conventions ever held in "the Church of the Puritans," as it soon passed into other hands, and not one stone was left upon another; not even an odor of sanctity about the old familiar corner where so much grand work had been done for humanity. The building is gone, the congregation scattered, but the name of George B. Cheever, so long the honored pastor, will not soon be forgotten.[74]

At the close of the Convention a memorial[75] to Congress was prepared, and signed by the officers of the Convention.

In a letter to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, dated Concord, April 20, 1867, Parker Pillsbury, under the title, "The Face of the Sky," says:

I have just read in the papers of last week what follows:

Mr. Phillips, in the Anti-Slavery Standard says: "All our duty is to press constantly on the nation the absolute need of three things. 1st. The exercise of the whole police power of the government while the seeds of republicanism get planted. 2d. The Constitutional Amendment securing universal suffrage in spite of all State Legislation. 3d. A Constitutional Amendment authorizing Congress to establish common schools, etc. To these necessaries," Mr. Phillips adds, "we must educate the public mind."

Mr. Greeley in the Tribune says: "We are most anxious that our present State Constitution shall be so amended as to secure prompt justice through the courts, preclude legislative and municipal corruption, and secure responsibility by concentrating executive power." Through the approaching Constitutional Convention, he says the people "can secure justice through reformed courts, fix responsibility for abuses of executive power;—in short, they can increase the value of property and the reward of honest labor."

Mr. Tilton, in The Independent, in allusion to the recent Republican defeat in Connecticut, concludes; "the policy of negro suffrage is clearly seen to be the only policy for the National welfare." ... "What then, is the next step," he asks, "in the progress of reconstruction?" In italics he answered, "We must make Impartial Suffrage the rule and practice of the Northern as well as the Southern States." He proposes a new amendment to the Federal Constitution which will secure to every American citizen, black and white, North and South, the American citizen's franchise. What is meant in this article of the Independent by impartial suffrage is understood by these words in another part of it. "The Republican party in Connecticut was abundantly strong enough to secure Impartial Suffrage. But it chose, instead, to insult its black-faced brethren, and refused their alliance." Mr. Raymond, in the New York Times, speaks without a stammer on the suffrage question. It declares, "In New York suffrage is now absolutely universal for all citizens except the colored people; and upon them it is only restricted by a slight property qualification."

A correspondent of the Boston Congregationalist, in a letter from New York, tells us, "A Constitutional Convention is to be held shortly in this State, and we expect to see universal suffrage adopted.... The Strong-Minded Women aim to secure female voting, but they will fail, as they should." The Congregationalist has also an editorial article headed, "The steps to Reconstruction," in which it speaks excellently of "a millennium of Republican governments," and of Impartial Suffrage in them, as near at hand. But it too speaks only of freedmen to be clothed with the rights of citizenship in the millennial, latter-day glory so soon to be. Over the black male citizen this editor shouts, "chattel, contraband, soldier, citizen, voter, counselor, magistrate, representative, senator,—these all shall be the successive steps of his wonderful progress!!"

I have produced these as the best representatives of the different styles or types of the radical or progressive movement in the work of reconstructing the government. That the Standard and Independent believe fully in the right of women to Equal Suffrage and citizenship is known to every attentive reader of those journals. But at an hour like this, it is painful to witness anything like agreement even, with the language of the others I have cited.... To rob the freed slave of citizenship to-day is as much a crime as was slavery before the war on Sumter; and to withhold the divinely conferred gift from woman is every way as oppressive, cruel, and unjust as if she were a black man....

FOOTNOTES:

[60] CALL FOR THE ELEVENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.—The Convention will be held in the City of New York, at the Church of the Puritans, Union Square, on Thursday, the 10th of May, 1866, at 10 o'clock. Addresses will be delivered by ERNESTINE L. ROSE, FRANCES D. GAGE, WENDELL PHILLIPS, THEODORE TILTON, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, and (probably) LUCRETIA MOTT and ANNA E. DICKINSON.

Those who tell us the republican idea is a failure, do not see the deep gulf between our broad theory and partial legislation; do not see that our Government for the last century has been but the repetition of the old experiments of class and caste. Hence, the failure is not in the principle, but in the lack of virtue on our part to apply it. The question now is, have we the wisdom and conscience, from the present upheavings of our political system, to reconstruct a government on the one enduring basis that has never yet been tried—"EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL."

From the proposed class legislation in Congress, it is evident we have not yet learned wisdom from the experience of the past; for, while our representatives at Washington are discussing the right of suffrage for the black man, as the only protection to life, liberty and happiness, they deny that "necessity of citizenship" to woman; by proposing to introduce the word "male" into the Federal Constitution. In securing suffrage but to another shade of manhood, while we disfranchise fifteen million tax-payers, we come not one line nearer the republican idea. Can a ballot in the hand of woman, and dignity on her brow, more unsex her than do a scepter and a crown? Shall an American Congress pay less honor to the daughter of a President than a British Parliament to the daughter of a King? Should not our petitions command as respectful a hearing in a republican Senate as a speech of Victoria in the House of Lords? Do we not claim that here all men and women are nobles—all heirs apparent to the throne? The fact that this backward legislation has roused so little thought or protest from the women of the country, but proves what some of our ablest thinkers have already declared, that the greatest barrier to a government of equality was the aristocracy of its women. For, while woman holds an ideal position above man and the work of life, poorly imitating the pomp, heraldry, and distinction of an effete European civilization, we as a nation can never realize the divine idea of equality.

To build a true republic, the church and the home must undergo the same upheavings we now see in the State;—for, while our egotism, selfishness, luxury and ease are baptized in the name of Him whose life was a sacrifice,—while at the family altar we are taught to worship wealth, power and position, rather than humanity, it is vain to talk of a republican government:—The fair fruits of liberty, equality and fraternity must be blighted in the bud, till cherished in the heart of woman. At this hour the nation needs the highest thought and inspiration of a true womanhood infused into every vein and artery of its life; and woman needs a broader, deeper education, such as a pure religion and lofty patriotism alone can give. From the baptism of this second revolution should she not rise up with new strength and dignity, clothed in all those "rights, privileges and immunities" that shall best enable her to fulfill her highest duties to Humanity, her Country, her Family and Herself?

On behalf of the National Woman's Rights Central Committee,

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, President.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary. New York (48 Beekman street), March 31, 1866.

[61] Ernestine L. Rose, Wendell Phillips, John T. Sargeant, O. B. Frothingham, Frances D. Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Theodore Tilton, Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Stephen S. and Abbey Kelley Foster, Margaret Winchester and Parker Pillsbury.

[62] As this was the first time Mr. Beecher had honored the platform, we give copious extracts from his speech in preference to those who were so often reported in the first volume. This speech is published in full in tract form, and can be obtained from the Secretary of the National Woman's Suffrage Association.

[63] A COLLOQUY.

When Mr. BEECHER took his seat, Mr. TILTON rose and said:

Mrs. PRESIDENT: In the midst of the general hilarity produced throughout the house by my friend's speech, I myself have been greatly solemnized by being made (as you have witnessed) the public custodian of his New Testament. (Laughter). At first I shared in your gratification at seeing that he carried so much of the Scripture with him. (Laughter). But I found, on looking at the fly-leaf, that the book after all, was not his own, but the property of a lady—I will not mention her name. (Laughter). I have, therefore, no right to accept my friend's gift of what is not his own. Now I remember that when he came home from England, he told me a story of a company of ten ministers who sat down to dine together. A dispute arose among them as to the meaning of a certain passage of Scripture—for aught I know the very passage in Galatians which he just now tried to quote, but couldn't. (Laughter). Some one said, "Who has a New Testament?" It was found that no one had a copy. Pretty soon, however, when the dinner reached the point of champagne, some one exclaimed, "Who has a corkscrew?" And it was found that the whole ten had, every man, a corkscrew in his pocket! (Laughter). Now, as there is no telling where a Brooklyn minister who made a temperance speech at Cooper Institute last night is likely to take his dinner to-day, I charitably return the New Testament into my friend's own hands. (Great merriment).

Mr. BEECHER—Now I know enough about champagne to know that it don't need any corkscrew. (Laughter).

Mr. TILTON—How is it that you know so much more about corkscrews than about Galatians? (Laughter).

Mr. BEECHER, after making some playful allusions to the story of the ten ministers, remarked that he gave it as it was given to him, but that he could not vouch for its truthfulness, as he was not present on the occasion.

[64] Susan B. Anthony, Frances E. W. Harper, Sarah H. Hallock, Edwin A. Studwell, Dr. C. S. Lozier, Margaret E. Winchester, Mary F. Gilbert, Dr. Laura A. Ward, Edward M. Davis, Mrs. Calhoun.

[65] CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION.

PREAMBLE.—Whereas, by the war, society is once more resolved into its original elements, and in the reconstruction of our government we again stand face to face with the broad question of natural rights, all associations based on special claims for special classes are too narrow and partial for the hour; Therefore, from the baptism of this second revolution—purified and exalted through suffering—seeing with a holier vision that the peace, prosperity, and perpetuity of the Republic rest on EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL, we, to-day, assembled in our Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, bury the woman in the citizen, and our organization in that of the American Equal Rights Association.

ARTICLE I.—This organization shall be known as The American Equal Rights Association.

ART. II.—The object of this Association shall be to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex.

ART. III.—Any person who consents to the principles of this Association and contributes to its treasury, may be a member, and be entitled to speak and vote in its meetings.

ART. IV.—The Officers of this Association shall be, a President, Vice-Presidents, Corresponding Secretaries, a Recording Secretary, a Treasurer, and an Executive Committee of not less than seven, nor more than fifteen members.

ART. V.—The Executive Committee shall have power to enact their by-laws, fill any vacancy in their body and in the offices of Secretary and Treasurer; employ agents, determine what compensation shall be paid to agents, and to the Corresponding Secretaries, direct the Treasurer in the application of all moneys, and call special meetings of the Society. They shall make arrangements for all meetings of the Society, make an annual written report of their doings, the expenditures and funds of the Society, and shall hold stated meetings, and adopt the most energetic measures in their power to advance the objects of the Society.

ART. VI.—The Annual Meeting of the Association shall be held each year at such time and place as the Executive Committee may direct, when the accounts of the Treasurer shall be presented, the annual report read, appropriate addresses delivered, the officers chosen, and such other business transacted as shall be deemed expedient.

ART. VII.—Any Equal Rights Association, founded on the same principles, may become auxiliary to this Association. The officers of each auxiliary shall be ex officio members of the Parent Association, and shall be entitled to deliberate and vote in the transactions of its concerns.

ART. VIII.—This constitution may be amended, at any regular meeting of the Society, by a vote of two-thirds of the members present, provided the amendments proposed have been previously submitted in writing to the Executive Committee, at least one month before the meeting at which they are to be proposed.

Done in the City of New York on the tenth day of May, in the year 1866.

[66] President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Vice-Presidents, Frederick Douglass, Frances D. Gage, Robert Purvis, Theodore Tilton, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha C. Wright, Rebecca W. Mott; Corresponding Secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Mattie Griffith, Caroline M. Severance; Recording Secretary, Henry B. Blackwell; Treasurer, Ludlow Patton; Executive Committee, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Edwin A. Studwell, Margaret E. Winchester, Aaron M. Powell, Susan B. Anthony, Parker Pillsbury, Elizabeth Gay, Mary F. Gilbert, Stephen S. Foster, Lydia Mott, Antoinette B. Blackwell, Wendell Phillips Garrison.

[67] Miss Anthony reported from the Finance Committee the receipt of $255.50, as follows: Jessie Benton Fremont, $50; Abby Hutchinson Patton, $50; Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, $20; Gerrit Smith, $10; Mrs. Dr. Densmore, $10; James and Lucretia Mott, $10 Martha C. Wright, $8: Elizabeth S. Miller, $5; Eliza W. Osborn, $5; Margaret E. Winchester, $5; and the balance in sums of $1 each, from as many different persons, whose names were enrolled as members of the Equal Rights Association. Miss A. further stated that the proceedings would be published in pamphlet form at the earliest possible day, and that announcement of their place of sale would be made through the Tribune, Anti-Slavery Standard, and other papers.

[68] At a reception one evening in Washington at the residence of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, he rallied Mrs. Stanton on her defeat, regretting that as Speaker of the House he had never had the pleasure of introducing "the Lady from New York." Hon. William D. Kelly, standing near, remarked by way of consolation, "There is still hope for Mrs. Stanton; she received the same number of votes I did the first time I ran for Congress (2,400), the only difference is, her ciphers were on the wrong side (0024).

[69] The speakers were Rev. Olympia Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Frederick Douglass, Henry B. Blackwell, Sarah P. Remond, Parker Pillsbury, Jane Elizabeth Jones, Charles Lenox Remond, Bessie Bisbee, and Louise Jacobs.

[70] THE CALL.

The first Annual Meeting of the AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION will be held in the City of New York, at the Church of the Puritans, on Thursday and Friday, the 9th and 10th of May, 1867, commencing on Thursday morning, at 10 o'clock.

The object of this Association is to "secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the Right of Suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex." American Democracy has interpreted the Declaration of Independence in the interest of slavery, restricting suffrage and citizenship to a white male minority.

The black man is still denied the crowning right of citizenship, even in the nominally free States, though the fires of civil war have melted the chains of chattelism, and a hundred battle fields attest his courage and patriotism. Half our population are disfranchised on the ground of sex; and though compelled to obey the laws and taxed to support the government, they have no voice in the legislation of the country.

This Association, then, has a mission to perform, the magnitude and importance of which can not be over-estimated. The recent war has unsettled all our governmental foundations. Let us see that in their restoration, all these unjust proscriptions are avoided. Let Democracy be defined anew, as the government of the people, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE.

Let the gathering, then, at this anniversary be, in numbers and character, worthy, in some degree, the demands of the hour. The black man, even the black soldier, is yet but half emancipated, nor will he be, until full suffrage and citizenship are secured to him in the Federal Constitution. Still more deplorable is the condition of the black woman; and legally, that of the white woman is no better! Shall the sun of the nineteenth century go down on wrongs like these, in this nation, consecrated in its infancy to justice and freedom? Rather let our meeting be pledge as well as prophecy to the world of mankind, that the redemption of at least one great nation is near at hand.

There will be four sessions—Thursday, May 9th, at 10 o'clock A.M., and 8 o'clock P. M.; Friday, May 13th, at 10 A.M., and 8 P.M. The speakers will be Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gen. Rufus Saxton, Frances D. Gage, Parker Pillsbury, Robert Purvis, Mary Grew, Ernestine L. Rose, Charles Lenox Remond, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, Rev. Olympia Brown, Sojourner Truth (Mrs. Stowe's "Lybian Sybil"), Rev. Samuel J. May, and others.

On behalf of the American Equal Rights Association,

LUCRETIA MOTT, President. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Cor. Secretary. HENRY B. BLACKWELL, Rec. Secretary.

New York, 12th March, 1867.

[71] Resolved, That as republican institutions are based on individual rights, and not on the rights of races or sexes, the first question for the American people to settle in the reconstruction of the government, is the RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS.

Resolved, That the present claim for "manhood suffrage," marked with the words "equal," "impartial," "universal," is a cruel abandonment of the slave women of the South, a fraud on the tax-paying women of the North, and an insult to the civilization of the nineteenth century.

Resolved, That the proposal to reconstruct our government on the basis of manhood suffrage, which emanated from the Republican party and has received the recent sanction of the American Anti-Slavery Society, is but a continuation of the old system of class and caste legislation, always cruel and prescriptive in itself, and ending in all ages in national degradation and revolution.

On motion of Miss Anthony, a Finance Committee was appointed, consisting of Harriet Purvis, Mary F. Gilbert, Charles Lenox Remond, and Anna Rice Powell.

On motion of Charles C. Burleigh, a Business Committee was appointed, consisting of Ernestine L. Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Parker Pillsbury, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances D. Gage, and Samuel J. May.

[72] Resolved, That the ballot alike to women and men means bread, education, self-protection, self-reliance, and self-respect; to the wife it means the control of her own person, property, and earnings; to the mother it means the equal guardianship of her children; to the daughter it means diversified employment and a fair day's wages for a fair day's work; to all it means free access to skilled labor, to colleges and professions, and to every avenue of advantage and preferment.

Resolved, That Henry Ward Beecher, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass, be invited to represent the Equal Rights Association in the Constitutional Convention to be held in this State in the month of June next.

Resolved, That while we are grateful to Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, and Horace Greeley, for the respectful mention of woman's right to the ballot in the journals through which they speak, we ask them now, when we are reconstructing both our State and National Governments, to demand that the right of suffrage be secured to all citizens—to women as well as black men, for, until this is done, the government stands on the unsafe basis of class legislation.

Resolved, That on this our first anniversary we congratulate each other and the country on the unexampled progress of our cause, as seen: 1. In the action of Congress extending the right of suffrage to the colored men of the States lately in rebellion, and in the very long and able discussion of woman's equal right to the ballot in the United States Senate, and the vote upon it. 2. In the action of the Legislatures of Kansas and Wisconsin, submitting to the people a proposition to extend the ballot to woman. 3. In the agitation upon the same measure in the Legislatures of several other States. 4. In the friendly tone of so large a portion of the press, both political and religious; and finally, in the general awaking to the importance of human elevation and enfranchisement, abroad as well as at home; particularly in Great Britain, Russia, and Brazil; and encouraged by past successes and the present prospect, we pledge ourselves to renewed and untiring exertions, until equal suffrage and citizenship are acknowledged throughout our entire country, irrespective of sex or color.

[73] President, Lucretia Mott; Vice-presidents, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N. Y., Frederick Douglass, N. Y., Henry Ward Beecher, N. Y., Charles Lenox Remond, Mass., Elizabeth B. Chace, R. I., C. Prince, Conn., Frances D. Gage, N. J., Robert Purvis, Penn., Josephine S. Griffing, D. C., Thomas Garret, Del., Stephen H. Camp, Ohio, Euphemia Cochrane, Mich., Mary A. Livermore, Ill., Mrs. Isaac H. Sturgeon, Mo., Amelia Bloomer, Iowa, Sam N. Wood, Kansas, Virginia Penny, Kentucky; Recording Secretaries, Henry B. Blackwell, Hattie Purvis; Corresponding Secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Mattie Griffith, Caroline M. Severance; Treasurer, John F. Merritt; Executive Committee, Ernestine L. Rose, Edwin A. Studwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Lucy Stone, Parker Pillsbury, Elizabeth Gay, Theodore Tilton, Mary F. Gilbert, Edward S. Bunker, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret E. Winchester, Aaron M. Powell, James Haggarty, George T. Downing.

[74] The night before Dr. Cheever was to preach his farewell sermon to his people in the Church of the Puritans, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, walking slowly up Broadway arm in arm, cogitating, as usual, where a good word could be said for woman, bethought themselves of the Doctor's forthcoming sermon. As he had fought a grand battle for anti-slavery in his church, they felt that it would be peculiarly fitting for him, in his last sermon, to make some mention of the rights of women.

Accordingly they turned into University Place, and soon found themselves in his parlor, where they were heartily welcomed by Mrs. Cheever. Miss Anthony, who was generally the spokesman on all audacious errands, said, "We want to see the Doctor just five minutes; we know that it is Saturday evening, that he is busy with his sermon, and sees no one at this time, but our errand is one of momentous importance, and what we have in our minds must be said now or never. While we were explaining to Mrs. Cheever, the folding doors quietly rolled back, and there stood the Doctor. He laughed heartily when we made known our mission, and said, "I have the start of you this time; what you ask is already written in my sermon; come into my library and you shall hear it. We listened with great satisfaction, expressed our thanks and started, when Miss A. suddenly turned and said, "That is excellent, Doctor, now pray do not forget to give it with unction to-morrow."

Many wondered that Dr. Cheever, a rigid blue Presbyterian, should express such radical sentiments on so unpopular a reform. But his conversion was due, no doubt, to the fact that the women of his church had nobly sustained him all through his anti-slavery battle while the wealth and conservatism of the congregation forbade the discussion of that subject in the pulpit. The votes of the women, year after year, secured his position, until his failing health ended the contest, and the sale of the edifice changed the Church of the Puritans into Tiffany's brilliant jewelry establishment.

[75] MEMORIAL OF THE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The undersigned, Officers and Representatives of the American Equal Rights Association, respectfully but earnestly protest against any change in the Constitution of the United States, or legislation by Congress, which shall longer violate the principle of Republican Government, by proscriptive distinctions in rights of suffrage or citizenship, on account of color or sex. Your Memorialists would respectfully represent, that neither the colored man's loyalty, bravery on the battle field and general good conduct, nor woman's heroic devotion to liberty and her country, in peace and war, have yet availed to admit them to equal citizenship, even in this enlightened and republican nation.

We believe that humanity is one in all those intellectual, moral and spiritual attributes, out of which grow human responsibilities. The Scripture declaration is, "so God created man in his own image: male and female created he them." And all divine legislation throughout the realm of nature recognizes the perfect equality of the two conditions. For male and female are but different conditions. Neither color nor sex is ever discharged from obedience to law, natural or moral; written or unwritten. The commands, thou shalt not steal, nor kill, nor commit adultery, know nothing of sex in their demands; nothing in their penalty. And hence we believe that all human legislation which is at variance with the divine code, is essentially unrighteous and unjust. Woman and the colored man are taxed to support many literary and humane institutions, into which they never come, except in the poorly paid capacity of menial servants. Woman has been fined, whipped, branded with red-hot irons, imprisoned and hung; but when was woman ever tried by a jury of her peers?

Though the nation declared from the beginning that "all just governments derive their power from the consent of the governed," the consent of woman was never asked to a single statute, however nearly it affected her dearest womanly interests or happiness. In the despotisms of the old world, of ancient and modern times, woman, profligate, prostitute, weak, cruel, tyrannical, or otherwise, from Semiramis and Messalina, to Catherine of Russia and Margaret of Anjou, have swayed, unchallenged, imperial scepters; while in this republican and Christian land in the nineteenth century, woman, intelligent, refined in every ennobling gift and grace, may not even vote on the appropriation of her own property, or the disposal and destiny of her own children. Literally she has no rights which man is bound to respect; and her civil privileges she holds only by sufferance. For the power that gave, can take away, and of that power she is no part. In most of the States, these unjust distinctions apply to woman, and to the colored man alike. Your Memorialists fully believe that the time has come when such injustice should cease.

Woman and the colored man are loyal, patriotic, property-holding, tax-paying, liberty-loving citizens; and we can not believe that sex or complexion should be any ground for civil or political degradation. In our government, one-half the citizens are disfranchised by their sex, and about one-eighth by the color of their skin; and thus a large majority have no voice in enacting or executing the laws they are taxed to support and compelled to obey, with the same fidelity as the more favored class, whose usurped prerogative it is to rule. Against such outrages on the very name of republican freedom, your memorialists do and must ever protest. And is not our protest pre-eminently as just against the tyranny of "taxation without representation," as was that thundered from Bunker Hill, when our revolutionary fathers fired the shot that shook the world?

And your Memorialists especially remember, at this time, that our country is still reeling under the shock of a terrible civil war, the legitimate result and righteous retribution of the vilest slave system ever suffered among men. And in restoring the foundations of our nationality, your memorialists most respectfully and earnestly pray that all discriminations on account of sex or race may be removed; and that our Government may be republican in fact as well as form; A GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE; FOR THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE.

In behalf of the American Equal Rights Association,

THEODORE TILTON, } FREDERICK DOUGLAS, } Vice-Presidents. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, }

LUCRETIA MOTT, President. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE KANSAS CAMPAIGN—1867.

The Battle Ground of Freedom—Campaign of 1867—Liberals did not Stand by their Principles—Black Men Opposed to Woman Suffrage—Republican Press and Party Untrue—Democrats in Opposition—John Stuart Mill's Letters and Speeches Extensively Circulated—Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone Opened the Campaign—Rev. Olympia Brown Followed—60,000 Tracts Distributed—Appeal Signed by Thirty-one Distinguished Men—Letters from Helen E. Starrett, Susan E. Wattles, Dr. R. S. Tenney, Lieut. Governor J. P. Root, Rev. Olympia Brown—The Campaign closed by ex-Governor Robinson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and the Hutchinson Family—Speeches and Songs at the Polls in every Ward in Leavenworth Election Day—Both Amendments lost—9,070 Votes for Woman Suffrage, 10,843 for Negro Suffrage.

As Kansas was the historic ground where Liberty fought her first victorious battles with Slavery, and consecrated that soil forever to the freedom of the black race, so was it the first State where the battle for woman's enfranchisement was waged and lost for a generation. There never was a more hopeful interest concentrated on the legislation of any single State, than when Kansas submitted the two propositions to her people to take the words "white" and "male" from her Constitution.

Those awake to the dignity and power of the ballot in the hands of all classes, to the inspiring thought of self-government, were stirred as never before, both in Great Britain and America, upon this question. Letters from John Stuart Mill and other friends, with warm words of encouragement, were read to thousands of audiences, and published in journals throughout the State. Eastern women who went there to speak started with the full belief that their hopes so long deferred were at last to be realized. Some even made arrangements for future homes on that green spot where at last the sons and daughters of earth were to stand equal before the law. With no greater faith did the crusaders of old seize their shields and start on their perilous journey to wrest from the infidel the Holy Sepulcher, than did these defenders of a sacred principle enter Kansas, and with hope sublime consecrate themselves to labor for woman's freedom; to roll off of her soul the mountains of sorrow and superstition that had held her in bondage to false creeds, and codes, and customs for centuries. There was a solemn earnestness in the speeches of all who labored in that campaign. Each heart was thrilled with the thought that the youngest civilization in the world was about to establish a government based on the divine idea—the equality of all mankind—proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, and echoed by the patriots who watched the dawn of the natal day of our Republic. Here at last the mothers of the race, the most important actors in the grand drama of human progress were for the first time to stand the peers of men.

These women firmly believed that Republicans and Abolitionists who had advocated their cause for years would aid them in all possible efforts to carry the Constitutional Amendment that was to enfranchise the women of the State. They looked confidently for encouragement, and inspiring editorials in certain Eastern journals. With Horace Greeley at the head of the New York Tribune, Theodore Tilton of the Independent, and Wendell Phillips of the Anti-Slavery Standard, they felt they had a strong force in the press of the East to rouse the men of Kansas to their duty. But, alas! they all preserved a stolid silence, and the Liberals of the State were in a measure paralyzed by their example. Though the amendment to take the word "male" from the Constitution was a Republican measure, signed by a Republican Governor, and advocated by leading men of that party throughout the campaign, yet the Republican party, as such, the Abolitionists and black men were all hostile to the proposition, because they said to agitate the woman's amendment would defeat negro suffrage.

Eastern politicians warned the Republicans of Kansas that "negro suffrage" was a party measure in national politics, and that they must not entangle themselves with the "woman question." On all sides came up the cry, this is "the negro's hour." Though the Republican State Central Committee adopted a resolution leaving all their party speakers free to express their individual sentiments, yet they selected men to canvass the State, who were known to be unscrupulous and disreputable, and violently opposed to woman suffrage.[76] The Democratic party[77] was opposed to both amendments and to the new law on temperance, which it was supposed the women would actively support.

The Germans in their Conventions passed a resolution[78] against the new law that required the liquor dealers to get the signatures of one-half the women, as well as the men, to their petitions before the authorities could grant them license. In suffrage for women they saw rigid Sunday laws and the suppression of their beer gardens. The liquor dealers throughout the State were bitter and hostile to the woman's amendment. Though the temperance party had passed a favorable resolution[79] in their State Convention, yet some of their members were averse to all affiliations with the dreaded question, as to them, what the people might drink seemed a subject of greater importance than a fundamental principle of human rights. Intelligent black men, believing the sophistical statements of politicians, that their rights were imperiled by the agitation of woman suffrage, joined the opposition. Thus the campaign in Kansas was as protracted as many sided.

From April until November, the women of Kansas, and those who came to help them, worked with indomitable energy and perseverance. Besides undergoing every physical hardship, traveling night and day in carriages, open wagons, over miles and miles of the unfrequented prairies, climbing divides, and through deep ravines, speaking in depots, unfinished barns, mills, churches, school-houses, and the open air, on the very borders of civilization, where-ever two or three dozen voters could be assembled.

Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone opened the campaign in April. The following letters show how hopeful they were of success, and how enthusiastically they labored to that end. Even the New York Tribune prophesied victory.[80]

AT GOV. ROBINSON'S HOUSE, FOUR MILES NORTH OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS, April, 5, 1867.

DEAR MRS. STANTON:—We report good news! After half a day's earnest debate, the Convention at Topeka, by an almost unanimous vote, refused to separate "the two questions" male and white. A delegation from Lawrence came up specially to get the woman dropped. The good God upset a similar delegation from Leavenworth bent on the same object, and prevented them from reaching Topeka at all. Gov. Robinson, Gov. Root, Col. Wood, Gen. Larimer, Col. Ritchie, and "the old guard" generally were on hand. Our coming out did good. Lucy spoke with all her old force and fire. Mrs. Nichols was there—a strong list of permanent officers was nominated—and a State Impartial Suffrage Association was organized. The right men were put upon the committees, and I do not believe that the Negro Suffrage men can well bolt or back out now.

The effect is wonderful. Papers which have been ridiculing woman suffrage and sneering at "Sam Wood's Convention" are now on our side. We have made the present Gov. Crawford President of the Association, Lieut.-Gov. Green Vice-President. Have appointed a leading man in every judicial district member of the Executive Committee, and have some of the leading Congregational, Old School, and New School Presbyterian ministers committed for both questions; have already secured a majority of the newspapers of the State, and if Lucy and I succeed in "getting up steam" as we hope in Lawrence, Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Atchison, the woman and the negro will rise or fall together, and shrewd politicians say that with proper effort we shall carry both next fall.

During the Convention Lucy got a dispatch from Lawrence as follows: "Will you lecture for the Library Association? State terms, time, and subject." Lucy replied: "Will lecture Saturday evening; subject, 'Impartial Suffrage'; terms, one hundred dollars, payable to Kansas State Impartial Suffrage Association." The prompt reply was: "We accept your terms." Gen. Larimer, of Leavenworth, went down next day to try to arrange a similar lyceum meeting there. In the afternoon came a dispatch from D. R. Anthony, saying: "Meeting arranged for Tuesday night." This is especially good, because we were informed that he had somewhat favored dropping the woman, but whether this was so or not, he will now be all right as befits the brother of Susan B. Anthony.

We are announced to speak every night but Sundays from April 7 to May 5 inclusive. We shall have to travel from twenty to forty miles per day. If our voices and health hold out, Col. Wood says the State is safe. We had a rousing convention—three sessions—at Topeka, and a crowded meeting the night following. We find a very strong feeling against Col. S. N. Wood among politicians, but they all respect and dread him. He has warmer friends and bitterer enemies than almost any man in the State. But he is true as steel. My judgment of men is rarely deceived, and I pronounce S. N. Wood a great man and a political genius. Gov. Robinson is a masterly tactician, cool, wary, cautious, decided, and brave as a lion. These two men alone would suffice to save Kansas. But when you add the other good and true men who are already pledged, and the influences which have been combined, I think you will see next fall an avalanche vote—"the caving in of that mighty sandbank" your husband once predicted on a similar occasion.

Now, Mrs. Stanton, you and Susan and Fred. Douglass must come to this State early next September; you must come prepared to make sixty speeches each. You must leave your notes behind you. These people won't have written sermons. And you don't want notes. You are a natural orator, and these people will give you inspiration! Everything has conspired to help us in this State. Gov. Robinson and Sam. Wood have quietly set a ball in motion which nobody in Kansas is now strong enough to stop. Politicians' hair here is fairly on end. But the fire is in the prairie behind them, and they are getting out their matches in self-defense to fire their foreground. This is a glorious country, Mrs. S., and a glorious people. If we succeed here, it will be the State of the Future.

With kind regards, HENRY B. BLACKWELL.

P. S.—So you see we have the State Convention committed to the right side, and I do believe we shall carry it. All the old settlers are for it. It is only the later comers who say, "If I were a black man I should not want the woman question hitched to me." These men tell what their wives have done, and then ask, shall such women be left without a vote? L. S.

D. R. ANTHONY'S HOUSE, LEAVENWORTH, } April 10, 1867. }

DEAR MRS. STANTON:—We came here just in the nick of time. The papers were laughing at "Sam Wood's Convention," the call for which was in the papers with the names of Beecher, Tilton, Ben Wade, Gratz Brown, E. C. Stanton, Anna Dickinson, Lucy Stone, etc., as persons expected or invited to be at the convention. The papers said: "This is one of Sam's shabbiest tricks. Not one of these persons will be present, and he knows it," etc., etc. Our arrival set a buzz going, and when I announced you and Susan and Aunt Fanny for the fall, they began to say "they guessed the thing would carry." Gov. Robinson said he could not go to the Topeka Convention, for he had a lawsuit involving $1,000 that was to come off that very day, but we talked the matter over with him, showed him what a glorious hour it was for Kansas, etc., etc., and he soon concluded to get the suit put off and go to the convention. Ex-Gov. Root, of Wyandotte, joined with him and us, though he had not intended to go. We went to Topeka; and the day and evening before the convention, pulled every wire and set every honest trap. Gov. Robinson has a long head, and he arranged the "platform" so shrewdly, carefully using the term "impartial," which he said meant right, and we must make them use it, so that there would be no occasion for any other State Association. In this previous meeting, the most prominent men of the State were made officers of the permanent organization. When the platform was read, with the names of the officers, and the morning's discussion was over, everybody then felt that the ball was set right. But in the P.M. came a Methodist minister and a lawyer from Lawrence as delegates, "instructed" to use the word "impartial," "as it had been used for the last two years," to make but one issue, and to drop the woman. The lawyer said, "If I was a negro, I would not want the woman hitched on to my skirts," etc. He made a mean speech. Mrs. Nichols and I came down upon him, and the whole convention, except the Methodist, was against him. The vote was taken whether to drop the woman, and only the little lawyer from Lawrence, with a hole in his coat and only one shoe on, voted against the woman. After that it was all one way. The papers all came out right, I mean the Topeka papers. One editor called on us, said we need not mention that he had called, but he wanted to assure us that he had always been right on this question. That the mean articles in his paper had been written by a subordinate in his office in his absence, etc. That the paper was fully committed, etc., etc. That is a fair specimen of the way all the others have done, till we got to this place. Here the Republicans had decided to drop the woman, Anthony with the others, and I think they are only waiting to see the result of our meetings, to announce their decision. But the Democrats all over the State are preparing to take us up. They are a small minority, with nothing to lose, and utterly unscrupulous, while all who will work with Sam Wood will work with anybody. I fully expect we shall carry the State. But it will be necessary to have a good force here in the fall, and you will have to come. Our meetings are everywhere crowded to overflowing, and in every case the papers speak well of them. We have meetings for every night till the 4th of May. By that time we shall be well tired out. But we shall see the country, and I hope have done some good. There is no such love of principle here as I expected to find. Each man goes for himself, and "the devil take the hindmost." The women here are grand, and it will be a shame past all expression if they don't get the right to vote. One woman in Wyandotte said she carried petitions all through the town for female suffrage, and not one woman in ten refused to sign. Another in Lawrence said they sent up two large petitions from there. So they have been at the Legislature, like the heroes they really are, and it is not possible for the husbands of such women to back out, though they have sad lack of principle and a terrible desire for office.

Yours, L. S.

JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS, April 20.

DEAR MRS. STANTON:

We have had one letter from you, and have written you twice. To-day I inclose an article by Col. Wood, which is so capital that it ought to be printed. I wish you would take it to Tilton (not Oliver), and if he says he will publish it, let him have it; but if he hesitates, send it at once to the Chicago Republic, and ask them to mark the article in some of their exchanges. Perhaps the Northern Methodist, The Banner of Light, and the Liberal Christian would insert it. I shall not be back to the May meeting; indeed, it would be better if we could stay till June 1st, and go all along the Northern tier of counties. I think this State will be right at the fall election. The Independent is taken in many families here, and they are getting right on the question of impartial suffrage. But there will have to be a great deal of work to carry the State. We have large, good meetings everywhere. If the Independent would take up this question, and every week write for it, as it does for the negro, that paper alone could save this State; and with this, all the others.

What a pity it does not see the path that would leave it with more than Revolutionary honors! I am thankful beyond expression for what it does, but I am pained for what it might do. With its 75,000 subscribers, and five times that number of readers, what can the poor little Standard do for us, compared with that? I shall try and write a letter to the convention. May strike the true note! I hope not a man will be asked to speak at the convention. If they volunteer very well, but I have been for the last time on my knees to Phillips or Higginson, or any of them. If they help now, they should ask us, and not we them. Is Susan with you?

L. S.

JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS, April 21, 1867.

DEAR FRIENDS, E. C. STANTON AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY:

You will be glad to know that Lucy and I are going over the length and breadth of this State speaking every day, and sometimes twice, journeying from twenty-five to forty miles daily, sometimes in a carriage and sometimes in an open wagon, with or without springs. We climb hills and dash down ravines, ford creeks, and ferry over rivers, rattle across limestone ledges, struggle through muddy bottoms, fight the high winds on the high rolling upland prairies, and address the most astonishing (and astonished) audiences in the most extraordinary places. To-night it may be a log school house, to-morrow a stone church; next day a store with planks for seats, and in one place, if it had not rained, we should have held forth in an unfinished court house, with only four stone walls but no roof whatever.

The people are a queer mixture of roughness and intelligence, recklessness, and conservatism. One swears at women who want to wear the breeches; another wonders whether we ever heard of a fellow named Paul; a third is not going to put women on an equality with niggers. One woman told Lucy that no decent woman would be running over the country talking nigger and woman. Her brother told Lucy that "he had had a woman who was under the sod, but that if she had ever said she wanted to vote he would have pounded her to death!"

The fact is, however, that we have on our side all the shrewdest politicians and all the best class of men and women in this State. Our meetings are doing much towards organizing and concentrating public sentiment in our favor, and the papers are beginning to show front in our favor. We fought and won a pitched battle at Topeka in the convention, and have possession of the machine. By the time we get through with the proposed series of meetings, it will be about the 20th of May, if Lucy's voice and strength hold out. The scenery of this State is lovely. In summer it must be very fine indeed, especially in this Western section the valleys are beautiful, and the bluffs quite bold and romantic.

I think we shall probably succeed in Kansas next fall if the State is thoroughly canvassed, not else. We are fortunate in having Col. Sam N. Wood as an organizer and worker. We owe everything to Wood, and he is really a thoroughly noble, good fellow, and a hero. He is a short, rather thick set, somewhat awkward, and "slouchy" man, extremely careless in his dress, blunt and abrupt in his manner, with a queer inexpressive face, little blue eyes which can look dull or flash fire or twinkle with the wickedest fun. He is so witty, sarcastic, and cutting, that he is a terrible foe, and will put the laugh even on his best friends. The son of a Quaker mother, he held the baby while his wife acted as one of the officers, and his mother another, in a Woman's Rights Convention seventeen years ago. Wood has helped off more runaway slaves than any man in Kansas. He has always been true both to the negro and the woman. But the negroes dislike and distrust him because he has never allowed the word white to be struck out, unless the word male should be struck out also. He takes exactly Mrs. Stanton's ground, that the colored men and women shall enter the kingdom together, if at all. So, while he advocates both, he fully realizes the wider scope and far greater grandeur of the battle for woman. Lucy and I like Wood very much. We have seen a good deal of him, first at Topeka, again at Cottonwood Falls, his home, and on the journey thence to Council Grove and to this place. Our arrangements for conveyances failed, and Wood with characteristic energy and at great personal inconvenience brought us through himself. It is worth a journey to Kansas to know him for he is an original and a genius. If he should die next month I should consider the election lost. But if he live, and we all in the East drop other work and spend September and October in Kansas, we shall succeed. I am glad to say that our friend D. R. Anthony is out for both propositions in the Leavenworth Bulletin. But his sympathies are so especially with the negro question that we must have Susan out here to strengthen his hands. We must have Mrs. Stanton, Susan, Mrs. Gage, and Anna Dickinson, this fall. Also Ben Wade and Carl Schurz, if possible. We must also try to get 10,000 each of Mrs. Stanton's address, of Lucy Stone's address, and of Mrs. Mills article on the Enfranchisement of Women, printed for us by the Hovey Fund.

Kansas is to be the battle ground for 1867. It must not be allowed to fail.

The politicians here, except Wood and Robinson, are generally "on the fence." But they dare not oppose us openly. And the Democratic leaders are quite disposed to take us up. If the Republicans come out against us the Democrats will take us up. Do not let anything prevent your being here September 1 for the campaign, which will end in November. There will be a big fight and a great excitement. After the fight is over Mrs. Stanton will never have use for notes or written speeches any more.

Yours truly, HENRY B. BLACKWELL.

FORT SCOTT, May 1, 1867.

DEAR SUSAN:

I have just this moment read your letter, and received the tracts; the "testimonies" I mean. We took 250 pounds of tracts with us, and we have sowed them thick; and Susan, the crop will be impartial suffrage in the fall. It will carry, beyond a doubt, in this State. Now, as I can not be in New York next week, I want you to see Aunt Fanny and Anna Dickinson, and get them pledged to come here in the fall. We will raise the pay somehow. You and Mrs. Stanton will come, of course. I wish Mrs. Harper to come. I don't know if she is in New York; please tell her I got her letter, and will either see or correspond with her when I get home. There is no time to write here. We ride all day, and lecture every night, and sometimes at noon too. So there is time for nothing else. I am sorry there is no one to help you, Susan, in New York. I always thought that when this hour of our bitter need come—this darkest hour before the dawn—Mr. Higginson would bring his beautiful soul and his fine, clear intellect to draw all women to his side; but if it is possible for him to be satisfied at such an hour with writing the best literary essays, it is because the power to help us has gone from him. The old lark moves her nest only when the farmer prepares to cut his grass himself. This will be the way with us; as to the Standard, I don't count upon it at all. Even if you get it, the circulation is so limited that it amounts almost to nothing. I have not seen a copy in all Kansas. But the Tribune and Independent alone could, if they would urge universal suffrage, as they do negro suffrage, carry this whole nation upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to hold, and not use! I could not sleep the other night, just for thinking of it; and if I had got up and written the thought that burned my very soul, I do believe that Greeley and Tilton would have echoed the cry of the old crusaders, "God wills it;" and rushing to our half-sustained standard, would plant it high and firm on immutable principles. They MUST take it up. I shall see them the very first thing when I go home. At your meeting next Monday evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used for the Standard and Anti-Slavery purposes, since slavery is abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which by the express terms of the will were to receive all of the fund when slavery was abolished. You will have a good meeting, I am sure, and I hope you will not fail to rebuke the cowardly use of the terms "universal," and "impartial," and "equal," applied to hide a dark skin, and an unpopular client. All this talk about the infamous thirteen who voted against "negro suffrage" in New Jersey, is unutterably contemptible from the lips or pen of those whose words, acts, and votes are not against ignorant and degraded negroes, but against every man's mother, wife, and daughter. We have crowded meetings everywhere. I speak as well as ever, thank God! The audiences move to tears or laughter, just as in the old time. Harry makes capital speeches, and gets a louder cheer always than I do, though I believe I move a deeper feeling. The papers all over the State are discussing pro and con. The whole thing is working just right. If Beecher is chosen delegate at large to your Constitutional Convention, I think the word male will go out before his vigorous cudgel. I do not want to stay here after the 4th, but Wood and Harry have arranged other meetings up to the 18th or 20th of May, so that we shan't be back even for the Boston meetings.

Very truly, LUCY STONE.

In a letter dated Atchison, May 9, 1867, Lucy Stone says: I should be so glad to be with you to-morrow, and to know this minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground which sound policy as well as justice and statesmanship require. I can not send you a telegraphic dispatch as you wish, for just now there is a plot to get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and also to agree to canvass only for the word "white." There is a call, signed by the Chairman of the State Central Republican Committee; to meet at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge the party to the canvass on that single issue. As soon as we saw the call and the change of tone of some of the papers, we sent letters to all those whom we had found true to principle, urging them to be at Topeka and vote for both words. This effort of ours the Central Committee know nothing of, and we hope they will be defeated, as they will be sure to be surprised. So, till this action of the Republicans is settled, we can affirm nothing. Everywhere we go we have the largest and most enthusiastic meetings, and any one of our audiences would give a majority for woman suffrage. But the negroes are all against us. There has just now left us an ignorant black preacher named Twine, who is very confident that women ought not to vote. These men ought not to be allowed to vote before we do, because they will be just so much more dead weight to lift.

Mr. Frothingham's course of lectures, happily, is over. Were you ever so cruelly hurt by any course of lectures before? "If it had been an enemy I could have borne it." But for this man, wise, educated, and good, who thinks he is our friend, to do just the things that our worst enemies will be glad of, is the unkindest cut of all. Ninety-nine pulpits out of every hundred have taught that women should not meddle in politics; as large a proportion of papers have done the same; and by every hearthstone the lesson is repeated to the little girl; and when she has learned it, and grows up, and does not throw away the teaching of a life time, Mr. Frothingham accepts this effect for a cause, and blames the unhappy victim, when he should stand by her side, and with all his power of persuasion win her away from her false teaching, to accept the truth and the nobler life that comes with it. But, thank God, the popular pulse is setting in the right direction.

We must see Wade, and Garfield, and Julian, and when Sumner proposes, as he says he shall, to make negro suffrage universal, they must insist upon our claim; urged not for our sake merely, but that the government may be based upon the consent of the governed. There is safety in no other way. We shall leave for home on the 20th. We had the largest meeting we have yet had in the State at Leavenworth night before last. Your brother and his wife called upon us at Col. Coffin's. They are well. But Dan don't want the Republicans to take us up. Love to Mrs. Stanton.

LUCY STONE.

P. S.—The papers here are coming down on us, and every prominent reformer, and charging us with being Free Lovers. I have to-day written a letter to the editor, saying that it has not the shadow of a foundation.

Rev. Olympia Brown arrived in the State in July, where her untiring labors, for four months were never equaled by man or woman. Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and the Hutchinson family followed her early in September. What these speakers could not do with reason and appeal, the Hutchinsons, by stirring the hearts of the people with their sweet ballads, readily accomplished. Before leaving New York Miss Anthony published 60,000 tracts, which were distributed in Kansas with a liberal hand under the frank of Senators Ross and Pomeroy. Thus the thinking and unthinking in every school district were abundantly supplied with woman suffrage literature, such as Mrs. Mill's splendid article in the Westminster Review, the best speeches of John Stuart Mill, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's argument before the Constitutional Convention, Parker Pillsbury's "Mortality of Nations," Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "Woman and her Wishes," Henry Ward Beecher's "Woman's Duty to Vote," and Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols' "Responsibility of Woman." There was scarcely a log cabin in the State that could not boast one or more of these documents, which the liberality of a few eastern friends[81] enabled the "Equal Rights Association" to print and circulate.

The opposition were often challenged to debate this question in public, but uniformly refused, knowing full well, since their powder in this battle consisted of vulgar abuse and ridicule, that they had no arguments to advance. But it chanced that on one occasion by mistake, a meeting was appointed for the opposing forces at the same time and place where Olympia Brown was advertised to speak. This gave her an opportunity of testing her readiness in debate with Judge Sears. Of this occasion a correspondent says:

DISCUSSION AT OSKALOOSA.—To the Editor of the Kansas State Journal: For the first time during the canvass for Universal Suffrage, the opponents of the two wrongs, "Manhood Suffrage" and "Woman Suffrage," met in open debate at this place last evening. The largest church in the place was crowded to its utmost, every inch of space being occupied. Judge Gilchrist was called to the chair, and first introduced Judge Sears, who made the following points in favor of Manhood Suffrage:

1st. That in the early days of the Republic no discrimination was made against negroes on account of color.

He proved from the constitutions and charters of the original thirteen States, that all of them, with the exception of South Carolina, allowed the colored freeman the ballot, upon the same basis and conditions as the white man. That we were not conferring a right, but restoring one which the fathers in their wisdom had never deprived the colored man of. He showed how the word white had been forced into the State constitutions, and advocated that it should be stricken out, it being the last relic of the "slave power."

2d. That the negro needed the ballot for his protection and elevation.

3d. That he deserved the ballot. He fought with our fathers side by side in the war of the revolution. He did the same thing in the war of 1812, and in the war of the rebellion. He fought for us because he was loyal and loved the old flag. If any class of men had ever earned the enjoyment of franchise the negro had.

4th. The Republican party owed it to him.

5th. The enfranchisement of the negro was indispensable to reconstruction of the late rebellious States upon a basis that should secure to the loyal men of the South the control of the government in those States. Congress had declared it was necessary, and the most eminent men of the nation had failed to discover any other means by which the South could be restored to the Union, that should secure safety, prosperity, and happiness. There was not loyalty enough in the South among the whites to elect a loyal man to an inferior office.

Upon each one of these points the Judge elaborated at length, and made really a fine speech, but his evident disconcertion showed that he knew what was to follow. It was expected that when Miss Brown was introduced many would leave, owing to the strange feeling against Female Suffrage in and about Oscaloosa; but not one left, the crowd grew more dense. A more eloquent speech never was uttered in this town than Miss Brown delivered; for an hour and three-quarters the audience was spell-bound as she advanced from point to point. She had been longing for such an opportunity, and had become weary of striking off into open air; and she proved how thoroughly acquainted she was with her subject as she took up each point advanced by her opponent, not denying their truth, but showing by unanswerable logic that if it were good under certain reasons for the negro to vote, it was ten times better for the same reasons for the women to vote.

The argument that the right to vote is not a natural right, but acquired as corporate bodies acquire their rights, and that the ballot meant "protection," was answered and explained fully. She said the ballot meant protection; it meant much more; it means education, progress, advancement, elevation for the oppressed classes, drawing a glowing comparison between the working classes of England and those of the United States. She scorned the idea of an aristocracy based upon two accidents of the body. She paid an eloquent tribute to Kansas, the pioneer in all reforms, and said that it would be the best advertisement that Kansas could have to give the ballot to women, for thousands now waiting and uncertain, would flock to our State, and a vast tide of emigration would continually roll toward Kansas until her broad and fertile prairies would be peopled. It is useless to attempt to report her address, as she could hardly find a place to stop. When she had done, her opponent had nothing to say, he had been beaten on his own ground, and retired with his feathers drooping. After Miss Brown had closed, some one in the audience called for a vote on the female proposition. The vote was put, and nearly every man and woman in the house rose simultaneously, men that had fought the proposition from the first arose, even Judge Sears himself looked as though he would like to rise, but his principles, much tempted, forbade. After the first vote, Judge Sears called for a vote on his, the negro proposition, when about one-half the house arose. Verily there was a great turning to the Lord that day, and many would have been baptized, but there was no water. When Mrs. Stanton has passed through Oscaloosa, her fame having gone before her, we can count on a good majority for Female Suffrage.... * * * *

OSCALOOSA, October 11, 1867.

SALINA, KANSAS, Sept. 12, 1867.

DEAR FRIEND:—We are getting along splendidly. Just the frame of a Methodist church with sidings and roof, and rough cotton-wood boards for seats, was our meeting place last night here; and a perfect jam it was, with men crowded outside at all the windows. Two very brave young Kentuckian sprigs of the law had the courage to argue or present sophistry on the other side. The meeting continued until eleven o'clock. To-day we go to Ellsworth, the very last trading post on the frontier. A car load of wounded soldiers went East on the train this morning; but the fight was a few miles West of Ellsworth. No Indians venture to that point.

Our tracts gave out at Solomon, and the Topeka people failed to fill my telegraphic order to send package here. It is enough to exhaust the patience of any "Job" that men are so wanting in promptness. Our tracts do more than half the battle; reading matter is so very scarce that everybody clutches at a book of any kind. If only reformers would supply this demand with the right and the true—come in and occupy the field at the beginning—they might mould these new settlements. But instead they wait until everything is fixed, and the comforts and luxuries obtainable, and then come to find the ground preoccupied.

Send 2,000 of Curtis' speeches, 2,000 of Phillips', 2,000 of Beecher's, and 1,000 of each of the others, and then fill the boxes with the reports of our last convention; they are the best in the main because they have everybody's speeches together.

S. B. A.

HOME OF EX-GOV. ROBINSON, LAWRENCE, KANSAS, Sept. 15, 1867.

I rejoice greatly in the $100 from the Drapers.[82] That makes $250 paid toward the tracts. I am very sorry Mr. J. can not get off Curtis and Beecher. There is a perfect greed for our tracts. All that great trunk full were sold and given away at our first fourteen meetings, and we in return received $110, which a little more than paid our railroad fare—eight cents per mile—and hotel bills. Our collections thus far fully equal those at the East. I have been delightfully disappointed, for everybody said I couldn't raise money in Kansas meetings. I wish you were here to make the tour of this beautiful State, in which to live fifty years hence will be charming; but now, alas, the women especially see hard times; to come actually in contact with all their discomforts and privations spoils the poetry of pioneer life. The opposition, the "Anti-Female Suffragists," are making a bold push now; but all prophesy a short run for them. They held a meeting here the day after ours, and the friends say, did vastly more to make us converts than we ourselves did. The fact is nearly every man of the movers is like Kalloch, notoriously wanting in right action toward woman. Their opposition is low and scurrilous, as it used to be fifteen and twenty years ago at the East. Hurry on the tracts.

As ever, S. B. A.

Seeing that the republican vote must be largely against the woman's amendment, the question arose what can be done to capture enough democratic votes to outweigh the recalcitrant republicans. At this auspicious moment George Francis Train appeared in the State as an advocate of woman suffrage. He appealed most effectively to the chivalry of the intelligent Irishmen, and the prejudices of the ignorant; conjuring them not to take the word "white" out of their constitution unless they did the word "male" also; not to lift the negroes above the heads of their own mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. The result was a respectable democratic vote in favor of woman suffrage.

In a discussion with General Blunt at a meeting in Ottawa, Mr. Train said:

You say, General, that women in politics would lower the standard. Are politicians so pure, politics so exalted, the polls so immaculate, men so moral, that woman would pollute the ballot and contaminate the voters? Would revolvers, bowie-knives, whisky barrels, profane oaths, brutal rowdyism, be the feature of elections if women were present? Woman's presence purifies the atmosphere. Enter any Western hotel and what do you see, General? Sitting around the stove you will see dirty, unwashed-looking men, with hats on, and feet on the chairs; huge cuds of tobacco on the floor, spittle in pools all about; filth and dirt, condensed tobacco smoke, and a stench of whisky from the bar and the breath (applause, and "that's so,") on every side. This, General, is the manhood picture. Now turn to the womanhood picture; she, whom you think will debase and lower the morals of the elections. Just opposite this sitting room of the King, or on the next floor, is the sitting room of the Queen, covered chairs, clean curtains, nice carpets, books on the table, canary birds at the window, everything tidy, neat and beautiful, and according to your programme the occupants of this room will so demoralize the occupants of the other as to completely undermine all society.

Did man put woman in the parlor? Did woman put man in that bar room? Are the instincts of woman so low that unless man puts up a bar, she will immediately fall into man's obscene conversation and disreputable habits? No, General, women are better than men, purer, nobler, hence more exalted, and so far from falling to man's estate, give her power and she will elevate man to her level.

One other point, General, in reply to your argument. You say woman's sphere is at home with her children, and paint her as the sovereign of her own household. Let me paint the picture of the mother at the washtub, just recovering from the birth of her last child as the Empress. Six little children, half starved and shivering with cold, are watching and hoping that the Emperor will arrive with a loaf of bread, he having taken the wash money to the baker's. They wait and starve and cry, the poor emaciated Empress works and prays, when lo! the bugle sounds. It is the Emperor staggering into the yard. The little famished princesses' mouths all open are waiting for their expected food. Your friend, General, the Emperor, however, was absent minded, and while away at the polls voting for the license for his landlord, left the wash money on deposit with the bar-keeper (laughter) who wouldn't give it back again, and the little Queen birds must starve another day, till the wash-tub earns them a mouthful of something to eat. Give that woman a vote and she will keep the money she earns to clothe and feed her children, instead of its being spent in drunkenness and debauchery by her lord and master....

You say, General, that you intend to vote for negro suffrage and against woman suffrage. In other words, not satisfied with having your mother, your wife, your sisters, your daughters, the equals politically of the negro—by giving him a vote and refusing it to woman, you wish to place your family politically still lower in the scale of citizenship and humanity. This particular twist, General, is working in the minds of the people, and the democrats, having got you where Tommy had the wedge, intend to hold you there. Again you say that Mrs. Cady Stanton was three days in advance of you in the border towns, calling you the Sir John Falstaff of the campaign. I am under the impression, General, that these strong minded woman's rights women are more than three days in advance of you. (Loud cheers.) Falstaff was a jolly old brick, chivalrous and full of gallantry, and were he stumping Kansas with his ragged regiment, he would do it as the champion of woman instead of against her. (Loud cheers.) Hence Mrs. Stanton owes an apology to Falstaff, not to General Blunt. (Laughter and cheers.)

One more point, General. You have made a terrific personal attack on Senator Wood, calling him everything that is vile. I do not know Mr. Wood. Miss Anthony has made all my arrangements; but perhaps you will allow me to ask you if Mr. Wood is a democrat? (Laughter and applause from the democrats.) Gen. Blunt—No, he is a republican, (laughter) and chairman of the woman suffrage committee. Mr. Train—Good. I understand you and your argument against Wood is so forcible, (and Mr. Train said this with the most biting sarcasm, every point taking with the audience.) I believe with you that Wood is a bad man, (laughter) a man of no principle whatever. (Laughter.) A man who has committed all the crimes in the calendar, (loud laughter) who, if he has done what you have said, ought to be taken out on the square and hung, and well hung too. (Laughter and cheers.) Having admitted that I am converted to the fact of Wood's villainy, (laughter) and you having admitted that he is not a democrat, but a republican, (laughter) I think it is time the honest democratic and republican voters should rise up in their might and wipe off all those corrupt republican leaders from the Kansas State committee. (Loud cheers.) Democrats do your duty on the fifth of November and vote for woman suffrage. (Applause.) The effect of turning the General's own words back upon his party was perfectly electric, and when the vote was put for woman's suffrage it was almost unanimous. Mr. Train saying amid shouts of laughter, that he supposed that a few henpecked men would say "No" here, because they didn't dare to say their souls were their own at home....

Mr. TRAIN continued: Twelve o'clock at night is a late hour to take up all your points, General; but the audience will have me talk. Miss Anthony gave you, General, a very sarcastic retort to your assertion that every woman ought to be married. (Laughter.) She told you that to marry, it was essential to find some decent man, and that could not be found among the Kansas politicians who had so gallantly forsaken the woman's cause. (Loud laughter.) She said, as society was organized there was not one man in a thousand worthy of marriage—marrying a man and marrying a whisky barrel were two distinct ideas. (Laughter and applause.) Miss Anthony tells me that your friend Kalloch said at Lawrence that of all the infernal humbugs of this humbugging Woman's Rights question, the most absurd was that woman should assume to be entitled to the same wages for the same amount of labor performed, as man. Do you mean to say that the school mistress, who so ably does her duty, should only receive three hundred dollars, while the school master, who performs the same duty, gets fifteen hundred? (Shame.) All the avenues of employment are blocked against women. Embroidering, tapestry, knitting-needle, sewing needle have all been displaced by machinery; and women speakers, women doctors, and women clerks, are ridiculed and insulted till every modest woman fairly cowers before her Emperor Husband, her King, her Lord, for fear of being called "strong minded." (Laughter and applause.) Why should not the landlady of that hotel over the way share the profits of their joint labors with the landlord? She works as hard—yet he keeps all the money, and she goes to him, instead of being an independent woman, for her share of the profits, as a beggar asking for ten dollars to buy a bonnet or a dress. (Applause from the ladies.) Nothing is more contemptible than this slavery to the husband on the question of money. (Loud applause.) Give the sex votes and men will have more respect for women than to treat them as children or as dolls. (Applause.) The ten-year old boy will say to his women relatives, "Oh you don't know anything, you are only a woman," and when man wishes to insult his fellow man, he calls him a woman—and if the insult is intended to be more severe, he will speak of a cabinet statesman even as an "old woman." The General and Mr. Kalloch are afraid that women will be corrupted by going to the polls, yet they as lawyers have no hesitation in bringing a young and beautiful girl into court where a curiosity seeking audience are staring at her; where the judge makes her unveil her face, and the jury watch every feature, turning an honest blush into guilt. (Applause.)