Mrs. LAWRENCE of Massachusetts, said the country is in danger, and like other republics, unless taken care of, will perish by its own vices. She said twelve hundred thousand men and women of this country now stand with nothing to do, because their legislators of wealth were working not for the many, but the few, drunkenness and vice being superinduced by such a state of things. She insisted that women were to blame for much of the evil of the world—for bringing into life children who grow up in vice from their inborn tendencies.

Dr. CAROLINE B. WINSLOW of Washington, referred to the speech of Mrs. Lawrence, saying she hoped God would bless her for having the courage to speak as she did. There is no greater reform than for man and woman to be true to the marital relations.

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD said the only way for women to get their rights is to take them. If necessary let there be a domestic insurrection. Let young women refuse to marry, and married women refuse to sew on buttons, cook, and rock the cradle until their liege-lords acknowledge the rights they are entitled to. There were more ways than one to conquer a man; and women, like the strikers in the railroad riots, should carry their demands all along the line. She dwelt at length upon the refusal of the courts in allowing Lavinia Dundore to become a constable, and asked why she should not be appointed.

The Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN said that if they wanted wisdom and prosperity in the nation, health and happiness in the home, they must give woman the power to purify her surroundings; the right to make the outside world fit for her children to live in. Who are more interested than mothers in the sanitary condition of our schools and streets, and in the moral atmosphere of our towns and cities?

Marshal FREDERICK DOUGLASS said his reluctance to come forward was not due to any lack of interest in the subject under discussion. For thirty years he had believed in human rights to all men and women. Nothing that has ever been proposed involved such vital interests as the subject which now invites attention. When the negro was freed the question was asked if he was capable of voting intelligently. It was answered in this way: that if a sober negro knows as much as a drunken white man he is capable of exercising the elective franchise.

LAVINIA C. DUNDORE, introduced as the lady who had made application for an appointment as a constable and been refused, made a pithy address, in which she alluded to her recent disappointment.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE spoke of the influence of the church on woman's liberties, and then referred to a large number of law books—ancient and modern, ecclesiastical and lay—in which the liberties of woman were more or less abridged; the equality of sexes which obtained in Rome before the Christian era, and the gradual discrimination in favor of men which crept in with the growth of the church.

Mrs. DEVEREUX BLAKE said there is no aspect of this question that strikes us so forcibly as the total ignoring of women by public men. However polite they may be in private life, when they come to public affairs they seem to forget that women exist. The men who framed the last amendment to the constitution seemed to have wholly forgotten that women existed or had rights.... Huxley said in reply to an inquiry as to woman suffrage, "Of course I'm in favor of it. Does it become us to lay additional burdens on those who are already overweighted?" It is always the little men who oppose us; the big-hearted men help us along. All in this audience are of the broad-shouldered type, and I hope all will go out prepared to advocate our principles. In reply to the objection that women do not need the right to vote because men represent them so well, she asked if any man in the audience ever asked his wife how he should vote, and told him to stand up if there was such a one. [Here a young man in the back part of the hall stood up amidst loud applause.]

The various resolutions were discussed at great length and adopted, though much difference of opinion was expressed on the last, which demands that intelligence shall be made the basis of suffrage:

Resolved, That the National Constitution should be so amended as to secure to United States citizens at home the same protection for their individual rights against State tyranny, as is now guaranteed everywhere against foreign aggressions.

Resolved, That the civil and political rights of the educated tax-paying women of this nation should take precedence of all propositions and debates in the present congress as to the future status of the Chinese and Indians under the flag of the United States.

WHEREAS, The essential elements of justice are already recognized in the constitution; and, whereas, our fathers proposed to establish a purely secular government in which all forms of religion should be equally protected, therefore,

Resolved, That it is preeminently unjust to tax the property of widows and spinsters to its full value, while the clergy are made a privileged class by exempting from taxation $1,500 of their property in some States, while in all States parsonages and other church property, amounting to millions of dollars, are exempted, which, if fairly taxed, would greatly lighten the national debt, and thereby the burdens of the laboring masses.

Resolved, That thus to exempt one class of citizens, one kind of property, from taxation, at the expense of all others, is a great national evil, in a moral as well as a financial point of view. It is an assumption that the church is a more important institution than the family; that the influence of the clergy is of more vital consequence in the progress of civilization than that of the women of this republic; from which we emphatically dissent.

Resolved, That universal education is the true basis of universal suffrage; hence the several States should so amend their constitutions as to make education compulsory, and, as a stimulus to the rising generation, declare that after 1885 all who exercise the right of suffrage must be able to read and write the English language. For, while the national government should secure the equal right of suffrage to all citizens, the State should regulate its exercise by proper attainable qualifications.

On January 10, 1878, our champion in the Senate, Hon. A. A. Sargent, of California, by unanimous consent, presented the following joint resolution, which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections:

JOINT RESOLUTION proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.—

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, two-thirds of each House concurring therein, That the following article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures, shall be valid as part of the said constitution, namely:

ARTICLE 16, SEC. 1.—The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

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

The Committee on Privileges and Elections granted hearings to the National Association on January 11, 12, when the delegates,[28] representing the several States, made their respective arguments and appeals. Clemence S. Lozier, M. D., president of the association, first addressed the committee and read the following extract from a recent letter from Victor Hugo:

Our ill-balanced society seems as if it would take from woman all that nature had endowed her with. In our codes there is something to recast. It is what I call the woman-law. Man has had his law; he has made it for himself. Woman has only the law of man. She by this law is civilly a minor and morally a slave. Her education is embued with this twofold character of inferiority. Hence many sufferings to her which man must justly share. There must be reform here, and it will be to the benefit of civilization, truth, and light.

In concluding, Dr. Lozier said: I have now the honor to introduce Miss Julia E. Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn., who will speak to you concerning the resistance of her sister and herself to the payment of taxes in her native town, on the ground that they are unrepresented in all town meetings, and therefore have no voice in the expenditure of the taxes which they are compelled to pay.

Miss SMITH said: Gentlemen of the Committee—This is the first time in my life that I have trod these halls, and what has brought me here? I say, oppression—oppression of women by men. Under the law they have taken from us $2,000 worth of meadow-land, and sold it for taxes of less than $50, and we were obliged to redeem it, for we could not lose the most valuable part of our farm. They have come into our house and said, "You must pay so much; we must execute the laws"; and we are not allowed to have a voice in the matter, or to modify laws that are odious.

I have come to Washington, as men cannot address you for us. We have no power at all; we are totally defenseless. [Miss Smith then read two short letters written by her sister Abby to the Springfield Republican.] These tell our brief story, and may I not ask, gentlemen, that they shall so plead with you that you will report to the Senate unanimously in favor of the sixteenth amendment, which we ask in order that the women of these United States who shall come after us may be saved the desecration of their homes which we have suffered, and our country may be relieved from the disgrace of refusing representation to that half of its people that men call the better half, because it includes their wives and daughters and mothers?

ELIZABETH BOYNTON HARBERT, vice-president for Illinois: Gentlemen of the Committee—We recognize your duty as men intrusted with the control and guidance of the government to carefully weigh every phase of this momentous question. Has the time arrived when it will be safe and expedient to make a practical application of these great principles of our government to one-half of the governed, one-half of the citizens of the United States? The favorite argument of the opposition has been that women are represented by men, hence have no cause for complaint. Any careful student of the progress of liberty must admit that the only possible method for securing justice to the represented is for their representatives to be made entirely responsible to their constituents, and promptly removable by them. We are only secure in delegating power when we can dictate its use, limit the same, or revoke it. How many of your honorable committee would vote to make the presidency an office for life, said office to descend to the heirs in a male line forever, with no reserved power of impeachment? Yet you would be more fairly represented than are American women, since they have never elected their representatives. So far as women are concerned you are self-constituted rulers. We cannot hope for complete representation while we are powerless to recall, impeach, or punish our representatives. We meet with a case in point in the history of Virginia. Bancroft gives us the following quotation from the official records:

The freedom of elections was further impaired by "frequent false returns," made by the sheriffs. Against these the people had no sufficient redress, for the sheriffs were responsible neither to them nor to officers of their appointment. And how could a more pregnant cause of discontent exist in a country where the elective franchise was cherished as the dearest civil privilege?—If land is to be taxed, none but landholders should elect the legislature.—The other freemen, who are the more in number, may refuse to be bound by those laws in which they have no representation, and we are so well acquainted with the temper of the people that we have reason to believe they had rather pay their taxes than lose that privilege.

Would those statesmen have dared to tax those landholders and yet deny them the privilege of choosing their representatives? And if, forsooth, they had, would not each one of you have declared such act unconstitutional and unjust? We are the daughters of those liberty-loving patriots. Their blood flows in our veins, and in view of the recognized physiological fact that special characteristics are transmitted from fathers to daughters, do you wonder that we tax-paying, American-born citizens of these United States are here to protest in the name of liberty and justice? We recognize, however, that you are not responsible for the present political condition of women, and that the question confronting you, as statesmen called to administer justice under existing conditions, is, "What are the capacities of this great class for self-government?" You have cautiously summoned us to adduce proof that the ballot in the hands of women would prove a help, not a hindrance; would bring wings, not weights.

First, then, we ask you in the significant name of history to read the record of woman as a ruler from the time when Deborah judged Israel, and the land had rest and peace forty years, even down to this present when Victoria Regina, the Empress Queen, rules her vast kingdom so ably that we sometimes hear American men talk about a return "to the good old ways of limited monarchy," with woman for a ruler. John Stuart Mill, after studious research, testifies as follows:

When to queens and emperors we add regents and viceroys of provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to a great length. The fact is so undeniable that some one long ago tried to retort the argument by saying that queens are better than kings, because under kings women govern, but under queens, men. Especially is her wonderful talent for governing evinced in Asia. If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically governed; if order is preserved without oppression; if cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous, in three cases out of four that principality is under a woman's rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have collected from a long official knowledge of Hindoo governments. There are many such instances; for though by Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir—and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their languages which can give them the smallest instruction on political affairs, the example they afford of the natural capacity of women for government is very striking.

In view of these facts, does it not appear that if there is any one distinctively feminine characteristic, it is the mother-instinct for government? But now with clearer vision we reread the record of the past. True, we find no Raphael or Beethoven, no Phidias or Michael Angelo among women. No woman has painted the greatest picture, carved the finest statue, composed the noblest oratorio or opera. Not many women's names appear after Joan of Arc's in the long list of warriors; but, as a ruler, woman stands to-day the peer of man.

While man has rendered such royal service in the realm of art, woman has not been idle. Infinite wisdom has intrusted to her the living, breathing marble or canvas, and with smiles and tears, prayers and songs has she patiently wrought developing the latent possibilities of the divine Christ-child, the infant Washington, the baby Lincoln. Ah! since God and men have intrusted to woman the weightiest responsibility known to earth, the development and education of the human soul, need you fear to intrust her with citizenship? Is the ballot more precious than the soul of your child? If it is safe in the home, in the school-room, the Sunday-school, to place in woman's hands the education of your children, is it not safe to allow that mother to express her choice in regard to which one of these sons, her boys whom she has taught and nursed, shall make laws for her guidance?

Just here, in imagination, is heard the question, "How much help could we expect from women on financial questions?" We accept the masculine idea of woman's mathematical deficiencies. We have had slight opportunity for discovering the best proportions of a silver dollar, owing to the fact that the family specimens have been zealously guarded by the male members; and yet, we may have some latent possibilities in that direction, since already the "brethren" in our debt-burdened churches wail out from the depths of masculine indebtedness and interest-tables, "Our sisters, we pray you come over and help us!" And, in view of the fact of the present condition of finances, in view of the fact of the enormous taxes you impose upon us, can you look us calmly in the face and assert that matters might, would, should, or could have been worse, even though Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had voted on the silver bill?

A moment since I referred to the great responsibilities of motherhood, and doubtless your mental comment was, "Yes, that is woman's peculiar sphere; there she should be content to remain." It is our sphere—beautiful, glorious, almost infinite in its possibilities. We accept the work; we only ask for opportunity to perform it. The sphere has enlarged, that is all. There has been a new revelation. That historic "first gun" proclaimed a wonderful message to the daughters of America; for, when the smoke of the cannonading had lifted, the entire horizon of woman was broadened, illuminated, glorified. On that April morn, when a nation of citizens suddenly sprang into an army of warriors, with a patriotism as intense, a consecration as true, American women quietly assumed their vacated places and became citizens. New boundaries were defined. A Mary Somerville or Maria Mitchell seized the telescope and alone with God and the stars, cast a new horoscope for woman. And the new truth, electrifying, glorifying American womanhood to-day, is the discovery that the State is but the larger family, the nation the old homestead, and that in this national home there is a room and a corner and a duty for "mother." A duty recognized by such a statesman as John Adams, who wrote to his wife in regard to her mother:

Your mother had a clear and penetrating understanding and a profound judgment, as well as an honest, a friendly and charitable heart. There is one thing, however, which you will forgive me if I hint to you. Let me ask you rather if you are not of my opinion. Were not her talents and virtues too much confined to private, social and domestic life? My opinion of the duties of religion and morality comprehends a very extensive connection with society at large and the great interests of the public. Does not natural morality and, much more, Christian benevolence make it our indispensable duty to endeavor to serve our fellow-creatures to the utmost of our power in promoting and supporting those great political systems and general regulations upon which the happiness of multitudes depends? The benevolence, charity, capacity and industry which exerted in private life would make a family, a parish or a town happy, employed upon a larger scale and in support of the great principles of virtue and freedom of political regulations, might secure whole nations and generations from misery, want and contempt.

Intense domestic life is selfish. The home evidently needs fathers as much as mothers. Tender, wise fatherhood is beautiful as motherhood, but there are orphaned children to be cared for. These duties to the State and nation as mothers, true to the highest needs of our children, we dare not ignore; and the nation cannot much longer afford to have us ignore them.

As statesmen, walking on the shore piled high with the "drift-wood of kings," the wrecks of nations and governments, you have discovered the one word emblazoned as an epitaph on each and every one, "Luxury, luxury, luxury!" You have hitherto placed a premium upon woman's idleness, helplessness, dependence. The children of most of our fashionable women are being educated by foreign nurses. How can you expect them to develop into patriotic American statesmen? For the sake of country I plead—for the sake of a responsible, exalted womanhood; for the sake of a purer womanhood; for home and truth, and native land. As a daughter, with holiest, tenderest, most grateful memories clinging to the almost sacred name of father; as a wife, receiving constant encouragement, support, and cooeperation from one who has revealed to her the genuine nobility of true manhood; as a mother, whose heart still thrills at the first greeting from her little son; and as a sister, watching with intense interest the entrance of a brother into the great world of work, I could not be half so loyal to woman's cause were it not a synonym for the equal rights of humanity—a diviner justice for all!

With one practical question I rest my case. The world objected to woman's entrance into literature, the pulpit, the lyceum, the college, the school. What has she wrought? Our wisest thinkers and historians assert that literature has been purified. Poets and judges at international collegiate contests award to woman's thought the highest prize. Miss Lucia Peabody received upon the occasion of her second election to the Boston school board the highest vote ever polled for any candidate. Since woman has proved faithful over a few things, need you fear to summon her to your side to assist you in executing the will of the nation? And now, yielding to none in intense love of womanhood; standing here beneath the very dome of the national capitol overshadowed by the old flag; with the blood of the revolutionary patriots coursing through my veins; as a native-born, tax-paying American citizen, I ask equality before the law.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON said: Gentlemen of the Committee: In appearing before you to ask for a sixteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, permit me to say that with the Hon. Charles Sumner, we believe that our constitution, fairly interpreted, already secures to the humblest individual all the rights, privileges and immunities of American citizens. But as statesmen differ in their interpretations of constitutional law as widely as they differ in their organizations, the rights of every class of citizens must be clearly defined in concise, unmistakable language. All the great principles of liberty declared by the fathers gave no protection to the black man of the republic for a century, and when, with higher light and knowledge his emancipation and enfranchisement were proclaimed, it was said that the great truths set forth in the prolonged debates of thirty years on the individual rights of the black man, culminating in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution, had no significance for woman. Hence we ask that this anomalous class of beings, not recognized by the supreme powers as either "persons" or "citizens" may be defined and their rights declared in the constitution.

In the adjustment of the question of suffrage now before the people of this country for settlement, it is of the highest importance that the organic law of the land should be so framed and construed as to work injustice to none, but secure as far as possible perfect political equality among all classes of citizens. In determining your right and power to legislate on this question, consider what has been done already.

As the national constitution declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside," it is evident: First—That the immunities and privileges of American citizenship, however defined, are national in character, and paramount to all State authority. Second—That while the constitution leaves the qualification of electors to the several States, it nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective franchise; the State may regulate but not abolish the right of suffrage for any class. Third—As the Constitution of the United States expressly declares that no State shall make or enforce any law that shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, those provisions of the several State constitutions that exclude citizens from the franchise on account of sex, alike violate the spirit and letter of the Federal constitution. Fourth—As the question of naturalization is expressly withheld from the States, and as the States would clearly have no right to deprive of the franchise naturalized citizens, among whom women are expressly included, still more clearly have they no right to deprive native-born women-citizens of the right.

Let me give you a few extracts from the national constitution upon which these propositions are based:

Preamble: We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.

This is declared to be a government "of the people." All power, it is said, centers in the people. Our State constitutions also open with the words, "We, the people." Does any one pretend to say that men alone constitute races and peoples? When we say parents, do we not mean mothers as well as fathers? When we say children, do we not mean girls as well as boys? When we say people, do we not mean women as well as men? When the race shall spring, Minerva-like, from the brains of their fathers, it will be time enough thus to ignore the fact that one-half the human family are women. Individual rights, individual conscience and judgment are our great American ideas, the fundamental principles of our political and religious faith. Men may as well attempt to do our repenting, confessing, and believing, as our voting—as well represent us at the throne of grace as at the ballot-box.

ARTICLE 1, SEC. 9.—No bill of attainder, or ex post facto law shall be passed; no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.

SEC. 10.—No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

Notwithstanding these provisions of the constitution, bills of attainder have been passed by the introduction of the word "male" into all the State constitutions denying to woman the right of suffrage, and thereby making sex a crime. A citizen disfranchised in a republic is a citizen attainted. When we place in the hands of one class of citizens the right to make, interpret and execute the law for another class wholly unrepresented in the government, we have made an order of nobility.

ARTICLE 4, SEC. 2.—The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

The elective franchise is one of the privileges secured by this section approved in Dunham vs. Lamphere (3 Gray Mass. Rep., 276), and Bennett vs. Boggs (Baldwin's Rep., p. 72, Circuit Court U. S.).

ARTICLE 4, SEC. 4.—The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government.

How can that form of government be called republican in which one-half the people are forever deprived of all participation in its affairs?

ARTICLE 6.—This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, ... shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

ARTICLE 14, SEC. 1.—All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.

In the discussion of the enfranchisement of woman, suffrage is now claimed by one class of thinkers as a privilege based upon citizenship and secured by the Constitution of the United States, as by lexicographers as well as by the constitution itself, the definition of citizen includes women as well as men. No State can rightfully deprive a woman-citizen of the United States of any fundamental right which is hers in common with all other citizens. The States have the right to regulate, but not to prohibit the elective franchise to citizens of the United States. Thus the States may determine the qualifications of electors. They may require the elector to be of a certain age—to have had a fixed residence—to be of sane mind and unconvicted of crime,—because these are qualifications or conditions that all citizens, sooner or later, may attain. But to go beyond this, and say to one-half the citizens of the State, notwithstanding you possess all of these qualifications, you shall never vote, is of the very essence of despotism. It is a bill of attainder of the most odious character.

A further investigation of the subject will show that the constitutions of all the States, with the exception of Virginia and Massachusetts, read substantially alike. "White male citizens" shall be entitled to vote, and this is supposed to exclude all other citizens. There is no direct exclusion except in the two States above named. Now the error lies in supposing that an enabling clause is necessary at all. The right of the people of a State to participate in a government of their own creation requires no enabling clause, neither can it be taken from them by implication. To hold otherwise would be to interpolate in the constitution a prohibition that does not exist.

In framing a constitution, the people are assembled in their sovereign capacity, and being possessed of all rights and powers, what is not surrendered is retained. Nothing short of a direct prohibition can work a deprivation of rights that are fundamental. In the language of John Jay to the people of New York, urging the adoption of the constitution of the United States: "Silence and blank paper neither give nor take away anything." And Alexander Hamilton says (Federalist, No. 83):

Every man of discernment must at once perceive the wide difference between silence and abolition. The mode and manner in which the people shall take part in the government of their creation may be prescribed by the constitution, but the right itself is antecedent to all constitutions. It is inalienable, and can neither be bought nor sold nor given away.

But even if it should be held that this view is untenable, and that women are disfranchised by the several State constitutions, directly or by implication, then I say that such prohibitions are clearly in conflict with the Constitution of the United States and yield thereto.

Another class of thinkers, equally interested in woman's enfranchisement, maintain that there is, as yet, no power in the United States Constitution to protect the rights of all United States citizens, in all latitudes and longitudes, and in all conditions whatever. When the constitution was adopted, the fathers thought they had secured national unity. This was the opinion of Southern as well as Northern statesmen. It was supposed that the question of State rights was then forever settled. Hon. Charles Sumner, speaking on this point in the United States Senate, March 7, 1866, said the object of the constitution was to ordain, under the authority of the people, a national government possessing unity and power. The confederation had been merely an agreement "between the States," styled, "a league of firm friendship." Found to be feeble and inoperative through the pretension of State rights, it gave way to the constitution which, instead of a "league," created a "union," in the name of the people of the United States. Beginning with these inspiring and enacting words, "We, the people," it was popular and national. Here was no concession to State rights, but a recognition of the power of the people, from whom the constitution proceeded. The States are acknowledged; but they are all treated as component parts of the Union in which they are absorbed under the constitution, which is the supreme law. There is but one sovereignty, and that is the sovereignty of the United States. On this very account the adoption of the constitution was opposed by Patrick Henry and George Mason. The first exclaimed, "That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear; the question turns on that poor little thing, 'We, the people,' instead of the States." The second exclaimed, "Whether the constitution is good or bad, it is a national government, and no longer a confederation." But against this powerful opposition the constitution was adopted in the name of the people of the United States. Throughout the discussions, State rights was treated with little favor. Madison said: "The States are only political societies, and never possessed the right of sovereignty." Gerry said: "The States have only corporate rights." Wilson, the philanthropic member from Pennsylvania, afterward a learned Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States and author of the "Lectures on Law," said: "Will a regard to State rights justify the sacrifice of the rights of men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building will neither be solid nor lasting."

Those of us who understand the dignity, power and protection of the ballot, have steadily petitioned congress for the last ten years to secure to the women of the republic the exercise of their right to the elective franchise. We began by asking a sixteenth amendment to the national constitution. March 15, 1869, the Hon. George W. Julian submitted a joint resolution to congress, to enfranchise the women of the republic, by proposing a sixteenth amendment:

ARTICLE 16.—The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizenship, and shall be regulated by Congress, and all citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally, without any distinction or discrimination whatever founded on sex.

While the discussion was pending for the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves of the South, and popular thought led back to the consideration of the fundamental principles of our government, it was clearly seen that all the arguments for the civil and political rights of the African race applied to women also. Seeing this, some Republicans stood ready to carry these principles to their logical results. Democrats, too, saw the drift of the argument, and though not in favor of extending suffrage to either black men, or women, yet, to embarrass Republican legislation, it was said, they proposed amendments for woman suffrage to all bills brought forward for enfranchising the negroes.

And thus, during the passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, and the District suffrage bill, the question of woman suffrage was often and ably discussed in the Senate and House, and received both Republican and Democratic votes in its favor. Many able lawyers and judges gave it as their opinion that women as well as Africans were enfranchised by the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments. Accordingly, we abandoned, for the time being, our demand for a sixteenth amendment, and pleaded our right of suffrage, as already secured by the fourteenth amendment—the argument lying in a nut-shell. For if, as therein asserted, all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States; and if a citizen, according to the best authorities, is one possessed of all the rights and privileges of citizenship, namely, the right to make laws and choose lawmakers, women, being persons, must be citizens, and therefore entitled to the rights of citizenship, the chief of which is the right to vote.

Accordingly, women tested their right, registered and voted—the inspectors of election accepting the argument, for which inspectors and women alike were arrested, tried and punished; the courts deciding that although by the fourteenth amendment they were citizens, still, citizenship did not carry with it the right to vote. But granting the premise of the Supreme Court decision, "that the constitution does not confer suffrage on any one," then it inhered with the citizen before the constitution was framed. Our national life does not date from that instrument. The constitution is not the original declaration of rights. It was not framed until eleven years after our existence as a nation, nor fully ratified until nearly fourteen years after the inauguration of our national independence.

But however the letter and spirit of the constitution may be interpreted by the people, the judiciary of the nation has uniformly proved itself the echo of the party in power. When the slave power was dominant the Supreme Court decided that a black man was not a citizen, because he had not the right to vote; and when the constitution was so amended as to make all persons citizens, the same high tribunal decided that a woman, though a citizen, had not the right to vote. An African, by virtue of his United States citizenship, is declared, under recent amendments, a voter in every State of the Union; but when a woman, by virtue of her United States citizenship, applies to the Supreme Court for protection in the exercise of this same right, she is remanded to the State, by the unanimous decision of the nine judges on the bench, that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one." Such vacillating interpretations of constitutional law must unsettle our faith in judicial authority, and undermine the liberties of the whole people. Seeing by these decisions of the courts that the theory of our government, the Declaration of Independence, and recent constitutional amendments, have no significance for woman, that all the grand principles of equality are glittering generalities for her, we must fall back once more to our former demand of a sixteenth amendment to the federal constitution, that, in clear, unmistakable language, shall declare the status of woman in this republic.

The Declaration of Independence struck a blow at every existent form of government by making the individual the source of all power. This is the sun, and the one central truth around which all genuine republics must keep their course or perish. National supremacy means something more than power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce. It means national protection and security in the exercise of the right of self-government, which comes alone by and through the use of the ballot. Women are the only class of citizens still wholly unrepresented in the government, and yet we possess every requisite qualification for voters in the United States. Women possess property and education; we take out naturalization-papers and passports and register ships. We preempt lands, pay taxes (women sometimes work out the road-tax with their own hands) and suffer for our own violation of laws. We are neither idiots, lunatics, nor criminals, and according to our State constitution lack but one qualification for voters, namely, sex, which is an insurmountable qualification, and therefore equivalent to a bill of attainder against one-half the people, a power neither the States nor the United States can legally exercise, being forbidden in article 1, sections 9, 10, of the constitution. Our rulers have the right to regulate the suffrage, but they cannot abolish it for any class of citizens, as has been done in the case of the women of this republic, without a direct violation of the fundamental law of the land. All concessions of privileges or redress of grievances are mockery for any class that have no voice in the laws, and law-makers; hence we demand the ballot, that scepter of power in our own hands, as the only sure protection for our rights of person and property under all conditions. If the few may grant and withhold rights at their pleasure, the many cannot be said to enjoy the blessings of self-government.

William H. Seward said in his great speech on "Freedom and Union," in the United States Senate, February 29, 1860:

Mankind have a natural right, a natural instinct, and a natural capacity for self-government; and when, as here, they are sufficiently ripened by culture, they will and must have self-government, and no other.

Jefferson said:

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of freedom may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Few people comprehend the length and breadth of the principle we are advocating to-day, and how closely it is allied to everything vital in our system of government. Our personal grievances, such as being robbed of property and children by unjust husbands; denied admission into the colleges, the trades and professions; compelled to work at starving prices, by no means round out this whole question. In asking for a sixteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, and the protection of congress against the injustice of State law, we are fighting the same battle as Jefferson and Hamilton fought in 1776, as Calhoun and Clay in 1828, as Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis in 1860, namely, the limit of State rights and federal power. The enfranchisement of woman involves the same vital principle of our government that is dividing and distracting the two great political parties at this hour.

There is nothing a foreigner coming here finds it so difficult to understand as the wheel within a wheel in our national and State governments, and the possibility of carrying them on without friction; and this is the difficulty and danger we are fast finding out. The recent amendments are steps in the right direction toward national unity, securing equal rights to all citizens, in every latitude and longitude. But our congressional debates, judicial decisions, and the utterances of campaign orators, continually falling back to the old ground, are bundles of contradictions on this vital question. Inasmuch as we are, first, citizens of the United States, and second, of the State wherein we reside, the primal rights of all citizens should be regulated by the national government, and complete equality in civil and political rights everywhere secured. When women are denied the right to enter institutions of learning, and practice in the professions, unjust discriminations made against sex even more degrading and humiliating than were ever made against color, surely woman, too, should be protected by a civil-rights bill and a sixteenth amendment that should make her political status equal with all other citizens of the republic.

The right of suffrage, like the currency of the post-office department, demands national regulation. We can all remember the losses sustained by citizens in traveling from one State to another under the old system of State banks. We can imagine the confusion if each State regulated its post-offices, and the transit of the mails across its borders. The benefits we find in uniformity and unity in these great interests would pervade all others where equal conditions were secured. Some citizens are asking for a national bankrupt law, that a person released from his debts in one State may be free in every other. Some are for a religious freedom amendment that shall forever separate church and State; forbidding a religious test as a condition of suffrage or a qualification for office; forbidding the reading of the Bible in the schools and the exempting of church property and sectarian institutions of learning or charity from taxation. Some are demanding a national marriage law, that a man legally married in one State may not be a bigamist in another. Some are asking a national prohibitory law, that a reformed drunkard who is shielded from temptation in one State may not be environed with dangers in another. And thus many individual interests point to a growing feeling among the people in favor of homogeneous legislation. As several of the States are beginning to legislate on the woman suffrage question, it is of vital moment that there should be some national action.

As the laws now are, a woman who can vote, hold office, be tried by a jury of her own peers—yea, and sit on the bench as justice of the peace in the territory of Wyoming, may be reduced to a political pariah in the State of New York. A woman who can vote and hold office on the school board, and act as county superintendent in Kansas and Minnesota, is denied these rights in passing into Pennsylvania. A woman who can be a member of the school board in Maine, Wisconsin, Iowa, and California, loses all these privileges in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. When representatives from the territories are sent to congress by the votes of women, it is time to have some national recognition of this class of citizens.

This demand of national protection for national citizens is fated to grow stronger every day. The government of the United States, as the constitution is now interpreted, is powerless to give a just equivalent for the supreme allegiance it claims. One sound democratic principle fully recognized and carried to its logical results in our government, declaring all citizens equal before the law, would soon chase away the metaphysical mists and fogs that cloud our political views in so many directions. When congress is asked to put the name of God in the constitution, and thereby pledge the nation to some theological faith in which some United States citizens may not believe and thus subject a certain class to political ostracism and social persecution, it is asked not to protect but to oppress the citizens of the several States in their most sacred rights—to think, reason, and decide all questions of religion and conscience for themselves, without fear or favor from the government. Popular sentiment and church persecution is all that an advanced thinker in science and religion should be called on to combat. The State should rather throw its shield of protection around those uttering liberal, progressive ideas; for the nation has the same interest in every new thought as it has in the invention of new machinery to lighten labor, in the discovery of wells of oil, or mines of coal, copper, iron, silver or gold. As in the laboratory of nature new forms of beauty are forever revealing themselves, so in the world of thought a higher outlook gives a clearer vision of the heights man in freedom shall yet attain. The day is past for persecuting the philosophers of the physical sciences. But what a holocaust of martyrs bigotry is still making of those bearing the richest treasures of thought, in religion and social ethics, in their efforts to roll off the mountains of superstition that have so long darkened the human mind!

The numerous demands by the people for national protection in many rights not specified in the constitution, prove that the people have outgrown the compact that satisfied the fathers, and the more it is expounded and understood the more clearly its monarchical features can be traced to its English origin. And it is not at all surprising that, with no chart or compass for a republic, our fathers, with all their educational prejudices in favor of the mother country, with her literature and systems of jurisprudence, should have also adopted her ideas of government, and in drawing up their national compact engrafted the new republic on the old constitutional monarchy, a union whose incompatibility has involved their sons in continued discussion as to the true meaning of the instrument. A recent writer says:

The Constitution of the United States is the result of a fourfold compromise: First—Of unity with individual interests; of national sovereignty with the so-called sovereignty of States; Second—Of the republic with monarchy; Third—Of freedom with slavery; Fourth—Of democracy with aristocracy.

It is founded, therefore, on the fourfold combination of principles perfectly incompatible and eternally excluding each other; founded for the purpose of equally preserving these principles in spite of their incompatibility, and of carrying out their practical results—in other words, for the purpose of making an impossible thing possible. And a century of discussion has not yet made the constitution understood. It has no settled interpretation. Being a series of compromises, it can be expounded in favor of many directly opposite principles.

A distinguished American statesman remarked that the war of the rebellion was waged "to expound the constitution." It is a pertinent question now, shall all other contradictory principles be retained in the constitution until they, too, are expounded by civil war? On what theory is it less dangerous to defraud twenty million women of their inalienable rights than four million negroes? Is not the same principle involved in both cases? We ask congress to pass a sixteenth amendment, not only for woman's protection, but for the safety of the nation. Our people are filled with unrest to-day because there is no fair understanding of the basis of individual rights, nor the legitimate power of the national government. The Republican party took the ground during the war that congress had the right to establish a national currency in every State; that it had the right to emancipate and enfranchise the slaves; to change their political status in one-half the States of the union; to pass a civil rights bill, securing to the freedman a place in the schools, colleges, trades, professions, hotels, and all public conveyances for travel. And they maintained their right to do all these as the best measures for peace, though compelled by war.

And now, when congress is asked to extend the same protection to the women of the nation, we are told they have not the power, and we are remanded to the States. They say the emancipation of the slave was a war measure, a military necessity; that his enfranchisement was a political necessity. We might with propriety ask if the present condition of the nation, with its political outlook, its election frauds daily reported, the corrupt action of men in official position, governors, judges, and boards of canvassers, has not brought us to a moral necessity where some new element is needed in government. But, alas! when women appeal to congress for the protection of their natural rights of person and property, they send us for redress to the courts, and the courts remand us to the States. You did not trust the Southern freedman to the arbitrary will of courts and States! Why send your mothers, wives and daughters to the unwashed, unlettered, unthinking masses that carry popular elections?

We are told by one class of philosophers that the growing tendency to increase national power and authority is leading to a dangerous centralization; that the safety of the republic rests in local self-government. Says the editor of the Boston Index:

What is local self-government? Briefly, that without any interference from without, every citizen should manage his own personal affairs in his own way, according to his own pleasure; that every town should manage its own town affairs in the same manner and under the same restriction; every county its own county affairs, every State its own State affairs. But the independent exercise of this autonomy, by personal and corporate individuals, has one fundamental condition, viz.: the maintenance of all these individualities intact, each in its own sphere of action, with its rights uninfringed and its freedom uncurtailed in that sphere, yet each also preserving its just relation to all the rest in an all comprehensive social organization. Every citizen would thus stand, as it were, in the center of several concentric and enlarging circles of relationship to his kind; he would have duties and rights in each relation, not only as an individual but also as a member of town, county, State and national organization. His local self-government will be at his highest possible point of realization, when in each of these relations his individual duties are discharged and his rights maintained.

On the other hand, what is centralization?

It is such a disorganization of this well-balanced, harmonious and natural system as shall result in the absorption of all substantial power by a central authority, to the destruction of the autonomy of the various individualities above mentioned; such as was produced, for instance, when the municipia of the Roman empire lost their corporate independence and melted into the vast imperial despotism which prepared the way for the collapse of society under the blows of Northern barbarism. Such a centralization must inevitably be produced by decay of that stubborn stickling for rights, out of which local self-government has always grown. That is, if individual rights in the citizen, the town, the county, the State, shall not be vindicated as beyond all price, and defended with the utmost jealousy, at whatever cost, the spirit of liberty must have already died out, and the dreary process of centralization be already far advanced. It will thus be evident that the preservation of individual rights is the only possible preventative of centralization, and that free society has no interest to be compared for an instant in importance with that of preserving these individual rights. No nation is free in which this is not the paramount concern. Woe to America when her sons and her daughters begin to sneer at rights! Just so long as the citizens are protected individually in their rights, the towns and counties and States cannot be stripped; but if the former lose all love for their own liberties as equal units of society, the latter will become the empty shells of creatures long perished. The nation as such, therefore, if it would be itself free and non-centralized, must find its own supreme interest in the protection of its individual citizens in the fullest possible enjoyment of their equal rights and liberties.

As this question of woman's enfranchisement is one of national safety, we ask you to remember that we are citizens of the United States, and, as such, claim the protection of the national flag in the exercise of our national rights, in every latitude and longitude, on sea, land, at home as well as abroad; against the tyranny of States, as well as against foreign aggressions. Local authorities may regulate the exercise of these rights; they may settle all minor questions of property, but the inalienable personal rights of citizenship should be declared by the constitution, interpreted by the Supreme Court, protected by congress and enforced by the arm of the executive. It is nonsense to talk of State rights until the graver question of personal liberties is first understood and adjusted. President Hayes, in reply to an address of welcome at Charlottesville, Va., September 25, 1877, said:

Equality under the laws for all citizens is the corner-stone of the structure of the restored harmony from which the ancient friendship is to rise. In this pathway I am going, the pathway where your illustrious men led—your Jefferson, your Madison, your Monroe, your Washington.

If, in this statement, President Hayes is thoroughly sincere, then he will not hesitate to approve emphatically the principle of national protection for national citizens. He will see that the protection of all the national citizens in all their rights, civil, political, and religious—not by the muskets of United States troops, but by the peaceable authority of United States courts—is not a principle that applies to a single section of the country, but to all sections alike; he will see that the incorporation of such a principle in the constitution cannot be regarded as a measure of force imposed upon the vanquished, since it would be law alike to the vanquished and the victor. In short, he will see that there is no other sufficient guarantee of that equality of all citizens, which he well declares to be the "corner-stone of the structure of restored harmony." The Boston Journal of July 19, said:

There are cases where it seems as if the constitution should empower the federal government to step in and protect the citizen in the State, when the local authorities are in league with the assassins; but, as it now reads, no such provision exists.

That the constitution does not make such provision is not the fault of the president; it must be attributed to the leading Republicans who had it in their power once to change the constitution so as to give the most ample powers to the general government. When Attorney-General Devens was charged last May with negligence in not prosecuting the parties accused of the Mountain Meadow massacre, his defense was, that this horrible crime was not against the United States, but against the territory of Utah. Yet, it was a great company of industrious, honest, unoffending United States citizens who were foully and brutally murdered in cold blood. When Chief-Justice Waite gave his charge to the jury in the Ellentown conspiracy cases, at Charleston, S. C., June 1, 1877, he said:

That a number of citizens of the United States have been killed, there can be no question; but that is not enough to enable the government of the United States to interfere for their protection. Under the constitution that duty belongs to the State alone. But when an unlawful combination is made to interfere with any of the rights of natural citizenship secured to citizens of the United States by the national constitution, then an offense is committed against the laws of the United States, and it is not only the right but the absolute duty of the national government to interfere and afford the citizens that protection which every good government is bound to give.

General Hawley, in an address before a college last spring, said:

Why, it is asked, does our government permit outrages in a State which it would exert all its authority to redress, even at the risk of war, if they were perpetrated under a foreign government? Are the rights of American citizens more sacred on the soil of Great Britain or France than on the soil of one of our own States? Not at all. But the government of the United States is clothed with power to act with imperial sovereignty in the one case, while in the other its authority is limited to the degree of utter impotency, in certain circumstances. The State sovereignty excludes the Federal over most matters of dealing between man and man, and if the State laws are properly enforced there is not likely to be any ground of complaint, but if they are not, the federal government, if not specially called on according to the terms of the constitution, is helpless. Citizen A.B., grievously wronged, beaten, robbed, lynched within a hair's breadth of death, may apply in vain to any and all prosecuting officers of the State. The forms of law that might give him redress are all there; the prosecuting officers, judges, and sheriffs, that might act, are there; but, under an oppressive and tyrannical public sentiment, they refuse to move. In such an exigency the government of the United States can do no more than the government of any neighboring State; that is, unless the State concerned calls for aid, or unless the offense rises to the dignity of insurrection or rebellion. The reason is, that the framers of our governmental system left to the several States the sole guardianship of the personal and relative private rights of the people.

Such is the imperfect development of our own nationality in this respect that we have really no right as yet to call ourselves a nation in the true sense of the word, nor shall we have while this state of things continues. Thousands have begun to feel this keenly, of which a few illustrations may suffice. A communication to the New York Tribune, June 9, signed "Merchant," said:

Before getting into a quarrel and perhaps war with Mexico about the treatment of our flag and citizens, would it not be as well, think you, for the government to try and make the flag a protection to the citizens on our own soil?

That is what it has never been since the foundation of our government in a large portion of our common country. The kind of government the people of this country expect and intend to have—State rights or no State rights, no matter how much blood and treasure it may cost—is a government to protect the humblest citizen in the exercise of all his rights.

When the rebellion of the South against the government began, one of the most noted secessionists of Baltimore asked one of the regular army officers what the government expected to gain by making war on the South. "Well," the officer replied, laying his hand on the cannon by which he was standing, "we intend to use these until it is as safe for a Northern man to express his political opinions in the South, as it is for a Southern man to express his in the North." Senator Blaine, at a banquet in Trenton, N. J., July 2, declared that a "government which did not offer protection to every citizen in every State had no right to demand allegiance." Ex-Senator Wade, of Ohio, in a letter to the Washington National Republican of July 16, said of the president's policy:

I greatly fear this policy, under cover of what is called local self-government, is but an ignominious surrender of the principles of nationality for which our armies fought and for which thousands upon thousands of our brave men died, and without which the war was a failure and our boasted government a myth.

Behind the slavery of the colored race was the principle of State rights. Their emancipation and enfranchisement were important, not only as a vindication of our great republican idea of individual rights, but as the first blow in favor of national unity—of a consistent, homogeneous government. As all our difficulties, State and national, are finally referred to the constitution, it is of vital importance that that instrument should not be susceptible of a different interpretation from every possible standpoint. It is folly to spend another century in expounding the equivocal language of the constitution. If under that instrument, supposed to be the Magna Charta of American liberties, all United States citizens do not stand equal before the law, it should without further delay be so amended as in plain, unmistakable language to declare what are the rights, privileges, and immunities that belong to citizens of a republic.

There is no reason why the people of to-day should be governed by the laws and constitutions of men long since dead and buried. Surely those who understand the vital issues of this hour are better able to legislate for the living present than those who governed a hundred years ago. If the nineteenth century is to be governed by the opinions of the eighteenth, and the twentieth by the nineteenth, the world will always be governed by dead men....

The cry of centralization could have little significance if the constitution were so amended as to protect all United States citizens in their inalienable rights. That national supremacy that holds individual freedom and equality more sacred than State rights and secures representation to all classes of people, is a very different form of centralization from that in which all the forces of society are centered in a single arm. But the recognition of the principle of national supremacy, as declared in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, has been practically nullified and the results of the war surrendered, by remanding woman to the States for the protection of her civil and political rights. The Supreme Court decisions and the congressional reports on this point are in direct conflict with the idea of national unity, and the principle of States rights involved in this discussion must in time remand all United States citizens alike to State authority for the protection of those rights declared to inhere in the people at the foundation of the government.

You may listen to our demands, gentlemen, with dull ears, and smile incredulously at the idea of danger to our institutions from continued violation of the civil and political rights of women, but the question of what citizens shall enjoy the rights of suffrage involves our national existence; for, if the constitutional rights of the humblest citizen may be invaded with impunity, laws interpreted on the side of injustice, judicial decisions based not on reason, sound argument, nor the spirit and letter of our declarations and theories of government, but on the customs of society and what dead men are supposed to have thought, not what they said—what will the rights of the ruling powers even be in the future with a people educated into such modes of thought and action? The treatment of every individual in a community—in our courts, prisons, asylums, of every class of petitioners before congress—strengthens or undermines the foundations of that temple of liberty whose corner-stones were laid one century ago with bleeding hands and anxious hearts, with the hardships, privations, and sacrifices of a seven years' war. He who is able from the conflicts of the present to forecast the future events, cannot but contemplate with anxiety the fate of this republic, unless our constitution be at once subjected to a thorough emendation, making it more comprehensively democratic.

A review of the history of our nation during the century will show the American people that all the obstacles that have impeded their political, moral and material progress from the dominion of slavery down to the present epidemic of political corruptions, are directly and indirectly traceable to the federal constitution as their source and support. Hence the necessity of prompt and appropriate amendments. Nothing that is incorrect in principle can ever be productive of beneficial results, and no custom or authority is able to alter or overrule this inviolate law of development. The catch-phrases of politicians, such as "organic development," "the logic of events," and "things will regulate themselves," have deceived the thoughtless long enough. There is just one road to safety, and that is to understand the law governing the situation and to bring the nation in line with it. Grave political problems are solved in two ways—by a wise forethought, and reformation; or by general dissatisfaction, resistance, and revolution.

In closing, let me remind you, gentlemen, that woman has not been a heedless spectator of all the great events of the century, nor a dull listener to the grand debates on human freedom and equality. She has learned the lesson of self-sacrifice, self-discipline, and self-government in the same school with the heroes of American liberty.[29]

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, of New York, corresponding secretary of the association, said: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee—You have heard the general argument for woman from Mrs. Stanton, but there are women here from all parts of the Union, and each one feels that she must say a word to show how united we stand. It is because we have respect for law that we come before you to-day. We recognize the fact that in good law lies the security of all our rights, but as woman has been denied the constructive rights of the declaration and constitution, she is obliged to ask for a direct recognition in the adoption of a sixteenth amendment.

The first principle of liberty is division of power. In the country of the czar or the sultan there is no liberty of thought or action. In limited monarchies power is somewhat divided, and we find larger liberty and a broader civilization. Coming to the United States we find a still greater division of power, a still more extended liberty—civil, religious, political. No nation in the world is as respected as our own; no title so proud as that of American citizen; it carries with it abroad a protection as large as did that of Rome two thousand years ago. But as proud as is this name of American citizen, it brings with it only shame and humiliation to one-half of the nation. Woman has no part nor lot in the matter. The pride of citizenship is not for her, for woman is still a political slave. While the form of our government seems to include the whole people, one-half of them are denied a right to participate in its benefits, are denied the right of self-government. Woman equally with man has natural rights; woman equally with man is a responsible being.

It is said women are not fit for freedom. Well, then, secure us freedom and make us fit for it. Macaulay said many politicians of his time were in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people were fit to be free till they were in a condition to use their freedom; "but," said Macaulay, "this maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men [or women] are to wait for liberty till they become good and wise in slavery, they may indeed wait forever."

There has been much talk about precedent. Many women in this country vote upon school questions, and in England at all municipal elections. I wish to call your attention a little further back, to the time that the Saxons first established free government in England. Women, as well as men, took part in the Witenagemote, the great national council of our Saxon ancestors in England. When Whightred, king of Kent, in the seventh century, assembled the national legislature at Baghamstead to enact a new code of laws, the queen, abbesses, and many ladies of quality signed the decrees. Also, at Beaconsfield, the abbesses took part in the council. In the reign of Henry III. four women took seats in parliament, and in the reign of Edward I. ten ladies were called to parliament and helped to govern Great Britain. Also, in 1252, Henry left his Queen Elinor as keeper of the great seal, or lord chancellor, while he went abroad. She sat in the Aula Regia, the highest court of the kingdom, holding the highest judicial power in great Britain. Not only among our forefathers in Britain do we find that women took part in government, but, going back to the Roman Empire, we find the Emperor Heliogabalus introducing his mother into the senate, and giving her a seat near the consuls. He also established a senate of women, which met on the Collis Quirinalis. When Aurelian was emperor he favored the representation of women, and determined to revive this senate, which in lapse of time had fallen to decay. Plutarch mentions that women sat and deliberated in councils, and on questions of peace and war. Hence we have precedents extending very far back into history.

It is sometimes said that women do not desire freedom. But I tell you the desire for freedom lives in every heart. It may be hidden as the water of the never-freezing, rapid-flowing river Neva is hidden. In the winter the ice from Lake Lagoda floats down till it is met by the ice setting up from the sea, when they unite and form a compact mass over it. Men stand upon it, sledges run over it, splendid palaces are built upon it; but beneath all the Neva still rapidly flows, itself unfrozen. The presence of these women before you shows their desire for freedom. They have come from the North, from the South, from the East, from the West, and from the far Pacific slope, demanding freedom for themselves and for all women.

Our demands are often met by the most intolerable tyranny. The Albany Law Journal, one of the most influential legal journals of the great State of New York, had the assurance a few years ago to tell Miss Anthony and myself if we were not suited with "our laws" we could leave the country. What laws did they mean? Men's laws. If we were not suited with these men's laws, made by them to protect themselves, we could leave the country. We were advised to expatriate ourselves, to banish ourselves. But we shall not do it. It is our country, and we shall stay here and change the laws. We shall secure their amendment, so that under them there shall be exact and permanent political equality between men and women. Change is not only a law of life; it is an essential proof of the existence of life. This country has attained its greatness by ever enlarging the bounds of freedom.

In our hearts we feel that there is a word sweeter than mother, home, or heaven. That word is LIBERTY. We ask it of you now. We say to you, secure to us this liberty—the same liberty you have yourselves. In doing this you will not render yourselves poor, but will make us rich indeed.

Mrs. STEWART of Delaware, in illustrating the folly of adverse arguments based on woman's ignorance of political affairs, gave an amusing account of her colored man servant the first time he voted. He had been full of bright anticipations of the coming election day, and when it dawned at last, he asked if he could be spared from his work an hour or so, to vote. "Certainly, Jo," said she, "by all means; go to the polls and do your duty as a citizen." Elated with his new-found dignity, Jo ran down the road, and with a light heart and shining face deposited his vote. On his return Mrs. Stewart questioned him as to his success at the polls. "Well," said he, "first one man nabbed me and gave me the tickets he said I ought to vote, and then another man did the same. I said yes to both and put the tickets in my pocket. I had no use for those Republican or Democratic bits of paper." "Well, Jo," said Mrs. Stewart, "what did you do?" "Why I took that piece of paper that I paid $2.50 for and put it in the box. I knew that was worth something." "Alas! Jo," said his mistress, "you voted your tax receipt, so your first vote has counted nothing." Do you think, gentlemen, said Mrs. Stewart, that such women as attend our conventions, and speak from our platform, could make so ludicrous a blunder? I think not.

The Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN, a delegate from Connecticut, addressed the committee as follows: Gentlemen of the Committee—I would not intrude upon your time and exhaust your patience by any further hearing upon this subject if it were not that men are continually saying to us that we do not want the ballot; that it is only a handful of women that have ever asked for it; and I think by our coming up from these different States, from Delaware, from Oregon, from Missouri, from Connecticut, from New Hampshire, and giving our testimony, we shall convince you that it is not a few merely, but that it is a general demand from the women in all the different States of the Union; and if we come here with stammering tongues, causing you to laugh by the very absurdity of the manner in which we advocate our opinions, it will only convince you that it is not a few "gifted" women, but the rank and file of the women of our country unaccustomed to such proceedings as these, who come here to tell you that we all desire the right of suffrage. Nor shall our mistakes and inability to advocate our cause in an effective manner be an argument against us, because it is not the province of voters to conduct meetings in Washington. It is rather their province to stay at home and quietly read the proceeding of members of congress, and if they find these proceedings correct, to vote to return them another year. So that our very mistakes shall argue for us and not against us.

In the ages past the right of citizenship meant the right to enjoy or possess or attain all those civil and political rights that are enjoyed by any other citizen. But here we have a class who can bear the burdens and punishments of citizens, but cannot enjoy their privileges and rights. But even the meanest may petition, and so we come with our thousands of petitions, asking you to protect us against the unjust discriminations imposed by State laws. Nor do we find that there is any conflict between the duties of the national government and the functions of the State. The United States government has to do with general interests, but everything that is special, has to do with sectional interests, belongs to the State. Said Charles Sumner:

The State exercises its proper functions when it makes local laws, promotes local charities, and by its local knowledge brings the guardianship of government to the homes of its citizens; but the State transcends its proper functions when in any manner it interferes with those equal rights recorded in the Declaration of Independence.

The State is local, the United States is universal. And, says Charles Sumner, "What can be more universal than the rights of man?" I would add, "What can be more universal than the rights of woman?" extending further than the rights of man, because woman is the heaven-appointed guardian of the home; because woman by her influence and in her office as an educator makes the character of man; because women are to be found wherever men are to be found, as their mothers bringing them into the world, watching them, teaching them, guiding them into manhood. Wherever there is a home, wherever there is a human interest, there is to be felt the interest of women, and so this cause is the most universal of any cause under the sun; and, therefore, it has a claim upon the general government. Therefore we come petitioning that you will protect us in our rights, by aiding us in the passage of the sixteenth amendment, which will make the constitution plain in our favor, or by such actions as will enable us to cast our ballots at the polls without being interfered with by State authorities. And we hope you will do this at no distant day. I hope you will not send my sister, the honorable lady from Delaware, to the boy, Jo, to ask him to define her position in the republic. I hope you will not bid any of these women at home to ask ignorant men whether they may be allowed to discharge their obligations as citizens in the matter of suffrage. I hope you will not put your wives and mothers in the power of men who have never given a half hour's consideration to the subject of government, and who are wholly unfit to exercise their judgment as to whether women should have the right of suffrage.

I will not insult your common sense by bringing up the old arguments as to whether we have the right to vote. I believe every man of you knows we have that right—that our right to vote is based upon the same authority as yours. I believe every man understands that, according to the declaration and the constitution, women should be allowed to exercise the right of suffrage, and therefore it is not necessary for me to do more than bear my testimony from the State of Connecticut, and tell you that the women from the rank and file, the law-abiding women, desire the ballot; not only that they desire it, but they mean to have it. And to accomplish this result I need not remind you that they will work year in and year out, that they will besiege members of congress everywhere, and that they will come here year after year asking you to protect them in their rights and to see that justice is done in the republic. Therefore, for your own peace, we hope you will not keep us waiting a long time. The fact that some States have made, temporarily, some good laws, does not weaken our demand upon you for the protection which the ballot gives to every citizen. Our interests are still uncared for, and we do not wish to be thus sent from pillar to post to get our rights. We wish to take our stand as citizens of the United States, as we have been declared to be by the Supreme Court, and we wish to be protected in the rights of citizenship. We hope the day is at hand when our prayers will be heard by you. Let us have at an early day in the Congressional Record, a report of the proceedings of this committee, and the action of the Senate in favor of woman's right to vote.

Brief remarks were also made by Mrs. Lawrence of Massachusetts, Mary A. Thompson, M. D., of Oregon, Mary Powers Filley of New Hampshire, Mrs. Blake of New York, Mrs. Hooker of Connecticut, and Sara Andrews Spencer of Washington.

At the close of these two day's hearings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections,[30] Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, offered, and the committee adopted the following complimentary resolution:

Resolved, That the arguments upon the very important questions discussed before the committee have been presented with propriety, dignity and ability, and that the committee will consider the same on Tuesday next, at 10 A.M.

The Washington Evening Star of January 11, 1876, said:

The woman suffrage question will be a great political issue some day. A movement in the direction of alleged rights by a body of American citizens cannot be forever checked, even though its progress may for many years be very gradual. Now that the advocates of suffrage for woman have become convinced that the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are not sufficiently explicit to make woman's right to vote unquestioned, and that a sixteenth amendment is necessary to effect the practical exercise of the right, the millennial period that they look for is to all intents and purposes indefinitely postponed, for constitutional amendments are not passed in a day. But there are so many sound arguments to be advanced in favor of woman suffrage that it cannot fail in time to be weighed as a matter of policy, after it shall have been overwhelmingly conceded as a matter of right. And it is noticeable that the arguments of the opponents are coming more and more to be based on expediency, and hardly attempt to answer the claim that as American citizens women are entitled to the right. If the whole body of American women desired the practical exercise of this right, it is hard to see what valid opposition to their claims could be made. All this however does not amend the constitution. Woman suffrage must become a matter of policy for a political party before it can be realized. Congress does not pass revolutionary measures on abstract considerations of right. This question is of a nature to become a living political issue after it has been sufficiently ridiculed.

On Saturday evening, January 12, a reception was given to the delegates to the convention by Hon. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, at the National Hotel. The suite of rooms so long occupied by this liberal representative of the South, was thus opened to unwonted guests—women asking for the same rights gained at the point of the sword by his former slaves! Seated in his wheel-chair, from which he had so often been carried by a faithful attendant to his place in the House of Representatives, he cordially welcomed the ladies as they gathered about him, assuring them of his interest in this question and promising his aid.

For the first time Miss Julia Smith of anti-tax fame, of Glastonbury, Connecticut, was present at a Washington convention. She was the recipient of much social attention. A reception was tendered her by Mrs. Spofford of the Riggs House, giving people an opportunity to meet this heroic woman of eighty-three, who, with her younger sister Abby, had year after year suffered the sale of their fine Jersey cows and beautiful meadow lands, rather than pay taxes while unrepresented. Many women, notable in art, science and literature, and men high in political station were present on this occasion. All crowded about Miss Smith, as, supported by Mrs. Hooker, in response to a call for a speech, particularly in regard to the Gladstonbury cows, as famous as herself, she said:

There are but two of our cows left at present, Taxey and Votey. It is something a little peculiar that Taxey is very obtrusive; why, I can scarcely step out of doors without being confronted by her, while Votey is quiet and shy, but she is growing more docile and domesticated every day, and it is my opinion that in a very short time, wherever you find Taxey there Votey will be also.

At the close of Miss Smith's remarks, Abby Hutchinson Patton sang "Auld Lang Syne" in a very effective manner; one or two readings followed, a few modern ballads were sung, and thus closed the first of the many delightful receptions given by Mr. and Mrs. Spofford to the officers and members of the National Association.

Mrs. Hooker spent several weeks at the Riggs House, holding frequent woman suffrage conversazioni in its elegant parlors; also speaking upon the question at receptions given in her honor by the wives of members of congress, or residents of Washington.[31]

During the week of the convention, public attention was called to a scarcely known Anti-Woman Suffrage Society, formed in 1871, of which Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps were officers, by the publication of an undelivered letter from Mrs. Phelps to Mrs. Hooker:

To the Editor of the Post:

The following was written nearly seven years since, but was never sent to Mrs. Hooker. The letter chanced to appear among old papers, and as there is a meeting of women suffragists, with Mrs. Hooker present, and, moreover, as they have mentioned the names of Mrs. Dahlgren and Mrs. General Sherman, opposers, I am willing to bear my share of the opposition, as I acted as corresponding secretary to the Anti-Suffrage Society, which was formed under the auspices of these ladies.

Mrs. DAHLGREN.

EUTAW PLACE, BALTIMORE, January, 30, 1871.

To Mrs. Beecher Hooker:

DEAR MADAM—Hoping you will receive kindly what I am about to write, I will proceed without apologies. I have confidence in your nobleness of soul, and that you know enough of me to believe in my devotion to the best interests of woman. I can scarcely realize that you are giving your name and influence to a cause, which, with some good but, as I think, misguided women, numbers among its advocates others with loose morals. * * * We are, my dear madam, as I suppose, related through our common ancester Thomas Hooker. * * * Your husband, I believe, stands in the same relation to that good and noble man. Perhaps he may think with you on this woman suffrage question, but it does seem to me that a wife honoring her husband would not wish to join in such a crusade as is now going on to put woman on an equality with the rabble at the "hustings." If we could with propriety petition the Almighty to change the condition of the sexes and let men take a turn in bearing children and in suffering the physical ailments peculiar to women, which render them unfit for certain positions and business, why, in this case, if we really wish to be men, and thought God would change the established order, we might make our petition; but why ask congress to make us men? Circumstances drew me from the quiet of domestic life while I was yet young; but success in labors which involved publicity, and which may have been of advantage to society, was never considered as an equivalent to my own heart for the loss of such retirement. In the name of my sainted sister, Emma Willard, and of my friend Lydia Sigourney, and I think I might say in the name of the women of the past generation, who have been prominent as writers and educators (the exception may be made of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and a few licentious French writers) in our own country and in Europe, let me urge the high-souled and honorable of our sex to turn their energies into that channel which will enable them to act for the true interests of their sex.

Yours respectfully, ALMIRA LINCOLN PHELPS.

To which Mrs. Hooker, through The Post, replied:

WASHINGTON, January 15, 1878.

Mrs. DAHLGREN—Dear Madam: Permit me to thank you for the opportunity to exonerate myself and the women of the suffrage movement all over the United States from the charge of favoring immorality in any form. I did not know before that Mrs. Phelps, whom I have always held in highest esteem as an educator and as one of the most advanced thinkers of her day, had so misconceived the drift of our movement; and you will pardon me, dear madam, for saying that it is hardly possible that Mrs. Sherman and yourself, in your opposition to it, can have been influenced by any apprehension that the women suffragists of the United States would, if entrusted with legislative power, proceed to use it for the desecration of their own sex, and the pollution of the souls of their husbands, brothers and sons. But having been publicly accused through your instrumentality of sympathy with the licentious practices of men, I shall take the liberty to send you a dozen copies of a little book entitled, "Womanhood; its Sanctities and Fidelities," which I published in 1874 for the specific purpose of bringing to the notice of American women the wonderful work being done across the water in the suppression of "State Patronage of Vice." * * * It is with a deep sense of gratitude to God that I am able to say that, according to my knowledge and belief, every woman in our movement, whether officer or private, is in sympathy with the spirit of this little book. I know of no inharmony here, however we may differ upon minor points of expediency as to the best methods of working for the political advancement of woman. And further, it is the deep conviction of us all that the chief stumbling-block in the way of our obtaining the use of the ballot, is the apprehension among men of low degree that they will surely be limited in their base and brutal and sensual indulgencies when women are armed with equal political power.

As to my husband, to whose ancestry Mrs. Phelps so kindly alludes, permit me to say that he is not only descended from Thomas Hooker, the beloved first pastor of the old Centre Church in Hartford, and founder of the State of Connecticut, but further back his lineage takes root in one of England's most honored names, Richard Hooker, surnamed "The Judicious"; and I have been accustomed to say that, however it may be as to learning and position, the characteristic of judiciousness has not departed from the American stock. I will only add that Mr. Hooker is treasurer of our State suffrage association, and has spoken on the platform with me as president, whenever his professional duties would permit, and that he is the author of a tract on "The Bible and Woman Suffrage." Our society has printed several thousand copies of this tract, and the London National Women's Suffrage Society has reprinted it with words of high commendation for distribution in Great Britain. * * * And now, dear madam, thanking you once more for this most unexpected and most grateful opportunity for correcting misapprehensions that others may have entertained as well as Mrs. Phelps in regard to the design and tendencies of our movement, may I not ask that you will kindly read and consider the papers I shall take the liberty to send you, and hand them to your co-workers at your convenience?

That we all, as women who love our country and our kind, may be led to honor each other in our personal relations, while we work each in her respective way for that higher order of manhood and womanhood that alone can exalt our nation to the ideal of the fathers and mothers of the early republic, and preserve us an honored place among the peoples of the earth, is the prayer of

Yours sincerely, ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

Evidently left without even the name of Mrs. Sherman or the Anti-Suffrage Society to sustain her, Mrs. Dahlgren memorialized the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections against the submission of the sixteenth amendment:

To the Honorable Committee on Privileges and Elections:

GENTLEMEN—Allow me, in courtesy, as a petitioner, to present one or two considerations regarding a sixteenth amendment, by which it is proposed to confer the right of suffrage upon the women of the United States. I ask this favor also in the interests of the masses of silent women, whose silence does not give consent, but who, in most modest earnestness, deprecate having the political life forced upon them.

This grave question is not one of simple expediency or the reverse; it might properly be held, were this the case, as a legitimate subject for agitation. Our reasons of dissent to this dangerous inroad upon all precedent, lie deeper and strike higher. They are based upon that which in all Christian nations must be recognized as the higher law, the fundamental law upon which Christian society in its very construction must rest; and that law, as defined by the Almighty, is immutable. Through it the women of this Christian land, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, have distinct duties to perform of the most complex order, yet of the very highest and most sacred nature.

If in addition to all these responsibilities, others, appertaining to the domain assigned to men, are allotted to us, we shall be made the victims of an oppression not intended by a kind and wise Providence, and from which the refining influences of Christian civilization have emancipated us. We have but to look at the condition of our Indian sister, upon whose bended back the heavy pack is laid by her lord and master; who treads in subjection the beaten pathway of equal rights, and compare her situation with our own, to thank the God of Christian nations who has placed us above that plane, where right is might, and might is tyranny. We cannot without prayer and protest see our cherished privileges endangered, and have granted us only in exchange the so-called equal rights. We need more, and we claim, through our physical weakness and your courtesy as Christian gentlemen, that protection which we need for the proper discharge of those sacred and inalienable functions and rights conferred upon us by God. To these the vote, which is not a natural right (otherwise why not confer it upon idiots, lunatics, and adult boys) would be adverse.

When women ask for a distinct political life, a separate vote, they forget or they willfully ignore the higher law, whose logic may be thus condensed: Marriage is a sacred unity. The family, through it, is the foundation of the State. Each family is represented by its head, just as the State ultimately finds the same unity, through a series of representations. Out of this come peace, concord, proper representation, and adjustment—union.

The new doctrine, which is illusive, may be thus defined: Marriage is a mere compact, and means diversity. Each family, therefore, must have a separate individual representation, out of which arises diversity or division, and discord is the corner-stone of the State.

Gentlemen, we cannot displace the corner-stone without destruction to the edifice itself! The subject is so vast, has so many side issues, that a volume might as readily be laid before your honorable committee as these few words hastily written with an aching woman's heart. Personally, if any woman in this vast land has a grievance by not having a vote, I may claim that grievance to be mine. With father, brother, husband, son, taken away by death, I stand utterly alone, with minor children to educate and considerable property interests to guard. But I would deem it unpatriotic to ask for a general law which must prove disastrous to my country, in order to meet that exceptional position in which, by the adorable will of God, I am placed. I prefer, indeed, to trust to that moral influence over men which intelligence never fails to exercise, and which is really more potent in the management of business affairs than the direct vote. In this I am doubtless as old-fashioned as were our grandmothers, who assisted to mold this vast republic. They knew that the greatest good for the greatest number was the only safe legislative law, and that to it all exceptional cases must submit.

Gentlemen, in conclusion, a sophism in legislation is not a mere abstraction; it must speedily bear fruit in material results of the most disastrous nature, and I implore your honorable committee, in behalf of our common country, not to open a Pandora's box by way of experiment from whence so much evil must issue, and which once opened may never again be closed.

Very respectfully, MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.

Mrs. Dahlgren was ably reviewed by Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, and the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Minor said:

In assuming to speak for the "silent masses" of women, Mrs. Dahlgren declares that silence does not give consent; very inconsequently forgetting, that if it does not on one side of the question, it may not on the other, and that she may no more represent them than do we.