the business and indulgence of the House to argue the momentous question involved in this memorial, but I present this petition of 35,000 women of America, from almost every State in the Union. From every class and condition of life, from the highest and most refined, and from the humblest and most lowly, all are represented here, all asking that their claim to what they conceive to be their greatest right, and which we claim to be the inalienable right of every male citizen shall be granted to them.
The unanimity with which they come here; the fact that without organization, almost as a matter of spontaneity, 35,000 names should have been gathered and sent to this Capitol to a committee, whose voluntary duty it was made to receive them; the fact that other names are now coming in at the rate of some 500 a day; that from California 10,000 more are on the way, all speak to the Representatives of the people in accents that can not be misunderstood, that here is a great and necessary reform which calls for the fullest consideration and the promptest action of the Congress of the United States.
They are not to be told that this is an innovation, that this is a new thing. Division of property between the husband and the wife was a greater innovation upon the feudal law, which is the foundation of our law as regards women, and a very much greater innovation than this will be. That in the parent State from which we come women have had the right to act in public affairs; from the fact that in that parent State a woman is at the head of public affairs, seems to point to us that women may safely be trusted with the right to vote.
I have desired to say this much, in presenting this petition, in order that it may be brought to the notice of the House and the country; that it may take the same place in the consideration of the people that in a not very far day in the past anti-slavery petitions took, which founded the great party which now has control of the Government of this country. There was a great reform, beginning in the little, urged on by petitions, not so numerous in its early days, and hardly so numerous in its later days, as this, scarcely arriving to the dignity of numbers of applicants which characterizes the petition which I now present; and although, when a great moneyed interest was at stake, it took years to bring that freedom which those petitions asked for, yet let me assure the House of Representatives that in my judgment, much sooner, and as certainly as the sun rolls around in its course a few more times, just so sure will the right asked for in this petition be accorded to the women citizens of the United States.
I ask that this petition, which I propose simply to show to the House in its large volume (unrolling the petition), may be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom this subject has already been referred.
Mr. Eldridge.—I ask that the petition be read.
The Speaker.—With the names?
Mr. Eldridge.—Certainly.
The Speaker.—That would require unanimous consent.
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts.—I pray that may not be done, because I promised the Committee on Appropriations not to take much time. I ask that the petition simply be read.