the various speakers.[1] An interesting letter was read from Isabella Beecher Hooker, giving some of her experiences and observations in France.
The Hall was crowded in the evening to listen to Mr. Frothingham. His address was an able exposition of the injustice of the heavy taxes laid on women. He read several extracts from the reports of William I. Bowditch, of Boston, in regard to the large number of women in Massachusetts holding property, and in closing, depicted with great feeling the constant sacrifices women were compelled to endure because they had no representation in the Government. After a song by the Hutchinsons, the large audience slowly dispersed.
At a business meeting next day the officers[163] for the year were chosen, and arrangements made to canvass Iowa if, as was proposed, an amendment to the Constitution extending the right of suffrage to the women of that State, should be submitted to the people.
All thoughts were now turned to the Centennial year, as to what new forms of agitation could be suggested; what onward steps of progress accomplished, for after the untiring labors of thirty years, the leaders in this movement naturally felt that the great event of the century could not pass without bringing some new liberty to woman.
- ↑ Rev. O. B. Frothingham, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Rev. Olympia Brown, Lillie Devereux Blake, Carrie S. Burnham, Mrs. Stanton, and Miss Anthony.
amendment to the Constitution that shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising citizens of the United States on account of sex. Whereas, One of the strongest evidences of the degradation of disfranchised classes is the denial of their right to testify against their rulers in courts of justice (slaves could not testify against their masters; Chinamen in California to-day can not testify against white men, nor wives in cases of crim. con. against their husbands); therefore Resolved, That the denial of Elizabeth R. Tilton's right to testify in the pending Brooklyn trial, is but proof of woman's need of the ballot in her own right for self-defence and self-protection. Resolved, That as the proposition for woman's enfranchisement is to be submitted in Iowa, in 1876, the National Woman Suffrage Association will hold there 100 county conventions, and by lectures and the circulation of tracts, help the women of Iowa to make a thorough canvass of the State. Resolved, That we congratulate the women of England for the large vote secured on the Woman's Disabilities Bill in the House of Commons. With a Queen on her throne, 400,000 women already voting, and her Premier in favor of the measure, England bids fair to take the lead in the complete enfranchisement of women.
