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History of Woman Suffrage.
mass, brought hither from European and Asiatic shores, needing the enlightenment and the quickening that would come from the addition of educated women to the polls.
The Thursday morning session was called to order by the President, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, the Secretary, read, on behalf of the Business Committee, the resolutions.[1]
Mr. Blackwell moved their acceptance, and, in support of his motion, said: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: We have so often heard of the great step that was taken in the war of the Revolution—when our connection with Great Britain was severed—that I fear we have lost sight of the fact that there have been two great revolutions since that day—revolutions which, to my mind, are immeasurably more important than the first. For, when the war of the Revolution ended, a republic in the present sense of the term did not exist in these United States. In almost every State there was a property qualification for voting. It was a government like the government of Great Britain to-day—like the government of other countries—it was an aristocracy of wealth, the privilege of voting being based upon a property qualification. But hardly had the guns of the Revolution ceased action, before the Democratic party of that day, under the lead of Mr. Jefferson, demanded suffrage for poor men as a natural right. The Federal party opposed the change. The Democratic party were a unit in its favor. They advocated suffrage for poor men on the same ground that the Republicans have advocated it more recently for the negro—on the same ground upon which Mr. Beecher advocated it last night for women—as a natural right. They said, "All men have equal natural rights to life, liberty, and
- ↑ Whereas, the Democratic party, in the days of Jefferson, abolished the political aristocracy of wealth and established "a white man's government;" and Whereas, the Republicans have recently abolished the political aristocracy of race and established "manhood suffrage;" therefore Resolved, That the progressive tendencies of the age demand the abolition of the political aristocracy of sex by a XVI. Amendment to the Federal Constitution, extending suffrage to women. Resolved, That pending the adoption of the XVI. Amendment, we urge the friends of woman to work in their respective States for the establishment of this reform by State legislation, especially as the ratification of any Constitutional Amendment must finally depend upon the State Legislatures. Resolved, That the American Woman Suffrage Association seeks a thorough organization of the friends of the cause throughout the country by the following method, viz.: A central organization (already existing), organized by delegates from State societies; they in turn being organized by delegates from local societies, and the whole originating in primary meetings of the friends of woman suffrage in every locality. Resolved, That we remonstrate against the proposition now pending in the Senate of the United States to disfranchise the women of Utah, as a movement in aid of polygamy, against justice, and a flagrant violation of a vested right. Resolved, That we congratulate the friends of woman suffrage upon the unexampled progress of the cause during the past year; upon the enfranchisement of women in Wyoming and Utah; upon the submission of the question in Vermont; upon its discussion in eleven State Legislatures, in numerous public meetings and in newspapers; upon the introduction of the XVI. Amendment in Congress; upon the extension of municipal suffrage to the women of Great Britain, and the passage of a bill to a second reading in Parliament removing all political disabilities on account of sex, and upon the rapid growth of public opinion in favor of woman's equality throughout the civilized world.
