Gen. A. C. Voris, of Ohio, read letters from the following persons, regretting their inability to attend the Convention: Bishop Gilbert Haven, D.D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church; from Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Judge[Pg 837] Wm. H. West, of Ohio; Hon. C. W. Willard, of Vermont; Hon. G. W. Julian, of Indiana; Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, of South Carolina; William Lloyd Garrison, George William Curtis, the Smith sisters, Richard Fiske, Jr.
Rev. Mrs. Gillette, of Rochester, Mich., said every woman as well as every man should speak for what she believes to be necessary for her own well-being and for the well-being of the community. Charles Sumner once said that a woman's reason was the reason of the heart. She would give a few womanly reasons why she wanted the voters of Michigan to give the ballot to women. The want of the ballot prevents woman from possessing knowledge and power. If a woman performs the most menial services for the sake of her children, to eke out for them a subsistence, she does not do it because the law demands it, but because there is no other way open to her to obtain a livelihood. She did not ask for the ballot because the laws of the State are barbarous. She did not believe that men can make laws that will answer to the needs of women. Only when men and women together make laws can they be just and equal, and for that reason there should be both men and women in the Legislature.
Mrs. Blackwell read some additional resolutions[1] to those that had been adopted at an earlier stage of the Convention.
At the first evening session Mrs. Lucy Stone presiding, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Boston, was the first speaker. In opening she spoke of the silent weary work, of the results of which the afternoon's reports told, and showed that the equal suffragists' labor is not comprised in facing pleasant audiences and listening to the applause which so many say is the one thing for which the women in this movement work. Her entire speech was in a tone that could not fail to convince all, that she, at least, works for something higher.
Mrs. Stone said that in every time of need, wherever the womanly workers for woman go, they find men to whom their gratitude flows as the rivers flow to the sea—they are the men who stand up to speak in woman's name in behalf of woman's rights. As one of these men she introduced Gen. Voris, of Ohio, the champion of equal suffrage in the Ohio Constitutional Convention. The
- ↑ Resolved, That our thanks are due to the twenty-two United States Senators who, at the last session of Congress, voted and paired in favor of woman suffrage in the Territory of Pembina, and we rejoice at the submission of woman suffrage to the people by the Legislatures of Michigan and Iowa, as acts of enlightened statesmanship, which can not fail, whatever may be the immediate result, to hasten the day of woman's enfranchisement. Resolved, That the recent indorsement of woman suffrage by the Methodist Convention of Michigan, by the Conferences of Iowa, and by various other religious bodies of these and other States, is evidence that the value of woman's work in the churches begins to be recognized, and in view of the fact that three-fourths of American church members are women, we cordially invite the aid of Christians of all denominations in securing woman's enfranchisement. Resolved, That the recognition of the right of women to vote and hold office, by the Patrons of Husbandry in their Granges, by the Sovereigns of Industry in their Councils, and by the Good Templars in their Lodges, entitles us to regard these societies as practical auxiliaries of the woman suffrage movement. Resolved, That we protest against the appropriation by Congress or by State Legislatures of one dollar of the public money, which is paid in part by women who are taxed without consent, for the purpose of celebrating the Centennial anniversary of a political independence in which women are not allowed to participate.
