person who shall collect the largest number of names in any of the States, outside of said cities.
Resolved, That each lady to whom the pledge and petition blanks are inclosed be requested to bring them to the notice of the clergymen and teachers in her vicinity, with a request that they shall take some action in the matter.
Resolved, That such ladies are earnestly requested to organize Auxiliary Leagues in their towns and neighborhoods, for the purposes of correspondence with the Central League, and of collecting and forwarding with facility names and money for the furtherance of the grand object in view ; also, for holding meetings to discuss and elucidate the necessity of our demand for an act of Universal Emancipation.
A hearty co-operation from our women in all parts of the loyal States is most earnestly invited. We would urge upon them the formation of auxiliary Leagues, which shall receive from us blanks for petitions, and pledges, as well as any information or advice they may need. We ask them not only to form Leagues in their own towns and neighborhoods, but to send us up long lists of names as members of the Grand Central League.
We beg them also to solicit and send contributions, small and large, as they may be able, for the promotion of the object of the League, viz: to end this fearful war by the removal of its exciting cause—Slavery.
In making this call upon loyal women, we feel sure of meeting with a warm response from those whose hearts and energies have already so nobly sprung to meet their country’s need in her hour of trial.
COMMENTS OF THE PRESS.
The New York Tribune thus speaks of this enterprise:
a vast enterprise proposed by women.
The ‘‘ Women’s Loyal National League,” recently organized in this city, at a meeting held by them yesterday at the Cooper Institute, adopted the following resolutions :
Resolved, That for the present this League will concentrate all its efforts upon the single object of procuring to be signed by one million women and upward, and of preparing for presentation to Congress within the first week of its next session, a petition in the following words, to wit:
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The undersigned, women of the United States, above the age of eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will pass, at the earliest practicable day, an act emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States.
Resolved, That in furtherance of the above object the Executive Committee of this League be instructed to cause to be prepared and stereotyped a pamphlet, not exceeding four printed octavo pages, briefly and plainly setting forth the importance of each a movement at the present juncture—a copy of the said pamphlet to be placed in the hands of each person who may undertake to procure signatures to the above petition, and for such further distribution as may be ordered by the said Executive Committee.
The women of the League have shown practical wisdom in restricting their efforts to one object, the most important, perhaps, which any Society can aim at; and great courage in undertaking to do what, so far as we remember, has never been done for the world before, namely, to obtain ONE MILLION of names to a petition. If they succeed, the moral influence on Congress ought and can not fail to be great. The passage by the next Congress of an act of general emancipation would do more than any one thing for the suppression of the rebellion. As things now stand with slaves declared free in eight States of the Union, with two more States (Virginia and Louisiana) partly free and partly slave, and with the Border States still slave, we have a state of affairs resulting in interminable confusion, and which, in the very nature of things can not continue to exist, Congress may find a way out of such confusion by an act of Compensated Emancipation, with the consent of these States and parts of States. God speed the circulation and signatures of the Women’s Petition! The pledge of the League is. commendably brief and to the point, reading as follows: