FORM OF PETITION.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:
The undersigned, citizens of, believing slavery the great cause of the present rebellion, and an institution fatal to the life of Republican Government, earnestly pray your Honorable Bodies to immediately abolish it throughout the United States; and to adopt measures for so amending the Constitution, as forever to prohibit its existence in any portion of our common country.
| MEN. | WOMEN. |
Anniversary Meeting, May 14, 1864.—The adjourned meeting convened in the lecture-room of the Church of the Puritans, Saturday p.m., May 14th. The President in the chair.
The Secretary read the report of the Executive Committee, which was unanimously adopted. The resolutions were then read, and motion taken to act upon them separately. The 2d, 7th, and 8th elicited a long and earnest discussion, but were at last adopted, with but one or two dissenting votes.
The Committee then presented a list of women to serve as officers the coming year, who were unanimously elected.
Officers of the Women's National League:—President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Vice Presidents, L M. Brownson, Mary Bates, Mrs. Col. A. B. Eaton, S. A. Fayerweather; Corresponding Secretary, Charlotte B. Wilbour; Recording Secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Elvira Lane; Treasurer, Mary F. Gilbert; Executive Committee, Mrs. L. M. Brownson, Mrs. H. M. Jacobs, Mary O. Gale, Mattie Griffith, Redelia Bates, Rebecca K. Shepherd, Frances V. Halleck, Mrs. C. S. Lozier, M.D.; Laura M. Ward, M.D.; Malvina A. Laue.
The Women's National League to its Members and Friends:—The folding, directing, and sending out 20,000 petitions, then the assorting, counting, and rolling up, each State by itself, 300,000 signatures, has been an herculean task, that only those who have witnessed it could fully appreciate. Remember that paper, printing, postage, office, and clerks, all require money. At the last meeting of the Executive Committee we resolved to ask each of our 5,000 members to send us the small sum of fifty cents to carry on the work.
Let the petitions be thoroughly circulated during the summer, throughout the country, that the people may speak in thunder-tones to our next Congress at its earliest sittings. Neither the Emancipation or Amendment bill has yet passed the House, and the recent vote on the Montana question shows the animus of the Administration. If the majority of our voters propose to re-elect such men to rule over us, those who believe in free institutions must begin the work of educating the nation into the idea that a stable government must be founded on justice—that freedom and equality are rights that belong to every citizen of a republic.
Amend the Constitution.—The Women's National League have just sent out, all through the States, fifteen thousand petitions, with an appeal to have them filled up and returned as speedily as possible. The bill to amend the Constitution so as to prohibit the holding of slaves in any part of the country has passed the Senate. Now comes the struggle in the House. If every one of the fifteen thousand persons—at least ten thousand of them ministers—will but gather up one hundred or more names, a million-voiced petition may yet pour into the Representatives' Hall; and such a voice from the people can not but make sure the vote, and leave the bill ready for the President's signature, and Congress disposed to recommend that a special session of each State Legislature be called immediately to act upon the question; and thus the hateful thing—Slavery—be buried out of sight before the opening of the Presidential campaign. Let the petitions be mailed to Washington, direct, to some member, or to Hon. Thomas D. Eliot, Chairman of Committee on Slavery and Freedmen. There is not a day to be lost. Let all work.— The National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 28, 1864.
The World.
Women'S Loyal National League.
