hung familiar mottoes,[1] significant of the demands of the hour. On taking the chair Susan B. Anthony made some appropriate remarks as to the importance of the work of the association during the presidential campaign. Mrs. Spencer called the roll, and delegates[2] from sixteen States responded.
Mrs. Gage read the call:
The question as to whether we are a nation, or simply a confederacy of States, that has agitated the country from the inauguration of the government, was supposed to have been settled by the war and confirmed by the amendments, making United States citizenship and suffrage practically synonymous. Not, however, having been pressed to its logical results, the question as to the limits of State rights and national power is still under discussion, and is the fundamental principle that now divides the great national parties. As the final settlement of this principle involves the enfranchisement of woman, our question is one of national politics, and the real issue of the hour. If it is the duty of the general government to protect the freedmen of South Carolina and Louisiana in the exercise of their rights as United States citizens, the government owes the same protection to the women in Massachusetts and New York. This year will again witness an exciting presidental election, and this question of momentous importance to woman will be the issue then presented. Upon its final decision depends not only woman's speedy enfranchisement, but the existence of the republic.
A sixteenth amendment to the national constitution, prohibiting the States from disfranchising United States citizens on the ground of sex, will be urged upon the forty-sixth congress by petitions, arguments and appeals. The earnest, intelligent and far-seeing women of every State should assemble at the coming convention, and show by their wise counsels that they are worthy to be citizens of a free republic. All assoc-
- ↑ True labor reform: the ballot for woman, the unpaid laborer of the whole earth."
"Man's work is from sun to sun,
But woman's work is never done.""Taxation without representation is tyranny. Woman is taxed to support pauperism and crime, and is compelled to feed and clothe the law-makers who oppress her."
"Women are voting on education, the bulwark of the republic, in Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, New Hampshire and Massachusetts."
"Women are voting on all questions in Wyoming and Utah. The vote of women transformed Wyoming from barbarism to civilization."
"The financial problem for woman: equal pay for equal work, and one hundred cents on the dollar."
"When a woman Will, she Will, and you may depend on it, she Will vote."
- ↑ California, Jane B. Archibald; Connecticut, Julia E. Smith (Parker), E. C. Champion; Delaware, Mary A. Stuart; District of Columbia, Sara Andrews Spencer, Jane H. Spofford, Ellen H. Sheldon, Sara J. Messer, Amanda M. Best, Belva A. Lockwood, Mary A. S, Carey, Rosina M. Parnell, Mary L. Wooster, Helen Rand Tindall, Lura McNall Orme: Illinois, Miss Jessie Waite, daughter of Caroline V. and Judge Waite; Indiana, Zerelda G. Wallace, Emma Mont McRae; Flora M. Hardin; Iowa, Nancy R. Allen; Kansas, Della Ross; Lousiana, Elizabeth L. Saxon, Maine, Sophronia C. Snow; Maryland, Lavinia Dundore; Michigan, Catherine A. F. Stebbins: Missouri, Phebe W. Couzins; New Hampshire, Marilla M. Ricker; New Jersey, Lucinda B. Chandler; New York, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, Dr. A. W. Lozier, Jennie de M. Lozier, M. D., Helen M. Slocum; Pennsylvania, Rachel G. Foster, Julia T.. Foster: South Carolina, Mary R. Pell.
