orable married woman has no right to her children. A man may beat his wife all he pleases; but if he beats another man the law immediately interferes, showing that the woman is not protected simply because she is so indiscreet as to be a woman. If it is not a crime to be a woman, why are women subjected to unequal payment with men for the same service? Why are they forced at times to don men's clothes in order to obtain employment that will keep them from starvation?
Miss Couzins said that the American-born woman was "a woman without a country"; but before she had closed she had proved that this country belonged exclusively to the women. It was a woman, Queen Isabella, that enabled a man to discover this country, and in the old flag the initials were "I" and "F," representing Isabella and Ferdinand, showing that it was acknowledged that the woman's initial was the more important in this matter and to be first considered. It was a woman, Mary Chilton, that first landed on Plymouth rock. It was a woman, Betsy Ross, that designed our beautiful flag, the original eagle on our silver dollar, and the seal of the United States without which no money is legal. All the way down in our national history woman has been hand in hand with man, has assisted, supported and encouraged him, and now there are women ready to help reform the life of the body politic, and side by side with man work to purify, refine and ennoble the world. Miss Couzins seemed Inspired by her own thoughts and carried the audience along with her in her flights of eloquence.
Being asked to make a few closing remarks, Mrs. May Wright Sewall said:
Difficult, indeed, is the task of closing a three days' convention; vain is the hope to do it with fitting words which shall not be mere repetitions of what has been said on this platform. The truth which bases this claim lies in a nut-shell, and the shell seems hard to be cracked. It is unfair, when comparing the ability of men and women, to compare the average woman to the exceptional man, but this is what man always does. If, perchance, he admits not only the equality but the superiority of woman, he tells her she must not vote because she is so nearly an angel, so much better than he is, and this, in the face of the fact that every angel represented or revealed has been shown in the form of a handsome young man. If any class then must abstain from meddling in politics on account of relation to the angels, it is the men! But she informed the gentlemen she had no fears for them on that ground, for their relationship was not near enough to cause any serious inconvenience. Speaking of the objections to women undertaking grave or deep studies, that woman lacks the logical faculty, that she has only intuition, nerve-force, etc., Mrs. Sewall said: It is true of every woman who has done the worthiest work in science, literature, or reform, from Diotima, the teacher of Socrates, to Margaret Fuller, the pupil of Channing and the peer of Emerson, that ignoring the methods of nerves and instincts, she has placed herself squarely on the basis of observation, investigation and reason. Men will admit that these women had strength and logic, but say they are exceptional women. So are Gladstone, Bismarck, Gambetta, Lincoln and Garfield exceptional men. She mentioned Miss Anthony's proposed trip to Europe, and said that she had not had a holiday for thirty years.
Miss Anthony said she wished to call attention to the report of the Special Committee of the Senate, which distinctly stated that the question had had "general agitation," and that the petitions at different times presented were both "numerous and respectable." This was sufficient answer, coming from such high authority, that of Senator Anthony, to all the insinuations and unjust remarks about the petitions presented to congress, and with regard to the assertion that women themselves did not want the ballot. She expressed her obligations to the press, and mentioned that the Sunday Chronicle had announced its intention of giving much valuable space to the proceedings, and that when she had learned this, she had ordered 1,000 copies, which she would send to the address of any friend in the audience free of charge.
