The speaker next alluded to the fact that the captain of a ship going to California had fallen sick and died. The captain's wife, who had been on many voyages, asked the sailors over the dead body of her husband to be as loyal to her as they had been to him, and every man swore fealty to the woman, whom they knew to be worthy of command. When she brought the ship safe to port, the grateful underwriters made up a purse for the woman who had saved the ship.

After relating a similar anecdote in relation to a ship that sailed from China, the speaker narrated the progress made by women in being admitted to the Christian ministry. When they had so many rights, they were sure they could earn their own bread; and they must have the right to vote in this Government, where they were taxed, and where their sons could be sent to fight in war. In a republican government they were entitled to vote; and now the Republican party—the great Republican party that had swept the country by such a magnificent vote—had made the cause its own and could carry them on to triumph; giving them the suffrage as it had given it to the negroes. The Convention at Philadelphia listened respectfully to their claim, and the Republican party of the State of Massachusetts had put it in their platform. In the last campaign the suffragists won five hundred thousand votes of men who were bound to vote for them by and by, and they were sure to win. She believed the final hour of victory could not be far away.

Mrs. HOWE, chairman of the Executive Committee, gave a long and deeply interesting report. Mr. BLACKWELL read the following letters:

MRS. LUCY STONE:—Dear Madam—I should be glad to meet with you at St. Louis and to add my testimony to that of the noble band, who, after so long a conflict for another step in the advance of humanity, seem on the eve of seeing their wishes fulfilled. I have never been sanguine as to the near and rapid accomplishment of the admission of women to the right and duty of suffrage, but I have never doubted of its ultimate accomplishment, because I believe that every movement, founded in justice and wisdom, will at length prevail. The cause of woman suffrage never seemed to me more worthy of the consideration of thoughtful men than now. What it has suffered, all causes that strike at deep principles must expect to suffer in their early history. And it has been relieved of its hindrances sooner than might have been expected. The action of political conventions, State and National, has been significant. If the articles on suffrage are vague as to principle, they are striking as the record of the conclusions of observant politicians in respect to the currents and tendencies of the public mind. They felt the need of saying something, and if they did it reluctantly, it is all the more significant. While then I can not be with you personally, I am with you in sympathy, and in the firm faith of the justice of your cause and of its final victory. Very truly yours,

BROOKLYN, November 9, 1872. HENRY WARD BEECHER.

My Dear MRS. HOWE and LUCY STONE:—I am sorry that I must decline your kind invitation to attend the annual meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association at St. Louis. I am too old (approaching seventy-six) and infirm to make long journeys. Let woman be of good cheer. She will not have to wait for the ballot much longer. The arguments are unanswerable and will soon be crowned with success. Allow me to send you the enclosed twenty-five dollars toward defraying the expenses of the meeting. With great regard, Your friend,

PETERBORO, N. Y., November 15, 1872. GERRIT SMITH.

DEAR LUCY:—I am glad to hear that the American Woman Suffrage Association is to meet at St. Louis this month. The more women are brought to think on this subject, the more they will be convinced that their spiritual growth has been stinted by customs and opinions which have no real foundation in nature and truth; and the frank, free West is more courageous than the East in carrying its convictions promptly into practice. I rejoiced in the recent political action of women in Massachusetts and elsewhere—first, because it was salutary for women themselves as all things are which promote the activity of their minds on important subjects; and, secondly, because the promptness and earnestness with which they almost universally took the right side has greatly helped to convince those who needed convincing that women are competent to examine into affairs of National interest and to form rational conclusions therefrom.

Although I feel grateful to the Republican party for treating our claims with more respectful consideration than any other party has done, yet my principal reason for earnestly desiring its continuance in power is, that it is essentially the party of progress. It owes its existence to progress, and its vitality has been preserved by its practical support of progressive ideas. It embodies a very large portion of the culture, the conscientiousness, and the enlightened good sense of the nation, and its elements are so harmonized as to produce a safe medium between old fogyism and radical rashness. It is natural for such a party to respect our claims, because they have become accustomed to respect what is founded on principles of justice. It was the learning of that lesson which originally made them a powerful party, and they can not be false to ideas of true progress without committing suicide. Of course, with changing events, party names will change; but I hope women will carefully notice what principles underlie these changes, and will conscientiously give their influence to whatever party proves itself most friendly to the largest freedom regulated by wise and equal laws.

With a cordial greeting to our sisters of the West and to our brothers also, I wish you God-speed on your mission of enfranchisement to half the human race.

WAYLAND, November 12, 1872. L. MARIA CHILD.

The Business Committee reported resolutions,[193] which after much discussion were adopted. Officers[194] for the ensuing year were then proposed and elected.

Miss EASTMAN was announced. As she stepped to the front she was received with applause. She gave an able address, answering the questions, "What is to be gained and what is to be lost, by giving women the ballot?" She confined her attention to the latter question principally, by reviewing the condition of women in the past, and their condition in foreign countries. She answered the charge that women are unfit to use the ballot. There was quite an array of facts in her discourse, and extreme beauty in her language, though the latter covered at times exquisite sarcasm that was relished by all. She made a decided impression upon the audience, and concluded amid demonstrations of applause.

LUCY STONE made the closing speech, and said that after the golden words to which we had been listening, silence was most fitting; what she had to say, therefore, would be brief and without preliminary. The distinctions which are made on account of sex are so utterly without reason, that a mere statement of them ought to be sufficient to secure their immediate correction.

For example, here are twins, a baby boy and girl; they rock in the same cradle; the same breast blesses their baby lips; the same hand guides their first tottering steps. A little later they play the same plays, recite the same lessons and hold the same rank as scholars. They ask admission to Harvard college. The boy is received, and the girl refused. Can any one tell me a good reason why? At twenty-one their father gives them each a house. They both pay taxes on this real estate, but the young man has a voice, both in the amount of tax and its use, all of which is denied to the young woman. Can any one tell a good reason why?

They assume the marriage relation. The young husband can sell his house, give a good title, convey his stocks, will his property according to his pleasure, have the guardianship and control of his children. The young wife can not sell her house, or give a valid title; can not convey her stocks, or make a will of her property with the same freedom that the husband can, has no equal right to the control and guardianship of her children. Can any one tell a good reason why?

The man becomes a widower, but the house, the land, the furniture, and the children are all undisturbed. The woman becomes a widow. The property is divided in fractions, the contents of the cupboards and closets counted, valued, divided, and the widow's thirds (commonly known as the widow's incumbrance), are left to this woman. Can any one give a good reason why there should be such a difference between the rights of the widow and the widower? or why woman as a student, a wife, a mother, a widow, and a citizen, should be held at such a disadvantage?

The mere statement of the case shows the injustice, and the wrong which needs to be righted. There is only one way to remove this, and that is for woman to use her right to the ballot, and through it, protect herself. Oh, men of St. Louis! will you not use the power you hold, and the opportunity to make the application of our theory of government sure as far as in you lies, to each man's mother, sister, and daughter?

On motion of Mr. Blackwell, it was

Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention are extended to the citizens of St. Louis for the kind hospitality they have extended to the delegates of this Convention. Also to the representatives of the press for the candid and respectful reports which have appeared in the daily papers of the city.

The American Woman Suffrage Association held an introductory anniversary meeting Monday, October 13, 1873, in the large hall of the Cooper Institute. A fine audience attended, the hall being nearly filled. Fully two-thirds of this audience were men. Colonel T. W. HIGGINSON, the President of the Association, said:

This is my last service as President of this association. Unlike other bodies, it only has a man for that office every other year, and this is the end of the other year. We meet here as a family, men and women, each ready to do his or her share of the talk. We stand here to speak neither for one nor the other, but for that great movement which is to sweep through the land and arouse one sex to its rights and the other to its duties. Not to arouse man against woman, but in favor of the civilization which is to come. It is more than twenty years since the Woman Suffrage Association came up in an organized form. We entered into this movement with no ideas of immediate success. We had behind us only a few years of agitation after long centuries of prejudice and distrust. Look through the long record of the great reforms of the world, and what a series of delays and discouragements you find! It is a history of defeats before victories. Men sometimes come to us with sympathy because we have been defeated in this Legislature or that convention. Sympathy! We thank heaven that it had got there to be defeated; that we are strong enough to be in a minority! Defeat is victory afterward. We have been defeated again and again, and again, and each time we find ourselves growing stronger.

Miss MARY F. EASTMAN, in an able address, stated the progress of the movement in different States, and insisted on the right of women to the exercise of the franchise, as a consequence of the Declaration of Independence. The elective franchise was the greatest blessing enjoyed by a free people, and the inability of any class to exercise it indicated a description of servitude. She said that the person was trying to erase God's finger mark upon the human soul who would prevent anybody, man or woman, from following natural bent and ability in any avocation. In the founding of Harvard and other early colleges, some provision was made for the education of Indians, but none for women. Already at Yale and West Point colored men have a fair chance, not yet the women. Miss Eastman thought that suffrage was the highway to all other reforms.

Mrs. LUCY STONE said: Mr. President, Fellow-workers, Ladies, and Gentlemen:—Our cause is half won when we find that people are willing to hear it, as you seem to be willing to hear it now. One of the best things we can have in meetings like this is to create a discontent that women are not permitted to enjoy all their rights. To-night while we are here, there are gathered in Plymouth Church, women who are laying plans to take part in the celebration of the Centennial, in 1876. At this point in the speaker's remarks, some confusion arose from the entry into the hall of about 200 young women.

Mr. DENNIS GRIFFIN rose and said these women were not the Cooper Institute class; they were parasol-makers who had been forced out of employment by their employers, and they had come, not as women suffragists but as women suffering, to ask of the audience their sympathetic support, and if when the lady had finished her speech the audience would permit the President of this Association of working women to speak from the platform, she would explain their grievances.

Mrs. STONE then proceeded, saying that if one thing was surer than another, it was that woman suffrage would help every suffering sewing woman. It had been said that the ballot was worth fifty cents a day to a man; and, if so, it was worth just as much to a woman. All over the Union, as this night in Plymouth Church, women were preparing to take part in the coming Centennial to celebrate the Fourth of July, 1876. When she heard this she asked herself what part women had in such a celebration? Just as men were oppressed previous to 1776, so were women oppressed to-day. I say that women should resolve to take no part in it. Let them shut their doors and darken their windows on that day, and let a few of the most matronly women dress themselves in black and stand at the corners of the streets where the largest procession is to pass, bearing banners inscribed, "We are governed without our consent; we are taxed without representation." The Declaration of Independence belonged to men. Let them have their masculine celebration and masculine glory all to themselves, and let the women, wherever they can get a church, go there and hold solemn service and toll the bell. "It will give us a chance for moral protest," she continued, "such as we shall never have again, for before another hundred years it must surely be that the growth of public sentiment will sweep away all distinctions based solely on sex."

At the close of Mrs. Stone's remarks, the Chairman invited the representative of the parasol-makers to state her case, introducing her as Miss Leonard, of New York, President of the parasol-makers.

Miss LEONARD advanced to the front of the platform, and appeared to be much embarrassed at fronting so large an audience. The hearty applause with which she was greeted assuring her of a kindly reception, she became a little more at ease, and in a low tone of voice spoke as follows:

My Worthy Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen: I was not prepared to meet an audience like this. In consequence of being oppressed by our employers we were obliged to leave their employ, because we can not earn our bread. Consequently we held a meeting up stairs to-night, and knowing that you were here we thought we would let you know that there are hundreds of women suffering, not for the ballot but for bread. I have never wanted the ballot. I believe it belongs to the men who have it; but I come to ask you in the name of humanity if there can be any society organized that will repress the unscrupulous employers and let the public know they are oppressing the poor girls. Men are strong; they can get together and ask what they want; they can organize in large bodies, but the working women are the most oppressed race in the United States. I am thankful to you, gentlemen and ladies (I should have put the ladies first), for giving me your attention. I don't intend to detain you long, because your meeting is here for a different purpose, but I hope you will give me your sympathies. I can not make you an eloquent speech, for I, as a working woman, have had to labor eighteen hours a day for my bread, and therefore have had no time to educate myself as an orator.

HENRY B. BLACKWELL said: This audience is composed mostly of men. I have a word to say to men especially. Why is it that labor is oppressed and that working women and working men are in some respects worse off than ever before? I answer; because our Government is Republican only in name. It is not even representative of men. The primary meetings which nominate the candidates and control the policy of parties are neglected by the voters. Not one man in fifty attends them. They are controlled in every locality by rings of trading politicians.

Now there is only one remedy for this. You must somehow contrive to interest the mass of the people in public business. You must reform the primary meetings by securing an attendance of the intelligent classes of the community. There is only one way to do this. The same way you have already adopted in the churches, in charitable associations, in society, everywhere except in politics, you must enlist the sympathy and co-operation of women. Then the men who now stay away will go with their wives and sisters. The reason the better class of men neglect to attend the primaries is this—civilized and refined men spend their evenings in the society of women; they go with them to church meetings, to concerts, to lectures. They do not break off these engagements to go down to some liquor saloon, or other unattractive locality, there, amid the fumes of tobacco and whisky, to find everything already cut and dried beforehand. They try it once or twice and then retire for life disgusted. We ask suffrage for women because they are different from men. Not better nor wiser on the whole, but better and wiser in certain respects. They are more temperate, more chaste, more economical. Their presence will appeal to the self-respect of men. Thus both will be improved, and politics will be redeemed and purified.

The second session of this Convention was held in Brooklyn, in Plymouth Church. At this meeting the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Mrs. Lucy Stone read her annual report, and then the delegates from the different States gave accounts of the cause in all parts of the Union, as carried on by means of the State societies. At the opening of the afternoon session Col. HIGGINSON read the following letters:

ANDOVER, MASS., Sept. 29, 1873.

MY DEAR MRS. STONE:—My regret at not being able to attend the meetings of the American Suffrage Association this year, is not consoled by the pleasure of expressing, by letter, my warmest sympathy with their objects; but, if we can not do the thing we would, we must do the next best thing to it.

To say that I believe in womanhood suffrage with my whole head and heart, is very imperfectly to express the eagerness with which I hope for it, and the confidence with which I expect it. It will come, as other right things come, because it is right. But those forces which "make for righteousness" make haste slowly. Do we not often trip up ourselves in our pilgrimage toward truth, by attributing our own sense of hunger and hurry and heat to the fullness and leisure and calm in which the object of our passionate search moves forward to meet us? There is something very significant to the student of progress, in the history of the forerunners of revolutions. Their eager confidence in their own immediate success, their pathetic bewilderment at the mystery of their apparent failures, are rich with suggestion to any one who means work for an unpopular cause. No reform marches evenly to its consummation. If it does not meet apparent overthrow, it must step at times with the uneasiness of what George Eliot would call its "growing pains." But growing pains are not death-throes. In the name of growth and decay let us be exact in our diagnosis!

I have fallen into this train of thought, because there seems to have been a concerted and deliberate attempt, this past year, on the part of certain of those opposed to the thorough elevation of women, to assert that our influence is distinctly losing ground. Irresponsible assertion is the last refuge of the force whose arguments have fallen off in the fray, and "unconscious annihilation" is as yet a very agreeable condition. It might be replied, in the language of the hymn-book:

"If this be death, 'Tis sweet to die!"

Perhaps to the onlookers this has not been one of our fast years. No one actually engaged in the struggle to improve the condition of women can for an instant doubt that it has been a strong one. A silent, sure awakening of women to their own needs is taking place on every hand; and it is becoming evident that until the masses of women are thus awakened, the movement to enfranchise them must not anticipate any very vivid successes. Let us be content if our strength runs for a time to the making of muscle, not to the trial of speed.

I am, Madam, very sincerely, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

CONCORD, Oct. 1, 1873.

DEAR MRS. STONE:—I am so busy just now proving "woman's right to labor," that I have no time to help prove "woman's right to vote."

When I read your note aloud to the family, asking "What shall I say to Mrs. Stone?" a voice from the transcendental mist which usually surrounds my honored father instantly replied, "Tell her you are ready to follow her as leader, sure that you could not have a better one." My brave old mother, with the ardor of many unquenchable Mays shining in her face, cried out, "Tell her I am seventy three, but I mean to go to the polls before I die, even if my three daughters have to carry me." And two little men, already mustered in, added the cheering words, "Go ahead, Aunt Weedy, we will let you vote as much as ever you like."

Such being the temper of the small Convention of which I am now president, I can not hesitate to say that though I may not be with you in body, I shall be in spirit, and am as ever, hopefully and heartily yours,

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT.

Letters from William Lloyd Garrison and Lydia Maria Child were also read, expressing deep sympathy and hope for the cause.

Mr. BLACKWELL, as Chairman of the Business Committee, reported the resolutions, of which the last was:

6. Resolved, That the woman suffrage movement, like every other reform of the age, laments the loss and honors the memory of its most powerful advocate, John Stuart Mill.

MATILDA J. HINDMAN, of Pittsburgh, made an address explaining the origin of the movement for woman suffrage, asserting its verity and necessity. She gave many reasons for woman's needing the ballot.

Mrs. LUCY STONE gave instances of oppressive laws with reference to statutes relative to widows which are in force in some New England States, and which bear very hard upon women because they can not vote.

Mrs. ABBA G. WOOLSON, of Massachusetts, author of "Woman in American Society," gave an exceedingly interesting description of her tour through Wyoming, her hour and a half conversation in the cars with Gov. Campbell, whose testimony was positive in favor of all the new privileges given to women, by which Wyoming has distinguished herself. Mrs. Woolson came home happy to have for the first time set her foot on Republican soil; "for," said she, "no State in the Union is a republic, but it is to me an absolute monarchy."

Rev. CELIA BURLEIGH, demonstrated that this Government is not a republic, but an aristocracy so long as the suffrage is denied to woman.

Mrs. MARY A. LIVERMORE found much encouragement for the cause in various signs of the times. She would have women act as if they already bore the responsibilities of voters; would have them put off frivolity and every other cause of offense to opponents, and put on a soberness of spirit and a gracious gravity of mien as behooved those in whose hearts a great work lay. She exhorted them to remember that they were not arrayed against men as foes, but that they were working with fathers, brothers, husbands and sons for the best interests of the whole race.

An audience of at least 1,200 persons was present at the closing session.

The following letter from Miriam M. Cole was read:

OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY, WESTERVILLE, O., Oct. 4, 1873.

DEAR MR. BLACKWELL—Much as I wish to be with you the 13th and 14th, I can not. My work in the University can not be given to another, and I have no right to leave it undone. I hope your meeting will be profitable and successful. It is said, "Interest in woman suffrage is dying out." This is not true, so far as I know. There is more sober, candid talk on the subject in private circles, here in Ohio, than ever before. Our students in the University are asking questions, with a desire for intelligent answers, and at home, in Sydney, before I left, many experienced politicians confessed it to be the one thing needful. I am sure it is gaining ground among our quiet, sensible people. The stir may not be so demonstrative in cities as formerly, but through the country there is a general awakening. If we can only have patience to wait, we shall not be disappointed. Right, sooner or later, will come into its kingdom. Women are no longer children to be frightened by imaginary bears, neither will they be satisfied with playthings, who ask for better. The distance between men and women is lessening every year. Colleges are bringing them on to the same plane, and the agitation of this question of woman's right to a voice in the government, has given and is giving men new ideas respecting the strength of woman's intellect and her determination to be more than a doll in this busy world.

Whether we are made voting citizens or not, let no man beguile himself with the thought that the old order of things will be restored. They who step into light and freedom will not retrace their steps. This end is equality, civil, religious and political—there is no stopping-place this side of that. My best wishes are with you and yours.

MIRIAM M. COLE.

Miss HULDAH B. LOUD, of East Abington, Mass., was the first speaker: Scorned by the Democrats and fawned upon by the Republicans, who profess but to betray, under these circumstances we come again to the fight. We believe in liberty in the highest degree, such liberty as our fathers fought for, and this struggle will go on until that liberty is gained; liberty is the pursuit of life, health, and happiness. We look in vain for honesty in political life. We turn in disgust from the meaningless platitudes of the Republican Convention at Worcester, from the incidental admission of a plank in the platform which means nothing.

If we would be recognized as a power by political parties, every suffragist should withhold his ballot, and thus politicians would be brought to their senses. If we labor for anything, if we mean anything, we mean woman suffrage, and let us not give a moral or material support, politically, to the man who is not in harmony with the principle of free suffrage in its broadest significance.

We are called unwomanly for our advocacy of this priceless boon to women. We are willing that our womanly character should stand by the side of those who oppose this movement. Do you call Lucy Stone, the woman reformer of the world, with her eloquence, her soft voice, her matchless, unwearied work for all that is good, with her motherly appearance, do you call such a woman unwomanly? Or Margaret Fuller, or Julia Ward Howe, do you call these women unwomanly? Then let us take our place by them, cast in our lot with them and be called unwomanly. It is said, and it is sadly true, that many women do not want the ballot; and it is no less sadly true that many of our most bitter opponents are our sister women. But if they do not want the ballot, if you deprive me of the right you do me a grievous wrong. It is said that if we were given the privilege of the ballot, we would not use it. Is it any reason if I do not choose to avail myself of my rights that I should be deprived of them? Why do you consult women if this right shall be given them? You did not consult the slave in regard to his freedom, but you said he was wanted for the salvation of the country, and you took him and forced freedom upon him.

Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE and Mrs. MARY A. LIVERMORE spoke alike with great force and earnestness upon the moral and religious phases of the movement.

Mrs. FRANCES WATKINS HARPER, of Philadelphia, made the closing speech. She showed that much as white women need the ballot, colored women need it more. Although the women of her race are no longer sold on the auction block, they are subjected to the legal authority of ignorant and often degraded men. She rejoiced in the progress already made, but pleaded for equal rights and equal education for the colored women of the land.

The PRESIDENT said—Ladies and gentlemen, the letters have been read, the reports accepted, the resolutions adopted, the officers[195] for the ensuing year chosen, and there being no further business before the Convention, it is moved and seconded that we adjourn sine die.

* * * * *

The Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association assembled at the Opera House in Detroit, Tuesday morning, Oct. 13, 1874.

Col. W. M. FERRY, of Grand Haven, Chairman of the State Executive Committee of the Michigan Suffrage Association, called the meeting to order, and made a brief address of welcome. He spoke of the pleasure the Convention afforded many of the advocates of woman suffrage in this city who have the cause deeply at heart. He then alluded to the authoress of the well-known hymn, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and introduced her as the President of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

The Rev. Mrs. GILLETTE, of Rochester, Mich., opened the meeting with prayer.

The President, Mrs. HOWE, then delivered the Annual Address:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the American Woman Suffrage Convention:

It is my office on the present occasion to welcome you to this scene of our happy and harmonious meeting. In this great country many families do not gather their members together oftener than once in a year. When they accomplish this they ordain a festival, and call it Thanksgiving Day. This Association is in some sense a family, whose members are widely scattered. East, West, North and South claim and contain us. But when the sacred call for our Annual Meeting is issued, distances are forgotten, business and pleasures are interrupted. Like the wave of a magician's wand, the touch of a common sympathy summons us and keeps us in sight. Our first feeling, I suppose, is one of great pleasure at looking each other in the face again. This is our Suffrage Thanksgiving, and we hope to keep it right cordially. Welcome, dear friends, faithful sisters and brothers. Welcome, one and all. In this world of death we still live. In this world of doubt we still believe in even-handed justice, and in pure law. So, with one breath, we give God thanks for our continued life and faith, and wish each other and our great cause Godspeed.

But we are met for something more than a mere expression of feeling, however cordial and timely that might be. We meet here to take counsel for the spiritual welfare to which each one of us stands pledged. How goes the good fight? Let each department of our little army tell. What victories have been achieved, what defeats suffered with patience? How shall we improve the one? What shall we learn from the other? Oh! let us feel that these rare moments of our meeting are precious. Here we must compare notes and learn what has been done. Here, too, we must briefly survey what is yet to do and how it is to be done. May no moment in this too brief season be wasted! May we all speak and act in view of great necessities and of high hopes. We may take for our text the words: "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." But we must also acknowledge that the end is not yet.

Every year that sees us banded together in pursuit of our present object sees a wonderful growth in its prominence and recognized importance. Opposition has grown with our efforts. People at first said, "Nobody will resist you." This was when people thought we were in fun. But when it appeared that we were in sad and bitter earnest, opposition was not wanting. Wherever we came to plead the cause of human freedom, the enemies of human freedom met and withstood us. All the professions have befriended—all, too, have opposed us. We have stood before powers and dignitaries to maintain what we believe; and while we have asked that the right of suffrage be recognized in the persons of women, women learned and unlearned have stood up to ask that our petition should not be granted. We need not say that for one woman who has done this, hundreds and thousands have risen up to bless the woman suffrage cause and its champions. And for every doctor, lawyer and priest who has shrieked forth or set forth our presumptive disabilities, a tenfold number of men in all of these callings have arisen to do battle for the right, and to tell us on the authority of their special knowledge and experience, that the reform we ask for is congenial to nature and founded on right. Goldwin Smith, a man knowing naught of woman, airs his irrational views in the English Fortnightly, and Frances Power Cobbe and Prof. Cairnes, and a host of others, unravel the net of his flimsy statements. Drs. Clarke and Maudsley dogmatize from their male view of the female constitution; and from men and women throughout the country an indignant protest rises up. Men and women say alike: "It is not education that demoralizes and diseases our women. It is want of education, want of object, want of right knowledge of ends and methods." And how shall we acquire this unless we are taught? And how shall we be taught unless provision is made for us? And how shall provision be made for us unless we make it ourselves by voting for it?

Some mention is due to the place in which we meet. We are in the State of Michigan, a State in which the question of impartial suffrage has been carefully canvassed and presented during the past year. Within a short distance from us is the University of Michigan, liberal to men and to women, whose scholarly claims and merits its Professors and its President openly and earnestly attest. We claim that institution as our potent ally. It furnishes the remedy to all that we complain of. Equal education for the sexes is the true preparation for equality in civil and social ordinances. Even at this distance we breathe something of that pure air in which the woman grows to her full intellectual stature, untrammeled by artificial limitation of object and of method. We boast our own Boston, its culture and its conscience, but while Harvard persistently closes its doors to women, we blush too for New England, and sorrowfully wish it better enlightenment and better behavior.

Having spoken of the East and the West, let me say how welcome to us of the East are occasions which make us better acquainted with our fellow-workers and believers of the West. The late Mr. Seward once said that slavery was sectional and freedom National. This was true in a larger sense than that in which he said it. All that is slavish tends to keep up sectional prejudice and isolation. All that is liberal tends to sympathy and union. East and West are the two hands of this mighty country—let the harmony of the present occasion show that they have but one heart between them. Are not all our chief possessions held in common? We gave you Sumner and you gave us Lincoln. We fought together the war of our late enfranchisement, and when God shall give us impartial suffrage as an established fact, it will be hard to discriminate between our work and yours. But the two hands will then be clasped, and the one heart uplifted with a throb of thankfulness that shall make our whole Nation one, and that forever. For the present moment, while we workers for woman suffrage can make no boast as to the final adoption of our method, we can yet rejoice in the results which already crown our work. Christ, in the very infancy of his mission, looked abroad and saw the fields already white with the harvest.

The different agencies employed by this and kindred associations have plowed and furrowed the land far and near. They have dropped everywhere the seed of a true word, of a right feeling. How small a thing may this dropping of a seed seem to a careless observer! Yet it is the very life of the world which the patient farmer sows and reaps. So, our laborious meetings and small measures; our speeches, soon forgotten; our writings, soon dismissed; our petitions to Legislatures, never entertained; all these seem small things to do. The world says: "Why do you not labor to build up fortunes and reputations for yourselves if you will labor? Why do you waste your time and efforts on this ungrateful soil?" But we may reply that we have the joy of Christ in our hearts. In every furrow, some seed springs up; from every effort, some sympathy, some conviction results. When we look about us and see the number of suffrage associations formed in the different States, we too can say that the fields are white already to harvest.

White already. Yet centuries of martyrdom lay between the sowing of Christ and the harvest which we reap to-day. All of those centuries brought and took away faithful souls who continued the work, who gathered and reaped and sowed again. And we, too, know not what years of patient endeavor may yet be in store for us before we see the end of our suffrage work. We know not whether most of us shall not taste of death before we do see it, passing away on the borders of the promised land, with its fair regions still unknown to us. And yet we see the end as by faith. By faith we can prophesy of what shall come. The new state, in which for the first time ideal justice shall be crowned and recognized; the new church, in which there shall be neither male nor female; but the new creature that shall represent on either side free and perfect humanity. Like a bride coming down from Heaven, like a resurrection coming out of the earth, it shall appear and abide. And we, whether we shall see it as living souls or as quickening spirits, shall rejoice in it.

Miss EASTMAN read the following letter:

LARAMIE CITY, W. T., Sept. 22, 1874.

Mrs. LUCY STONE, Chairman of the Executive Committee:—Your favor of the 12th inst. is received. I wish I could be with you at your meeting in Detroit next month, but I am so crowded with engagements here that I do not think I can get away. We have just had another election, and at no time have we had so full a vote. Our women have taken a lively interest, and have voted quite as universally as the men. Their influence has been felt more than ever and generally on the side of the best men. Several candidates have been defeated on account of their want of good characters, who expected success on party grounds. It is the general sentiment with us now that it will not do to nominate men for whom the women will not vote. Is not this a great step in advance? When candidates for office must come with a character that will stand the criticism of the women or be sure of defeat, we shall have a higher tone of political morals.

I hear it urged abroad that woman suffrage is not popular in Wyoming, but I hear nothing of the kind here. All parties now favor it. Those who once opposed it oppose it no longer, while its friends are more and more attached to it, as they see its practical benefits and feel its capacity for good. No one that I hear of wishes it abolished, and no one would dare propose its repeal. The women are beginning to feel their power and influence, and are growing up to a wider and stronger exertion of it. I think I can see a conscious appreciation of this in a higher dignity and a better self-respect among them. They talk and think of graver subjects and of responsibilities which ennoble them. A woman will not consent to be a butterfly when she can of her own choice become an eagle! Let her enjoy the ambitions of life; let her be able to secure its honors, its riches, its high places, and she will not consent to be its toy or its simple ornament.

Very respectfully, J. W. KINGMAN.

Miss EASTMAN said that this letter presented just the evidence on the result and experience of woman suffrage that was wanted. She said that women were very inconsiderate and indifferent to this question. Women, until they are brought to think upon the matter, generally say they do not want to vote. She spoke of the laws of some States which allow the taking away from a mother of her children, by a person who had been appointed as their guardian, in place of her dead husband, and of the laws severe in other respects which States have made in relation to women. She wished all persons had the question put to them conscientiously whether woman had all the power she wanted. We do want, she said, every legitimate power, and we shall never be content with a tithe less than we can command.

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 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[196] 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 speech of Gen. Voris was a close, logical argument. It reviewed the entire question of suffrage, and bristled with points. He was so frequently interrupted by applause that he was obliged to ask the audience to withhold their tokens of approbation till he got through, but it was to little purpose, for enthusiastic suffragists couldn't help letting their hands tell their ears how good the General's hard hits at the anti-suffragists made them feel, and the applause would still break out once in a while.

Mrs. MARY A. LIVERMORE was next introduced. She was greeted with applause, and commenced by an allusion to the Scandinavian origin of our race, and their characteristic bravery, vigor, and love of freedom. The Scandinavians were distinguished from other races by their regard for their wives. With them the woman stood nearer to heaven than the man. She was in some sense a priest, a law-giver, and a physician, and she was worthy of the position. Is it strange that with such foremothers we should love liberty? Something of this spirit has always marked the race. And now women ask for the right of suffrage, not because they are abused, but because they are half of humanity—the other half of man. They want simply equality, not superiority. She spoke of laws in the statute-books which do absolute injustice to men, and asked whether if the men could not legislate better than that for themselves, it was not a little ridiculous for them to assume to legislate for themselves and the women too? Mrs. Livermore spoke of some of the injustice of the law to women. The law is not for you, gentlemen, who are a law to yourselves, and who care for your wives so that they forget the injustice of the law. They are for the poor and down-trodden women, the wives of drunkards and wife-beaters. Make them what they should be. But the main claim of women to the ballot is that it is the symbol of equality. Women can never be made men. There is no danger of woman losing her womanhood. In fact we do not dream yet what womanhood can be. Women are now obsequious. Many who want to vote, in awe of husbands, fathers, sons, the pulpit, the press, ruled by men, do not say so. They have been taught through all the centuries that patience is the highest attribute of woman. She spoke of the division of masculine and feminine attributes. They complement each other, and together make the perfect whole. The assertion that women are slaves is nonsense. The great reason for woman suffrage is that it will aid a higher and grander civilization.

The following letter was read:

BOSTON, 148 Charles Street, October 10, 1874.

H. B. BLACKWELL, Esq.: My dear sir—I am sorry my first letter never reached you, for I said in that just what I wanted to express of my own convictions touching suffrage for women. My opinion will go for very little, but whenever an opportunity occurs I wish to say just this if nothing more. It is my firm conviction that all who oppose so just a cause as woman suffrage know not what they do; and, if they are not dead within five years, will repent their opposition in deep and mortifying self-reproach.

"The seed of the thistle," says Tyndall, "always produces the thistle," and our opponents will have a prickly time of it with their own consciences, when the day dawns in righteousness over the American ballot-box. God prosper the struggle and give you heart and hope, for your triumph is sure as sunrise, and will win that final mastery which heaven unfailingly accords to everlasting truth. Cordially yours,

JAMES T. FIELDS.

Short speeches were then made by Giles B. Stebbins, Mrs. Blakeman, Miss Strickland, Miss Patridge, and Mrs. Dr. Mary F. Thomas. Mr. BLACKWELL reported the list of officers[197] for the ensuing year.

Afterward addresses were made by Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Elizabeth R. Churchill, Mrs. Samm, Miss M. Adele Hazlett, and Gen. Voris.

Mrs. MARGARET W. CAMPBELL, of Chicago, said she came before the audience to speak upon the most important question of the day, important to one half, and through them to the other half of the community. This movement is no crusade of women against men, but an honest effort of both men and women to make one sex equal in all respects with the other. When our forefathers attempted to secure their own liberty they adopted the principle that all men are created free and equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights. Notwithstanding this, the Government allowed the maintenance of slavery for over three-quarters of a century. Rights are God-given. If any man can tell where a man gets his right to vote, he will find that woman obtained hers in the same place. The ballot, she claimed, was a means of educating the class who exercise the power of such ballot.

Mrs. MARGARET V. LONGLEY, of Ohio, said this question of woman suffrage was one that was claiming the attention of the best minds of Europe and America. Women think they have as good a right to the ballot as men, and this right they want to exercise. Lunatics and idiots are deprived of the ballot because they do not know how to use it. Criminals are denied it because they are outcasts of society and have proved themselves unworthy of it. Women are deprived of it because of their womanhood. The sexes, she said, were never made to be antagonistic. Experience proves that what is of interest to women is of interest to men. There is no branch of business or of industry in which concession is granted to women on account of their sex. Nobody will pay more to a woman for any work than they will to men for the same work, and in the making of a suit of clothes it is seen that they pay a man more than double the amount they will to a woman for the same work.

Prof. ESTABROOK said that he was a recent convert to this movement. He had read the Bible, Bushnell, and Fairchild, and some others, and was convinced that women ought not to vote. When the question was submitted to the people by the Legislature, he commenced to read the Bible and Bushnell and others again. He found that Bushnell proved too much, and that the objections urged against women voting were equally good against nine-tenths of the men. The question of propriety—whether women should go to the polls—was another question which he considered. He did not now see why it was improper for woman to go where her husband or her son must go; and if the polls are not good places, decent men ought not to go there. He had all his life debated the question whether the University should be opened to ladies, and his first vote, cast as a Regent of the University, was in favor of the admission of women to the University. He was then opposed to their entering the medical department. But they next applied for admission to the law department, and he voted for that, and then, when they applied for admission to the medical department, he had to vote for that. He had never found out what right a man possesses to the ballot that a woman has not; and if anybody could convince him that the right of woman to vote did not come from the same source as man's right came from, he would be glad to have it done.

Miss MARY F. EASTMAN said it was a hard thing to stand and demand a right to which we were all born. It has been said by Dr. Chapin that woman's obligations compel her to demand her rights. There is a great cry going up from humanity, and only woman's nature can answer it. As she recently stood at the corner of the five streets which make the Five Points of New York, and looked at the crowd of miserable people about her, she was aghast. But she took courage when she learned that the mission-house and the long block of tenement houses on one side of the street were built by women, who daily feed 400 poor children, and that this was done by women, who took up the work after the Methodist Church had made a vain effort to do something to ameliorate the condition of those poor starving creatures.

On motion of Mr. H. B. Blackwell a vote of thanks was tendered to the citizens of Detroit, to the Detroit Suffrage Association and to the press of the city for favors and courtesies shown to the Association and its members during its meeting in this city, and for the full and fair reports of the Convention. The Association then adjourned.

* * * * *

The seventh Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association was held at New York, in 1875. There was a large audience,[198] not less than 1,000 persons were present.

Bishop GILBERT HAVEN, President of the Society, took the chair, and called upon Rev. Dr. THOMPSON, of Brooklyn, to open the meeting with prayer. After which Mr. HAVEN said: In appearing before you to-night as the official head, for a very few hours, of the society which holds its annual meeting here, I deem it proper to burden you before you get at the richness of the feast that will follow, with a few thoughts that are in my own mind connected with this reform. The inevitable effect of every true idea is that it shakes off everything that hinders it and rises far superior to all associations. Woman suffrage has reached that development, and the public of America and England are beginning to appreciate it. Now, what is this idea? It is simply this—that the right of suffrage has no limitation with the male portion of the human race; that it belongs alike to the whole human family. I am a Democrat, a Jeffersonian Democrat, and I believe in the right of every man to have a voice in public affairs. It is a right that belongs to the very system of our government. Monarchical governments recognize the nation as belonging to a family; but the democratic system recognizes a government by the people and for the people, and, if this be the government, every person in the nation has a right to participate in its administration. There is no partiality possible in such a conception of the system of government under which we live.

Charles Sumner said that "equality of rights is the first of rights," and this will reveal itself in every department of citizenship. Our Government requires the expression of the views of the whole people upon every national question; it is a human right belonging to the political status of every individual, the woman as well as the man. The history of Christianity has been a history of the gradual enlarging of the sphere of woman; and this meeting to-night is one of the effects of Christianity. We stand now at the beginning of a new century; the last has been one of great development, and yet the very root fact of our national being lies in the first line of the Declaration. When we declared ourselves to be a Nation, we declared equality for all men, and we never meant by that, equality simply for all males. Jefferson never had that narrow view of human nature. He knew it meant all the people of America. Every one had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the woman as well as the man.

It is said women can not rule. Not rule! look through history. Where are Cleopatra and Semiramis, and Zenobia and Catharine, and Elizabeth and Victoria? Not rule? Did not Joan of Arc save France when the king had fled, and the armies were scattered, and English soldiers did their will in all that land? So Elizabeth picked up a prostrate nation, lowest of the low, despised of emperor, king, and Pope, and made it the sovereign power of Europe. So Victoria held back Palmerston and Russell and Gladstone and Derby, who would have plunged England into war with us, and left us free to subdue our enemy. Had not a woman ruled England we should have had a harder task than we did by far. Christianity has lifted woman to a level with man. It has given her liberty of movement, of faith, of life. It also demands her political deliberation. May this beginning of our second Centennial see the perfection of our political system, in this admission of woman to all the rights and duties of citizenship. It has worked well in Wyoming. It will everywhere. Let it come.

Rev. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL, of Somerville, N. J., said: A few days ago, in one of the New York dailies, I saw the announcement that one subject which now occupies the minds of the American people can never be settled till it is settled right. Knowing that this Convention was just at hand, I mentally exclaimed, "It is certainly woman suffrage!" But no! it was the question of the National currency. Well, the currency question did suggest great moral issues, and it was vital enough in character to justify the editorial claim. I believe it never can be settled till it is settled right. But what is the currency problem to a direct question of human rights, involving the highest moral and civil interests not only of all the women in the country, but of all the men likewise? This suffrage question never can be settled till it is settled right. So surely as the law of justice must yet prevail, it will continue to vex and trouble the whole nation continually.

Because the sexes are so unlike in their natures and in all their relations to the State, there is imperative need of representation for both. Women in beleaguered cities have again and again stood heroically side by side with men, suffering danger and privation without a murmur, ready to endure hunger and every form of personal discomfort rather than surrender to the enemy. What women have done in the past they would willingly do again in the future in like circumstances. They are everywhere as patriotic as men, and as willing to make sacrifices for their country.

But their relations to the government in war are of necessity widely unlike. If men as good citizens are bound to peril their lives and to endure hardships to aid the country in its hour of need, yet women peril their lives and devote their time and energy in giving to the country all its citizens, whether for peace or war. And if the liberties of the nation were in real peril, they would freely devote their all for its salvation. In any just warfare it is fitting that the young men should first march to battle, and if all these were swept away, then the old men and the old women might fitly go out together side by side, and, last of all, the young mothers, leaving their little children to the very aged and to the sick, should be and would be ready in their turn to go also, if need be, even to the battle-field rather than suffer the overthrow of a righteous government. But woman's relations to war are intrinsically unlike man's. Her natural attitude toward law and order and toward all public interests must always differ from his. Women would never be the producers of wealth to the same extent with men. The time devoted by the one class to earning money would be given by the other to rearing children. Yes, this question touches too many vital interests ever to be settled till it is settled right. We mean to live, to keep well and strong, and to continue to trouble the whole country until it is settled and settled to stay. There can be no rest from agitation till this is done.

LUCY STONE spoke particularly of the need of using the opportunity the Centennial gives, to show that, if it was wrong for George III. to govern the colonies a hundred years ago without their consent, it is just as wrong now to govern women without their consent; that if taxation without representation was tyranny then it is tyranny now, and no less tyranny because it is done to women than if it were done to men; that the usurpation of the rights of women is as high-handed a crime as was the usurpation of the rights of the colonists by the British Parliament, and will be so regarded a hundred years hence. She claimed that this occasion ought to be used to show men that the deeds of their ancestors, of which they are so proud, are worthy of their own imitation; she urged women to refrain from joining in the Centennial, and to show no more respect for the power which governs them without their consent, than did their brave ancestors a century ago.

The PRESIDENT said—I understand there is among the audience the famous Democrat of England, CHARLES BRADLAUGH, and I will call upon him to say a few words.

Mr. BRADLAUGH at once came forward from the rear of the hall, where he had been sitting, and mounting the platform, said: I only came forward in obedience to a call which it would be impertinence to refuse here to-night. I came to be a listener and with no sort of intention of making any speech at all, and the only right I should have upon this platform is, that for the last twenty-five years of my short life I have pleaded for those rights which you plead for to-night. The woman question is no American question, no national question; it is a question for the whole world, and the best men of every country and of every age have held one view upon it, and the worst men have naturally held the other view. It is not a question of mere taxation; it is a question of thorough humanity; a question not of mere geographical limitation, not of America, not of England, not of France, not of Italy, not of Spain; but, were it a question in any of these countries, a woman would stand up to show you that woman can do woman's work of making man truer and purer; and there is no age of the world in which you can not find some woman who has shone out in the darkness of night to show you that, though other stars were obscured, she could still shine; and whenever woman suffrage is debated, my voice is at their service, for the grander woman is made, the purer will man be.

At the next session the report of the Executive Committee was made by the Chairman, Mrs. Lucy Stone. After which letters were read from Lydia Maria Child, Mrs. H. M. Tracy Cutler, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Hon. H. A. Voris, and Miss Lavinia Goodell. The Committee on Resolutions[199] reported a long list of stirring appeals to those who have the real interests of humanity at heart. Their adoption was urged in an able speech by Mr. Blackwell. The following session was principally devoted to the hearing of the reports from the auxiliary societies. The delegates, 159 in number, represented twelve States.

Rev. CHARLES G. AMES, of Pennsylvania, in reply to Mrs. Stone, said he thought it both impolitic and unreasonable to come into collision with the awakening spirit of the country in the matter of the Centennial. The American Revolution did great things for us all, woman included; and although it did not give her a political status, yet it established organic principles which make woman suffrage possible, logical and ultimately certain. No event has yet brought suffrage to woman; shall she therefore regard all history up to date as a failure, as if there were nothing in it worth celebrating? Rather may we rejoice that all the past is a series of steps leading up to the present; and still we mount! Woman suffrage is present in the institutions of our country as a germ; it is growing. In not affirming it the fathers did no conscious or intentional wrong; and only a few cultivated women of the Revolutionary period, like Mrs. Adams and a lady friend of Richard Henry Lee, felt the inconsistency of affirming the equality of all human beings and then ignoring half of them. But in days of war and slavery, Mr. Seward said, "Liberty is in the Union"; so we may say, Suffrage is in the Union. The negroes who fought for the Union, while it was only a white man's Union, were winning their own enfranchisement; the women who celebrate American Independence are doing honor to principles which will some day bring justice to all the inhabitants of the land.

The discussions on this subject of suffrage have disclosed to the American people their own low estimate of the ballot, as a coarse and uncertain instrument for procuring only coarse and doubtful benefits. They ought to thank us for bringing to light this dangerous skepticism, and for compelling attention to those deeper principles of justice and equality which alone can work the timely cure. To refuse to follow those principles when their new application becomes obvious, is to give up the Republic.

Yet there has been a relative decline of politics. The "powers that be," or the ruling forces of the country are not seated alone at Washington and the State capitals; new and mightier lawgivers have arisen. Civilization has come to include and employ other than political agents for the maintenance of order and the promotion of welfare. The power of opinion as generated by education, literature, religion, business or social life, and as announced through the press, and propagated in the widening circles of personal influence—this rules the rulers and masters the country. Thus, within the nation and fostered by its freedom, there has grown up a grander republic of thought and sentiment, which has also blossomed into many a fair institution. Of this more glorious republic, woman is a welcome and unquestioned citizen. Her opportunities for self-help and for helping others, her share in the common burdens and her dividend of the common benefits, must be far larger, in our country and now, than in any other land or time. All this, the thoughtful friends of suffrage will gladly admit.

But does this concession belittle the importance of woman's political rights? Exactly not! A part in the government becomes important to any class in proportion as they become large stockholders in common affairs and as they become aware of their own interests and their own powers. The ballot is of little value to an unawakened, unaspiring people; their masters will look after matters. But American women are not unawakened or unaspiring. To many of them, life has grown painful, because their advancing ideal is dishonored by a sense of violated justice. Along with large freedom has come developed faculty, awakened desire, conscious power and public spirit. Precisely because their actual freedom is so large and sweet, they are galled by every rusty link of the old political chain. Not the mere handling of a ballot do they crave, but the position of unchallenged and unqualified equality, and the removal of the old brand of inferiority, which weakens alike their self-respect and their hold on the respect of others.

At present, the position of woman in the State is false, contradictory and uncomfortable. She has ceased to be a nobody; but she is not yet conceded to be a somebody. As she has gained many rights which were once denied, the old theory which made her a slave is overthrown; as she has not gained the absolute and chartered right of self-government, the new theory of her equality is not yet established. Of that equality suffrage is the symbol, as in this country it is now the symbol for men. She demands to be the custodian of her own affairs, and not to hold them by sufferance. She demands to be equal behind the law and in the law, as well as before the law.

The Committee on Nominations reported the list of officers[200] for the ensuing year.

Miss EASTMAN said: There are many questions of profound interest occupying the minds of the community, and people come together to unravel if possible the complications of business and human obligations; questions of railroads, of tariffs, of the protection of dumb animals, and, most important of all, of the delicate relations of society to the unfortunate classes, and of equity between man and man. All these need the consideration which is made possible by the accumulated wisdom of centuries and the insight which eighteen hundred years' study of Christian principles have developed. But I shall never get over a sense of anachronism, of being out of time, in arguing at this late day a claim for so fundamental a thing as human freedom. I rub my eyes to make sure that I have not been in a Rip Van Winkle slumber for a few centuries, and am not coming before a nineteenth century audience with an untimely protest against a wrong long since abolished, and of which children only hear nowadays in their study of history, or when their parents draw a picture of the sad old times when an injustice prevailed against one half the people, and these the mothers, wives, and daughters. But no! we have none of us been permitted to betake ourselves to a mount of delight and to rest in enchanted slumber while the great wrongs righted themselves. We are here on the hither side of the conflict and must put our puny human strength into the work. Though this is the nineteenth century after Christ, we are here—in the most civilized, or perhaps I should better say, the least uncivilized country on the face of the globe—to urge the right of one half the human race to the same personal freedom and voice in the control of its own and the general interests as are possessed by the other half.

Mrs. FRANCES WATKINS HARPER was the last speaker. She said that she had often known women who wished they had been born men, but had known only one man who wished he had been born a woman, and that was during the war when he was in danger of being drafted into the army. He then not only expressed the wish that he had been born a girl, but even went further, and longed to be a girl-baby at that. Mrs. Harper gave a touching description of the disabilities to which women, and especially colored women, are subjected, and looked forward to their enfranchisement as the dawn of a better era alike for men and for women. At the conclusion of Mrs. Harper's address the Convention adjourned sine die.

* * * * *

The anniversary of the recognition of the equal political rights of women by the Constitutional Convention of New Jersey, July 2, 1776, celebrated in 1876 by the American Woman Suffrage Association, was as bright and beautiful as the fact it commemorated. Notwithstanding the heat of the weather and the varied attractions of the Exhibition and the great procession, an intelligent audience assembled at Philadelphia in Horticultural Hall. It contained many representatives of Pennsylvania, but was mainly composed of several hundred friends of woman suffrage from all parts of the country. The meeting was called to order by Henry B. Blackwell, Secretary of the Society, who read the call and introduced Mrs. LUCY STONE as Chairman of the meeting. Mrs. Stone prefaced her address by a historical statement of the interesting facts of woman's enfranchisement and disfranchisement in New Jersey.[201]

The HUTCHINSON family sang with thrilling power and sweetness "The Prophecy of Woman's Future."

Mr. BLACKWELL said: The Philadelphia newspapers are discussing the question whether the second or the fourth day of July is the real anniversary of American Independence. I give my vote for the second of July for a reason which has not been generally named. On this day the men of New Jersey, for the first time in the world's history, organized a State upon the principles of absolute justice. For the first time, they established equal political rights for men and women. This was a greater event than the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration only announced the principle that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," but the men of New Jersey applied the principle alike to women and negroes. By as much as practice is worth more than theory and life more than raiment, by so much is the event we celebrate more glorious than any other in the annals of the Revolution. It was the prophecy and the guarantee of our national future.

Some people say that we celebrate a failure, because thirty-one years later the franchise was taken away from the women of New Jersey. But the generation which enacted woman suffrage did not repeal it. New Jersey was first settled by the Puritans and Quakers—educated and intelligent, full of the spirit of liberty. Soon after the State was organized, this population was overwhelmed by an ignorant immigration from Continental Europe. Slavery became a power. Free schools did not exist. Another body of men supplanted the intelligent founders of the State and lowered its institutions to meet the lower level of character and purpose.

Another lesson we should never forget is, that the women of New Jersey lost the franchise because they voted against extending this right to others. The women were generally Federalists. They were said to have given the electoral votes of the State to John Adams against Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The Democratic party was bent upon enfranchising the poor white men who were excluded by a property-qualification. The women, then as now conservative in character, opposed this extension of suffrage. In 1807, when the Democrats got possession of the State Government, they put out the women and colored men and introduced the poor white men. With this warning before us, let us rejoice that American women have taken so warm an interest in the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves—that every colored delegate whom I met at the National Republican Conventions of 1872 and 1876 recognized the women as their friends, and were ready to help put a woman suffrage plank into the platform.

Also, let me congratulate you that the Prohibitionists and Republicans have each adopted our principle of equal rights for women in their party creeds, and that in the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes, a woman suffragist, we have a man whose first public reputation was won as the champion of a wronged and friendless woman.

The HUTCHINSONS gave a spirited song. Mr. RAPER, of England, was then called, and gave an interesting sketch of the progress of woman suffrage in England. The afternoon meeting was opened by a song, "One Hundred Years Hence," by the HUTCHINSONS.

CHARLES G. AMES said: This meeting stands for something good and necessary—better than anything we can say. The advocates of impartial suffrage are the most consistent friends of the principles upon which our institutions are founded, because they alone propose to apply them. All others shrink from this application. They distrust human nature. They are afraid to move for fear of what may follow. They are like the Frenchman, who, being a little drunk, had dropped his hat and apostrophized it thus: "If I try to pick you up, I shall myself fall down. If I fall down, you can not pick me up. Therefore I will go on without you." But woman's enfranchisement will open every college door and every avenue of employment. Every woman will be cared for, as every man is now cared for. A government without justice is tyranny, piracy, and despotism. A society without justice would be a hell. The lower elements of appetite and passion exist in society. They must be overcome by the higher elements of justice. With justice will come heavenliness, purity, and peace. Thus, in opening the proceedings of this afternoon, we represent in 1876 the principles of 1776—the principles which will triumph more clearly and gloriously in 1976.

Mrs. HOWE said: Heaven gives each of us two human hands. One is meant to receive the gifts of Providence, and one is meant to give largely of what we receive to others. Ignorant, selfish human beings too often hold out but the one hand. They receive, and are satisfied with that; but they do not give. They seem to say to divine Providence, "What is yours is mine, and what is mine is my own." Nevertheless, in the order of this same Providence, what we give is as important to our happiness as what we receive. The rich man who has done nothing to enrich the community in which he lives, has really profited very little by the wealth he has amassed and inherited. Himself commanding the means of refinement and luxury, he lives surrounded by poverty, barbarism, and crime; and these, from the beginning of his career to the end, poison the very sources of his life. As much worse is it with those who receive liberty and do not give it, as liberty is better than money. "Give me liberty or give me death!" says Patrick Henry. He receives it. Does he give it to his slave? No. To his wife? Still less. What does he have of it, then? Only one half—the selfish half of possession, not the joyous and generous side of sympathy and participation.

These Jerseyites, it seems, were wiser than any in their day and generation. They saw the anomaly, the contradiction between a free manhood and an enslaved womanhood. They saw it taking effect at the sacred hearth, beside the tender cradle. And they saw their way out of it. What they received and valued as the greatest of God's gifts, they gave to their women, rational, human creatures like themselves, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, only made to exemplify that peaceable and loving side of human nature whose beauty has been always felt, and whose triumph is written among the eternal prophecies which time only fulfills. Honor then, to-day, to those truly brave and generous men who, with their own hands unbound, were not afraid to unbind the hands of their wives and mothers! Honor, too, to the women who were intelligent enough to appreciate the gift, and wise and brave enough to use it. No scandal accompanied its exercise. There was no talk in that time of the women deserting their household fires, their tender children, to fulfill their duty to the State. In that State, in those women, culminated the success and significance of the American Revolution. Remember the other States did not think so, neither did the men or the women who planned the International Exhibition of to-day think so. But it was so, none the less. And we to-day must light our torches at that very topmost flame of freedom, or they will smoke instead of burning.

Mrs. ANTOINETTE L. BROWN BLACKWELL said she came as a representative from New Jersey, her adopted State, whose unique suffrage endowment, one hundred years ago, we are here to celebrate. The ebb and flow which is the law of all progress, has temporarily deprived our women of the franchise. But it will be restored in the near future. "I have neighbors, whose mothers and grandmothers voted, and who are beginning to recall the fact with pride and satisfaction." Ex-Governor Bullock, of Massachusetts, has well said that "Historically, woman, in America, is now at the acme of her power." But at our next Centennial, men and women will stand together, acknowledged peers, at the acme of human achievement.

Mrs. ELIZABETH K. CHURCHILL said: The right of suffrage is always either inherited or earned. The women of America have earned their right by their work in the Revolution and in the Civil War. The inertia of women themselves is the greatest obstacle of our movement. But, in order to perform the duties which fall upon them in humane and charitable work, women need that their rights should be guaranteed by the franchise.

Miss HINDMAN urged the importance of suffragists working inside the churches. Here is where the sympathies of society center. We have eight million professed Christians, church-members; three-fourths of these are women. Miss Hindman gave very encouraging accounts of success in enlisting the pastors and women of the churches in the suffrage work, also of the growth of woman suffrage sentiment among the temperance women of the West.

The HUTCHINSONS sang "The Star Spangled Banner," the audience joining in the chorus.

Mrs. STONE uttered her dissent for the words and spirit of the song so long as women are without political rights. In conclusion she offered the following resolutions:

1. Resolved, That on this Centennial Anniversary of American Freedom, we re-affirm the principle that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"—and that "Taxation without representation is tyranny." Yet women are governed without consent, and taxed without representation.

2. Resolved, That we celebrate the establishment of woman suffrage in New Jersey, a hundred years ago, as the prophecy and forerunner of the American future. We point with pride to the existence of woman suffrage in Wyoming and Utah, and we declare that as the first century of Independence has achieved equal rights and impartial suffrage for men, so the next century will achieve equal rights for all American citizens irrespective of sex.

The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the meeting adjourned.

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The Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association commenced on October 2, 1876, at Handel and Haydn Hall, Philadelphia. Mrs. MARY A. LIVERMORE presided and made the opening address.

The Committee on Credentials made a partial report, showing one hundred and three delegates present, representing twenty-three States and Territories. Two other States reported themselves at the close of the morning meeting, making in all twenty-five States and Territories[202] represented. Brief addresses were made by Mrs. Howe and Mrs. Frances W. Harper. Letters were read from William Lloyd Garrison, and J. W. Kingman, of Wyoming. The Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions reported the following, which were accepted for separate consideration:

The American Woman Suffrage Association affirms: That woman's right to vote already exists in theory under a government based upon the consent of the governed; that her right to vote implies her right to take part in the nomination of her representatives in the primary meetings of the parties, and that this right can be granted at any time, by the State Convention of any party, without any change of constitution or laws.

We therefore recommend the suffragists of each State to address a memorial to every political convention, asking for the adoption of a resolution. "That hereafter, women who are identified in principle with the party, and who possess the qualifications of age and residence required of male voters, are invited to take part in its primary meetings, with an equal voice and vote in the nomination of candidates and the transaction of business."

Resolved, That we congratulate the National Prohibitory Reform party upon its adoption of woman suffrage in its platform, and upon the similar action recently taken by that party in several States; also upon the admission of women to the Prohibitory caucuses of Massachusetts by the unanimous invitation of its State Convention, and upon the subsequent nomination of the same candidates by the woman suffragists of that State.

Resolved, That we rejoice at the beneficent results of woman suffrage in Wyoming, and at its successful establishment in the Granges, in the Good Templar Lodges, and in other co-operative organizations.

WHEREAS, The Constitution of Colorado provides that the question of extending suffrage to women shall be submitted to the voters; therefore,

Resolved, That the American Woman Suffrage Association will extend to the Association of Colorado all the aid possible to secure the desired result.

Rev. B. F. BOWLES, of Philadelphia, was opposed to the adoption, of the first resolution on the ground that the attempt to obtain for women a voice and vote in the party caucuses was unwise and impracticable. Until women were voters no such right should be demanded. To do so was to begin at the wrong end. A caucus was and ought to be a conference of voters.

Dr. JOHN CAMERON, of Delaware, doubted the propriety of the action recommended in the first resolution. Mr. BLACKWELL spoke briefly in its support.

Mrs. SMITH, of Pittsburgh, stated that as a member of the Prohibition party of Pennsylvania, she had repeatedly taken part in the caucuses, and that the same was true elsewhere. By general consent the further discussion was postponed. Dr. CAMERON, of Delaware, at the evening session, said that on a more careful consideration he was convinced that the action proposed was right, and he should vote in its favor.

Mrs. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY supported it by a story of the mice who planned to bell the cat.

Mr. BLACKWELL spoke at length in favor of making a concerted effort to secure the admission of women to the nominating caucuses, and predicted the success of any party which should adopt that measure, and all the resolutions were then adopted.

Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE spoke of the determination which exists in the present age for investigating everything to its utmost extent, but questioned, however, whether this system of investigation was not carried too far, when woman suffrage was refused on the ground that it was not known what women would do with it when they had it. She said that John Bright was opposed to woman suffrage, but he did not show any reason why it was not a good object.

It was said that his opposition arose from the fact that he had married a woman who was opposed to woman's rights, and if this were the case, it was an additional reason why women should work among their own sex in promotion of this object. One important feature of the British Parliament is, that if the men of the country are dissatisfied with its action, they have the power to put the Government out of office, but the women of the country had only to sit passively by if they are not satisfied with the administration. Freedom with its concomitants does not promote despotism in either sex. The ignorant women of to-day, left in their ignorance, will continue to bring forth slavery, and to educate their children as the tools of despotism. It was said that inequality of property is complained of among women, but that it exists just as much among men. But what is complained of among women is not inequality of property, but absence of representation.

Addresses were made by Rev. John Snyder, of St. Louis; Lucy Stone; Mrs. Duniway, of Oregon, and Mrs. Livermore; after which the audience rose and united in singing the doxology, and the meeting adjourned.

In November, 1877, the American Woman Suffrage Association issued the following:

TO WOMAN SUFFRAGISTS.—We mail to every subscriber of the Woman's Journal a blank petition to Congress for a XVI. Amendment. Also, in the same envelope, a woman suffrage petition to your own State Legislature—Please offer both petitions together for signature. Thus, with the same amount of labor, both objects will be accomplished.

Respectfully, LUCY STONE, Chairman Ex. Com., Am. Woman Suffrage Assoc.

BOSTON, Nov. 24, 1877.

Later appeared in the Woman's Journal a paragraph to the effect:

Every subscriber has received from us, by mail, two forms of petitions; the one addressed to the State Legislature, the other to Congress. We consider State action the more important, but signatures to both petitions can be obtained at the same time.

These petitions should be circulated at once, and sent back to No. 4 Park St., Boston, by the middle of January. We hope for more signers than ever before. Friends of woman suffrage, circulate the petitions!

The result was a petition, sent by the Executive Committee of the American Woman Suffrage Association into Congress, enrolling 6,000 names.

* * * * *

The Ninth Annual Meeting of the American Woman Suffrage Association assembled in Masonic Hall at Indianapolis, in 1878. There was a full attendance of delegates. The evening before the convention an informal reception was held at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. M. H. McKay. Among those who called in the course of the evening to pay their respects, may be named: Judge Martindale, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Julian, Mr. and Mrs. Addison Harris, Mrs. Henry Bowan, Governor and Mrs. Baker, Professor and Mrs. Benton, Professor Brown, and Professor Bell.