Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/606

578 5. On what just ground do the laws make a distinction between men and women, in regard to the ownership of property, inheritance, and the administration of estates?

6. Why should women, any more than men, be taxed without representation?

7. Why may not women claim to be tried by a jury of their peers, with exactly the same right as men claim to be and actually are?

8. If women need the protection of the laws, and are subject to the penalties of the laws equally with men, why should they not have an equal influence in making the laws, and appointing Legislatures, the Judiciary, and Executive?

And, finally, if governments — according to our National Declaration of Independence — "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," why should women, any more than men, be governed without their own consent; and why, therefore, is not woman's right to suffrage precisely equal to man's?

For the end of finding out practical answers to these and similar questions, and making suitable arrangements to bring the existing wrongs of women, in the State of New York, before the Legislature at its next session, we, the undersigned, do urgently request the men and women of the Commonwealth to assemble in Convention, in the city of Rochester, on Wednesday, November 30th, and Thursday, December 1, 1853.

The Convention assembled at Corinthian Hall at 10 o'clock. Rev. Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, in the chair. After thanking