Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/635

607 In the circle of the Senate, ranged in invincible row, sat seven ladies, from quite pretty to quite plain.

Ernestine L. Rose and Rev. William Henry Channing presented the arguments and appeals to the Committee, and Mrs. Rose invited them to ask questions. The Register concludes:

The Honorable Senators quailed beneath the trial. There was a terrible silence, and the audience eager to hear what the other ladies had to say, were wretched when they found that the Committee had silently dissolved — surrendered. Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!

The Albany Argus of March 4th, says:. — Miss Anthony and Mrs. Rose before the House Committee, March 3d. The Committee took their seats in the clerk's desk, and the ladies took possession of the members' seats, filling the chamber, many members of the Legislature being present. Miss Anthony presented a paper prepared by Judge William Hay, of Saratoga, asking that husband and wife should be tenants in common of property without survivorship, but with a partition on the death of one; that a wife shall be competent to discharge trusts and powers the same as a single woman; that the statute in respect to a married woman's property descend as though she had been unmarried; that married women shall be entitled to execute letters testamentary, and of administration; that married women shall have power to make contracts and transact business as though unmarried; that they shall be entitled to their own earnings, subject to their proportionable liability for support of children; that post-nuptial acquisitions shall belong equally to husband and wife; that married women shall stand on the same footing with single women, as parties or witnesses in legal proceedings; that they shall be sole guardians of their minor children; that the homestead shall be inviolable and inalienable for widows and children; that the laws in relation to divorce shall be revised, and drunkenness made cause for absolute divorce; that better care shall be taken of single women's property, that their rights may not be lost through ignorance, that the preference of males in descent of real estate shall be abolished; that women shall exercise "the right of suffrage," and be eligible to all offices, occupations, and professions; entitled to act as jurors; eligible to all public offices; that courts of conciliation shall be organized as peace-makers; that a law shall be enacted extending the masculine designation in all statutes of the State to females.

then addressed the Committee, saying: The right of petition is of no avail unless the reform demanded be candidly considered by the legislators. We judge of the intellectual inferiority of our fellow-men by the amount of resistance they oppose to oppression, and to some extent we judge correctly by this test. The same rule holds good for women; while they tamely submit to the many inequalities under which they labor, they scarcely deserve to be freed from them.... These are not the demands of the moment or the few; they are the demands of the age; of the second half of the nineteenth century. The world will endure after us, and future generations may look back to this meeting to acknowledge