Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/293

Rh the Hon. Chas. J. Folger, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mrs. Stanton said:

Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee and Members of the Legislature:

I appear before you at this time, to urge on you the justice of securing to all the people of the State the right to vote for delegates to the coming Constitutional Convention. The discussion of this right involves the consideration of the whole question of suffrage; and especially those sections of your Constitution which interpose insurmountable qualifications to its exercise. As representatives of the people, your right to regulate all that pertains to the coming Constitutional Convention is absolute. It is for you to say when and where this convention shall be held; how many delegates shall be chosen, and what classes shall be represented. This is your right. It is the opinion of many of the ablest men of the country that, in a revision of a constitution, the State is, for the time being, resolved into its original elements, and that all disfranchised classes should have a voice in such revision and be represented in such convention. To secure this to the people of the State, is clearly your duty.

Says Judge Beach Lawrence, in a letter to Hon. Charles Sumner: "A State Constitution must originate with and be assented to by a majority of the people, including as well those whom it disfranchises as those whom it invests with the suffrage." And as there is nothing in the present Constitution of the State of New York to prevent women, or black men from voting for, or being elected as delegates to a Constitutional Convention, there is no reason why the Legislature should not enact that the people elect their delegates to said Convention irrespective of sex or color. The Legislatures of 1801 and 1821 furnish you a precedent for extending to disfranchised classes the right to vote for delegates to a Constitutional Convention. Though the Constitution of the State restricted the right of suffrage to every male inhabitant who possessed a freehold to the value of £20, or rented a tenement at the yearly value of forty shillings, and had been rated and actually paid taxes to the State, the Legislatures of those years passed laws setting aside all property limitations, and providing that all men—black and white, rich and poor—should vote for delegates to said Conventions. The act recommending a convention for the purpose of considering the parts of the Constitution of this State, respecting the number of Senators and Members of Assembly—and also for the consideration of the 23d article of said Constitution, relative to the right of nomination to office—"but with no other power or authority whatsoever," passed April 6, 1801. Session Laws 1801, chap. 69, page 190, sec. 2, says:

And be it further enacted, that the number of delegates chosen shall be the same as the number of Members of Assembly from the respective cities and counties of the State, and that all free male citizens of this State, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, shall be admitted to vote for such delegates, and that any person of that description shall be eligible.