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282 palled. In banishing Madame De Stael from Paris, the Emperor Napoleon, even, bowed to the power of that scepter which rules the world of fashion. The most insidious enemy to our republican institutions, at this hour, is found in the aristocracy of our women. The ballot-box, that great leveler among men, is beneath their dignity. "They have all the rights they want." So, in his spiritual supremacy, has the Pope of Rome! But what of the multitude outside the Vatican!!!

This speech was published in full by the Metropolitan press and many of the leading journals of the State, with fair editorial comments.

On June 4th, 1867, the Constitutional Convention assembled in Albany, and on the 10th Mr. Graves of Herkimer, moved "that a committee of five be appointed by the chair to report at an early day whether the Convention should provide that when a majority of women voted that they wanted the right of suffrage, they should have it," and on the 19th the President, William A. Wheeler, appointed the committee on the "right of suffrage, and the qualifications for holding office."

The first petition brought before the committee in favor of suffrage for women was presented by George William Curtis, of Richmond Co., sent by the friends of Human Progress from their Annual meeting at Waterloo.

Martin I. Townsend next presented a petition from William Johnson, Chairman of the "Colored Men's State Committee," praying for "equal manhood suffrage." Similar petitions, without any concert of action between the parties, were presented simultaneously whenever any discussion arose on the suffrage question. But in this Convention the demands made by the women were more pressing and multitudinous.

Mr., June 21st, 1867, moved to take up his resolution, "That a committee of five be appointed by the chair to report to the convention at as early a day as possible, whether, in their opinion, a provision should be incorporated in the Constitution authorizing the women in this State to exercise the elective franchise, when they shall ask that right by a majority of