Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/523

Rh Because, no general law, affecting the condition of all women, should be framed to meet exceptional discontent.

For these, and many more reasons, do we beg of your wipe that no law extending suffrage to women may be passed, as the passage of such a law would be fraught with danger so grave to the general order of the country.

[Signed by Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, and other ladies to the number of 1,000.]

Mrs. Dahlgren presented a form of XVI. Amendment as follows:

Congress shall have power to, and shall pass laws which shall be uniform throughout the United States.

To regulate the transfer and descent of all kinds of property.

To regulate marriages and the registration of the same, and the registration of births.

To regulate the right of dower and all rights and obligations of married persons.

To regulate divorces and to grant alimony, but no divorces a vinculo matrimonii shall be granted, except for the cause of adultery, and in such case the offending party shall not have the privilege of marrying during the lifetime of the offended party.

In her opening remarks Mrs Stanton said:

This is the fourth convention we have held in Washington, and the effect can hardly be estimated in the education of the American people toward woman suffrage. I feel more anxious about how women will vote than in their speedy enfranchisement. So many important political questions are seen in the horizon that woman's influence is needed to guide safely through all storms the ship of state. We propose to change our tactics. Instead of pe-

name "of the officers and speakers of the National Woman Suffrage Association," to hold a debate upon the question of "woman suffrage," and mention that "Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as President of the association and convention, will afford every opportunity for argument, and will herself enter the lists," etc.

In reply to this invitation, for which we thank you, in so far as it may have been extended in a true desire to elicit fair argument, we would remind you that in the very fact of soliciting us to "hold debate' on a public platform, on this or any other question, you entirely ignore the principle that ourselves and our friends seek to defend, viz., the preservation of female modesty.

The functions of men and women in the State as citizens are correlative and opposite. They can not be made common without.seriously impairing the public virtue.

Our men must be brave, and our women modest, if this country may hope to fulfill her true mission for humanity.

We protest against woman suffrage, because the right of petition may safely be considered as common to all, and its exercise most beneficial.

We publish written articles, giving "our reasons for the faith that is within us," because We may, consistently with the home life and its duties, make such use of whatever talents God may have confided to our keeping. To these printed articles, in which we have fully and at different times explained our views, we are happy to refer you.

We likewise hold that an appeal to the public made in this manner is much more likely to evolve a clear apprehension of this important subject, as presenting a strict issue to the reasoning faculties, and one undimmed by those personalities which generally are indulged in during the course of oral debate. I am, truly yours,

January 9, 1872.