Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/163

163 , In answer to the appeals of so large a number of honorable petitioners, it is courteous that the forty-fifth congress should express its opinion upon this grave question of human rights; therefore,

We pray your honorable body to take from the calendar and pass Senate resolution No. 12, providing for an amendment to the constitution protecting the rights of women; and

We further pray you to relieve the House Judiciary Committee from the further consideration of the woman suffrage resolution brought to a tie vote in that committee, February 5, 1878, that it may be submitted to the House of Representatives for immediate action.

And your petitioners will ever pray.

, President.

, Corresponding Secretary., Chairman Executive Committee.

At the opening of the last session of the forty-fifth congress most earnest appeals (copies of which were sent to every member of congress) came from all directions for the presentation of a minority report from the Committee on Privileges and Elections. The response from our representatives was prompt and most encouraging. The first favorable report our question had ever received in the Senate of the United States was presented by the Hon. George F. Hoar, February 1, 1879:

The undersigned dissent from the report of the majority of the committee. The demand for the extension of the right of suffrage to women is not new. It has been supported by many persons in this country, in England and on the continent, famous in public life, in literature and in philosophy. But no single argument of its advocates seems to us to carry so great a persuasive force as the difficulty which its ablest opponents encounter in making a plausible statement of their objections. We trust we do not fail in deference to our esteemed associates on the committee when we avow our opinion that their report is no exception to this rule.

The people of the United States and of the several States have founded their political institutions upon the principle that all men have an equal right to a share in the government. The doctrine is expressed in various forms. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal" and that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The Virginia bill of rights, the work of Jefferson and George Mason, affirms that "no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the rest of the community but in consideration of public services." The Massachusetts bill of rights, the work of John Adams, besides reaffirming these axioms, declares that "all the inhabitants of this commonwealth, having such