Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/183

Rh hung familiar mottoes, significant of the demands of the hour. On taking the chair Susan B. Anthony made some appropriate remarks as to the importance of the work of the association during the presidential campaign. Mrs. Spencer called the roll, and delegates from sixteen States responded.

Mrs. Gage read the call:

The National Association will hold its twelfth annual convention in Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C., January 21, 22, 1880.

The question as to whether we are a nation, or simply a confederacy of States, that has agitated the country from the inauguration of the government, was supposed to have been settled by the war and confirmed by the amendments, making United States citizenship and suffrage practically synonymous. Not, however, having been pressed to its logical results, the question as to the limits of State rights and national power is still under discussion, and is the fundamental principle that now divides the great national parties. As the final settlement of this principle involves the enfranchisement of woman, our question is one of national politics, and the real issue of the hour. If it is the duty of the general government to protect the freedmen of South Carolina and Louisiana in the exercise of their rights as United States citizens, the government owes the same protection to the women in Massachusetts and New York. This year will again witness an exciting [sic]presidental election, and this question of momentous importance to woman will be the issue then presented. Upon its final decision depends not only woman's speedy enfranchisement, but the existence of the republic.

A sixteenth amendment to the national constitution, prohibiting the States from disfranchising United States citizens on the ground of sex, will be urged upon the forty-sixth congress by petitions, arguments and appeals. The earnest, intelligent and far-seeing women of every State should assemble at the coming convention, and show by their wise counsels that they are worthy to be citizens of a free republic. All assoc-