Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/532

Rh are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the electing of representatives is in this condition." Benjamin Franklin wrote: "They who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf." This is the condition of the women of New Jersey. It is evident to every reasonable mind that these unjustly disfranchised citizens should be reïnstated in the right of suffrage. Therefore, we, your memorialists, ask the legislature at its present session to submit to the people of New Jersey an amendment to the constitution, striking out the word "male" from article 2, section 1, in order that the political liberty which our forefathers so nobly bestowed on men and women alike, may be restored to "all inhabitants" of the populous and prosperous State into which their brave young colony has grown.

With but a slight change of officers and arguments, these conventions were similar from year to year. There were on all occasions a certain number of the clergy in opposition. At one of these meetings the Rev. Mr. McMurdy condemned the ordination of women for the ministry. But woman's fitness for that profession was successfully vindicated by Lucretia Mott and Phebe A. Hanaford. Mrs. Portia Gage writes, December 12, 1873:

There was an election held by the order of the township committee of Landis, to vote on the subject of bonding the town to build shoe and other factories. The call issued was for all legal voters. I went with some ten or twelve other women, all taxpayers. We offered our votes, claiming that we were citizens of the United States, and of the State of New Jersey, also property-holders in and residents of Landis township, and wished to express our opinion on the subject of having our property bonded. Of course our votes were not accepted, whilst every tatterdemalion in town, either black or white, who owned no property, stepped up and very pompously said what he would like to have done with his property. For the first time our claim to vote seemed to most of the voters to be a just one. They gathered together in groups and got quite excited over the injustice of refusing our vote and accepting those of men who paid no taxes.

In 1879, the Woman's Political Science Club was formed in Vineland, which held its meetings semi-monthly, and discussed a wide range of subjects. Among the noble women in New Jersey who have stood for many years steadfast representatives of the suffrage movement, Cornelia Collins Hussey of Orange is worthy of mention. A long line of radical and brave ancestors made it comparatively easy for her to advocate an unpopular