Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/88

58 question of woman's enfranchisement that cannot be overestimated.

But when the final decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Virginia L. Minor made all agitation in that direction hopeless, the National Association returned to its former policy, demanding a sixteenth amendment. The women generally came to the conclusion that if in truth there was no protection for them in the original constitution nor the late amendments, the time had come for some clearly-defined recognition of their citizenship by a sixteenth amendment.

The following appeal and petition were extensively circulated:

To the Women of the United States: Having celebrated our centennial birthday with a national jubilee, let us now dedicate the dawn of the second century to securing justice to women. For this purpose we ask you to circulate a petition to congress, just issued by the National Association, asking an amendment to the United States Constitution, that shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising citizens on account of sex. We have already sent this petition throughout the country for the signatures of those men and women who believe in the citizen's right to vote.

To see how large a petition each State rolls up, and to do the work as expeditiously as possible, it is necessary that some person in each county should take the matter in charge, urging upon all, thoroughness and haste. *** The petitions should be returned before January 16, 17, 1877, when we shall hold our Eighth Annual Convention at the capital, and ask a hearing before congress.

Having petitioned our law-makers, State and national, for years, many from weariness have vowed to appeal no more; for our petitions, say they, by the tens of thousands, are piled up in the national archives, unheeded and ignored. Yet it is possible to roll up such a mammoth petition, borne into congress on the shoulders of stalwart men, that we can no longer be neglected or forgotten. Statesmen and politicians alike are conquered by majorities. We urge the women of this country to make now the same united effort for their own rights that they did for the slaves at the South when the thirteenth amendment was pending. Then a petition of over 300,000 was rolled up by the leaders of the suffrage movement, and presented in the Senate by the Hon. Charles Sumner. But the statesmen who welcomed woman's untiring efforts to secure the black man's freedom, frowned down the same demands when made for herself. Is not liberty as sweet to her as to him? Are not the political disabilities of sex as grievous as those of color? Is not a civil-rights bill that shall open to woman the college doors, the trades and professions—that shall secure her personal and property rights, as necessary for her protection as for that of the colored man? And yet the highest judicial authorities have decided that the spirit and letter of our national constitution are not broad enough to protect woman in her political rights; and for the redress of her wrongs