Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1000

 lished in the Arena of February, 1895. Mrs. Henry gave extracts from the letters of seventy-two prominent women in various parts of the South — all uncompromising suffragists. She had written to Mrs. Meriwether that, as her opponent was from Tennessee, she wanted a distinct voice from that State, and requested her to give a few reasons for desiring the suffrage and obtain the signatures of women to the same. Mrs. Meriwether supplied the following:

We, the undersigned women of Tennessee, do and should want — the ballot because —

1. Being 21 years old, we object to being classed with minors.

2. Born in America and loyal to her institutions, we protest against being made perpetual aliens.

3. Costing the treasuries of our counties nothing, we protest against acknowledging the male pauper as our political superior.

4. Being obedient to law, we protest against the statute which classes us with the convict and makes the pardoned criminal our political superior.

5. Being sane, we object to being classed with the lunatic.

6. Possessing an average amount of intelligence, we protest against legal classification with the idiot.

7. We taxpayers claim the right to representation.

8. We married women want to own our clothes. go. We married breadwinners want to own our earnings.

10. We mothers want an equal partnership in our children.

11. We educated women want the power to offset the illiterate vote of our State.

Mrs. Meriwether sent this "confession of faith" to the presidents of every suffrage club and W. C. T. U. in Tennessee, giving them a fortnight to obtain signatures and adding, "The King's business requires haste." In two weeks it was returned with the names of 535 women, while several presidents wrote: "If you could only give us two weeks more we could double the number.


 * Dower and curtesy both obtain. The widow receives one-third of the real estate, unless there are neither descendants nor heirs-at-law, when she takes