Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/214

 hood and demand of the men of this closing century of constitutional government such condemnation of this infamous decision of Judge Ward Hunt as shall teach the coming generation of voters that the welfare of the republic demands that women be protected equally with men in the exercise of citizenship; and,

, In the great Centennial Celebration of 1876 women were denied all participation in the public proceedings commemorating the birth of the Declaration of Independence, though they sought earnestly and respectfully to declare their sentiments of loyalty to the great principles of liberty and responsibility there enunciated, they should now demand official recognition by Congress and the State Legislature on all the Boards of Commissioners which, at the public expense, are to initiate and carry out the august ceremonials of the coming Constitutional Celebration in New York in April, 1889, to the end that taxation without representation shall no longer be acknowledged a just and constitutional policy in this government nominally of the people, therefore,

Resolved, That a committee be appointed by the National W. S. A. to memorialize Congress on this subject, and to take such other action as shall bring before the enlightened manhood of our country their duty of chivalry no less than justice in this important matter.

, The question of woman's enfranchisement is fundamental and of paramount importance; therefore,

Resolved, That, while the National Woman Suffrage Association welcomes and claims the support of persons of all parties and beliefs, it desires to strongly reassert the position which it has held of being nonpartisan.

A hearing was granted by the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage the morning of January 24. Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. Minor, Mrs. Duniway, Mrs. Johns, the Rev. Olympia Brown, the Rev. Miss Shaw and Miss Alice Stone Blackwell were introduced to the committee by Miss Anthony, and each from a different standpoint-presented the arguments for the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment enfranchising women.

On February 7, Senator Blair reported for the committee— Senators Charles B. Farwell (Ill.), Jonathan Chace (R. I.), Edward O. Wolcott (Col.), in favor of the amendment. After an able and exhaustive argument the report closed as follows:

Unless this Government shall be made and preserved truly republican in form by the enfranchisement of woman, the great reforms which her ballot would accomplish may never be; the demoralization and disintegration now proceeding in the body politic are not likely soon to be arrested. Corruption of the male suffrage