to be disregarded by us, we fail in
our loyalty to the country. All over this land women have no
political existence. Laws pass over our heads that we can not
unmake. Our property is taken from us without our consent. The
babes we bear in anguish and carry in our arms are not ours. The
few rights that we have, have been wrung from the Legislature by
the Woman's Rights movement. We come to-day to say to those who
are administering our Government and fighting our battles, "While
you are going through this valley of humiliation, do not forget
that you must be true alike to the women and the negroes." We can
never be truly "loyal" if we leave them out. Leave them out, and
we take the same backward step that our fathers took when they
left out slavery. If justice to the negro and to woman is right,
it can not hurt our loyalty to the country and the Union. If it
is not right, let it go out of the way; but if it is right, there
is no occasion that we should reject it, or ignore it. We make
the statement that the Government derives its just powers from
the consent of the governed, and that all human beings have equal
rights. This is not an _ism_--it is simply an assertion that we
shall be true to the highest truth.

A MAN IN THE AUDIENCE: The question was asked, as I entered this
house, "Is it right for women to meet here and intermeddle in our
public affairs?" It is the greatest possible absurdity for women
to stand on that platform and talk of loyalty to a Government in
which nine-tenths of the politicians of the land say they have no
right to interfere, and still oppose Woman's Rights. The very act
of standing there is an endorsement of Woman's Rights.

A VOICE: I believe this is a woman's meeting. Men have no right
to speak here.

THE GENTLEMAN CONTINUED: It is on woman more than on man that the
real evils of this war settle. It is not the soldier on the
battle-field that suffers most; it is the wife, the mother, the
daughter. (Applause. Cries of "Question, question").

A VOICE: You are not a woman, sit down.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY: Some of us who sit upon this platform have many
a time been clamored down, and told that we had no right to
speak, and that we were out of our place in public meetings; far
be it from us, when women assemble, and