eived from leading journals, both in the
old world and the new. The words of cordial approval from a large
circle of friends, and especially from women well known in periodical
literature, have been to us a constant stimulus during the toilsome
months we have spent in gathering material for these pages. It was our
purpose to have condensed the records of the last twenty years in a
second volume, but so many new questions in regard to Citizenship,
State rights, and National power, indirectly bearing on the political
rights of women, grew out of the civil war, that the arguments and
decisions in Congress and the Supreme Courts have combined to swell
these pages beyond our most liberal calculations, with much valuable
material that can not be condensed nor ignored, making a third volume
inevitable.

By their active labors all through the great conflict, women learned
that they had many interests outside the home. In the camp and
hospital, and the vacant places at their firesides, they saw how
intimately the interests of the State and the home were intertwined;
that as war and all its concomitants were subjects of legislation, it
was only through a voice in the laws that their efforts for peace
could command consideration.

The political significance of the war, and the prolonged discussions
on the vital principles of government involved in the reconstruction,
threw new light on the status of woman in a republic. Under a liberal
interpretation of the XIV. Amendment, women, believing their rights of
citizenship secured, made several attempts to vote in different
States. Those who succeeded were arrested, tried, and convicted. Those
who were denied the right to register their names and deposit their
votes, sued the Inspectors of Election. Others attempting to practice
law, being denied that right in the States, took their cases up to the
Supreme Court of the United States for adjudication. Others invaded
the pulpit, asking to be ordained, which brought the question of
woman's right to preach before ecclesiastical assemblies. These
various attempts to secure her political and civil rights have called
forth endless discussions on woman's true position in the State, the
church, and the world of work.

While gratefully accepting the generous praises of our friends, we
must briefly reply to some strictures by our critics. Some object to
the title of our work; they say you can not write the "History of
Woman Suffrage" until the