more generous and just
statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in
great measure to the persistent efforts of many noble women who,
for years past, both publicly and privately, both by pen and
speech, have appealed to legislative committees, and to the whole
community, for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of
their fellow-country women. Signal, honorable, and beneficent
have been the works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria
Child, Paulina W. Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy
Stone, Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. Not in all the
land lives a poor woman, or a widow, who does not owe some
portion of her present safety under the law to the brave
exertions of these faithful laborers in a good cause.

Now, all forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the
chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to
the ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves
this question an open one for the several States to settle as
they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress
proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the
multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the
political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object
totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion;
it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise
inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever
entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not
called to legislate _for_ the rights of women, let it not
legislate _against_ them.

But Americans now live who shall not go down into the grave till
they have left behind them a Republican Government; and no
republic is Republican which denies to half its citizens those
rights which the Declaration of Independence, and which a true
Christian Democracy make equal to all. Meanwhile, let us break
the legs of the spider-crab!

While the 13th Amendment was pending, Senator Sumner wrote many
letters to the officers of the Loyal League, saying, "Send on the
petitions; they give me opportunity for speech." "You are doing a
noble work." "I am grateful to your Association for what you have done
to arouse the country to