ord upon the resolutions. The present time, just
after a presidential election, is most appropriate to consider
woman's demand for suffrage. The Republican party claims
especially to represent the principles of freedom, and during the
last campaign has been calling upon women for help. One of the
leaders of that party went to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and said he
wanted her help in this campaign; and before she told me what
answer she made, she asked me how I would have felt if the same
had been asked of me. I told her I should have felt as Samson did
when the Philistines put out his eyes, and then asked that he
should make merriment for them. The Republican party are a part
of those who compel us to obey laws we never had a voice in
making--to pay taxes without our consent; and when we ask for our
political and legal rights, it laughs in our face, and only says:
"Help _us_ to places of power and emolument, and _we_ will rule
over you." I know there are men in the Republican party who, like
our friend Mr. Higginson, take a higher stand, and are ready to
recognize woman as a co-sovereign; but they are the exceptions.
There is but one party--that of Gerrit Smith--that makes the same
claim for woman that it does for man. But while the Republican
and Democratic parties deny our political existence, they must
not expect that we shall respond to their calls for aid.

Madame de Stael said to Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled
with politics: "Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is
but just they should know the reason." Whatever political
influence springs into being, woman is affected by it. We have
the same rights to guard that men have; we shall therefore insist
upon our claims. We shall go to your meetings, and by and by we
shall meet with the same success that the Roman women did, who
claimed the repeal of the Appian law. War had emptied the
treasury, and it was still necessary to carry it on; women were
required to give up their jewels, their carriages, etc. But by
and by, when the war was over, they wished to resume their old
privileges. They got up a petition for the repeal of the law; and
when the senators went to their places, they found every avenue
to the forum thronged by women, who said to them as they passed,
"Do us justice." A