butions to the Centennial Exposition would
have been these protests, laws, and decisions, which show her political
slavery. But all this was left for rooms outside of the centennial
grounds, upon Chestnut Street, where the National Woman's Suffrage
Association hoisted its flag, made its protests, and wrote the
Declaration of Rights of the women of the United States.

To many thoughtful people it seemed captious and unreasonable for women
to complain of injustice in this free land, amidst such universal
rejoicings. When the majority of women are seemingly happy, it is
natural to suppose that the discontent of the minority is the result of
their unfortunate individual idiosyncrasies, and not of adverse
influences in established conditions. But the history of the world shows
that the vast majority, in every generation, passively accept the
conditions into which they are born, while those who demanded larger
liberties are ever a small, ostracized minority, whose claims are
ridiculed and ignored. From our standpoint we would honor any Chinese
woman who claimed the right to her feet and powers of locomotion; the
Hindoo widows who refused to ascend the funeral pyre of their husbands;
the Turkish women who threw off their masks and veils and left the
harem; the Mormon women who abjured their faith and demanded monogamic
relations. Why not equally honor the intelligent minority of American
women who protest against the artificial disabilities by which their
freedom is limited and their development arrested? That only a few,
under any circumstances, protest against the injustice of
long-established laws and customs, does not disprove the fact of the
oppressions, while the satisfaction of the many, if real, only proves
their apathy and deeper degradation. That a majority of the women of the
United States accept, without protest, the disabilities which grow out
of their disfranchisement is simply an evidence of their ignorance and
cowardice, while the minority who demand a higher political status
clearly prove their superior intelligence and wisdom.

At the close of the Forty-seventh Congress we made two new demands:
First, for a special committee to consider all questions in regard to
the civil and political rights of women. We naturally asked the
question, As Congress has a special committee on the rights of Indians,
why not on those of women? Are not women, as a factor in civilization,
of more importance than Indians? Secondly,