k Douglas lived in my State he was never
allowed to vote until he could show himself worth the requisite
$250; and when he did vote in New York, he voted not because he
was a man, not because he was a citizen of the United States, nor
yet because he was a citizen of the State, but simply because he
was worth the requisite amount of money. In Connecticut both black
men and black women were exempted from taxation prior to the
adoption of the fifteenth amendment.

The law was amended in 1848, by which black men were thus
exempted, and black women followed the same rule in that State.
That, I believe, is the only State where black women were exempted
from taxation under the law. When the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments were attached to the Constitution they carried to the
black man of Connecticut the boon of the ballot as well as the
burden of taxation, whereas they carried to the black woman of
Connecticut the burden of taxation, but no ballot by which to
protect her property. I know a colored woman in New Haven, Conn.,
worth $50,000, and she never paid a penny of taxation until the
ratification of the fifteenth amendment. From that day on she is
compelled to pay a heavy tax on that amount of property.

Mrs. SPENCER. Is it because she is a citizen? Please explain.

Miss ANTHONY. Because she is black.

Mrs. SPENCER. Is it because the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments made women citizens?

Miss ANTHONY. Certainly; because it declared the black people
citizens.

Gentlemen, you have before you various propositions of amendment
to the Federal Constitution. One is for the election of President
by the vote of the people direct. Of course women are not people.

Senator EDMUNDS. Angels.

Miss ANTHONY. Yes; angels up in heaven or else devils down there.

Senator EDMUNDS. I have never known any of that kind.

Miss ANTHONY. I wish you, gentlemen, would look down there and see
the myriads that are there. We want to help them and lift them up.
That is exactly the trouble with you, gentlemen; you are forever
looking at your own wives, your own mothers, your own sisters, and
your own daughters, and they are well cared for and protected; but
only look down to the struggling masses of women who have no one
to protect them, neither husband, father, brother, son, with no