en it was
referred to the committee on resolutions, where it has slept the
sleep of death from that day to this. But before the close of
the convention a body of ignorant workingmen sent in a petition
clamoring for greenbacks, and you remember that the Democratic
party bought those men by putting a solid greenback plank in the
platform.

Everybody supposed they would nominate Pendleton, or some other
man of pronounced views, but instead of doing that they nominated
Horatio Seymour, who stood on the fence, politically speaking. My
friends, Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and women who have brains
and education, women who are tax-payers, went there and petitioned
for the practical application of the fundamental principles of
our Government to one-half of the people. Those most ignorant
workingmen, the vast mass of them foreigners, went there,
and petitioned that that great political party should favor
greenbacks. Why did they treat those workingmen with respect, and
put a greenback plank in their platform, and only table us, and
ignore us? Simply because the workingmen represented the power of
the ballot. They could make or unmake the great Democratic party
at that election. The women were powerless. We could be ridiculed
and ignored with impunity, and so we were laughed at, and put on
the table.

Then the Republicans went to Chicago, and they did just the same
thing. They said the Government bonds must be paid in precisely
the currency specified by the Congressional enactment, and
Talleyrand himself could not have devised how not to say anything
better than the Republicans did at Chicago on that question. Then
they nominated a man who had not any financial opinions whatever,
and who was not known, except for his military record, and they
went into the campaign. Both those parties had this petition from
us.

I met a woman in Grand Rapids, Mich., a short time ago. She came
to me one morning and told me about the obscene shows licensed
in that city, and said that she thought of memorializing the
Legislature. I said, "Do; you can not do anything else; you are
helpless, but you can petition. Of course they will laugh at you."
Notwithstanding, I drew up a petition and she circulated it.
Twelve hundred of the best citizens signed that petition, and the
lady carried it to t