postmaster; and although many women have been appointed in the
Departments and to pension agencies and like important employments
and trusts, so far as your committee are aware no charge of
incompetency or of malfeasance in office has ever yet been
sustained against a woman.

It may be further stated in this connection that nearly every
Northern State has had before it from time to time since 1870 a
bill for the submission of the question of woman suffrage to the
popular vote. In some instances such a resolution has been passed
at one session and failed to be ratified at another by from one
to three votes; thus Iowa passed it in 1870, killed it in 1872;
passed it in 1874, failed to do so in 1876; passed it in 1878, and
failed in 1880; passed it again in 1882, and defeated it in
1884; four times over and over, and this winter these heroic and
indomitable women are trying it in Iowa again.

If men were to make such a struggle for their rights it would be
considered a fine thing, and there would be books and even poetry
written about it.

In New York, since 1880, the women have urged this great measure
before the Legislature each year. There it takes the form of a
bill to prohibit the disfranchisement of women. This bill has
several times come within five votes of passing the assembly.

In many States well sustained efforts for municipal suffrage have
been made, and, as if in rebuke to the conservatism, or worse, of
this great Republic, this right of municipal suffrage is already
enjoyed in the province of Ontario, Canada, and throughout the
island of Great Britain by unmarried women to the same extent as
by men, there being the same property qualification required of
each.

The movement for the amendment of the National Constitution began
by petitioning Congress December, 1865, and since 1869 there have
been consecutive applications to every Congress praying for the
submission to the States of a proposition similar to the joint
resolution herewith reported to the Senate.

The petitions have come from all parts of the country; more
especially from the Northern and Western States, although there is
an extensive and increasing desire for the suffrage existing among
the women in the Southern States, as we are informed by those
whose interest in the subject makes them f