t women property owners have
a right to vote, and they have voted accordingly the same as
other tax-payers.

In regard to recent efforts to secure legislation favorable to
women, Mr. Wilcox writes:

The impression that the School Act, passed in 1880, did not apply
to cities, led to the introduction by the Hon. Charles S. Baker
of Rochester, of a bill covering cities. A test vote showed the
Assembly practically unanimous for it, but it was referred to the
Judiciary Committee to examine its constitutionality. The
chairman, Hon. Geo. L. Ferry, and other members, asked me to
look up the point and inform the committee, supposing a
constitutional amendment needful. When the point was made on this
bill, I for the first time closely examined the constitution, and
finding there was nought to prevent the legislature enfranchising
anyone, promptly apprised the committee of the discovery. The
acting-chairman, Major Wm. D. Brennan, requested me to furnish
the committee a legal brief on the matter. This (Feb. 19, 1880) I
did, and arranged a public hearing before them in the
assembly-chamber, which was attended by Governor Cornell,
Lieutenant-Governor Hoskins, many senators, assemblymen, and
State officers; at which Mrs. Blake, the sainted Helen M. Slocum
and Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon were the speakers. From that year to
the present there has been a "Bill to Prohibit Disfranchisement"
before each legislature. In 1881, it was carried to a majority
vote in the Assembly. In 1883, two-thirds of the Assembly were
ready to pass the bill when the attorney-general declared it
unconstitutional. In 1884, Governor Cleveland had approved two
suffrage acts, and promised to sign all the friends could carry.
In 1885, growing tired of the senseless clamor of
"unconstitutionality," I resolved to show how little law the
clamorers knew. To the knowledge gained by five years'
discussion, I added that obtained by several months' research in
the State Library at Albany, that of the New York Bar
Association, those of the New York Law Institute and Columbia
College, and elsewhere. The result was the publication of "Cases
of the Legislature's Power over Suffrage," wherein it was shown,
condensed from a great number of authorities, that all classes
have received suffrage, not from t