endment. The women generally came to the conclusion
that if in truth there was no protection for them in the original
constitution nor the late amendments, the time had come for some
clearly-defined recognition of their citizenship by a sixteenth
amendment.

The following appeal and petition were extensively circulated:

_To the Women of the United States:_

Having celebrated our centennial birthday with a national
jubilee, let us now dedicate the dawn of the second century to
securing justice to women. For this purpose we ask you to
circulate a petition to congress, just issued by the National
Association, asking an amendment to the United States
Constitution, that shall prohibit the several States from
disfranchising citizens on account of sex. We have already sent
this petition throughout the country for the signatures of those
men and women who believe in the citizen's right to vote.

To see how large a petition each State rolls up, and to do the
work as expeditiously as possible, it is necessary that some
person in each county should take the matter in charge, urging
upon all, thoroughness and haste. * * * The petitions should be
returned before January 16, 17, 1877, when we shall hold our
Eighth Annual Convention at the capital, and ask a hearing before
congress.

Having petitioned our law-makers, State and national, for years,
many from weariness have vowed to appeal no more; for our
petitions, say they, by the tens of thousands, are piled up in
the national archives, unheeded and ignored. Yet it is possible
to roll up such a mammoth petition, borne into congress on the
shoulders of stalwart men, that we can no longer be neglected or
forgotten. Statesmen and politicians alike are conquered by
majorities. We urge the women of this country to make now the
same united effort for their own rights that they did for the
slaves at the South when the thirteenth amendment was pending.
Then a petition of over 300,000 was rolled up by the leaders of
the suffrage movement, and presented in the Senate by the Hon.
Charles Sumner. But the statesmen who welcomed woman's untiring
efforts to secure the black man's freedom, frowned down the same
demands when made for herself. Is not liberty as sweet to her as
to him? Are not the political disabilities of sex as gr