y 5:

AN ACT _to relieve the political disabilities of Matilda Joslyn
Gage_:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in congress assembled, that all
political disabilities heretofore existing in reference to
Matilda Joslyn Gage, of Fayetteville, Onondaga county, State of
New York, be removed and she be declared a citizen of the United
States, clothed with all the political rights and powers of
citizenship, namely: the right to vote and to hold office to the
same extent and in the same degree that male citizens enjoy these
rights. This act to take effect immediately.

The following year a large number of similar petitions were sent
from different parts of the country, the National Association
distributing printed forms to its members in the various States.
The power of congress to thus enfranchise women upon their
individual petitions is as undoubted as the power to grant
individual amnesty, to remove the political disabilities of men
disfranchised for crime against United States laws, or to clothe
foreigners, honorably discharged from the army, with the ballot.

The first convention[20] after the all-engrossing events of the
centennial celebration assembled in Lincoln Hall, Washington,
January 16, with a good array of speakers, Mrs. Stanton presiding.
After an inspiring song by the Hutchinsons and reports from the
various States, Sara Andrews Spencer, chairman of the congressional
committee, gave some encouraging facts in regard to the large
number of petitions being presented to congress daily, and read
many interesting letters from those who had been active in their
circulation. Over 10,000 were presented during this last session of
the forty-fourth congress. At the special request of the chairman,
Senator Morton of Indiana, they were referred to the Committee on
Privileges and Elections; heretofore they had always been placed in
the hands of the Judiciary Committee in both Senate and House. A
list of committees[21] was reported by Mrs. Gage which was adopted.
Mrs. Swisshelm of Pennsylvania, was introduced. She said:

In 1846 she inherited an estate from her parents, and then she
learned the injustice of the husband holding the wife's property.
In 1848, however, she got a law passed giving equal rights to
both men and women, and everybody decried her for the injury she
had done to al