ever can be established.

CHAPTER XXXV--PAGE 642.

OPEN LETTER TO BENJAMIN HARRISON,

_Republican Nominee for President._

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., June 30, 1888.

DEAR SIR: We, representatives of the National Woman Suffrage
Association, respectfully ask you to consider the following facts:

The first plank in the platform adopted by the Republican convention
recently held in Chicago, entitled "The Purity of the Ballot," reaffirms
the unswerving devotion of the Republican party to the personal rights
and liberties of citizens in all the States and Territories of the
Union, and especially to "the supreme and sovereign right of every
lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign, white or black, to cast
one free ballot in public elections and to have that ballot duly
counted." And again the platform says: "We hold the free and honest
popular ballot, and the just and equal representation of all the people,
to be the foundation of our republican government."

These declarations place the Republican party in its original attitude
as the defender of the personal freedom and political liberties of all
citizens of the United States. These sentiments, even the phraseology in
which they are here expressed, may be found in every series of
resolutions adopted by the National Woman Suffrage Association since its
organization.

The advocates of woman suffrage would have been glad to see the phrase
"male or female" inserted after the phrase "white or black" in the
resolution above quoted, because this would be a fitting conclusion to
the enumeration by antithesis of the classes into which citizens are
divided. However, no enumeration of classes was necessary to explain or
to enforce the declaration of the party's devotion to "the supreme and
sovereign right of every lawful citizen to cast one free ballot in
public elections and to have that ballot duly counted." It is the
unimpeded exercise of this "supreme and sovereign right of every lawful
citizen" which the women we represent demand.

That women are "lawful citizens" is undeniable, since the law recognizes
them as such through the visits of the assessor and tax-gatherer; since
it recognizes them as such in the police stations, the jails, the courts
and the prisons. Only at the ballot-box is the lawful citizenship of
women challenged! Only at the ballot-box, which is declared to be the
sole safe-guard of the citizen's liberty--only there