nd privately, by pen and
speech, have appealed to legislative committees and to the whole
community for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of their
fellow-countrywomen. Signal, honorable and beneficent have been the
works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Paulina Wright
Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy Stone, Caroline H.
Ball, Antoinette Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and many others. Not in all the land lives a poor woman or
a widow who does not owe some portion of her present safety under
the law to the brave exertions of these faithful laborers.

All forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the chief
public question in this country will be woman's claim to the
ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves this
question an open one for the several States to settle as they
choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to
array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of
American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a
whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment
is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future
progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted on the most tender
and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics.
If the present Congress is not called to legislate _for_ the rights
of women, let it not legislate _against_ them. Americans now live
who shall not go down into the grave till they have left behind
them a republican government; and no republic is republican that
denies to half its citizens those rights which the Declaration of
Independence and a true Christian democracy make equal to all.
Meanwhile, let us break the legs of the spider-crab.

[Footnote 34: See Appendix for full speech.]

[Footnote 35: As the question of suffrage is now agitating the public
mind, it is the hour for woman to make her demand. Propositions already
have been made on the floor of Congress to so amend the Constitution as
to exclude women from a voice in the government. As this would be to
turn the wheels of legislation backward, let the women of the nation
now unitedly protest against such a desecration of the Constitution,
and petition for that right which is at the foundation of all
government, the right of representation. Send your pet