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Show W0MANH5 EXPONENT filled by those who first pressed them on OPENING SPEECH WASHINGTON CONVEN- MRS. STANTON'S AT THE TION. For eleven consocutivo years, women citizens of the United Spates have assembled here in Washington, to ask that the principles of our government be carried to " their logical results, making women equal with men before the law. And we have asked this not only for the protection of the people of this nation, but for the safety of the nation itself, for every violation of a great principle is sure to be followed by its penalty. Our fathers declared the equality of the human family, but by their laws enslaved the African race, and all "women. But the experiment of universal limiting principles to a favored few is ever fraught with danger; liberty for white men only convulsed the nation for half a century; and mid the thundering cannon of a civil war the requiem of slavery was chanted round the world. Out of this baptism of blood, statesmen with clearer moral vision saw for a time a new significance jln the words, justice, liberty and equality, and in the I3th, 14th and 15th amendments declared the status of an American citizen, and the rights, privileges and immunities involved in citizenship. When learned j udges, lawyers and philosophers, gave it as their, opinion that woman too was enfranchised by the 14th amendment, with new hope we pondered the constitution of our country, and felt that at1 last it was indeed the Magna Charta of our rights. With kindling interest we listened to the eloquence of leading statesmen in their paeans to liberty, and words cannot describe the joy that filled our hearts. To realize at last the hopes so long deferred was happiness such as they only who have belonged to a disfranchised class can understand. To make assurance doubly sure, women in many States tested their new found rights, at college doors, in the courts, at the ballot-boSome asked the right to practice law, and were denied; some voted and were arrested; some tested their civil and political rights in the Supreme Courts of the United States, and thousands petitioned Congress to declare that women were enfranchised under the 14th amendment, but they prayed and petitioned in vain. Though every great principle involved in the amendments, and all, tfoo thrilling, debates of the republican party since the war, have been freighted with new hopes of ireedom for all citizens, yet no sooner have the pleading voices and glowing periods of thse statesmen died away, than woman learned that they had.no significance former. - The Supieme .Coiirt , of. the United .States and Congress in their decisions and arguments on the constitutional rights of woman, have alike stultified themselves and falsified both the letter and spirit of these amendments, in making them a protection for one class of citizens and a new denial of political freedom for another. We prophesied on this platform,' years ago, that this violation of principle and the spirit of the amendments, the illogical decisions in our courts and the frivolous arguments in Congress on the constitutional rights of woman, must blunt the moral sense "of the whole nation and ultimately imperil the liberties of the colored voters of the South; and our prophesies are fulfilled, President Hayes in his so-call- ed, . last message complaining that the spirit of these amendments have not been faithfully fulfilled by the Southern States; and for the best of reasons they have never been fu- l- tyrants. -- unwilling instrument of increasing the political strength of that party from which he received fetters when ho was a slave, and contemptuous refusal of civil rights since he was made free. He rfiSftmhlfi.q. indftfid. those unhaDDVcantivGa.in the East, who, deprived of their birthright, are compelled ro yield their strength to the upbuilding of the monarch "from whose tyrannies they have most ' to fear, and to fight against the power from which alone deliverance might be expected. The franchise intended for the shield and de fense of the negro has Deen turnea- against him and against his friends, and has vastly Increased the power of those from whom he has nothing to hope and everything to high-soundin- ations made annually to the department of justice, should hereafter be applied to the education of our rulers into a knowledge of what justice is. ' 'President Hayes says in his message that all over our wide territory in the near future, the name and character of citizen of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect." And yet where dp we see any preparation among our rulers for the security and respect of the rights ef women even in the District of Columbia, under the very shadow of the Capitol. Herein 1871,.tho first time the District had a republican form of government, a legislative assembly, 72 women marched to tho city Hall and asked to register their names as qualified voters. This experiment of government in the District was made to swell republican power, by a solid colored vote. Intelligent American women were crowded aside by burly African men, who could neither read nor write. Yet President Grant, who main tained the rights of freedmen in Louisiana, at the point of the bayonet, never gave a thought to the disfranchised women of the District. And yet there were 7,000 more women than men in the District at that time; industrious, citizens, who neither kept nor haunted the dram shops nor gambling saloons. A large part of the taxes paid for the Hupport of the Police force, criminal and civil courts, station houses, alms house and jail come out of the hard earnings of women, and yet if a little vagrant, harmless, hungry girl steals a loaf of bread, a doll, or a pocket handkerchief, the jail filled with hardened criminals is the only place the District provides for her reformation, while a reform school for boys received an appropriation of $100,-00- 0 and $35,000 a year for Its support. And in yet view of all these outrages on women and girls, President Hayes In his recent message gives them no thought, though he makes a truly paternalrevlewof the interests of this republic, great and small, from the army, the navy and our foreign relations, to the timber on the western mountains, the switches of the Washington railroad and the education, of the fifty little Indians in Hampton, Virginia from tho Postal service, the Paris exposition, the abundant . harvests and the possible bulldozing of some colored men In the various southern districts, to Cruelty to Jive animals and the crowded: condition of the mummies and dead ducks in the Smithsonian Institute, and yet he forgets to mention 20,000,000 women citizens, robbed of their social, civil and political rights. Hon. James G. Blaine, In his speech indicting the Southern democracy, enlarges on the injustice of their treatment of colored voters, and makes a strong point on that section of tho 14th amendment, which says if colored male citizens are not per- - ever-tighteni- ng 1 " tax-payin- -- g, law-abidi- ng :i. He-say- s: "The colored: citizon is thus most unhappily situated; his right of suffrage Is but a hollow mockery; it holds to his (Bar the word of promise, but breaks it always to his hope, and he ends only in being made the ballot box, nor the sacredness of the elections, nor the best interests of the colored voters themselves been protected. It is one g thing to utter principles and quite another to carry them into practice. I would recommend that the large appropri- one-ha- lf x. mitted io vote, neither shall they be counted In the basis of representation? ; The Senator considers It the- - height of Injustice to count citizens in the basis of representa tlon when hot allowed to vote, and thus compel them to swell the number of their the nation's heart. The South in the reorganizing of Its political parties, is simptyadopting the tactics of Northern politicians. Northern carpetbull.dozed" the colored baggers, men into voting the republican ticket in 1872, and Southern politicians "bull-doze- d the same class Into voting the democratic ticket in 1878. In neither case have the purity of the - dread." But we need not go to Louisiana or South Carolina to find such injustice. - The women of Maine, New England, tho Western, Southern and Middle states are all counted Comin the basis of representation. men to Congress pelled to send hundreds of who care nothing for their rights and interests, who wholly misrepresent them, and yet not one of all these has tho right to vote. Tho Senator further says: "The war, wi th all its costly sacrifices, was fought in vain, unless equal rights for all classes be established in all the Statos of the Union." I wonder as he uttered that'sen-time- nt if the faintest shadow of a woman fell aslant his brain. It Is a sad reflection that all these glowing' sentiments of justice, liberty and equality that have thrilled tho hearts of: the American people for the last quarter of; & century, should now havo no meaning bo but hollow mockery, naught but the stock in trado of clap trap politicians. Wo on this platform agree with Mr. Blaine, "that the war with all its costly sacrifices was fought in vain, unless equal rights for all classes be established In all the States of the Union,1:' North as well as South. And to this end, I would recommend the Senator to begin his work in Maine. There ig a largo : class of citizens, intelligent refined, virtuous, p whose moral power wo need to have repre- sented In the government, not only for the nation's safety, but forthe moro complete development of that class itself In political, religious, and social ideas. As a question of civilization, the enfranchisement of wo- -' man Is of more vital importance , than that of all other classes put together as her en-lightened influence' would do for politics and religion what her higher education, in the domestic arts has already dono for social life. Thereis more: buried'Wealth'in the minds of 'the women in Maine than in all the lumber and fisheries , that State can boast. And yet this . large class, representing so much intelligence wealth .and Utent from power, claims no political consideration ' ' its great Senator. In less than sixty days the 45th Congress will have passed lnto hlstoryi ' What shall wo find bn::its paes concerning women f That' to fbHy thousand citizens of - the United Bta'Je filling every department 'of art, science and literature, teachers, ministers, lawyers, "tho cream of the philan . ! . i i ; s ; i" - |