give it an imaginary realm of power, illimitable, unmeasured,
unrecognized, you have founded a throne for woman on pride,
selfishness and complacency, before which you may well stand
appalled. In banishing Madame De Stael from Paris, the Emperor
Napoleon, even, bowed to the power of that scepter which rules
the world of fashion. The most insidious enemy to our republican
institutions, at this hour, is found in the aristocracy of our
women. The ballot-box, that great leveler among men, is beneath
their dignity. "_They have all the rights they want._" So, in his
spiritual supremacy, has the Pope of Rome! But what of the
multitude outside the Vatican!!!

This speech was published in full by the Metropolitan press and many
of the leading journals[93] of the State, with fair editorial
comments.

On June 4th, 1867, the Constitutional Convention assembled in Albany,
and on the 10th Mr. Graves of Herkimer, moved "that a committee of
five be appointed by the chair to report at an early day whether the
Convention should provide that when a majority of women voted that
they wanted the right of suffrage, they should have it," and on the
19th the President, William A. Wheeler, appointed the committee[94] on
the "right of suffrage, and the qualifications for holding office."

The first petition brought before the committee in favor of suffrage
for women was presented by George William Curtis, of Richmond Co.,
sent by the friends of Human Progress from their Annual meeting at
Waterloo.

Martin I. Townsend next presented a petition from William Johnson,
Chairman of the "Colored Men's State Committee," praying for "equal
manhood suffrage." Similar petitions, without any concert of action
between the parties, were presented simultaneously whenever any
discussion arose on the suffrage question. But in this Convention the
demands made by the women were more pressing and multitudinous.

Mr. GRAVES, June 21st, 1867, moved to take up his resolution,
"That a committee of five be appointed by the chair to report to
the convention at as early a day as possible, whether, in their
opinion, a provision should be incorporated in the Constitution
authorizing the women in this State to exercise the elective
franchise, when they shall ask that right by a majority of all
the votes given by female citizens over twenty-one years of age,
at an election called