ssociations. The Fortieth Congress was the first in which an
amendment to the National Constitution in the interests of woman was
ever proposed. In a series of editorials in _The Revolution_ there was
a decided expression of hostility towards the Fifteenth Amendment
during all the time it was pending in Congress. In the issue of
October 21, 1869, Mrs. Stanton said:

All wise women should oppose the Fifteenth Amendment for two
reasons. 1st. Because it is invidious to their sex. Look at it
from what point you will, and in every aspect, it reflects the
old idea of woman's inferiority, her subject condition. And yet
the one need to secure an onward step in civilization is a new
dignity and self-respect in women themselves. No one can think
that the pending proposition of "manhood suffrage" exalts woman,
either in her own eyes or those of the man by her side, but it
does degrade her practically and theoretically, just as black men
were more degraded when all other men were enfranchised.

2d. We should oppose the measure, because men have no right to
pass it without our consent. When it is proposed to change the
constitution or fundamental law of the State or Nation, all the
people have a right to say what that change shall be.

If women understood this pending proposition in all its bearings,
theoretically and practically, there would be an overwhelming
vote against the admission of another man to the ruling power of
this nation, until they themselves were first enfranchised. There
is no true patriotism, no true nobility in tamely and silently
submitting to this insult. It is mere sycophancy to man; it is
licking the hand that forges a new chain for our degradation; it
is indorsing the old idea that woman's divinely ordained position
is at man's feet, and not on an even platform by his side.

By this edict of the liberal party, the women of this Republic
are now to touch the lowest depths of their political
degradation.

JUNE 3, 1869.

THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT.--It is not to be believed that the
nation which is now engaged in admitting the newly liberated
negro to the plenitude of all political franchise, will much
longer retain woman in a state of _helotage_, which is more
degrading than ever, because being no