with the men by
their side. He offered a resolution urging Congress to pass the
bill at once, that justice might be done the hundreds of women in
the District, for their faithful work under government.

Mrs. Stanton's speech the first evening of the convention gave a fair
statement of the hostile feelings of women toward the amendments; we
give the main part of it. Of all the other speeches, which were
extemporaneous, only meagre and unsatisfactory reports can be found.

Mrs. STANTON said:--A great idea of progress is near its
consummation, when statesmen in the councils of the nation
propose to frame it into statutes and constitutions; when
Reverend Fathers recognize it by a new interpretation of their
creeds and canons; when the Bar and Bench at its command set
aside the legislation of centuries, and girls of twenty put their
heels on the Cokes and Blackstones of the past.

Those who represent what is called "the Woman's Rights Movement,"
have argued their right to political equality from every
standpoint of justice, religion, and logic, for the last twenty
years. They have quoted the Constitution, the Declaration of
Independence, the Bible, the opinions of great men and women in
all ages; they have plead the theory of our government; suffrage
a natural, inalienable right; shown from the lessons of history,
that one class can not legislate for another; that disfranchised
classes must ever be neglected and degraded; and that all
privileges are but mockery to the citizen, until he has a voice
in the making and administering of law. Such arguments have been
made over and over in conventions and before the legislatures of
the several States. Judges, lawyers, priests, and politicians
have said again and again, that our logic was unanswerable, and
although much nonsense has emanated from the male tongue and pen
on this subject, no man has yet made a fair, argument on the
other side. Knowing that we hold the Gibraltar rock of reason on
this question, they resort to ridicule and petty objections.
Compelled to follow our assailants, wherever they go, and fight
them with their own weapons; when cornered with wit and sarcasm,
some cry out, you have no logic on your platform, forgetting that
we have no use for logic until they give us logicians at whom to
hurl it,