civil and political rights, longer to remain
silent.

_Because_, Holy Scripture inculcates a different, and for us
higher, sphere apart from public life.

_Because_, as women, we find a full measure of duties, cares, and
responsibilities devolving upon us, and we are therefore
unwilling to bear other and heavier burdens, and those unsuited
to our physical organization.

_Because_, we hold that an extension of suffrage would be adverse
to the interests of the workingwomen of the country, with whom we
heartily sympathize.

_Because_, these changes must introduce a fruitful element of
discord in the existing marriage relation, which would tend to
the infinite detriment of children, and increase the already
alarming prevalence of divorce throughout the land.

_Because_, no general law, affecting the condition of all women,
should be framed to meet exceptional discontent.

For these, and many more reasons, do we beg of your wisdom that
no law extending suffrage to women may be passed, as the passage
of such a law would be fraught with danger so grave to the
general order of the country.

[Signed by Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, and other
ladies to the number of 1,000.]

Mrs. Dahlgren presented a form of XVI. Amendment as follows:

SHERMAN-DAHLGREN XVI. AMENDMENT.

Congress shall have power to, and shall pass laws which shall be
uniform throughout the United States.

To regulate the transfer and descent of all kinds of property.

To regulate marriages and the registration of the same, and the
registration of births.

To regulate the right of dower and all rights and obligations of
married persons.

To regulate divorces and to grant alimony, but no divorces _a
vinculo matrimonii_ shall be granted, except for the cause of
adultery, and in such case the offending party shall not have the
privilege of marrying during the lifetime of the offended party.

In her opening remarks Mrs Stanton said:

This is the fourth convention we have held in Washington, and the
effect can hardly be estimated in the education of the American
people toward woman suffrage. I feel more anxious about how women
will vote than in their speedy enfranchisement. So many important
political questions are seen in the horizon that woma