idity of politicians; but beyond and through it all, we
farther see its promise of the future. We see in it the thin
edge of the entering wedge which shall break woman's slavery in
pieces and make us at last a nation truly free--a nation in which
the caste of sex shall fall down by the caste of color, and
humanity alone shall be the criterion of all human rights. The
Republican party has been the party of ideas, of progress. Under
its leadership, the nation came safely through the fiery ordeal
of the rebellion; under it slavery was destroyed; under it
manhood suffrage was established. The women of the country have
long looked to it in hope, and not in vain; for to-day we are
launched by it into the political arena, and the Republican party
must hereafter fight our battles for us. This great party, this
progressive party, having taken the initiative step, will never
go back on its record. It needed this new and vital issue to keep
it in life, for Cincinnati indorsed its work up to this hour; the
constitutional amendments, the payment of the bonds in gold, the
civil service reform, the restoration of the States. It thanked
the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, it proposed lands to
actual settlers. The Republican party went up higher; it
remembered all citizens. The widows and orphans of the soldiers
and sailors were not forgotten; it acknowledged its obligation to
the loyal women of the Republic, and to the demands for
additional rights, of all women, whatever their class, color, or
birth, it promised "respectful consideration." Its second plank
declared that "complete liberty and exact equality in the
enjoyment of all civil, political, and public rights should be
established and maintained throughout the Union by efficient and
appropriate State and Federal legislation." These two planks are
the complement of each other, and are the promise of exact and
equal justice to woman. They were the work of radical woman
suffrage Republicans--of Wilson, Sargent, Loring, Claflin, Hoar,
Fairchild, and others. They were accepted by the candidates.
General Grant, in his letter, expresses his desire to see "the
time when the title of 'citizen' shall carry with it all the
protection and privilege to the humblest, that it does to the
most exalted." His cours