stice is with us,
and our word, our work--our prayer for freedom--will not, can not be
in vain.

E. CADY STANTON, _President_.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Secretary_ W. L. N. League,
Room 20, Cooper Institute, N. Y.

OFFICE OF THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE, }
Room No. 20, Cooper Institute, N. Y., _April 7, 1864_. }

_Dear Friend:_--With this you will receive a Form of a Petition to
Congress, the object of which you can not mistake nor regard with
indifference. To procure on it the largest possible number of adult
names, at the earliest practicable moment, it is hoped you will regard
as less a duty than a pleasure. Already we have sent one installment
of our petition forward, signed by one hundred thousand persons; the
presentation of which, by Senator Sumner, produced a marked effect on
both Congress and the country. We hope to send a million before the
adjournment of Congress, which we shall easily do and even more, if
you and the twenty thousand others to whom we have sent petitions will
promptly, generously co-operate with us. For nearly three years has
the scourge of war desolated us; sweeping away at least three hundred
thousand of the strength, bloom, and beauty of our nation. And the
war-chariot still rolls onward, its iron wheels deep in human blood!
The God, at whose justice Jefferson long ago trembled, has awaked to
the woes of the bondmen.

"For the sighing of the oppressed, and for the crying of the needy,
now will I arise, saith the Lord." The redemption of that pledge we
now behold in this dread Apocalypse of war. Nor should we expect or
hope the calamity will cease while the fearful cause of it remains.
Slavery has long been our national sin. War is its natural and just
retribution. But the war has made it the constitutional right of the
Government, as it always has been the moral duty of the people, to
abolish slavery. We are, therefore, without excuse, if the solemn duty
be not now performed. With us, the people, is the power to achieve the
work by our agents in Congress. On us, therefore, rests the momentous
responsibility. Shall we not all join then in one loud, earnest,
effectual prayer to Congress, which will swell on its ear like the
voice of many waters, that this bloody, desolating war shall be
arrested and ended, by the immediate and final removal, by Statute Law
and amended Constitution, of that crime and curse which alone has
brought it upon u