1. Why should not woman's work be paid for according to the
quality of the work done, and not the sex of the worker?

2. How shall we open for woman's energies new spheres of well
remunerated industry?

3. Why should not wives, equally with husbands, be entitled to
their own earnings?

4. Why should not widows, equally with widowers, become by law
the legal guardians, as they certainly are by nature the natural
guardians, of their own children?

5. On what just ground do the laws make a distinction between men
and women, in regard to the ownership of property, inheritance,
and the administration of estates?

6. Why should women, any more than men, be taxed without
representation?

7. Why may not women claim to be tried by a jury of their peers,
with exactly the same right as men claim to be and actually are?

8. If women need the protection of the laws, and are subject to
the penalties of the laws equally with men, why should they not
have an equal influence in making the laws, and appointing
Legislatures, the Judiciary, and Executive?

And, finally, if governments--according to our National
Declaration of Independence--"derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed," why should women, any more than men, be
governed without their own consent; and why, therefore, is not
woman's right to suffrage precisely equal to man's?

For the end of finding out practical answers to these and similar
questions, and making suitable arrangements to bring the existing
wrongs of women, in the State of New York, before the Legislature
at its next session, we, the undersigned, do urgently request the
men and women of the Commonwealth to assemble in Convention, in
the city of Rochester, on Wednesday, November 30th, and Thursday,
December 1, 1853.[122]

The Convention assembled at Corinthian Hall at 10 o'clock. Rev. Samuel
J. May, of Syracuse, in the chair.[123] After thanking the Convention
for the honor conferred, he ran the parallel between the laws for
married women and the slaves on the Southern plantation, and then
introduced Ernestine L. Rose, to paint in more vivid colors the
picture he had outlined.

Mrs. ROSE said: The remarks of the president have impressed us to
do our duty with all the earnestness in our power. This is termed
a wom