e with one great
moral question of the day. They deal with money questions, with
tariffs, with parties, with State law, and if by chance they
touch the slave question, it is only like Jewish hucksters
trading in the relics of Saints. The reformers--the fanatics, as
we are called--are the only ones who have launched social and
moral questions. I risk nothing when I say, that the anti-slavery
discussion of the last twenty years has been the salt of this
nation; it has actually kept it alive and wholesome. Without it,
our politics would have sunk beyond even contempt. So with this
question. It stirs the deepest sympathy; it appeals to the
highest moral sense; it enwraps within itself the greatest moral
issues. Judge it, then, candidly, carefully, as Americans, and
let us show ourselves worthy of the high place to which God has
called us in human affairs. (Applause).

MEMORIAL.

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of ----

The National Woman's Rights Convention, held in New York City,
May 12, 1859, appointed your memorialists a Committee to call
your attention to the anomalous position of one-half the people
of this Republic.

All republican constitutions set forth the great truth that every
human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights--such as
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--and as a
consequence, a right to the use of all those means necessary to
secure these grand results.

1st.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to life, who may
be deprived of it for the violation of laws to which she has
never consented--who is denied the right of trial by a jury of
her peers--who has no voice in the election of judges who are to
decide her fate.

2d.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to liberty, when
the custody of her person belongs to another; when she has no
civil or political rights--no right even to the wages she earns;
when she can make no contracts--neither buy nor sell, sue or be
sued--and yet can be taxed without representation.

3d.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to happiness, when
denied the right to person, property, children, and home; when
the code of laws under which she is compelled to live is far more
unjust and tyrannical than