nd independence of women. The subject selected
by Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, herself an office-holder, was Woman's
Influence in Official Government.

Henry B. Blackwell made a strong speech on Woman Suffrage a Growth of
Civilization. He read a letter from Lucy Stone, his wife, who was to
have spoken on The Progress of Women but was prevented by illness, in
which she said: "The time is full of encouragement for us. We look
back to our small beginnings and over the many years of constant
endeavor to secure for women the application of the principles which
are the foundation of a representative government. Now we are a host.
Both Houses of Congress and the legislative bodies in nearly all the
States, have our questions before them. So has the civilized world.
Surely at no distant day the sense of justice which exists in
everybody will secure our claim, and we shall have at last a truly
representative government, of the people, by the people and for the
people. We may, therefore, rejoicing in what is already gained, look
forward with hope to the future."

A large audience listened to the address of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe on
The Chivalry of Reform, during which she said:

The political enfranchisement of woman has long been sought upon
the ground of abstract right and justice. This ground is surely
the soundest and safest basis for any claim to rest upon. But
mankind, after yielding a general obedience to the moral law,
will reserve for themselves a certain freedom in its application
to particular things. Even in so imperative a matter as the
salvation of their own souls they will not be content with
weights and measures. The touch of sentiment must come in,
uplifting what law knocks down, freeing what it trammels,
satisfying man's love for freedom by ministering to his sense of
beauty. When this subtle power joins itself to the demonstrations
of reason, the victory is sure and lasting.

It is in the grand order of these ideas that I stand here to
advocate the enfranchisement of my sex. Morally, socially,
intellectually equal with men, it is right that we should be
politically equal with them in a society which claims to
recognize and uphold one equal humanity. I do not say it is _our_
right. I say it is right--God's right and the world's.

In the name of high sentiment then, in the name of all that good
men profess, I ask th