e
second attempt was made to revise the constitution of the State,
large numbers of women began to demand suffrage. Woman's sphere of
operations and enterprise had become so widened, that they felt
they had not only the right, but also an increasing fitness for
civil life and government, of which the ballot is but the sign and
the symbol.

In the constitutional convention of 1853, twelve petitions were
presented, from over 2,000 adult persons, asking for the
recognition of woman's right to the ballot, in the proposed
amendments to the constitution of the State. The committee reported
leave to withdraw, giving as their reason that the "consent of the
governed" was shown by the small number of petitioners. Hearings
before this committee were granted.[132] The chairman of this
committee, in presenting the report, moved that all debate on the
subject should cease in thirty minutes, and on motion of Benjamin
F. Butler of Lowell, the whole report, excepting the last clause,
was stricken out. There was then left of the whole document
(including more than two closely-printed pages of reasoning) only
this: "It is inexpedient for this convention to take any action."

Legislative action on the woman's rights question began in 1849,
when William Lloyd Garrison presented the first petition on the
subject to the State legislature. Following him was one from
Jonathan Drake and others, "for a peaceable secession of
Massachusetts from the Union." Both these petitions were probably
considered by the legislature to which they were addressed as of
equally incendiary character, since they both had "leave to
withdraw." In 1851 an order was introduced asking "whether any
legislation was necessary concerning the wills of married women?"
In 1853 a bill was enacted "to exempt certain property of widows
and unmarried women from taxation." In the legislature of 1856 the
first great and important act relating to the property rights of
women was passed. It was to the effect that women could hold all
property earned or acquired independently of their husbands. This
act was amended and improved the next session.

In 1857 a hearing was held before the Committee on the Judiciary to
listen to arguments in favor of the petition of Lucy Stone and
others for equal property rights for women and for the "right of
suffrage." Another hearing was held in the same place in February,
1858, before the Joint Special Committee on the Qualifications of
Voters. A