part. Friends are
especially invited to be present on this historic occasion.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Chairman Executive Committee_.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Corresponding Secretary_.

From these headquarters numberless documents were issued during the
month of June. As the presidential nominating conventions were soon
to meet, letters were addressed to both the Republican and
Democratic parties, urging them to recognize the political rights
of women in their platforms. Thousands of copies of these letters
were scattered throughout the nation:

_To the President and Members of the National Republican
Convention, Cincinnati, O., June 14, 1876._

GENTLEMEN: The National Woman Suffrage Association asks you to
place in your platform the following plank:

_Resolved_, That the right to the use of the ballot inheres
in every citizen of the United States; and we pledge
ourselves to secure the exercise of this right to all
citizens, irrespective of sex.

In asking the insertion of this plank, we propose no change of
fundamental principles. Our question is as old as the nation. Our
government was framed on the political basis of the consent of
the governed. And from July 4, 1776, until the present year,
1876, the nation has constantly advanced toward a fuller practice
of our fundamental theory, that the governed are the source of
all power. Your nominating convention, occurring in this
centennial year of the republic, presents a good opportunity for
the complete recognition of these first principles. Our
government has not yet answered the end for which it was framed,
while one-half the people of the United States are deprived of
the right of self-government. Before the Revolution, Great
Britain claimed the right to legislate for the colonies in all
cases whatsoever; the men of this nation now as unjustly claim
the right to legislate for women in all cases whatsoever.

The call for your nominating convention invites the cooeperation
of "all voters who desire to inaugurate and enforce the rights of
every citizen, including the full and free exercise of the right
of suffrage." Women are citizens; declared to be by the highest
legislative and judicial authorities; but they are citizens
deprived of "the full and free exercise of the right of