hat act of justice to the laboring masses insured your power,
with but few interruptions, until the war.

When the District of Columbia suffrage bill was under discussion
in 1866, it was a Democratic senator (Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania)
who proposed an amendment to strike out the word "male," and thus
extend the right of suffrage to the women, as well as the black
men of the District. That amendment gave us a splendid discussion
on woman suffrage that lasted three days in the Senate of the
United States. It was a Democratic legislature that secured the
right of suffrage to the women of Wyoming, and we now ask you in
national convention to pledge the Democratic party to extend this
act of justice to the women throughout the nation, and thus call
to your side a new political force that will restore and
perpetuate your power for years to come.

The Republican party gave us a plank in their platform in 1872,
pledging themselves to a "respectful consideration" of our
demands. But by their constitutional interpretations, legislative
enactments, and judicial decisions, so far from redeeming their
pledge, they have buried our petitions and appeals under laws in
direct opposition to their high-sounding promises and
professions. And now (1876) they give us another plank in their
platform, approving the "substantial advance made toward the
establishment of equal rights for women"; cunningly reminding us
that the privileges and immunities we now enjoy are all due to
Republican legislation--although, under a Republican dynasty,
inspectors of election have been arrested and imprisoned for
taking the votes of women; temperance women arrested and
imprisoned for praying in the streets; houses, lands, bonds, and
stock of women seized and sold for their refusal to pay unjust
taxation--and, more than all, we have this singular spectacle: a
Republican woman, who had spoken for the Republican party
throughout the last presidential campaign, arrested by Republican
officers for voting the Republican ticket, denied the right of
trial by jury by a Republican judge, convicted and sentenced to a
fine of one hundred dollars and costs of prosecution; and all
this for asserting at the polls the most sacred of all the rights
of American citizenship--the right of suffrage--s