has
always nobly defended the rights of women. He was a member of the
first special committee ever appointed to look after the interests
of women in the United States Senate. The leaders of the movement
in that State claim that they helped to place Senator Blair in his
present position by defeating his predecessor, Mr. Wadleigh, who
was hostile to the enfranchisement of women.

UNITED STATES SENATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 5, 1884.

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY: I had the honor duly to receive your
invitation to address the National Association during its
sessions in this city, for which I heartily thank you; but the
pressure of duties in the Senate, service upon committees being
just now specially exacting, makes it impossible for me to
accept.

I trust that I need not assure you of my full belief that woman
has the right and ought to have the privilege to vote. Whenever a
fundamental right exists both public and individual welfare are
promoted by its exercise and injured by its suppression. The
exercise of rights is only another name for the discharge of
duties, and the denial of the suffrage to an adult human being,
not deprived of it for mental or penal disability, is an
intolerable wrong. Such denial is not only a deprivation of right
to the individual, but it is an injury to the State, which is
only well governed when controlled by the conflicting opinions,
sentiments and interests of the whole, harmonized in the
ballot-box, and, by its fiat, elevated to the functions of law.
But you have no occasion for expression of theoretical views from
me.

If I may be pardoned a suggestion, it would be the specification
to the public mind of the practical uses and benefits which would
result from the exercise of the suffrage by women. Men are not
conscious that women lack the practical protection of the laws or
the comforts and conveniences of material and social relations
more than themselves. The possession of the ballot as a practical
means of securing happiness does not appear to the masses to be
necessary to women in our country. Men say: "We do the best we
can for our wives and children and relatives. They are as well
off as we." In a certain sense this appears to be true. The other
and higher truth is that woman suffrage is necessary in order
tha