nna Ella Carroll makes plans and
maps for the campaign; McClellan and Meade are commanded to
collect the columbiads, muskets and ammunition, and move their
men to the attack. At the same time the saintly Clara Barton
collects her cordials, medicines and delicacies, her lint and
bandages, and, putting them in the ambulance assigned, joins the
same moving train. McClellan's men meet the enemy, and
men--brothers--on both sides fall by the death-dealing missiles.
Miss Barton and her aids bear off the sufferers, staunch their
bleeding wounds, soothe the reeling brain, bandage the crippled
limbs, pour in the oil and wine, and make as easy as may be the
soldier's bed. What a solemn and heartrending farce is here
enacted! And yet in our present development men and women seek to
reconcile it with the requirements of religion and the
necessities of our conflicting lives. So few recognize the
absolute truth!

Mrs. DEVEREUX BLAKE said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the
Committee_: I come here with your own laws in my hands--and the
volume is quite a heavy one, too--to ask you whether women are
citizens of this nation? I find in this book, under the heading
of the chapter on "Citizenship," the following:

Sec. 1,992. All persons born in the United States and not
subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed,
are declared to be citizens of the United States.

I suppose you will admit that women are, in the language of the
section, "persons," and that we cannot reasonably be included in
the class spoken of as "Indians not taxed." Therefore I claim
that we are "citizens." The same chapter also contains the
following:

Sec. 1,994. Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married
to a citizen of the United States, and who might herself be
lawfully naturalized, shall be deemed a citizen.

Under this section also we are citizens. I am myself, as indeed
are most of the ladies present, married to a citizen of the
United States; so that we are citizens under this count if we
were not citizens before. Then, further, in the legislation known
as "The Civil Rights Bill," I find this language:

All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States
shall have the same right, in every State and terri