Committee on Resolutions, popularly known as the platform
committee, held a meeting in the Palmer House, June 2, to which
Belva A. Lockwood obtained admission. On motion of Mr. Fredley of
Indiana, Mrs. Lockwood was given permission to present the memorial
of the National Woman Suffrage Association to the Republican party.

_To the Republican Party in Convention assembled, Chicago, June
2, 1880_:

Seventy-six delegates from local, State and National suffrage
associations, representing every section of the United States,
are here to-day to ask you to place the following plank in your
platform:

_Resolved_, That we pledge ourselves to secure to women the
exercise of their right to vote.

We ask you to pledge yourselves to protect the rights of one-half
of the American people, and to thus carry your own principles to
their logical results. The thirteenth amendment of 1865,
abolishing slavery, the fourteenth of 1867, defining citizenship,
and the fifteenth of 1870, securing United States citizens in
their right to vote, and your prolonged and powerful debates on
all the great issues involved in our civil conflict, stand as
enduring monuments to the honor of the Republican party. Impelled
by the ever growing demand among women for a voice in the laws
they are required to obey, for their rightful share in the
government of this republic, various State legislatures have
conceded partial suffrage. But the great duty remains of securing
to woman her right to have her opinions on all questions counted
at the ballot-box.

You cannot live on the noble words and deeds of those who
inaugurated the Republican party. You should vie with those men
in great achievements. Progress is the law of national life. You
must have a new, vital issue to rouse once more the enthusiasm of
the people. Our question of human rights answers this demand. The
two great political parties are alike divided upon finance,
free-trade, labor reform and general questions of political
economy. The essential point in which you differ from the
Democratic party is national supremacy, and it is on this very
issue we make our demand, and ask that our rights as United
States citizens be secured by an amendment to the national
constitution. To carry this measure is not only your privileg