convention. They were allowed no part in the discussion. They
were denied seats as delegates, and, by reason of that denial, it
was determined to hold conventions after their return to the
United States, for the purpose of asserting and advocating their
rights as citizens, and especially the right of suffrage. Prior
to this, and as early as the year 1836, a proposal had been made
in the legislature of the State of New York to confer upon
married women their separate rights of property. The subject was
under consideration and agitation during the eventful period
which preceded the constitutional convention of New York in the
year 1846, and the radical changes made in the fundamental law in
that year. In 1848 the first act "For the More Effectual
Protection of the Property of Married Women" was passed by the
legislature of New York and became a law. It passed by a vote of
93 to 9 in the Assembly and 23 to 1 in the Senate. It was
subsequently amended so as to authorize women to engage in
business on their own account and to receive their own earnings.
This legislation was the outgrowth of a bill prepared several
years before under the direction of the Hon. John Savage,
chief-justice of the Supreme Court, and of the Hon. John C.
Spencer, one of the ablest lawyers in the State, one of the
revisers of the statutes of New York, and afterward a cabinet
officer. Laws granting separate rights of property and the right
to transact business, similar to those adopted in New York, have
been enacted in many, if not in most of the States, and may now
be regarded as the settled policy of American legislation on the
subject.

After the enactment of the first law in New York, as before
stated, and in the month of July, 1848, the first convention
demanding suffrage for women was held at Seneca Falls in said
State. The same persons who had been excluded from the World's
Convention in London were prominent and instrumental in calling
the meeting and in framing the declaration of sentiments adopted
by it, which, after reciting the unjust limitations and wrongs to
which women are subjected, closed in these words:

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half of
the people of this country and their social and religious
degradation