; in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and
because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed and
fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist
that they have immediate admission to all the rights and
privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United
States. In entering upon the great work before us we
anticipate no small amount of misconception,
misrepresentation and ridicule; but we shall use every
instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We
shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State
and national legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit
and the press in our behalf. We hope this convention will be
followed by a series of conventions embracing every part of
the country.

The meeting also adopted a series of resolutions, one of which
was in the following words:

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the women of this country
to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective
franchise.

This declaration was signed by seventy of the women of Western
New York, among whom was one or more of those who addressed your
committee on the subject of the pending amendment, and there were
present, participating in and approving of the movement, a large
number of prominent men, among whom were Elisha Foote, a lawyer
of distinction, and since that time Commissioner of Patents, and
the Hon. Jacob Chamberlain, who afterwards represented his
district in the other House. From the movement thus inaugurated,
conventions have been held from that time to the present in the
principal villages, cities and capitals of the various States, as
well as the capital of the nation.

The First National Convention upon the subject was held at
Worcester, Mass., in October, 1850, and had the support and
encouragement of many leading men of the republic, among whom we
name the following: Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, John G. Whittier, A. Bronson Alcott, Samuel J. May,
Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Elizur
Wright, William J. Elder, Stephen S. Foster, Horace Greeley,
Oliver Johnson, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann. The Fourth
National Convention was held at the cit