appreciate. Common justice demands
that a part of the law-makers and law-executors should be of her
own sex. In questions of marriage and divorce, affecting interests
dearer than life, both parties in the compact are entitled to an
equal voice.

Mrs. Nichols said in discussing the laws:

If a wife is compelled to get a divorce on account of the
infidelity of the husband, she forfeits all right to the property
which they have earned together, while the husband, who is the
offender, still retains the sole possession and control of the
estate. She, the innocent party, goes out childless and portionless
by decree of law, and he, the criminal, retains the home and
children by favor of the game law. A drunkard takes his wife's
clothing to pay his rum bills, and the court declares that the
action is legal because the wife belongs to the husband.

Hon. Gerrit Smith here made his first appearance upon the woman
suffrage platform, although he had written many letters expressing
sympathy and encouragement, and made a grand argument for woman's
equality. He closed by saying: "All rights are held by a precarious
tenure if this one right to the ballot be denied. When women are the
constituents of men who make and administer the laws they will pay due
consideration to woman's interests, and not before. The right of
suffrage is the great right that guarantees all others." Here also was
the first public appearance of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the youngest woman
taking part in the convention, who read an excellent paper urging that
daughters should be educated with sons, taught self-reliance and
permitted some independent means of self-support. A fine address also
was made by Paulina Wright Davis, who had managed and presided over the
two conventions held in 1850 and 1851 at Worcester, Mass.[14]

The queen of the platform at this time was Ernestine L. Rose, a Jewess
who had fled from Poland to escape religious persecution. She was
beautiful and cultured, of liberal views and great oratorical powers.
Her lectures on "The Science of Government" had attracted wide
attention. Naturally, she took a prominent part in the early woman's
rights meetings. On this occasion she presented and eloquently
advocated the following resolution:

We ask for our rights not as a gift of charity, but as an act of
justice; for it is in accordance with the principles of
republicanism that, as woman