FOOTNOTES:
[76] See [History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 464].
[77] The other members in favor of this report were Ezra B. Taylor, O., Chairman; George E. Adams, Ill.; James Buchanan, N. J.; Albert C. Thompson, O.; H. C. McCormick, Penn., and Joseph R. Reed, Ia. The six members from the Southern States were opposed.
[78] National:—May Wright Sewall, Chairman; Isabella Beecher Hooker, Harriette R. Shattuck, Olympia Brown, Helen M. Gougar, Laura M. Johns, Clara Bewick Colby, Virginia L. Minor, Abigail Scott Duniway, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Mary B. Clay, Mary F. Eastman, Clara Neymann, Sarah M. Perkins, Jane H. Spofford, Lillie Devereux Blake, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Rachel Foster Avery, Secretary. American:—Julia Ward Howe, Chairman; Wm. Dudley Foulke, Margaret W. Campbell, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary F. Thomas, Hannah M. Tracy Cutler, Henry B. Blackwell, Secretary.
[79] The resolutions declared the constitutional right of women to vote, and continued:
Resolved, That as the fathers violated the principles of justice in consenting to a three-fifths representation, and in recognizing slavery in the Constitution, thereby making a civil war inevitable, so our statesmen and Supreme Court Judges by their misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, declaring that the United States has no voters and that citizenship does not carry with it the right of suffrage, not only have prolonged woman's disfranchisement but have undermined the status of the freedman and opened the way for another war of races.
Whereas, It is proposed to have a national law, restricting the right of divorce to a narrower basis, and
Whereas, Congress has already made an appropriation for a report on the question, which shows that there are 10,000 divorces annually in the United States and the majority demanded by women, and
Whereas, Liberal divorce laws for wives are what Canada was for the slaves—a door of escape from bondage, therefore,
Resolved, That there should be no farther legislation on this question until woman has a voice in the State and National Governments.
Resolved, That the time has come for woman to demand of the Church the same equal recognition she demands of the State, to assume her right and duty to take part in the revision of Bibles, prayer books and creeds, to vote on all questions of business, to fill the offices of elder, deacon, Sunday school superintendent, pastor and bishop, to sit in ecclesiastical synods, assemblies and conventions as delegates, that thus our religion may no longer reflect only the masculine element of humanity, and that woman, the mother of the race, may be honored as she must be before we can have a happy home, a rational religion and an enduring government.
They concluded with a demand that the platform of the suffrage association should recognize the equal rights of all parties, sects and races.
[80] There is no woman in the world who has wielded the gavel at as many conventions as has Miss Anthony.
[81] For account of Miss Anthony's determination not to accept the presidency see her Life and Work, p. 631.