WOMEN'S RIGHTS DECLARATIONS AND CONVENTION RESOLUTIONS:
FROM THE WESLEYAN CHAPEL (1848) TO INDEPENDENCE HALL (1876)



WOMAN SUFFRAGE CONVENTION RESOLUTIONS, MASONIC TEMPLE, NEW YORK CITY, MAY 11, 1875.

RESOLVED, That as complete individual development depends on the harmonious exercise of our three-fold nature, and undue power given to either deranges ... the whole being, so in the nation, a complete experiment of self-government can be made only by the equal recognition of the rights of all citizens, and in their homogenous education into the laws of national life.

RESOLVED, That the decision of Chief-Justice Waite, in the case of Virginia L. Minor of Missouri, that according to the Federal Constitution woman is a citizen, but not entitled to the right of suffrage, is more in&mous and retrogressive in principle at this hour, than was Chief-Justice Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, that a black man was not a United States citizen, and therefore not entitled to the rights of a citizen of every State.

WHEREAS, by the recent decisions of the Supreme Court in the case of Myra Bradwell of Illinois, and of Virginia L. Minor of Missouri, the Federal Constitution is declared powerless to protect the civil and political rights of women,

RESOLVED, That it is the duty of Congress to take the necessary steps to secure an amendment to the Constitution that shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising citizens of the United States on account of sex.

WHEREAS, One of the strongest evidences of the degradation of disfranchised classes is the denial of their right to testify against their rulers in courts of justice (slaves could not testify against their masters; Chinamen in California to-day can not testify against white men, nor wives in cases of crim[inal] con[duct] against their husbands; therefore

RESOLVED, That as the proposition for woman's enfranchisement is to be submitted in Iowa, in 1876, the National Woman Suffrage Association will hold there l00 county conventions, and by lectures and the circulation of tracts, help the women of Iowa to make a thorough canvass of the State.

RESOLVED, That we congratulate the women of England for the large vote secured on the Woman's Disabilities Bill in the house of Commons. With a Queen on her throne, 400,000 woman already voting, and her Premier in favor the measure, England bids fair to take the lead in the complete enfranchisement of women.