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[109th Congress Public Law 49]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]

[DOCID: f:publ049.109]

[[Page 119 STAT. 457]]

Public Law 109-49
109th Congress

                            Joint Resolution

 
 Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the women suffragists 
    who fought for and won the right of women to vote in the United 
            States. <<NOTE: Aug. 2, 2005 -  [H.J. Res. 59]>> 

Whereas <<NOTE: Lucretia Mott. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.>> one of the 
    first public appeals for women's suffrage came in 1848 when Lucretia 
    Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton called a women's rights convention 
    in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19, 1848;
Whereas <<NOTE: Sojourner Truth.>> Sojourner Truth gave her famous 
    speech titled ``Ain't I a Woman?'' at the 1851 Women's Rights 
    Convention in Akron, Ohio;

Whereas <<NOTE: National Woman Suffrage Association. American Woman 
    Suffrage Association.>> in 1869, suffragists formed two national 
    organizations to work for the right to vote: the National Woman 
    Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association;

Whereas these two organizations united in 1890 to form the National 
    American Woman Suffrage Association;

Whereas <<NOTE: Susan B. Anthony.>> in 1872, Susan B. Anthony and a 
    group of women voted in the presidential election in Rochester, New 
    York;

Whereas she was arrested and fined for voting illegally;

Whereas at her trial, which attracted nationwide attention, she made a 
    speech that ended with the slogan ``Resistance to Tyranny Is 
    Obedience to God'';

Whereas on January 25, 1887, the United States Senate voted on women's 
    suffrage for the first time;

Whereas <<NOTE: Carrie Chapman Catt. Maud Wood Park. Lucy Burns. Alice 
    Paul. Harriot E. Blatch.>> during the early 1900s, a new generation 
    of leaders joined the women's suffrage movement, including Carrie 
    Chapman Catt, Maud Wood Park, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Harriot E. 
    Blatch;

Whereas women's suffrage leaders devoted most of their efforts to 
    marches, picketing, and other active forms of protest;

Whereas Alice Paul and others chained themselves to the White House 
    fence;

Whereas the suffragists were often arrested and sent to jail, where many 
    of them went on hunger strikes;

Whereas almost 5,000 people paraded for women's suffrage up Pennsylvania 
    Avenue in Washington, DC; and

Whereas on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States 
    Constitution granted women in the United States the right to vote: 
    Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, That it is the sense of 
Congress that women suffragists should be revered and

[[Page 119 STAT. 458]]

celebrated for working to ensure the right of women to vote in the 
United States.

    Approved August 2, 2005.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY--H.J. Res. 59:
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 151 (2005):
            July 25, considered and passed House.
            July 28, considered and passed Senate.

                                  <all>
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