The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-09-12

ll,
but also the foregoing and other declara-
tions Of the fathers and founders Of the
American Republic, which are now, by
the people Of California, accepted as pO-
IiticaI axioms; and it further represents,
that having been taught to cherish,
with reverent regard, our inherited in
stitutious and customs, this hereditary
Acknowledgement of woman, this bolting
against her the doors to political author
ity, which enacts laws, defines crimes,
determines their penalties, and directs
the moulding and controlling conditions
of society for good or evil-has been
blindly accepted by the people as right
and in harmony with our boasted prin-
ciples of political equality and justice.
This has rendered the public insensible
to the great wrongs which class author
ity has imposed upon woman and which
elass-interest seeks by legislation to per-
petuate.
Deprived Of political authority, it fol-
lows, that whatever Of legislation, which
modifies the asperities Of woman's posi-
tion, comes by the grace Of the domi-
nant order, inasmuch as those OF the
disfranchised and subject class are pow
erless to enforce their claims.
Strongly impressed with the eonvie-
tion that majority Of those who COM
pose the favored and enfranchised sex
are animated by the spirit of right and
justice, and are disposed, as they shall
discover the injustice and cruelty OF her
legal disabilities, to repeal those laws
which, resting for authority on heredit-
airy custom, operate to injure, prescribe
or ioppress their mothers and sisters,
wives and daughters, the Board here
with submit, for your earnest considera-
ton, few OF the many legal disabili-
ties under which the women Of Califor-
mia are now laboring, and which you,
gentlemen, as party representatives,
convened to select wise and just men as
candidates for election to the Legisla-
ture, to frame and enact laws for the
protection and government Of the peo-
pie, In the interest Of right and justice,
have it in your power, at the present
time, to do much for their removal, as
follows:
lst. They are held amenable to laws
which they have had no voice in enact
ing, and to which they have never been
invited to yield their assent; laws which
deprive them OF their property, their
liberty and their lives.
ID. They are excluded from sharing
the honors and the emoluments Of thous-
ands Of official positions, of large pay,
light work and short days; to discharge
the duties, Of most Of which, woman is
naturally as well fitted as man.
Sd. They are denied official authority
in the management Of the public school
department, and are, therefore excluded
from the most lucrative and honorable
positions as teachers, even though more
than four-fifths Of the educational staff,
in large towns and cities, are composed
OF women.
4th. They subject the femme dc pare
class to indignities and a system Of pro-
scriptiOn and oppression, which they do
not impose upon their male partners in
crime.
The laws discriminate, with cruel Sc
verify, against the wife, as the follow
ing facts indicate:
1st. They confer on the husband ab-
solute control over the management and
disposition Of the common property OF
husband and wife, and afford him facil-
tiles, il he be so inclined, to defraud his
widow of her equitable share Of the fam
lily estate.
ID. They deny her the same absolute
dominion over her private property as
is possessed by the husband over his in
dividual estate.
Sd. They deny to the widow the
same right of inheritance Of the ecommon
property, and the same unrestricted
right to its management, on the demise
Of the husband, as they award to the
husband on the death of the wife, but, at
his disease, the estate goes into probate,
to be closed up by strangers, by a tedi- |
Gus and expensive process.
4th. Tney afford the husband the |
means Of depriving his wife and the
mother Of his children OF the society, |
direction and education Of her own off |
spring.
5th. They allow the husband, while
the common property is in his posses
sion, without requiring even the formal |
ity Of legal complaint, the taking Of
an oath or the filing bond for the good
faith Of his action, to denounce, through |
the press, his wife as deserter, and
forbid her credit.
9Th. They require the wife, who may
be burdened with an invalid, limb scils
or drunken husband, before she can
transact business legally In her own
name and on her own account, to sub
init to an expensive, tedious and humil-
iating process before a tribunal which
may finally deny her application.
9TH. They exclude her, however well
qualified, from official positions on
boards Of management Of joint stock
corporations in which her money may
be invested.
The Board Is encouraged to address
you on this subject, because the Ma
tional Republican Convention, in June,
1872, at Philadelphia, proclaimed in its