Connecticut western news., 1874-02-06
The Woman Suffrage Question.

The Judiciary Committee of the New York Assembly held @ meeting in the Assembly Chamber to give hearing on the petitions in favor of. granting the right of suffrage to women and on the remonstances against taxation without representation. Mrs. Blake of New York said: ; % ,*s @ t&
 In coming here once more to ask for our rights, we feel inclined rather to de- mand of you some good and excellent reason why they should be refused to us, than to beg or persuade you to grant what is so justly our due. By what God-give authority do you refuse to us citizens of this State the privileges which you claim for yourself ? It is true that you hold the power, but ill ex- cluding us from our equal share with you, you are guilty of 8 usurpation as great as we should commit were we to stand in your places and exclude you. Having this power you have, as if to fill up the measure of your injustice to us, raised to the rank of your political equals the poorest and most degraded of your own sex-even the colored men, who a little while ago were the very outcasts of society. We demand by what authority you have done this while refusing justice to us !? Are we so much more stupid, 30 much more degraded, so much less moral than these men, that we are unworthy to share the privileges they enjoy? But when with hearts hot within us we indignantly ask you these questions, you will perhaps say that women are so well protected by men that they do not need these political se- curities, or that women do not want to vote. Let us look at these two argu- ments. First, as to this spacious theory of protection. It sounds very we'll, but let me ask who is it that women fear on lonely roads at night? Is it the mem- bers of their own sex r-of that sex who are their "natural protectors ?" and when we come to legal matters let us see how this theory works. "A dis franchised class is always an oppressed class" said one of the greatest states men, and to-day women find it very diffi- cult to obtain justice in courts of law, and small wonder, when judges hold their seats by election, that they give the preference to voters in their rulings. If you tell me that women do not want to vote, tell you there is much to prove that this is not so. Our conventions and meetings are largely attended by audiences of women. In Washington the other day the women would not leave the hall the whole day in their eagerness to hear the gospel of their freedom and security. In Vir- ginia an election was held for postmas- ter, at which women, being permitted to vote, they went in great numbers to the ballot-box, while in Wyoming and elsewhere they have faithfully dis charged the new duties to society. At Newport, in this State, the votes of the women carried the election. Despite all these evidences of the wishes of one- half of our people, despite the justice of our claim, the last six months have heard the decree pronounced in this State that declares it to be crime for 8 woman to claim her freedom-a crime for woman to do that which is every manis duty. And we must pay. the taxes and obey the laws of a Government which can utter such 8 declaration as this Do you wonder that we are in- dignant, and that we ask of you, with persistence and eagerness, that you make haste to set US free.