The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-11-24
AN APPEAL.

just issued petition to Congress asking
an amendment to the United States
Constitution, that shall prohibit the
several States from DISTINGUISHING any
of their citizens on account of sex. This
petition will be sent throughout the
country for the signatures of those men
and women who believe in the citizens
right to UOte. In order to keep the diff
ferent States separate, and to know how
large petition each one rolls up, it is
desirable to have some central commit
tee in each State take the matter in
charge, and see that il is done with all
possible expedition. This committee
should print and send out petitions to
reliable persons in every county, urging
on them thOroughness and haste, and,
when the petitions are returned, paste
them together, roll up neatly, mark the
number of signatures ON the outside
with the name of the State, and forward
to the chairman of our Congressional
Committee at Washington, Sarah An
drews Spencer.
In those States where there are no
suffrage organizations, individuals
should take the responsibility of seeing
their States thoroughly canvassed. We
desire to present this petition to Con-
gress at the opening of the new year, at
which time we shall hold our eighth
annual convention in Washington, and
help our representatives to dedicate
their first acts of legislation in the Sec
ond century to secure justice to woman.
Having. petitioned our lawmakers,
State and national, for nearly thirty
years, many, from weariness and de-
spair, have vowed to sign no more; for
our petitions, say they, by the ten
thousands, are piled up in the ma
tional archives to-day, unmentioned
and ignored. But is it not possi
ble to roll up such numbers, carried
into Congress on the shoulders of stall
wart men, that they cannot be neglected
and forgotten by statesmen and poll
ticians, who are conquered, alike, by
majorities?
The women of this country have
never yet made such a united effort,
such thorough canvass of every State
for their own rights as they did for the
Southern slaves, when the Thirteenth
Amendment was pending. Then pc
tition of over 100000 was rolled up by
the leaders of the Woman Suffrage
movement and presented in the Senate
by the Hon. Charles Sumner. Promi-
| nent Republicans who welcomed and
praised our untiring efforts to secure the
black mans freedom, condemned us
when we made the same demands for
ourselves. And yet is not liberty as
sweet to us as to him? Are not the le-
gal disabilities of sex as grievous as
! those of race and color? Is not civil
rights bill, that shall open the college
doors, the trades, and professions, and
secure to woman her personal and prop
erty rights, as necessary for her protec-
ton as for the colored man?
The highest judicial authorities have
decided that the spirit and letter of ouI
national Constitution is not yet broad
enough to protect 2O,OOO,OOO women
United States citizens, in their inalien,
able rights. For protection, they refel
woman to the States. If our MdgnC
Charta of human rights can be thus mar
rowed by judicial Interpretation in ia
vOr of class legislation, then must W.
demand an amendment, that in clear
unmistakable language shall declare
the equality of woman before the law
endowed with all the rights, privileges
and immunities that belong to citizen
of republic.
We claim that women are citizens
first, of the United States, and second
of the State wherein they reside; hence
if robbed by State authorities of an!
right founded in nature or secured b,
law, they have the same right to ma
tional protection against the States a
against foreign powers. 1t is the dut.
of Congress, therefore, to secure to ever.
State Republican form of government
: and to every citizen the right to life
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
This cannot be said to exist in State
l where women, thoroughly qualified, ar
denied admission into colleges whic
their property is taxed to build and en-
dow, where they are denied the right
5 practice law, thus debarred from tn
most lucrative professions, where the
are denied voice in the government
and thus, while suffering all the i'll
/ that grow out of the giant evils of il
temperance, prostitution, war, heav
S taxes, political corruption, stand helI
less to effect any reform. Prayers, tear
: psalm-singing, sympathy, and expostu
lation are light in the balance with ths
n power at the ballOt-box that coins col
viction into law.
Constituting, as we do, one-half th
n people of this Republic, and equally r.
s sponsible with man for the education
: religion, and government of the risin
generation, let US, with united voice,
the dawn of this second century of oil
I national life, send forth a prote
1 against the present political status
. woman. that shall echo and re-ect