2d. That all laws relative to the inheritance and ownership of property, to the division and administration of estates, and to the execution of Wills, be made equally applicable to women and men.
3d. That mothers be entitled, equally with fathers, to become guardians of their children.
4th. That confirmed and habitual drunkenness, of either husband or wife, be held as sufficient ground for divorce; and that the temperate partner be appointed legal guardian of the children.
5th. That women be exempted from taxation until their right of suffrage is practically acknowledged.
6th. That women equally with men be entitled to claim trial before a jury of their peers.
These petitions should be firm and uncompromising in tone; and a hearing should be demanded before Committees specially empowered to consider and report them. In my judgment, the time is not distant, when such petitions will be granted, and when justice, the simple justice they ask, will be cordially, joyfully rendered.
I call then for the publication of a Declaration of Woman's Rights, accompanied by Forms of Petitions, by the National Woman's Rights Convention at their present session. In good hope,
Your friend and brother,William Henry Channing.
Miss Brown remarked:
MR. HIGGINSON'S LETTER.
Worcester, Sept. 15, 1853.
Dear Friend: — In writing to the New York Woman's Rights Convention, I mentioned some few points of argument which no opponents of this movement have ever attempted to meet. Suffer me, in addressing the Cleveland Convention, to pursue a different course, and mention some things which the friends of the cause have not yet attempted to do.
I am of a practical habit of mind, and have noticed with some regret that most of the friends of the cause have rested their hopes, thus far, chiefly upon abstract reasoning. This is doubtless of great importance, and these reasonings have already made many converts; because the argument is so entirely on one side that every one who really listens to it begins instantly to be convinced, The difficulty is, that the majority have not yet begun to listen to it, and this" an great measure, because their attention has not been called to the facts upon which it is founded.
Suppose, now, that an effort were made to develop the facts of woman's wrongs. For instance:
1st. We say that the laws of every State of this Union do great wrong to woman, married and single, as to her person and property, in her private and public relations. Why not procure a digest of the laws on these subjects, then;