14. Resolved, That it is the highest duty of legislators impartially to investigate all claims for the redress of wrong, and alter and amend such laws as prevent the administration of justice and equal rights to all.
Resolved, That all true-hearted men and women pledge themselves never to relinquish their unceasing efforts in behalf of the full and equal rights of women, until we have effaced the stigma resting on this republic, that while it theoretically proclaims that all men are created equal, deprives one-half of its members of the enjoyment of the rights and privileges possessed by the other.The salient points of the question as embodied in the resolutions and the address were ably presented by William Henry Channing, Samuel J. May, Mrs. Nichols, Mrs. Rose, Mrs. Love, Miss Brown, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Jenkins, Hon. William Hay, and Giles B. Stebbins. At the evening session Mrs. Stanton read her address prepared for the Legislature, which Miss Anthony had stereotyped and published. A copy was laid on the desk of every legislator, and twenty thousand scattered like snow-flakes over the State.
MRS. STANTON'S ADDRESS.
To the Legislature of the State of New York:
"The thinking minds of all nations call for change. There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless, grinding collision of the New with the Old."
The tyrant, Custom, has been summoned before the bar of Common-Sense. His majesty no longer awes the multitude — his sceptre is broken — his crown is trampled in the dust — the sentence of death is pronounced upon him. All nations, ranks, and classes have, in turn, questioned and repudiated his authority; and now, that the monster is chained and caged, timid woman, on tiptoe, comes to look him in the face, and to demand of her brave sires and sons, who have struck stout blows for liberty, if, in this change of dynasty, she, too, shall find relief. Yes, gentlemen, in republican America, in the nineteenth century, we, the daughters of the revolutionary heroes of '76, demand at your hands the redress of our grievances — a revision of your State Constitution — a new code of laws. Permit us then, as briefly as possible, to call your attention to the legal disabilities under which we labor.
1st. Look at the position of woman as woman. It is not enough for us that, by your laws we are permitted to live and breathe, to claim the necessaries of life from our legal protectors — to pay the penalty of our crimes; we demand the full recognition of all our rights as citizens of the Empire State. We are persons; native, free-born citizens; property-holders, tax-payers; yet are we denied the exercise of our right to the elective franchise. We support ourselves, and, in part, your schools, colleges, churches, your poor-houses, jails, prisons, the army, the navy, the whole machinery of government, and yet we have no voice in your councils. We have every qualification required by the Constitution, necessary to the legal voter, but the one of sex. We are moral, virtuous, and intelligent, and in all respects quite equal to the proud white man himself, and yet by your laws we are classed with idiots, lunatics, and negroes; and though we do not feel