Stanton was the first speaker of the evening. By particular request she gave the same address recently delivered before the Legislature at Albany, and was followed by Ernestine L. Rose with one of her logical and convincing arguments.
Susan B. Anthony then read the following letters:
LETTER FROM HON. GERRIT SMITH.
My very dear Cousin:—It is proper that one of the first letters which I write in my new life, should be to the cousin whose views are most in harmony with my own. I call it my new life, because I have come up into it from the gates of death. May it prove a new life also, in being a far better and nobler one than that which I had hitherto lived!
I wake up with joy to see my old fellow-laborers still in their work of honoring God, in benefiting and blessing man. Your own zeal for truth is unabated. I see that you are still laboring to free the slave from his chains, and woman from her social, civil, and political disabilities; and to preserve both man and woman from defiling and debasing themselves with intoxicating liquors and tobacco. Precious reforms are these which have enlisted your powers! It is true that they do not cover the whole ground of religious duty. But it is also true that the religion, which, like the current one, opposes or ignores them all, is spurious; and so, too, that the religion which opposes or ignores any one of them is always sadly defective, if not always spurious.
Please add the inclosed draft for $25 to the fund for serving the cause of woman's rights. To no better cause can money, time, or talents be appropriated. I am in high health, compared with any I have enjoyed since the succession of my frightful diseases, begun two and a half years ago. My nerves, however, are still weak, and most of the year 1859 is still full of confusion and darkness to me.
LETTER FROM FRANCIS JACKSON, ESQ.
Resolved, That we from this platform instruct our legal representatives to make no more appropriations to colleges for boys exclusively. Now that we are large property holders and tax-payers, we protest against the injustice of being compelled to build and endow colleges into which we are forbidden to enter.
Resolved, That we advise women to apply to the trustees and heads of public libraries, galleries of art, and similar institutions, for employment as clerks and attendants, thus securing to themselves, when admitted, a more liberal means of support, and furnishing a stepping-stone to other occupations.
Resolved, That we return thanks to the Legislature of New York for its acts of justice to woman during the last session. But the work is not yet done. We still claim the ballot, the right of trial by a jury of our own peers, the control and custody of our persons in marriage, and an equal right to the joint earnings of the co-partnership. The geographical position and political power of New York make her example supreme; hence we feel assured that when she is right on this question, our work is done.
