future. We see in it the thin edge of the entering wedge which shall break woman's slavery in pieces and make us at last a nation truly free—a nation in which the caste of sex shall fall down by the caste of color, and humanity alone shall be the criterion of all human rights. The Republican party has been the party of ideas, of progress. Under its leadership, the nation came safely through the fiery ordeal of the rebellion; under it slavery was destroyed; under it manhood suffrage was established. The women of the country have long looked to it in hope, and not in vain; for to-day we are launched by it into the political arena, and the Republican party must hereafter fight our battles for us. This great party, this progressive party, having taken the initiative step, will never go back on its record. It needed this new and vital issue to keep it in life, for Cincinnati indorsed its work up to this hour; the constitutional amendments, the payment of the bonds in gold, the civil service reform, the restoration of the States. It thanked the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, it proposed lands to actual settlers. The Republican party went up higher; it remembered all citizens. The widows and orphans of the soldiers and sailors were not forgotten; it acknowledged its obligation to the loyal women of the Republic, and to the demands for additional rights, of all women, whatever their class, color, or birth, it promised "respectful consideration." Its second plank declared that "complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and public rights should be established and maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legislation." These two planks are the complement of each other, and are the promise of exact and equal justice to woman. They were the work of radical woman suffrage Republicans—of Wilson, Sargent, Loring, Claflin, Hoar, Fairchild, and others. They were accepted by the candidates. General Grant, in his letter, expresses his desire to see "the time when the title of 'citizen' shall carry with it all the protection and privilege to the humblest, that it does to the most exalted." His course since his elevation to the Presidency has always been favorable to increased rights for women. He has officially recognized their competency, and has given them many government positions. Senator Wilson is an old and staunch advocate of woman suffrage, and his letter in pointed terms refers to the recognition given woman by his party, and says, "to her new demands it extends the hand of grateful recognition, and it commends her demands for additional rights to the calm and careful consideration of the nation." And, too, thus early in the campaign, the strongest men of the party, among whom are Forney, of the Philadelphia Press, Gerrit Smith, Bowen, of the New York Independent, and President White, of Cornell University, speak of this recognition as introducing a new era into politics.
While the old and tried Republican party in its platform and candidates thus gives woman assurance that her claim to equal political rights is to be respected, the other party in the field gives her no promise either in its platform or the letters of its nominees. The Liberal Republican party is a new party; it has no record; it has done no work; it is wholly untried; it ignores women; and by its silence in regard to the equal rights of one-