no more demonstration by argument than the first lines of the Declaration of American Independence. My claim for woman is simply this: Give her a full and fair chance to actin any sphere for which she can fit herself. Her sphere is as wide as man's. It has no limits except her capacity. If woman cannot perform a soldier's duty, then the army is not her sphere; if she can, it is her sphere, as much as it is man's.
I value the ballot for woman chiefly because it opens to her a wide, free avenue to a complete development of all her powers. The Chinese lady's shoe is nothing compared to the clamps and fetters which we Americans have put upon woman's mind and soul. An impartial observer would scarcely condemn the one and approve the other. What we need now is to accustom the public to these radical truths. Demand the ballot; demand woman's freedom. It is not a conflict of argument or reason, so much as a crusade against habit and prejudice. To tell the truth, I don't think there is a respectable argument in the world against woman suffrage. People think they are arguing or reasoning against it when they are in fact only repeating the prejudices in which they have been trained. With the sincerest wishes for the success of your meeting and of all your efforts for woman suffrage, I remain, yours very truly,
D. H. Chamberlain.
The American association memorialized the legislature March 13, 1872. The joint committee recommended an amendment to the constitution of the State, providing that every person, male or female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be entitled to vote. B.F. Whittemore, H. J. Maxwell, W. B. Nash, G. F. McIntyre, were the committee on the part of the Senate; C. D. Hayne, W. J. Whipper, Benj. Byas, B. G. Yocom, F. H. Frost, committee on the part of the House.
In the debate in congress in 1874, Hon. Alonzo J. Ransier of South Carolina, the civil-rights bill being under discussion, claimed that equal human rights should be extended to women as follows:
Miss Sallie R. Banks, for some years a teacher of colored schools in South Carolina, has been appointed collector of internal revenue for the Sumter district.
X.—Florida.
In 1880, the agricultural department at Washington, paid a premium of $12 to Madame Atzeroth of Manatee, for the first pound of coffee ever grown out of doors in the United States.
The following is from a letter to the Savannah News, reporting a judgment rendered by a Florida county judge, in a case between an old black man and his wife:
Ocala, Fla., May 12, 1874.
Be it known throughout all christendom that the husband is the head of the wife, and whatever is his is his'n, and whatever is hers is his'n, and come weal or woe, peace or war, the right of all property is vested in the husband, and the wife must not take anything away. The ox belongs to Uncle Ben, and he must keep it, and the other things, and if the old woman quits she must go empty-handed. Know all that this is so by order of the Judge of Probate.
[Signed]Wm. R. Hillyer.
Though quaintly expressed, yet this decision is in line with the old common law and the statutes of many of the States in this Union to-day.
