She acquiesced in the decision very readily, saying she only wished to test a principle, and retired very quietly from the hall.'

While thus mentioning the women with uncounted votes, it may be well to embalm here a historical fact, published in April, 1868:

In the year 1824 widows were allowed to vote in New Jersey on their husbands' tax receipts. The election officers paid great deference to the widows on these occasions, and took particular care to send carriages after them, so as to get their votes early and make sure of them. The writer of this has often heard his grandmother state that she voted for John Quincy Adams for president of the United States when he was elected to that office. Her name was Sarah Sparks, and she voted at Barnsboro', her husband having died the year previous.

N. M. WALLINGTON, Washington, D. C.

Miss Anthony held a spirited meeting in Rahway on Christmas eve, December 24, 1867. The following October, 1868, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony attended a two days' convention in Vineland, and helped to rouse the enthusiasm of the people. A friend, writing from there, gives us the following:

The Unitarian church in this town is highly favored in having for its pastor a young man of progressive and thoroughly liberal ideas. Rev. Oscar Clute is well known as an earnest advocate in the cause of woman. Last Sunday the communion or Lord's Supper was administered in his church. One of the laymen who usually assists in the distribution of the bread and wine, was absent, and Mr. Clute invited one of the women to officiate in his stead. She did so in such a sweet and hospitable manner that it gave new interest to the occasion. Even those who do not like innovations could not find fault. And why should any one be displeased? The Christ of the sacrament was the emancipator of women. In olden time they had deaconesses, and in most of our churches women constitute a majority of the communicants, so it seems particularly appropriate that they should be served by women. Women vote on all matters connected with this church, they are on all "standing committees," and sometimes are chosen and act as trustees.

Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford sends us the following reports of the progress of the movement in this State:

While Lucy Stone resided in New Jersey, she held several series of meetings in the chief towns and cities before the formation of the State Society. The agitation that began in 1867 was probably due to her, more than to any other one person in that State. The State society was organized in the autumn of 1867, and from year to year its annual meetings have been held in Vineland, Newark, Trenton, and other cities. On its list of officers † are some of the best men and women in the State.

* In a letter to Mary F. Davis, February 13, 1882, asking her for some facts in regard to that period, Lucy Stone says: "I have never kept any diary or record of my work. I have been too busy with the work itself. I could not answer your questions without a search among old letters and papers, which have been packed away for years, and I have not time to make the search, and cannot be accurate without. I know we had many meetings in New Jersey in all the large towns, beginning in Newark and Orange, and following the line of the railroad to Trenton, Camden, and Vineland, and then another series that included towns reached by stage, Salem being one, but I cannot tell whether these meetings were before or after the formation of the State Society." The records show that they were before, says Mrs. Davis; newspaper reports of them are in the archives of the Historcal Society.

+ President, Lucy Stone, Roseville; l'ice-Presidents, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Thomas B. Peddie, Portia Gage, Rev. Robert McMurdy, Cornelia Collins Hussey, George T. Cobb, Sarah E. Webb,

Several distinguished names from other States are among the speakers* who have taken part in their conventions. County and local societies too have been extensively organized. These associations have circulated tracts and appeals, memorialized the legislature, and had various hearings before that body. At the annual meeting held in Newark February 15, 1871, the following memorial to the legislature, prepared by Mary F. Davis, was unanimously adopted:

"

To the Honorable the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: Section 2, Article 1, of the constitution of the State of New Jersey, expressly declares that "All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people, and they have the right at all times to alter or reform the same, whenever the public good may require it." Throughout the entire article the words "people" and "person are used, as if to apply to all the inhabitants of the State. In direct contradiction to this broad and just affirmation, section I, article 2, begins with the restrictive and unjust sentence: Every white male citizen of the United States, at the age of twenty-one years shall be entitled to vote," etc., and the section ends with the specifino pauper, idiot, insane person, or person convicted of a crime shall enjoy the right of an elector."

"

*

cation that

*

*

*

Of the word "

white" in this article your memorialists need not speak, as it is made a dead letter by the limitations of the fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution. To the second restriction, indicated by the word "male" we beg leave to call the attention of the legislature, as we deem it unjust and arbitrary, as well as contradictory to the spirit of the constitution, as expressed in the first article. It is also contrary to the precedent established by the founders of political liberty in New Jersey. On the second of July, 1776, the provincial congress of New Jersey, at Burlington, adopted a constitution which remained in force until 1844, in which section 4 specified as voters, "all the inhabitants of this Colony, of full age," etc. In 1790, a committee of the legislature reported a bill regulating elections, in which the words "he and she" are applied to voters, thus giving legislative endorsement to the alleged meaning of the constitution.

The legislature of 1807 departed from this wise and just precedent, and passed an arbitrary act, in direct violation of the constitutional provision, restricting the suffrage to white male adult citizens, and this despotic ordinance was deliberately endorsed by the framers of the State constitution which was adopted in 1844. This was plainly an act of usurpation and injustice, as thereby a large proportion of the law-abiding citi zens of the State were disfranchised, without so much as the privilege of signifying their acceptance or rejection of the barbarous fiat which was to rob them of the sacred right of self-protection by means of a voice in the government, and to reduce them to the political level of the "pauper, idiot, insane person, or person convicted of crime." If this flagrant wrong, which was inflicted by one-half the citizens of a free commonwealth on the other half, had been aimed at any other than a non-aggressive and selfsacrificing class, there would have been fierce resistance, as in the case of the United Colonies under the British yoke. It has long been borne in silence. The right of voting for representatives," says Paine, is the primary right, by which other rights

Dr. James Brotherton, Isaac Stevens, Rev. H. A. Butler, A. J. Davis, James H. Nixon, Dr. G. H. Haskell, I. M. Peebles, Rev. C. H. Dezanne, William Baldwin; Corresponding Secretaries, Phebe A. Pierson, Miss P. Fowler; Recording Secretary, C. A. Paul; Treasurer, S. G. Silvester; Executive Committee, Mary F. Davis, Mrs. E. L. Bush, H. B. Blackwell, Rev. Oscar Clute, Miss Charlotte Bathgate, Rowland Johnson, Mrs. Robert McMurdy, Dr. D. N. Allen, Sarah Pierson, Lizzie Prentice, W. D. Conan, John Whitehead.

Among those who addressed the conventions and the legislature we find the names of Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Mary F. Davis, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Elizabeth R. Churchill, Elizabeth A. Kingsbury, Deborah Butler, Olive F. Stevens, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Mrs. Devereux Blake, Rev. Oscar Clute, Rev. Olympia Brown, Rev. Mr. McMurdy, Mr. Taylor, John Whitehead, Mrs. Seagrove, Henry B. Blackwell, Hon. James Scovell.