Sec. 7. The people of this State have a right to assemble together to consult for their common good, or to instruct their representative, and to apply to the Legislature for the redress of grievances.

But, secret societies, associations or combinations illegally interfering with the business or occupation of private individuals or corporations, by force of numbers and violence, should be suppressed.

The rights enumerated in this Bill of Rights shall not be construed to limit other rights of the people not therein expressed. This declaration of rights and privileges of the inhabitants of this State, is hereby declared to be a part of the Constitution of the State, and shall not be violated under any pretense whatever.

WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.

MINORITY REPORT

FROM MR. TUOKER OF THE COMMITTEE ON SUFFRAGE, DISSENTING FROM REPORT OF SAID COMMITTEE ON PROPOSED AMENDMENT No. 195.

To the Constitutional Convention:

The undersigned, a member of your Committee on Suffrage, which committee has, by a majority vote, reported adversely upon the proposed constitutional amendment introduced by him (being Convention overture No. 195), respectfully dissenting from the conclusions of said majority, presents this minority report, and asks the adoption by this Convention of the overture No. 195, and its separate submission to the qualified male voters of the State, at the general election at which the proposed Constitution will be submitted.

The right of voting at popular elections in this State, as fixed in 1846, is set forth in section 1 of article 2 of the present Constitution. No qualification is exacted of the voter as regards his nativity, color, property, education or language. But he must be a male citizen, of the age of twenty-one years, and must have been ascertained by proper proofs to be entitled to what the Constitution denominates the right of suffrage; and he must have been a resident for a certain period of time. This was the situation, when the numerous petitions which have been presented to your

honorable body, and referred to and laid before your Suffrage Committee, were prepared and signed in the earlier months of the present year.

These petitions ask this Convention to provide the machinery by which the question of striking out the word "male" from the present first section can be submitted to a decision of the quali fied male voters themselves, that is to say, to the qualified male voters as they have just been defined. These qualified male voters are termed by the Constitution "The People of the State." They, and they alone, are to decide at the polls, upon any amend ments proposed by you to its organic law, and their verdict is to be final. Should your Convention accede to the petitioners' request, and the male voters approve of the striking out of the word "male," its result would, of course, be to admit the women of the State to the right of suffrage, equally with the men, and upon the same conditions and qualifications as are, or may be, imposed on the men.

As to the number of these petitioners, who have asked you, in this manner, to submit this question, it may be asserted, with confidence, that it exceeds that of any army of póstulants which has ever made such an appeal from the governed to the governing power, in any time, or in any country. You have received the signatures, attached to memorials prepared by the Women's Suffrage Committee, of no less than 171,449 women and 119,074 men, besides those presented by the Womens' Christian Temper ance Union, amounting to 73,000, both men and women. In addition to this, you have had presented to you the resolutions of the State Grange Association, which claims to represent 50,000 members of both sexes, and, finally, the indorsement and approval of labor and trade unions, throughout the State, attested by the officials and the seals of such organizations, as claimed, of 211,396, making its total of the memorialists who have asked for women suffrage, 624,909.

Successful demands for extensions of suffrage to persons not already entitled to it have not been a novelty in this State, and there are precedents and parallels for the granting of such exten sions from colonial times down. The charter of 1691, confined the suffrage to freeholders worth forty pounds. The patriot framers of our first State Constitution imposed an ownership of a twenty-pound freehold, or a rent payment of forty shillings. In 1811, this property qualification was changed to $250. In 1821, every white male citizen who had paid taxes or performed mili

tary or fireman's duty, or highway labor, received the right of suffrage. In 1846, the last vestige of property qualification was removed from white males, but it was still imposed upon colored voters. One of the most resolute struggles made in the Constitutional Convention of 1867-68, was over the attempted removal of this inequality, which still rested upon the black men of this State. It may be remarked that each of the modifications of voters' qualifications which have been referred to, was made upon the urgent appeal of those disfranchised, and in accordance with the advancing spirit, which demanded constantly more and more the equality of all the members of the State before the law, and their participation, to a greater degree, in the affairs of government and the control of public matters. Our ancestors believed, and acted upon the belief, that the true policy of a free government was to attach the greatest possible proportion of the people to its operations, by associating them in interest with its maintenance and direction, as fast and as far as might be prudent. When a portion of the inhabitants, theretofore excluded, came forward, from time to time, to claim participation in the government, they did not hesitate to grant the demand. But never, in the experience of human affairs, have petitions for suffrage been presented from so numerous a body of reputable and capable citizens as those against which your Committee on Suffrage now fulminates its majority report.

When the appeal for equal suffrage for the blacks came into the Constitutional Convention of 1867, it was debated at considerable length, and arguments, such as have lately become familiar to the members of this honorable body, were brought forward and emphasized. That Convention, like the present one, did not consider the subject in a mere partisan light. A majority favored equal suffrage for colored men, but they were modest enough to remember their merely representative capacity, and that their function was, not to arrogate to themselves the decis ion of fundamental questions, but to relegate the submission of such questions to their constituents. They, therefore, decided that that provision of the new Constitution they had framed, relating to negro suffrage, be separately submitted to popular vote, and the act of the Legislature of 1869 affirmed their judgment. As negro suffrage was separately submitted in 1869, the undersigned proposes that woman suffrage shall now be submitted, without decision on the part of the Convention, without expressing to the voters any preference, and simply by an act of

deference towards our constituency, of a matter which belongs to them alone to determine.

Notwithstanding the absolute rejection, by your Suffrage Committee, of the proposition to follow this precedent, and consult our constituency, the undersigned cannot believe that this Convention will refuse to the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of its members, the same measure of opportunity and equality which its predecessor so freely gave, twenty-five years ago, to the colored men of New York. He cannot believe that it will deny this great referendum. The numerical strength of those who have addressed you is a testimony of the remarkable intellectual and educational progress of our women within the past generation. It shows that, since the last previous Convention, women, in this country, have emerged from pure domestic occupations and have come to participate largely in the affairs of the world. They now partake of the activity of the literary, scientific, artistic, industrial and business concerns of human life. They have advanced by every path, so rapidly and successfully, as to revolutionize, at the end of the century, the ideas as to their place and duties which prevailed at its beginning. And it is but natural, that this remarkable approximation toward equality with men in social and civil conditions, should have induced aspirations for equality in civil powers and functions.

Yet, the claim is persistently made that, as a mass, the women of this State do not desire this concession. Unfortunately, our political system does not afford, at this time, any means of determining, with absolute certainty, whether they do or do not Their wishes can only be inferred from the memorials which have been here presented, in which the members who ask for suffrage are in proportion of twenty to every one who has in a similar way declined it. Since we cannot submit this question to them, at an election, and because a final decision upon the acts and proposals of this Convention can only be given by the male voters who authorized and elected it, the test, whether women do desire the ballot, or not, must be had by conferring upon them the power to use it, or to refuse and neglect it, in their own discretion. But the fact that this Convention was chosen by, and directly represents only, the male citizens of the State, should, in the opinion of the undersigned, be held to impose upon it the duty of giving its constituents the opportunity to bestow upon females, or to refuse to them, at the polls, a participation in the rights they themselves enjoy. The earnestness and the magni

tude of the appeal they have made to us, not only justifies but demands such a course.

The amendment which the undersigned proposes is to be added to the first section of article 2. It will separately submit to our constituents the question of striking out the word "male." It will so submit it, without the expression by this Convention of any decision, or even any opinion, upon the merits of that ques tion. It will do so separate from all other matters involved in the adoption or rejection of the Constitution. It suggests neither "aye" nor "nay" to the voter. It follows strictly its precedent of the negro suffrage amendment submitted to the people in 1869. In fact, its sole purpose is to use the machinery of separate submission which the Convention act enables us to use, to refer the decision to the male voters, our constituents, disconnected from any other issue. The undersigned submits that the adoption of this simple but decisive plan will at once demonstrate our reliance upon popular judgment and our deference to a demand more emphatically urged than any other that has been addressed to this Convention.

The undersigned, therefore, recommends the adoption, by this Convention, of proposed constitutional amendment No. 195, in the following language:

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

To amend article two of the constitution, so as to separately submit to the electors of this State the question of woman suffrage.

The Delegates of the People of the State of New York, in Convention assembled, do propose as follows:

Section 1 of article 2 of the Constitution is hereby amended by adding the following words at the end thereof:

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But at the general election at which this Constitution shall be submitted to the electors of this State for adoption or rejection, the question, shall the word male' be stricken from article second, section one of the Constitution, and cease to be a part thereof?" shall be separately submitted to, and be decided by, the said electors; and in case a majority of the electors, voting at such election on that question, shall decide in favor of such striking out, then, and not otherwise, the said word shall be stricken from this section, and cease to be a part thereof; and in that event every female citizen