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IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

January 22, 1913.

Ordered, That Senate Report Numbered Six hundred and eightysix, and part two of said report (Forty-seventh Congress, first session); Senate Report Numbered Three hundred and ninety-nine, and part two of said report (Forty-eighth Congress, first session); House of Representatives Report Numbered One thousand three hundred and thirty (Forty-eighth Congress, first session); Senate Report Numbered One thousand one hundred and forty-three, and views of minority (Fifty-second Congress, second session); and "Hearings before a Joint Committee of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Woman Suffrage of the Senate on Woman Suffrage," be printed as a Senate document.

Attest:

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CHARLES G. BENNETT,

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D. OF D.
FED 1 1913

Secretary.

[Senate Report No. 686, Forty-seventh Congress, first session.]

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

JUNE 5, 1882.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. Lapham, from the Committee on Woman Suffrage, submitted the following report (to accompany S. Res. 60):

The Select Committee on Woman Suffrage, to whom was referred Senate resolution No. 60, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to secure the right of suffrage to all citizens without regard to sex, having considered the same, respectfully report:

The gravity and importance of the proposed amendment must be obvious to all who have given the subject the consideration it demands.

A very brief history of the origin of this movement in the United States and of the progress made in the cause of female suffrage will not be out of place at this time.

A World's Anti-Slavery Convention was held in London on the 12th of June, 1840, to which delegates from all the organized societies were invited. Several of the American societies sent women as delegates. Their credentials were presented, and an able and exhaustive discussion was had by many of the leading men of America and Great Britain upon the question of their being admitted to seats in the convention. They were allowed no part in the discussion. They were denied seats as delegates; and, by reason of that denial, it was determined to hold conventions after their return to the United States, for the purpose of asserting and advocating their rights as citizens, and especially the right of suffrage.

Prior to this, and as early as the year 1836, a proposal had been made in the Legislature of the State of New York to confer upon married women their separate rights of property. The subject was under consideration and agitation during the eventful period which preceded the constitutional convention of New York in the year 1846, and the radical changes made in the fundamental law in that year. In 1848 the first act "for the more effectual protection of the property of married women" was passed by the Legislature of New York and became a law. It passed by a vote of 93 to 9 in the assembly and 23 to 1 in the senate. It was subsequently amended so as to authorize women to engage in business on their own account and to receive their own earnings.

This legislation was the outgrowth of a bill prepared several years before under the direction of the Hon. John Savage, chief justice of the supreme court, and of the Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the ablest lawyers in the State, one of the revisers of the statutes of New York, and afterwards a Cabinet officer.

Laws granting separate rights of property, and the right to transact business similar to those adopted in New York, have been enacted

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