Resolved, That we meet in our respective towns and districts on the Fourth of July, 1876, and declare ourselves no longer bound to obey laws in whose making we have had no voice and, in presence of the assembled nations of the world gathered on this soil to celebrate our nation’s centennial, demand justice for the women of this land.

Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage had long had in view the preparation of a history of the woman’s rights movement, which they expected to be a pamphlet of several hundred pages, and they offered this as a premium to every one who should send $5 toward the contemplated headquarters.[87] Fifty-two women responded at once, and with this $260 they ventured to rent fine, large parlors in a desirable part of Philadelphia and fit them up in an attractive manner.  By the laws of Pennsylvania a married woman could not make a contract and Miss Anthony, being the only femme sole, was obliged to assume the financial responsibility.  She and Mrs. Gage took charge of the headquarters May 25, and issued the following announcement: 

The National Woman Suffrage Association has established its Centennial headquarters in Philadelphia at No. 1431 Chestnut street.  The parlors, in charge of the officers of the association, are devoted to the special work of the year, pertaining to the centennial celebration and the political party conventions; also to calls, receptions, etc.  On the table a Centennial autograph book receives the names of visitors....

On July 4th, while the men of this nation and the world are rejoicing that “all men are free and equal” in the United States, a declaration of rights for women will be issued from these headquarters, and a protest against calling this Centennial a celebration of the independence of the people, while one-half are still political slaves.  Let the women of the whole land, on that day, in meetings, in parlors, in kitchens, wherever they may be, unite with us in this declaration and protest; and immediately thereafter send full reports for record in our centennial book, that the world may see that the women of 1876 know and feel their political degradation no less than did the men of 1776.

In commemoration of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the first woman’s rights convention, the National Suffrage Association will hold in Philadelphia, July 19 and 20, of the present year, a grand mass convention, in which eminent reformers from the new and the old world will take part.

From these headquarters eloquent letters were written to the national political conventions and sent by delegations of prominent women, asking for a woman suffrage plank.  The Democrats ignored the question in their platform; the Republicans adopted the following:  “The Republican party recognizes with approval the substantial advance recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by the many important amendments