of our sovereign masters.  It will be quite time enough for us, with self-respect, to declare ourselves for or against any party upon the intrinsic merit of its policy, when men shall recognize us as their political equals, duly register our names and respectfully count our opinions at the ballot-box, as a constitutional right—­not as a high crime, punishable with “$500 fine or six months’ imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the court.”

If all the “suffragists” of all the States could see eye to eye on this point, and stand shoulder to shoulder against every party and politician not fully and unequivocally committed to “Equal Rights for Women,” we should become at once a moral balance of power which could not fail to compel the party of highest intelligence to proclaim woman suffrage the chief plank of its platform.  “In union alone there is strength.”  Until that good day comes, I shall continue to invoke the party in power, and each party struggling to get into power, to pledge itself to the emancipation of our enslaved half of the people; and in turn, I shall promise to do all a “subject” can do, for the success of the party which thus declares its purpose “to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free.”

[Footnote 91:  That women will, by voting, lose nothing of man’s courteous, chivalric attention and respect is admirably proven by the manner in which Congress, in the midst of the most anxious and perplexing presidential conflict in our history, received their appeals for a Sixteenth Amendment protecting the rights of women.  In both Houses, by unanimous consent, the petitions were presented and read in open session, and the most prominent senators impressed upon the Senate the importance of the question....  The ladies naturally feel greatly encouraged by the evident interest of both parties in the proposed amendment.—­Washington Star.

The time has evidently arrived when demands for a recognition of the personal, civil and political rights of one-half—­unquestionably the better half—­of the people can not be laughed down or sneered down, and recent indications are that they can not much longer be voted down.  The speaker of the House set a commendable example by proposing that the petitions be delivered in open session, to which there was no objection.  The early advocates of equal rights for women—­Hoar, Kelley, Banks, Kasson, Lawrence and Lapham—­were, if possible, surpassed in courtesy by those who are not committed, but are beginning to see that a finer element, in the body politic would clear the vision, purify the atmosphere and help to settle many vexed questions on the basis of exact and equal justice.  In the Senate the unprecedented courtesy was extended to women of half an hour’s time on the floor and while this kind of business has usually been transacted with an attendance of from seven to ten senators, it was observed that only two out of the twenty-six who had Sixteenth Amendment petitions to present were out of their seats.—­National Republican.]