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HISTORY
of
Woman Suffrage.
EDITED BY
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON,
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.
ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
1861-1876.
ALL PERSONS BORN OR NATURALIZED IN THE UNITED STATES, AND SUBJECT TO THE JURISDICTIONTHEREOF, ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
17 Madison St., Rochester, N. Y.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
PREFACE.
In presenting to our readers the second volume of the "History ofWoman Suffrage," we gladly return our thanks to the press for the manyfavorable notices we have received from leading journals, both in theold world and the new. The words of cordial approval from a largecircle of friends, and especially from women well known in periodicalliterature, have been to us a constant stimulus during the toilsomemonths we have spent in gathering material for these pages. It was ourpurpose to have condensed the records of the last twenty years in asecond volume, but so many new questions in regard to Citizenship,State rights, and National power, indirectly bearing on the politicalrights of women, grew out of the civil war, that the arguments anddecisions in Congress and the Supreme Courts have combined to swellthese pages beyond our most liberal calculations, with much valuablematerial that can not be condensed nor ignored, making a third volumeinevitable.
By their active labors all through the great conflict, women learnedthat they had many interests outside the home. In the camp andhospital, and the vacant places at their firesides, they saw howintimately the interests of the State and the home were intertwined;that as war and all its concomitants were subjects of legislation, itwas only through a voice in the laws that their efforts for peacecould command consideration.
The political significance of the war, and the prolonged discussionson the vital principles of government involved in the reconstruction,threw new light on the status of woman in a republic. Under a liberalinterpretation of the XIV. Amendment, women, believing their rights ofcitizenship secured, made several attempts to vote in differentStates. Those who succeeded were arrested, tried, and convicted. Thosewho were denied the right to register their names and deposit theirvotes, sued the Inspectors of Election. Others<