New York April 10th
[1869]

Edward Bains M.O.

Honored sir,
Knowing your interest in “woman’s suffrage” I take the liberty of asking a letter to the coming Anniversary. If it does not come in time to be read at the convention it will be published in our leading journals.
Yours with respect
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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Page 2

ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION

The American Equal Rights Association will hold its Anniversary in New York, Steinway Hall, Wednesday and Thursday, May 12th and 13th, and in Brooklyn, Academy of Music, On Friday, the 14th.
After a century of discussion on the rights of citizens in a republic, and the gradual extension of Suffrage, without property or educational qualifications, to all white men, the thought of the nation has turned for the last thirty years to negroes and women.
And in the enfranchisement of black men by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution, the Congress of the United States has now virtually established on this continent an aristocracy of sex, an aristocracy hitherto unknown in the history of nations.
With every type and shade of manhood thus exalted above their heads, there never was a time when all women, rich and poor, white and black, native and foreign, should be so wide awake to the degradation of their position, and so persistent in their demands to be recognized in the government.
Woman’s enfranchisement is now a practical question in England and the United States. With bills before Parliament, Congress and all our State legislatures—with such able champions as John Stuart Mill and George William Curtis, women need but speak the word to secure her political freedom to-day.
We sincerely hope that in the coming National Anniversary every State and Territory, east and west, north and south, will be represented. We invite delegates, too, from all those countries in the Old World where women are demanding their political rights.
Let there be a grand gathering in the metropolis of the nation, that Republicans and Democrats may alike understand, that with the women of this country lies a political power in the future, that both parties would do well to respect.
The following speakers from the several states are already pledged: Anna E. Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Mary A. Livermore, Madam Anneke, Lilie Peckham, Phebe Couzens, Mrs. M. H. Brinkerhoff.

LUCRETIA MOTT, President.

[column 1]
Vice-Presidents.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, New York.
Frederick Douglass, “
Henry Ward Beecher, “
Martha C. Wright, “
Frances D. Gage, “
Olympia Brown, Massachusetts,
Elizabeth B. Chase, Rhode Island,
Charles Prince, Connecticut,
Robert Purvis, Pennsylvania,
Antoinette B. Blackwell, New Jersey,
Josephine S. Griffing, Washington, D. C.
Thomas Garrett, Delaware, ‘
Stephen H. Camp, Ohio,
Euphemia Cochrane, Michigan,
Mary A. Livermore, Illinois,
Mrs. I. H. Sturgeon, Missouri,
Amelia Bloomer, Iowa,
Mary A. Starret, Kansas,
Virginia Penny, Kentucky.
Corresponding Secretary.

Mary E. Gage.

[Column 2]
Recording Secretaries.
Henry B. Blackwell,
Harriet Purvis.
Treasurer.
John J. Merritt.
Executive Committee.
Lucy Stone,
Edward S. Bunker,
Elizabeth R. Tilton,
Ernestine L. Bose,
Robert J. Johnston,
Edwin A. Studwell,
Anna Cromwell Field,
Susan B. Anthony,
Theodore Tilton,
Margaret E. Winchester,
Abby Hutchinson Patton,
Oliver Johnson,
Mrs. Horace Greeley,
Abby Hopper Gibbons,
Elizabeth Smith Miller.


- Communications and Contributions may be addressed to JOHN J. MERRITT, 131 William street, New York.

Newspapers friendly, please publish this call.
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Page 3

[typed transcript]

Alma Lutz Collection

New York April 10th (1869)

Edward Bains M.P.
Honored sir
Knowing your interest in “Woman’s Suffrage” I take the liberty of asking a letter to the coming anniversary. If it does not come in time to be read at the convention it will be published in our leading journals.
Yours with respect
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(On Equal Rights Association circular)