An Appeal to the Women of the United States by the National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee, Washington, D.C.

Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1871. First edition. 4pp. 8vo. Near fine. First edition. 4pp. 8vo. Scarce first edition of this important document in the history of women’s suffrage in the United States, an articulation of the New Departure strategy of the National Woman Suffrage Association. The strategy argued that women were implicitly granted full citizenship and the right to vote under the Constitution and the XIVth and XVth Amendments and called for women to assert their right to vote by going to the polls to suing in court if refused. The New Departure marked a turn towards a federal and Constitutional focus in the fight for women’s suffrage, (truncated) and the National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee — with members Isabella Beecher Hooker (President), Josephine S. Griffing (Secretary), Mary B. Bowen (Treasure), Paulina Wright Davis, Ruth Carr Denison and Susan B. Anthony — was formed during the 1871 Woman Suffrage Convention in January 1871 in Washington, D.C., to advance this new strategy.

The Appeal contains a "Declaration and Pledge of the Women of the United States concerning their Right to and their Use of the Elective Franchise," which opens:

"We, the undersigned, believing that the sacred rights and privileges of citizenship in this Republic were guaranteed to us by the original Constitution, and that these rights are confirmed and more clearly established by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, so that we can no longer refuse solemn responsibilities thereof, do hereby pledge ourselves to accept the duties of the franchise in our several States, so soon as all legal restrictions are removed."

The Appeal calls for women to send in their names, recorded by the Secretary in a Pledge Book, and donations, suggested at $1. The Appeal also calls for donations to establish a printing fund, to publish and distribute suffrage literature. The text of the Appeal is reproduced in full in volume II of Stanton and Anthony's History of Woman Suffrage (1882).

In 1872 Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote in the presidential election of 1872. She was found guilty and ordered to pay a $100 fine (which she refused to pay). In 1875 the Supreme Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone, effectively putting an end to the New Departure strategy. Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, II, p. 485ff et seq; Kirchmar 1866 (Inventory #: 370651)