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 effected by the Republican legislatures, in the laws which concern the personal and property relations of wives, mothers and widows, and by the election and appointment of women to the superintendence of education, charities and other public trusts. The honest demands of this class of citizens for additional rights, privileges and immunities should be treated with respectful consideration." In a letter from Mrs. Duniway, of Oregon, she says, "Well, the Republicans have thickened the old sop and re-served it."
The women were determined to obtain a recognition at the centennial celebration to be held July 4, in Independence Square. "It is the hour, the golden hour, for woman to speak her word which shall roll down our second century as has man's Fourth of July manifesto through the last one hundred years," wrote Miss Anthony. Then she and Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage put their heads together and framed a document which had all the holy fire of the immortal Declaration of Independence, and this they proposed to have made a part of the-great day's proceedings.7 Their efforts to this end, their repulse and their subsequent action are so delightfully described in the History of Woman Suffrage that it would be presumptuous to attempt to improve upon it. Their utmost efforts could obtain but four seats on the platform. Miss Anthony had a ticket as reporter for her brother's paper. The earnest request of Mrs. Stanton, president of the National Suffrage Association, to General Joseph R. Hawley, president of the Centennial Commission, not that the women might read but simply might present their declaration, was refused on the ground that the program could not be changed. The report thus continues:
As President Grant was not to attend the celebration, the acting Vice-President, Thomas W. Ferry, representing the government, was to officiate in his place and he, too, was addressed by note, and courteously requested to make time for the reception of this declaration. As Mr. Ferry was a well-known sympathizer with the demands of woman for political rights, it was presumable that he would render his aid. Yet he was forgetful that in his position that day he represented, not the exposition, but the government of a hundred years, and he too refused; thus the simple request of woman for a half moment's recognition on the nation's centennial birthday was denied by all in authority.
While the women of the nation were thus absolutely forbidden the right of public protest, lavish preparations were made for the reception and entertainment of foreign potentates and the myrmidons of monarchial institutions. Dom Pedro, emperor of Brazil, a representative of that form of government against which the United States is a perpetual defiance and protest, was welcomed with fulsome adulation, and given a seat of honor near the officers of the day; Prince Oscar of Sweden, a stripling of sixteen, on whose shoulders rests the promise of a future kingship, was seated near. Count Rochambeau of France, the Japanese commissioners, high officials from Russia and Prussia, from Austria, Spain, England, Turkey, representing the barbarism and semi-civilization of the day, found no difficulty in securing recognition and places of honor upon that platform, where representative womanhood was denied.
Though refused by their own countrymen a place and part in the centennial celebration, the women who had taken this presentation in hand were not to be conquered. They had respectfully asked for recognition; now that it had been denied, they determined to seize upon the moment when the reading of the Declaration of Independence closed, to proclaim to the world the tyranny and injustice of the nation toward one-half its people. Five officers of the National Suffrage Association, with that heroic spirit which has ever animated lovers of liberty in resistance to tyranny, determined, whatever the result, to present the Woman's Declaration of Rights at the chosen hour. They would not, they dared not sacrifice the golden opportunity to which they had so long looked forward; their work was not for themselves alone, nor for the present generation, but for all women of all time. The hopes of posterity were in their hands and they determined to place on record for the daughters of 1976 the fact that their mothers of 1876 had asserted their equality of rights, and impeached the government of that day for its injustice toward woman. Thus, in taking a grander step toward freedom than ever before, they would leave one bright remembrance for the women of the next Centennial.
That historic Fourth of July dawned at last, one of the most oppressive days of that terribly heated season. Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sara Andrews Spencer, Lillie Devereux Blake and Phoebe Couzins made their way through the crowds under the broiling sun to Independence Square, carrying the Woman's Declaration of Rights. This declaration had been handsomely engrossed by Mrs. Spencer and signed by the oldest and most prominent advocates of woman's enfranchisement. Their tickets of admission proved an open sesame through the military and all other barriers, and a few moments before the opening of the ceremonies, these women found themselves within the precincts from which most of their sex were excluded.
The declaration of 1776 was read by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, about whose family clusters so much of historic fame. The close of his reading was deemed the appropriate moment for the presentation of the Woman's Declaration. Not quite sure how their approach might be met—not quite certain if at this final moment they would be permitted to reach the presiding officer—these ladies arose from their seats at the back of the stage and walked down the aisle. The bustle of preparation for the Brazilian hymn covered their advance. The foreign guests, the military and civil officers who filled the space directly around the speaker's stand, courteously made way, while Miss Anthony in fitting words presented the Declaration. Mr. Ferry's face paled, as bowing low, with no word, he received it, and it thus became a part of the day's proceedings; the ladies turned, scattering printed copies as they deliberately passed up the aisle and off the platform. On every side eager hands were stretched; men stood on seats and asked for them, while General Hawley, thus defied and beaten in his audacious denial to women of the right to present their Declaration, shouted, "Order, order!"
Going out through the crowd, they made their way to a platform erected for the musicians in front of Independence Hall. Here on this historic ground, under the shadow of of Washington's statue, back of them the old bell which proclaimed "liberty to all the land and all the inhabitants thereof," they took their places, and to a listening, applauding crowd, Miss Anthony read a copy of the Declaration just presented to Mr. Ferry. It was warmly applauded at many points, and after again scattering a number of printed copies, the delegation descended from the platform and hastened to the convention of the National Association. A meeting had been appointed at 12 o'clock, in the First Unitarian church, where Rev. William H. Furness preached for fifty years, but whose pulpit was then filled by Joseph May, a son of Rev. Samuel J. May. They found the church crowded with an expectant audience, which greeted them with thanks for what they had just done; the first act of this memorable day taking place on the old centennial platform in Independence Square, the last in a church so long devoted to equality and justice.
The venerable Lucretia Mott, then in her eighty-fourth year, presided. Belva A. Lockwood took up the judiciary, showing the way that body lends itself to party politics. Matilda Joslyn Gage spoke upon the writ of habeas corpus, pointing out what a mockery to married women was that constitutional guarantee. Lucretia Mott reviewed the progress of the reform from the first convention. Sara Andrews Spencer illustrated the evils arising from two codes of morality. Lillie Devereux Blake spoke upon trial by jury; Susan B. Anthony upon taxation without representation, illustrating her remarks by incidents of unjust taxation of women during the present year. Elizabeth Cady Stanton pictured the aristocracy of sex and the evils arising from manhood suffrage. Judge Esther Morris, of Wyoming, said a few words in regard to suffrage in that territory. Phoebe Couzins, with great pathos, told of woman's work in the war. Margaret Parker, president of the women's suffrage club of Dundee, Scotland, and of the newly formed International W.C.T.U., declared this was worth the journey across the Atlantic. Mr. J.H. Raper, of Manchester, England, characterized it as the grandest meeting of the day, and said the patriot of a hundred years hence would seek for every incident connected with it, and the next Centennial would be adorned by the portraits of the women who sat upon that platform.