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A Brief
In which I give
Some of my reasons why I think Con-
gress has a constitutional right to
make the laws that I have requested
it to enact in my petition, and why I
think Congress will have to exercise
this right in order to preserve our
Federal Government.

Feby. 28, 1914.

Mrs. James Bennett
Richmond, Ky.

It is a well established fact that a right to vote at pub-
lic elections was conferred upon some colored men in the
States of New York, New Jersey and North Carolina in the
early days of our Republic.

And that some white and colored women as well as
some colored men exercised a legal right to vote at state
elections upon the same terms as white men in New Jersey
from 1776 until that State entered the union in 1789, and
then exercised a legal right to vote at State elections and
for members of Congress and Presidential Electors in New
Jersey upon the same terms as white men until 1807, when
the Legislature of that State made a law which added

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