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To the Honorable President and Members of the Constitutional Convention of Utah.
Gentlemen: -
Your Memorialists respectfully represent to your Honorable Body that the women of Davis County desire to unite with their sisters from other parts of the Territory in asking you to provide in the Constitution of the State of Utah for eqaul suffrage to men and women.
We believe that the present disfranchised condition of women is a reproach to the government of this free land. It is a relic of the dark ages when, through superstition and bigotry, women were regarded as chattels and political nonentities. It is not in keeping with the higher civilization of the 19th Century.
The right to live in a free government and to contribute to its stability and prosperity should carry with it the right to participate in the affairs of the government. Experience has shown that women can perform these sacred duties with the same intelligence and integrity as men. For seventeen years we exercised the rights of electors in Utah and during that time no change was ever made that any woman had abused the precious privileges conferred upon her. This is the first opportunity that Utah has had to restore the franchise. Surely you will not hesitate to vindicate us now, and prove to the world that Utah men are neither ashamed nor afraid of Utah women.
When our patriot fathers enunciated the grandest declaration of human rights that the world has even seen, they placed the fudamental principles of universal equality, and the right of representation in governmental affairs, at the very foundation of our temple of Liberty. The declaration that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that taxtation without representation is tyranny, will go thundering down the ages as immortal axioms. It is for you to give them full force in the organic law of our new State. That you will do so, and thereby vindicate the cause of woman, is the fervent hope and earnest prayer of your Memorialists and their consituents.
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Mrs. Lucy A. Clark President Woman's Suffrage Association of Davis County.
Ms. Leane Rogers Secretary of said Association.
Mrs. Ada Williams Mrs. Sarah A Howard Mrs. Rose E. Hatch Mrs. Jane A. Hatch Mrs. Ermince W. Jarman Mrs. Aurelia S. Rogers Susan Grant Delegates.
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Sixteenth Day 19/3/9 A Memorial from the women of Davis County providing for the right of suffrage
Presented by
Chester Call of Davis County
Read first tiem in full Second time by title
Referred to Committee on Elections and Right of Suffrage
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