the energy and enterprise of the more highly endowed, will find full scope in honest effort, and the frightful vice of our cities will be stopped at its fountain-head. We hint very briefly at these matters. A circular like this will not allow room for more. Some may think it too soon to expect any action from the Convention. Many facts lead us to think that public opinion is more advanced on this question than is generally supposed. Beside, there can be no time so proper to call public attention to a radical change in our civil polity as now, when the whole framework of our government is to be subjected to examination and discussion. It is never too early to begin the discussion of any desired change. To urge our claim on the Convention, is to bring our question before the proper tribunal, and secure at the same time the immediate attention of the general public. Massachusetts, though she has led the way in most other reforms, has in this fallen behind her rivals, consenting to learn, as to the protection of the property of married women, of many younger States. Let us redeem for her the old pre-eminence, and urge her to set a noble example in this the most important of all civil reforms. To this we ask you to join with us[49] in the accompanying petition to the Constitutional Convention. In favor of this Appeal Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, were heard. We find in _The Una_ the following report of Mr. Higginson's speech before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention on the qualification of voters, June 3, 1853, the question being on the petition of Abby May Alcott, and other women of Massachusetts, that they be permitted to vote on the amendments that may be made to the Constitution. MR. HIGGINSON'S SPEECH. I need hardly suggest to the Committee the disadvantage under which I appear before them, in coming to glean after three of the most eloquent voices in this community, or any other [Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker]; in doing this, moreover, without having heard all their arguments, and in a fragment of time at the end of a two hours' sitting. I have also the minor disadvantage of gleaning after myself, having just ventured to submit a more elaborate essay on this subject, in a different form, to the notice of the Convention.