"MADAM:--Yours of the 9th instant is received, and I desire to say in reply that I am now and ever have been the advocate of equal and impartial suffrage of all citizens of the United States who have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, who are of sound mind, and who have not disqualified themselves by the commission of any offence, without any distinction on account of race, color, or sex. Every argument that ever has been or ever can be adduced to prove that males should have the right to vote, applies with equal if not greater force to prove that females should possess the same right; and were I a citizen of your State I should labor with whatever of ability I possess to ingraft those principles in its constitution. Yours, very respectfully, B. F. WADE. "_To_ SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Secretary American Equal Rights Association_." Now, Mr. President, I ask whether this has not an orthodox sanction at least. I should like to know who would question, who would dare to question, the orthodoxy of the honorable Senator from Ohio, and who dares tell me that this is such a novelty that it is not to be introduced here as serious, as in earnest? Sir, I say that I am perfectly in earnest, and I say that if this amendment be incorporated in this bill I shall vote for it with all my heart and soul. I beg to be understood that I would not inaugurate the movement, I would not make the change by my own mere motion, because I would not venture upon the change anywhere. That change must rise out of, spring out of, and come up from society generally. It is that thing which the poet has called the _vox populi_, and which he likens to the _vox Dei_. When the community spontaneously demands this call, when the community spontaneously demands this action, I yield to it. It is so in this instance. While I yield to the demand for negro suffrage, I demand at the same time female suffrage; and when I yield to the question of manhood suffrage, I feel assured I throw along the antidote to all the poison which I suppose would accompany the first proposition.