The undersigned citizens of the United States, residents of the State of ----, earnestly pray your honorable bodies to adopt measures for so amending the constitution as to prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex. In addition to the general petition asking for a sixteenth amendment, Matilda Joslyn Gage, this year (1877) sent an individual petition, similar in form to those offered by disfranchised male citizens, asking to be relieved from her political disabilities. This petition was presented by Hon. Elias W. Leavenworth, of the House of Representatives, member from the thirty-third New York congressional district. It read as follows: _To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:_ Matilda Joslyn Gage, a native born citizen of the United States, and of the State of New York, wherein she resides, most earnestly petitions your honorable body for the removal of her political disabilities and that she may be declared invested with full power to exercise her right of self government at the ballot-box, all State constitutions, or statute laws to the contrary notwithstanding. The above petition was presented January 24, and the following bill introduced February 5: AN ACT _to relieve the political disabilities of Matilda Joslyn Gage_: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that all political disabilities heretofore existing in reference to Matilda Joslyn Gage, of Fayetteville, Onondaga county, State of New York, be removed and she be declared a citizen of the United States, clothed with all the political rights and powers of citizenship, namely: the right to vote and to hold office to the same extent and in the same degree that male citizens enjoy these rights. This act to take effect immediately. The following year a large number of similar petitions were sent from different parts of the country, the National Association distributing printed forms to its members in the various States. The power of congress to thus enfranchise women upon their individual petitions is as undoubted as the power to grant individual amnesty, to remove the political disabilities of men disfranchised for crime against United States laws, or to clothe foreigners, honorably discharged from the army, with the ballot.