To Ansel Bascom, a lawyer of Seneca Falls, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1846 and of the first legislature following its adoption, and to David Dudley Field, a distinguished citizen of the state, were largely due the modifications in the laws relating to married women which began about that time. These gentlemen were also largely instrumental in securing the adoption of the reformed code of practice in the courts, which has since been substantially enacted in nearly all the states of the Union. But women themselves had much to do in this most important work. Two of them were Lucretia Mott, a well-known Quaker preacher of those days, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, wife of Henry B. Stanton and daughter of Daniel Cady, an eminent lawyer and judge. These ladies had been delegates to an anti-slavery convention in London, to which they were refused admission on account of being women, and they mutually resolved to enter upon an effort to secure an amelioration in the laws relating to the legal and property rights of their sex. They even went further and asked that the constitutions of the several states should be so amended, that to women should be extended the right to vote and even to hold office. That was a new thing under the sun. It was the beginning of what has since been so widely known as the women’s rights movement, the agitation of which has occupied a large place in the public discussions of the last half century. WOMEN TO THE FRONT. The first public meeting to bring these questions prominently before the country was held in the Wesleyan Chapel, in Seneca Falls, on the 19th day of July, 1848. It was attended by the ladies I have mentioned, by Mr. Bascom, by Mr. Thomas McClintoch, a Quaker preacher and member of his family, by several clergymen, and other persons of some prominence in the village. Frederick Douglass was also present. Mr. James Mott, the husband of Lucretia, presided, and that lady opened the meeting with a careful statement of women’s wrongs and grievances and made a demand for their redress. Mr. Stanton read a clearly written paper to the same purport and reported a woman’s declaration of independence, in which her wrongs were fully set forth and her rights as fully insisted upon and proclaimed. The position was boldly taken that the ballot should be placed in her hands on a perfect equality with man himself, as only through the ballot could her rights be effectually asserted and maintained. The discussion lasted through two days, and the declaration was signed by fifty women and about the same number of men. The papers over the country generally noticed the gathering, and with few exceptions ridiculed the whole movement, while bearing testimony to the earnestness of those engaged in it.