First.--The Republican party did run well for a season in the "line of liberty," but since 1870, its congressional enactments, majority reports, Supreme Court decisions, and now its presidential platform, show a retrograde movement--not only for women but for colored men--limiting the power of the national government in the protection of United States citizens against the injustice of the States, until what we gained by the sword is lost by political surrenders. We need nothing but a Democratic administration to demonstrate to all Israel and the sun the fact, the sad fact, that all is lost by the Republican party. I mean, of course, the one vital point of national supremacy in the protection of United States citizens in the enjoyment of their right to vote, and the punishment of States or individuals thereof, for depriving citizens of the exercise of that right. The first and fatal mistake was in ceding to Rhode Island the right to "abridge" the suffrage to foreign born men; and to all the States to "deny" it to women, in direct violation of the principle of _national supremacy_. From that time, inch by inch, point by point has been surrendered, until it is only in name that the Republican party is the party of national supremacy. Grant did not protect the negro's ballot in the presidential election of 1876--Hayes can not in 1880--nor will Garfield be able to do so in 1884--for the "scepter has departed from Judah." Second.--For the candidate of a party to add to the discussions of the contest an issue unauthorized or unnoted in its platform, when that issue is one vital to its very life, it seems to me would be the grandest act imaginable. For doing that very thing, with regard to the protection of the negroes of the South, you are today receiving more praise from the best men of the party than for any and all of your utterances inside the line of the platform. I know, if you had in your letter of acceptance, or in your New York speech, declared yourself in favor of "perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political," you would have touched an electric spark which would have fired the hearts of the women of the entire nation, and made the triumph of the Republican party more grand and glorious than any it ever has seen.