Section 1. the Property, Both Real and Personal, Which Any Married

woman now owns, as her sole and separate property; that which comes to her by descent, devise, bequest, gift, or grant; that which she acquires by her trade, business, labor, or services, carried on or performed on her sole or separate account; that which a woman married in this State owns at the time of her marriage, and the rents, issues, and proceeds of all such property, shall notwithstanding her marriage, be and remain her sole and separate property, and may be used, collected, and invested by her in her own name, and shall not be subject to the interference or control of her husband, or liable for his debts, except such debts as may have been contracted for the support of herself or her children, by her as his agent.

§ 2. A married woman may bargain, sell, assign, and transfer her separate personal property, and carry on any trade or business, and perform any labor or services on her sole and separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from her trade, business, labor, or services shall be her sole and separate property, and may be used or invested by her in her own name.

§ 3. Any married woman possessed of real estate as her separate property may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same; but no such conveyance or contract shall be valid without the assent, in writing, of her husband, except as hereinafter provided.

§ 4. In case any married woman possessed of separate real property, as aforesaid, may desire to sell or convey the same, or to make any contract in relation thereto, and shall be unable to procure the assent of her husband as in the preceding section provided, in consequence of his refusal, absence, insanity, or other disability, such married woman may apply to the County Court in the county where she shall at the time reside, for leave to make such sale, conveyance, or contract, without the assent of her husband.

§ 5. Such application may be made by petition, verified by her, and setting forth the grounds of such application. If the husband be a resident of the county and not under disability from insanity or other cause, a copy of said petition shall be served upon him, with a notice of the time when the same will be presented to the said court, at least ten days before such application. In all other cases, the County Court to which such application shall be made, shall, in its discretion, determine whether any notice shall be given, and if any, the mode and manner of giving it.

§ 6. If it shall satisfactorily appear to such court, upon application, that the husband of such applicant has willfully abandoned his said wife, and lives separate and apart from her, or that he is insane, or imprisoned as a convict in any state prison, or that he is an habitual drunkard, or that he is in any way disabled from making a contract, or that he refuses to give his consent without good cause therefor, then such court shall cause an order to be entered upon its records, authorizing such married woman to sell and convey her real estate, or contract in regard thereto without the assent of her husband, with the same effect as though such conveyance or contract had been made with his assent.

§ 7. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all matters having relation to her property, which may be her sole and separate property, or which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or the gift of any person except her husband, in the same manner as if she were sole. And any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property.

§ 8. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or gift of any person except her husband, and no bargain or contract entered into by any married woman in or about the carrying on of any trade or business under the statutes of this State, shall be binding upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable therefor.

§ 9. Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the joint guardian of her children, with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them, with the husband.

§ 10. At the decease of husband or wife, leaving no minor child or children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy a life estate in one-third of all the real estate of which the husband or wife died seized.

§ 11. At the decease of the husband or wife intestate, leaving minor child or children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy all the real estate of which the husband or wife died seized, and all the rents, issues, and profits thereof during the minority of the youngest child, and one-third thereof during his or her natural life.

On the final passage of the bill the following Senators, as The Journal shows, voted in favor of the measure, viz: Senators Abell, Bell, Colvin, Conally, Fiero, Goss, Hillhouse, Kelly, Lapham, Sessions, Manierre, Montgomery, Munroe, P. P. Murphy, Truman, Prosser, Ramsey, Robertson, Rotch, Warner, Williams--21.

President.--Martha Wright, of Auburn, New York.

Vice-Presidents.--Abby Hopper Gibbons, of New York; Asa Fairbanks, of Rhode Island; Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of New Jersey; Thomas Garrett, of Delaware; Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts; Robert Purvis, of Pennsylvania; J. Elizabeth Jones, of Ohio; Giles B. Stebbins, of Michigan.

Secretaries.--Ellen Wright and Mary L. Booth.

Finance Committee.--Susan B. Anthony, Lucy N. Colman, and Marietta Richmond.

Business Committee.--Ernestine L. Rose, A. L. B. Blackwell, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, E. Cady Stanton, Mary Grew, and Wendell Phillips.

In the Scotch Presbyterian Church at Johnstown, N. Y., there was great excitement at one time on the question of temperance, the pastor being a very active friend to that movement. The opposition were determined to get rid of him, and called a church meeting for that purpose. To the surprise of the leading men of the congregation, the women came in force, armed with ballots, to defeat their proposed measures. When the time came to vote, according to arrangement, my mother headed the line marching up to the altar, where stood the deacon, hat in hand, to receive the ballots. As soon as he saw the women coming, he retreated behind the railing in the altar, closing the little door after him, which the women deliberately opened, and soon filled the space, completely surrounding the inspector of election, and, whichever way he turned, the ballots were thrown into the hat; and, when all had voted, my mother put her hand into the hat and stirred them up with the men's votes, so that it would be impossible to separate them. The pastor, representing the interests of temperance, had a large majority for his retention. But the men declared the election void because of the illegal voting, and, barricading the women out, with closed doors, voted their own measures the next day. Rev. Jeremiah Wood presided on the occasion, and whilst the women were contending for their rights under the very shadow of the altar, he recited various Scriptural texts on woman's sphere, to which these rebellious ones paid not the slightest attention. One dignified Scotch matron, looking him steadily in the face, indignant, at the behavior of the men, said with sternness and emphasis: "I protest against such high-handed proceedings." The result of this outbreak, was a decree by the Judicature of the Church, "that the women of the congregation should have the right to vote in all business matters," which they have most judiciously done ever since. E. C. S.

Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, J. Elizabeth Jones, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy N. Colman, and Susan B. Anthony.

Mrs. Roberts and her daughters in Niagara County.

Resolved, That inasmuch as man, in the progress of his development, found that at each advancing step new wants demanded new rights, and naturally walked out of those places, customs, creeds, and laws that in any way crippled and trammeled his freedom of thought, word, or action, it is his duty to stand aside and leave to woman the same rights--to grow up into whatever the laws of her being demand.

Resolved, That inasmuch as on woman are imposed by her Creator the duties of self-support and self-defense, and by government the responsibilities of taxation and penalties of violated law, she should be protected in her natural, inalienable rights, and secured in all the privileges of citizenship.

Resolved, That we demand a full recognition of our equal rights, civil and political--no special legislation can satisfy us--the enjoyment of a right to-day is no security that it will be continued to-morrow, so long as it is granted to us by a privileged class, and not secured to us as a sacred right.

WHEREAS, the essence of republican liberty is the principle that no class shall depend for its rights on the mercy or justice of any other class, therefore,

Resolved, That woman demands her right to the jury-box and the ballot, that she may have, as man has, the means of her own protection in her own hands.

Resolved, That woman, in consenting to remain in any organization or church where she has no voice in the choice of officers, trustees, or pastor--no right of protest against false doctrines or action--is wanting in a proper self-respect, in that dignity which, as a philanthropist and a Christian, she should ever manifest.

Resolved, That we from this platform instruct our legal representatives to make no more appropriations to colleges for boys exclusively. Now that we are large property holders and tax-payers, we protest against the injustice of being compelled to build and endow colleges into which we are forbidden to enter.

Resolved, That we advise women to apply to the trustees and heads of public libraries, galleries of art, and similar institutions, for employment as clerks and attendants, thus securing to themselves, when admitted, a more liberal means of support, and furnishing a stepping-stone to other occupations.

Resolved, That we return thanks to the Legislature of New York for its acts of justice to woman during the last session. But the work is not yet done. We still claim the ballot, the right of trial by a jury of our own peers, the control and custody of our persons in marriage, and an equal right to the joint earnings of the co-partnership. The geographical position and political power of New York make her example supreme; hence we feel assured that when she is right on this question, our work is done.

1. Resolved, That, in the language (slightly varied) of John Milton, "Those who marry intend as little to conspire their own ruin, as those who swear allegiance, and as a whole people is to an ill government, so is one man or woman to an ill marriage. If a whole people, against any authority, covenant, or statute, may, by the sovereign edict of charity, save not only their lives, but honest liberties, from unworthy bondage, as well may a married party, against any private covenant, which he or she never entered, to his or her mischief, be redeemed from unsupportable disturbances, to honest peace and just contentment."

2. Resolved, That all men are created equal, and all women, in their natural rights, are the equals of men, and endowed by their Creator with the same inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.

3. Resolved, That any constitution, compact, or covenant between human beings, that failed to produce or promote human happiness, could not, in the nature of things, be of any force or authority; and it would be not only a right, but a duty, to abolish it.

4. Resolved, That though marriage be in itself divinely founded, and is fortified as an institution by innumerable analogies in the whole kingdom of universal nature, still, a true marriage is only known by its results; and, like the fountain, if pure, will reveal only pure manifestations. Nor need it ever be said, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," for man could not put it asunder; nor can he any more unite what God and nature have not joined together.

5. Resolved, That of all insulting mockeries of heavenly truth and holy law, none can be greater than that physical impotency is cause sufficient for divorce, while no amount of mental or moral or spiritual imbecility is ever to be pleaded in support of such a demand.

6. Resolved, That such a law was worthy those dark periods when marriage was held by the greatest doctors and priests of the Church to be a work of the flesh only, and almost, if not altogether, a defilement; denied wholly to the clergy, and a second time, forbidden to all.

7. Resolved, That an unfortunate or ill-assorted marriage is ever a calamity, but not ever, perhaps never, a crime--and when society or government, by its laws or customs, compels its continuance, always to the grief of one of the parties, and the actual loss and damage of both, it usurps an authority never delegated to man, nor exercised by God himself.

8. Resolved, That observation and experience daily show how incompetent are men, as individuals, or as governments, to select partners in business, teachers for their children, ministers of their religion, or makers, adjudicators, or administrators of their laws; and as the same weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of matrimonial partners, the dictates of humanity and common sense alike show that the latter and most important contract should no more be perpetual than either or all of the former.

9. Resolved, That children born in these unhappy and unhallowed connections are, in the most solemn sense, of unlawful birth--the fruit of lust, but not of love--and so not of God, divinely descended, but from beneath, whence proceed all manner of evil and uncleanliness.

10. Resolved, That next to the calamity of such a birth to the child, is the misfortune of being trained in the atmosphere of a household where love is not the law, but where discord and bitterness abound; stamping their demoniac features on the moral nature, with all their odious peculiarities--thus continuing the race in a weakness and depravity that must be a sure precursor of its ruin, as a just penalty of long-violated law.

Thurlow Weed, editor of The Albany Evening Journal, opposed the passage of the Divorce Bill before the New York Legislature in 1860.

Resolved, That marriage is the voluntary alliance of two persons of opposite sexes into one family, and that such an alliance, with its possible incidents of children, its common interests, etc., must be, from the nature of things, as permanent as the life of the parties.

Resolved, That if human law attempts to regulate marriage at all, it should aim to regulate it according to the fundamental principles of marriage; and that as the institution is inherently as continuous as the life of the parties, so all laws should look to its control and preservation as such.

Resolved, That as a parent can never annul his obligations towards even a profligate child, because of the inseparable relationship of the parties, so the married partner can not annul his obligations towards the other, while both live, no matter how profligate that other's conduct may be, because of their still closer and alike permanent relationship; and, therefore, that all divorce is naturally and morally impossible, even though we should succeed in annulling all legalities.

Resolved, That gross fraud and want of good faith in one of the parties contracting this alliance, such as would invalidate any other voluntary relation, are the only causes which can invalidate this, and this, too, solely upon the ground that the relation never virtually existed, and that there are, therefore, no resulting moral obligations.

Resolved, however, That both men and women have a first and inviolable right to themselves, physically, mentally, and morally, and that it can never be the duty of either to surrender his personal freedom in any direction to his own hurt.

Resolved, That the great duty of every human being is to secure his own highest moral development, and that he can not owe to society, or to an individual, any obligation which shall be degrading to himself.

Resolved, That self-devotion to the good of another, and especially to the good of the sinful and guilty, like all disinterestedness, must redound to the highest good of its author, and that the husband or wife who thus seeks the best interests of the other, is obedient to the highest law of benevolence.

Resolved, That this is a very different thing from the culpable weakness which allows itself to be immolated by the selfishness of another, to the hurt of both; and that the miserable practice, now so common among wives, of allowing themselves, their children and family interests, to be sacrificed to a degraded husband and father, is most reprehensible.

Resolved, That human law is imperatively obligated to give either party ample protection to himself, to their offspring, and to all other family interests, against wrong, injustice, and usurpation on the part of the other, and that, if it be necessary to this, it should grant a legal separation; and yet, that even such separation can not invalidate any real marriage obligation.

Resolved, That every married person is imperatively obligated to do his utmost thus to protect himself and all family interests against injustice and wrong, let it arise from what source it may.

Resolved, That every woman is morally obligated to maintain her equality in human rights in all her relations in life, and that if she consents to her own subjugation, either in the family, Church or State, she is as guilty as the slave is in consenting to be a slave.

Resolved, That a perfect union can not be expected to exist until we first have perfect units, and that every marriage of finite beings must be gradually perfected through the growth and assimilation of the parties.

Resolved, That the permanence and indissolubility of marriage tend more directly than anything else toward this result.

Francis Jackson. This fund was drawn upon by several of the States. $1,993.66 was expended in the campaigns in New York, the publication of 60,000 tracts, and the appropriation of several hundred to a series of sermons by the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, delivered in Hope Chapel, New York; $1,000 was expended in the Ohio canvass of 1860, and tracts in large numbers were also sent there. Both money and tracts were contributed to the Kansas campaign of 1859. Lucy Stone had $1,500 to expend in Kansas in 1867, and thus in various ways the fund was finally expended, Lucy Stone drawing out the last $1,000 in 1871. So careful had been the management of this fund, that the accumulation of the interest had greatly increased the original sum.

Lydia Mott was one of the quiet workers who kept all things pertaining to the woman's rights reform in motion at the capital. Living in Albany, she planned conventions and hearings before the Legislature. She knew a large number of the members and men of influence, who all felt a profound respect for that dignified, judicious Quaker woman. Her home was not only one of the depots of the underground railroad, where slaves escaping to Canada were warmed and fed, but it was the hospitable resort for all reformers. Everything about the house was clean and orderly, and the table always bountiful, and the food appetizing. As such men as Seward and Marcy, leaders from opposite political parties, Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Remond, Foster, Douglass, representing all the reforms, met in turn at Miss Mott's dinner-table, she had the advantage of hearing popular questions discussed from every standpoint. And Miss Mott was not merely hostess at her table, but on all occasions took a leading part in the conversation. All of us who enjoyed her friendship and hospitality deeply feel her loss in that conservative city.

AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: