Petition of Dr. Clemence Lozier Praying for the Removal of her Political Disabilities

This is one of two types of petitions to Congress circulated by the National Woman Suffrage Association during a petition drive for a constitutional amendment that would relieve women of their “political disabilities” by granting them the right to vote. This template was intended to be completed by an individual, as Dr. Clemence Lozier has done in this document. However, the instructions for this petition (not included with this document) encouraged women to personalize their message to Congress.

To Women Citizens of the United States.
Request two or more well-known women citizens of each town in your state to write the following petitions in ink, fill the blanks each with her own full name, state and town; prepare two copies, one for the House Representatives and one for the Senate, and send by mail to Sara Andrews Spencer, Chairman of Resident Congressional Committee, National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D.C. before Feb. 1, 1878 for presentation to the Forty-Fifth Congress. Request same women to sign Sixteenth Amendment Petitions. Use this form only as a model. Let these individual petitions be in hand-writing, assigning whatever personal reason may be chosen for wishing to vote.

In addition to working as a physician and founding a hospital for women in New York, Dr. Clemence Lozier was involved in the leadership of the National Woman Suffrage Association, serving as president of the organization at the time of this petition drive.

This petition was referred to to the Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives on January 15, 1878. On January 10, 1878 Senator Aaron Sargent first introduced the joint resolution for an amendment to the Constitution that would ultimately extend the right to vote to women as the 19th Amendment, 42 years later. Petitions like this one from Dr. Clemence Lozier show how women exercised their rights to bring about change in the decades-long fight for the right to vote.

Transcript

PETITION
of

for
Relief from Political Disabilities.

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES,
In Congress Assembled:

Clemence S. Lozier MD, a citizen of the United States
and a resident of the State of New York, County of New York,
Town of New York, hereby respectfully 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.


Petition
of
Clemence S. Lozier, M.D.
a citizen of
New York City,
New York,
praying for the removal
of her political disabilities

By
Covert,
N.Y.
Jauy 15, 1878, Refd to the
Com. on the Judiciary.