[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.J. Res. 59 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]


        H.J.Res.59

                       One Hundred Ninth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE FIRST SESSION

          Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
            the fourth day of January, two thousand and five


                            Joint Resolution


 
 Expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the women suffragists 
 who fought for and won the right of women to vote in the United States.

Whereas one of the first public appeals for women's suffrage came in 
  1848 when Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton called a women's 
  rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19, 1848;
Whereas Sojourner Truth gave her famous speech titled ``Ain't I a 
  Woman?'' at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio;

Whereas in 1869, suffragists formed two national organizations to work 
  for the right to vote: the National Woman Suffrage Association and 
  the American Woman Suffrage Association;

Whereas these two organizations united in 1890 to form the National 
  American Woman Suffrage Association;

Whereas in 1872, Susan B. Anthony and a group of women voted in the 
  presidential election in Rochester, New York;

Whereas she was arrested and fined for voting illegally;

Whereas at her trial, which attracted nationwide attention, she made a 
  speech that ended with the slogan ``Resistance to Tyranny Is 
  Obedience to God'';

Whereas on January 25, 1887, the United States Senate voted on women's 
  suffrage for the first time;

Whereas during the early 1900s, a new generation of leaders joined the 
  women's suffrage movement, including Carrie Chapman Catt, Maud Wood 
  Park, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Harriot E. Blatch;

Whereas women's suffrage leaders devoted most of their efforts to 
  marches, picketing, and other active forms of protest;

Whereas Alice Paul and others chained themselves to the White House 
  fence;

Whereas the suffragists were often arrested and sent to jail, where 
  many of them went on hunger strikes;

Whereas almost 5,000 people paraded for women's suffrage up 
  Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC; and

Whereas on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States 
  Constitution granted women in the United States the right to vote: 
  Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, That it is the sense of 
Congress that women suffragists should be revered and celebrated for 
working to ensure the right of women to vote in the United States.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.