[United States Statutes at Large, Volume 119, 109th Congress, 1st Session]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

119 STAT. 457

Public Law 109-49
109th Congress

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. NOTE: Aug. 2, 2005 -  [H.J. Res. 59]

Whereas NOTE: Lucretia Mott. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 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 NOTE: Sojourner Truth. Sojourner Truth gave her famous
speech titled ``Ain't I a Woman?'' at the 1851 Women's Rights
Convention in Akron, Ohio;

Whereas NOTE: National Woman Suffrage Association. American Woman
Suffrage Association. 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 NOTE: Susan B. Anthony. 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 NOTE: Carrie Chapman Catt. Maud Wood Park. Lucy Burns. Alice
Paul. Harriot E. Blatch. 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

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119 STAT. 458

celebrated for working to ensure the right of women to vote in the
United States.

Approved August 2, 2005.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY--H.J. Res. 59:
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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 151 (2005):
July 25, considered and passed House.
July 28, considered and passed Senate.