Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

Sec. 4. The Corresponding Secretaries shall enlist the press in behalf of the object of the Covenant, and correspond with ladies and societies in various parts of the country, in promotion of the purposes of the organization.

The number of Corresponding Secretaries shall be ten, which number may be augmented at the pleasure of the Executive Committee.

Sec. 5. The Recording Secretaries shall preserve an official record of the names and places of residence pledged to the Covenant, and perform such other duties as are implied in the nature of their office.

The number of Recording Secretaries shall be two, and this number may be increased at the pleasure of the President.

Sec. 6. The Advisory and Organizing Committee shall consist of two from each State and territory within Federal lines, which number may be indefinitely increased, by the two members from the State or territory, by appointments, at their pleasure, of persons within said State or territory, for the purposes of this association, in the said State or territory. This organizing committee shall report monthly, as far practicable, to the President of the National Covenant, the number of persons pledged in their respective States to the covenant, and make such suggestion as they may deem expedient to perfect the success of this society.

Sec. 7. The executive committee shall consist of the President, Vice-President, and Corresponding and Recording Secretaries. This committee shall transact all business necessary to the purposes of the league. Said committee shall meet at their pleasure, and adopt any by-laws for their government not inconsistent with the object of the National Covenant.

Sec. 8. The time and place of the meetings of the National Covenant shall be determined by the President, with the advice and consent of the Executive Committee.

art. III.--of the pledge or Covenant.

The pledge or covenant shall be as follows: “For three years, or for the war, we pledge ourselves to each other and the country to purchase no imported article of apparel.”

On motion of Mrs. Loan, the constitution was adopted.

On motion of Mrs. Nininger, of Oregon, the address was unanimously adopted, and its universal publication asked.

The Committee on Nominations made their report, which, on motion of Mrs. Hatch, of Washington, D. C., was unanimously adopted, and the officers elected as follows:

Officers:

the Executive Committee.

President--Mrs. General James Taylor.

Vice-President--Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas.

Recording Secertaries--Miss Rebecca Gillis, Miss Virginia Smith.

Corresponding Secretaries--Mrs. M. Morris, Mrs. B. B. French, Mrs. S. Bowen, Mrs. H. C. Ingersoll, Mrs. Z. C. Robbins, Mrs. Professor Henry, Mrs. Chittenden, Mrs. Captain Kidden, Miss Williams, Miss Matilda Bates.

Address to the Women of America:

In the capital of our country we have this day organized a central society for the suppression of extravagance, the diminution of foreign imports and the practice of economy in all our social relations. To this society we have given the name of “The ladies' National Covenant.” Its object is a good and generous one, which should inspire a spirit of patriotism worthy of women who are the glory of a great nation. For this society we have an example and precedent at once august and encouraging.

In 1770 the women of Massachusetts, actutated by the same impulse that inspires us, assembled in the city of Boston, as we have met here, and resolved to serve the country by an effort of self-sacrifice far greater than we are called upon to make.

On the ninth of February, three hundred matrons, each the mistress of a household, met as we do now, and signed a pledge to abstain from the use of tea, the greatest luxury of the time, and the very life of all the social gatherings for which our New England ancestors were so famous. Three days later, twice that number of blooming young girls met in the same place and signed like pledges; from that brave assemblage of women non-importation societies sprang up, that produced an effect upon the mother country almost equal to that created by the success of our revolutionary armies. During all the terrors of the war these noble women held firmly to their pledges, and by their earnestness awoke the sympathy and co-operation of every sister colony in the land. The spirit thus aroused extended itself to imported goods of all kinds, and every hearthstone was turned into an independent manufactory. Thus it was that the flax-wheel, the hatchel, and the hand-loom became sublime instruments of freedom in the hands of American women. The house-mothers of ‘76 not only kept their pledge of non-importation, but with their own-bands wrought from the raw material the garments which clothed themselves, their husbands, and children. The pledge which they took, and kept so faithfully, evoked not only great self-sacrifice, but hard, hard toil, such as the women of the present day scarcely dream of. Had they not endured and labored while their husbands fought, we should have had no mighty Union to pray and struggle for now.

We, the women of ‘64, have the same object to attain and the same duties to perform which were so nobly accomplished by the women of ‘76. Shall we not follow their example, and take up, cheerfully, the lesser burdens that the welfare of our country demands? They gave up the very comforts of life without a murmur;