of that Assembly, unless she might be present and vote as
aforesaid." Her protest did her very little good, unless it be well to
have one's name handed down as a baffled reformer, but she thus won for
herself at least a right to have her name placed on the pages of any
volume dealing with the progress of the women of America. As far as
there is any record, Margaret Brent was absolutely the first woman who
ever even dreamed of being accorded equal rights of citizenship in a
commonwealth of modern times, though antiquity could show other
examples. She was at all events the first American woman to demand the
privilege of the ballot and of a share in the government of her country;
and her demand was based on the same foundation as that of her sisters
in later times, that of the rights conferred by the care of property and
a stake in the welfare of the commonwealth. The women reformers of our
day should promote Margaret Brent to the position of their patron saint
and protomartyr.

Let us resume the journey to Virginia and study as best we may the
aspects of feminine culture as found in the great Southern colony.
Unfortunately, even in general matters there is great dearth of
authoritative record of Virginia colonial days, and in the matter of the
doings of individual women, or even of the sex generally, we find but
little of interest. We can only gather up the fragments and judge from
them of the feast of which they tell. Though Maryland may be considered
a southern colony, and was indeed so regarded, we must not take Margaret
Brent as representative of the feminine status or spirit in the South.
The women of Virginia in the early colonial days were less independent,
less assertive, than their sisters of New England, where women, as we
have seen, occasionally took the lead in matters of public import. It
was not so in Virginia. There women were held in less account, though
not in less respect, than in the northern colonies. This was caused by a
multiplicity of reasons, chief among which is the fact that in Virginia
there was far greater difference of rank and station than in the North.
The consequence of this was that, while in New England the woman was a
needful and recognized adjunct of the home, that unit on which was based
the civilization of the North, in Virginia she was more of ornament than
necessity. Hence, while in the councils of New England woman had made
herself felt and recognized as a power and thus had come to