for that purpose, at which women alone
shall have the right to vote."

Mr. GRAVES said:--Mr. President. I do not desire at this time to
discuss the merits of the resolution; but allow me to suggest
that there are four classes of persons interested in the
questions involved in it. The first class is what is
opprobriously known as "strong-minded women," who claim the right
to vote upon the ground that they are interested and identified
with ourselves in the stability and permanency of our
institutions, and that their property is made liable for the
maintenance of our Government, while they have no right to choose
the law-makers or select the persons who are to assess the value
of their property liable to taxation. They claim that they are
not untaught in the science of government to which the right of
administration is denied to them.

The second class includes both males and females who sympathize
with the first class, and who claim that there is no disparity in
the intellect of men and women, when an equal opportunity is
afforded by education for progress and advancement. They also
claim that our country is diminishing all the time in moral
integrity and virtue, and ask that a new element be introduced
into our governmental affairs by which crime shall be lessened
and the estimate of moral virtue be made higher.

The third class urges that there should be no distinction between
males and females in the exercise of the elective franchise, and
they claim that it is anti-democratic that there should be a
minority in this country to rule its destinies.

There is a fourth class who believe that the right to exercise
the elective franchise is not inherent, but permissive, and that
the people are the Government, and that this power of the
elective franchise is under their immediate control, and they
claim the right to become part and parcel of the Government which
they help to support and maintain.

Now these four classes, differing in opinion upon this great
question, constitute a very large body of worthy, high-minded,
and intelligent men and women of this State who have long sought
to enlarge the elective franchise, and they claim the deliberate
consideration of this body upon the ground of equality, as their
innumerable petitions[