equal right to the ballot with man, they still resist her claims
on the ground that this is not her hour, but man's hour. "The
black man's hour." As though justice and right were determined by
clocks and almanacs. And as though some sort of terrible crisis
could not be urged always. Admitting even that in fitness for the
franchise, the white women, especially of the North, are
eminently superior to the average of Southern men, of any color,
they still demand that woman's claim be postponed to their
favorite Fifteenth Amendment, which presumes every man in the
nation of whatever color, grade, or race, the superior of woman,
however exalted by culture, by wealth, by refinement, by
patriotism, or whatever virtues, gifts, or graces. An Amendment,
it is called, while preparing the way to lift into lordship
absolute, every man, however mean and vile, over every woman,
however divine her character!

And then these "Amenders" presume to charge with "selfishness,"
"ignorance," "conservatism," and nobody knows what else, those
who are laboring night and day, in season, out of season, and at
all seasons, under a banner on which was inscribed at the
formation of their Association, "Equal Rights to all citizens;
ESPECIALLY THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE, IRRESPECTIVE OF RACE, COLOR OR
SEX." Without pretending that the Association, or any of its
members, has violated, in letter or in spirit, a word of this
constitutional pledge, leading Abolitionists are charging
"injustice," "insincerity," and "treachery to the cause of
liberty," on actors in the Equal Rights Association, besides
ignorance, selfishness, and conservatism, because they will not
turn aside from their holy purpose to promote a measure that
basely, grossly insults one-half, and that the best half of the
human race. Were the subject not too serious for mirth, such
accusations, coming from such a source, would be simply
ludicrous. As it is, many will laugh at such absurdity. The
Fifteenth Amendment, at best, is but a trick, a device (as was
the Fourteenth with its word _male_ three times burned into a
single period), of as corrupt and unprincipled a school of
politicians as ever disgraced the name of legislation, to save
themselves and their party in place and power. It is told us in
all serious