iny is placed under the
Providence of God, your memorialist has frankly, but humbly,
appealed to you, and prays that the wisdom of Congress may be
moved to action in this matter for the benefit and the increased
happiness of our beloved country.

SPEECH OF A. G. RIDDLE,

_In Support of the Woodhull Memorial, before the Judiciary
Committee of the House of Representatives, as Reproduced in the
Convention on the Evening of the same Day._

Mr. RIDDLE spoke as follows: Mr. _Chairman_--(Senator Nye)--I
have always thought that the questions involved in this movement
could be the more effectively presented by ladies; and I have
never appeared in their public discussions unless by special
request, and for some special purpose. I have been asked to bring
to your notice as well as I may this evening the argument: That
the women of these United States are full and complete citizens.
Citizens as fully, broadly, and deeply as it is possible for men
to be, though not permitted to exercise the elective franchise.

As I arise I find between myself and this proposition, two or
three questions, about which I am disposed to tax your patience
for a moment, though there is nothing new to be said. In the
outset, let me say that it is conceded by all, that the right of
self-government, in America at any rate, is a natural right. You
may select with care or at random, any one of the forty or fifty
American constitutions that have been prepared with more or less
pains, and promulgated with solemnity, and you will find there is
not one that has assumed to create and confer this right of
self-government. But they all declare, expressly or impliedly,
that the right to govern is inherent in the people. Now, if these
ladies are a portion of the people, this right resides in them.
There is no new right to be conferred upon them. They are simply
to go into the new exercise of an old franchise; for if the right
of self-government is a natural right, then does it pertain to
every human being alike. Such is the recognized theory of every
American constitution, and such is its practice.

Take a step further and you find that starting with a recognition
of this pre-existing right of government, Constitution makers
have simply provided the means and machinery by which