ppression, that is, from everything that
has been imposed upon him without his own consent, this must
be the only true and proper foundation of all governments
subsisting in the world, and that to which the people who
compose them have an inalienable right to bring them back.

It was from these great champions of liberty in England that our
forefathers received their inspiration and the principles which
they adopted, incorporated into the Declaration of Independence,
and made the foundation and framework of our Government. And yet
it is claimed that we have a Government which tramples upon these
elementary principles of political liberty, in denying to
one-half its adult citizens all political liberty, and subjecting
them to the tyranny of taxation without representation. It can
not be.

When we desire to construe the Constitution, or to ascertain the
powers of the Government and the rights of the citizens, it is
legitimate and necessary to recur to those principles and make
them the guide in such investigation. It is an oft-repeated maxim
set forth in the bills of rights of many of the State
constitutions that "the frequent recurrence to fundamental
principles is necessary for the preservation of liberty and good
government." Recurring to these principles, so plain, so natural,
so like political axioms, it would seem that to say that one-half
the citizens of this republican government, simply and only on
account of their sex, can legally be denied the right to a voice
in the government, the laws of which they are held to obey, and
which takes from them their property by taxation, is so
flagrantly in opposition to the principles of free government,
and the theory of political liberty, that no man could seriously
advocate it.

But it is said in opposition to the "citizen's right" of suffrage
that at the time of the establishment of the Constitution, women
were in all the States denied the right of voting, and that no
one claimed at the time that the Constitution of the United
States would change their status; that if such a change was
intended it would have been explicitly declared in the
Constitution or at least carried into practice by those who
framed the Constitution, and, therefore, such a construction of