escribing them. These qualifications involve time
of residence, age, and other matters that are entirely within the
reach of the citizen by acquisition or lapse of time. Mr. Sumner
has demonstrated in a manner that can not be answered that the
qualifications thus left for the States to prescribe must be
those under which the citizen can become a voter, and can not be
such as would permanently exclude him from the right of suffrage.

It has been said that it is not fair for women to take advantage
of a right to vote, no matter how clearly given them, which there
was no actual intention to give. This objection does not touch
the argument we have been making, but it may be well to say a
word upon it. The law has so far dealt so unfairly with women
that it would seem as if they should not be severely criticised
for taking advantage of the law, when, though by mere accident,
it happens to favor them. But it is especially to be considered
that their claim is in accordance with the whole spirit of the
Constitution and in harmony with all the fundamental principles
of our Government, while the denial of suffrage to them is in
opposition to those principles. If anything is settled in this
country as an abstract general principle, it is the right of
tax-payers to have a voice in the legislation that is to
determine their taxes and in the appointment of the officers who
are to levy and expend them, and that the members of the nation
should elect its rulers. Our error (and the day is not far
distant when we shall all see its absurdity) is in making these
fundamental rights the rights of men alone and in denying them to
women. The latter have equal intelligence, patriotism, and
virtue, and their fidelity to their country has been as well
proved as that of men, and it is difficult to see any good reason
why they should have no voice in deciding who shall be the rulers
of the nation, what its laws, what its taxes and how
appropriated, what the policy that is to affect, for good or
evil, the business interests that they are becoming more and more
largely engaged in. With all this equity in their favor, may they
not be allowed, without censure, to avail themselves of a legal
right? If the freedom of the slave could have been declared by
our judicial tribunals