e,
but to abridge and deny it to these two classes of citizens. The
Federal Constitution, in its Amendment, clearly defines, for the
first time, who are citizens: "All persons born or naturalized in
the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States, and of the States wherein they
reside."

No one denies that "all persons," in the XIV. Amendment, is used
without limitation of sex, or in other words, that not men only,
but women also are citizens. Whether in theory the citizenship of
women is generally admitted or not, it certainly is in practice.
Women pre-empt land; women register ships; women obtain
passports; women pay the penalty of their own crimes; women pay
taxes, sometimes work out the road tax. In some States, even
married women can make contracts, sue and be sued, and do
business in their own names; in fact, the old Blackstone idea
that husband and wife are one, and that one the husband, received
its death blow twenty years ago, when the States of New York and
Massachusetts passed their first laws securing to married women
the property they inherited in their own right.

You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a
citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a
voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred
and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family
Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.

"Individual rights," "Individual conscience and judgment," are
great American ideas, underlying our whole political and
religious life. We are here to-day to ask a Congress of
Republicans for that crowning act that shall secure to 15,000,000
women the right to protect their persons, property, and opinions
by law. The XIV. Amendment, having told us who are citizens of
the republic, further declares that "no State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the 'privileges or
immunities' of 'citizens' of the United States." Some say that
"privileges and immunities" do not include the right of suffrage.
We answer that any person under Government who has no voice in
the laws or the rulers has his privileges and immunities abridged
at every turn, and when a State denies the right of suffrage, it
robs the ci