s not been standing still, but has been
gradually advancing to an equal place with the man by her side,
and stands to-day his peer in the world of thought.

American womanhood has never worn iron shoes, burned on the
funeral pile, or skulked behind a mask in a harem, yet, though
cradled in liberty, with the same keen sense of justice and
equality that man has, she is still bound by law in the swaddling
bands of an old barbarism. Though the world has been steadily
advancing in political science, and step by step recognizing the
rights of new classes, yet we stand to-day talking of precedents,
authorities, laws, and constitutions, as if each generation were
not better able to judge of its wants than the one that preceded
it. If we are to be governed in all things by the men of the
eighteenth century, and the twentieth by the nineteenth, and so
on, the world will be always governed by dead men. The exercise
of political power by woman is by no means a new idea. It has
already been exercised in many countries, and under governments
far less liberal in theory than our own. As to this being an
innovation on the laws of nature, we may safely trust nature at
all times to vindicate herself. In England, where the right to
vote is based on property and not person, the _feme sole_
freeholder has exercised her right all along. In her earliest
history we find records of decisions in courts of her right to do
so, and discussions on that point by able lawyers and judges. The
_feme sole_ voted in person; when married, her husband
represented her property, and voted in her stead; and the moment
the breath went out of his body, she assumed again the burden of
disposing of her own income and the onerous duty of representing
herself in the Government. Thus England is always consistent;
property being the basis of suffrage, is always represented. Here
suffrage is based on "persons," and yet one-half our people are
wholly unrepresented.

We have declared in favor of a government of the people, for the
people, by the people, the whole people. Why not begin the
experiment? If suffrage is a natural right, we claim it in common
with all citizens; if it is a political right, that the few in
power may give or take away, then it is clearly the duty of the
ruling pow