the South that the
master gave the consent on the part of his slaves; that he
represented them; that he had their good at heart, and that he
gave their consent. We denied that. We know it was not true. Now,
sir, to come down to the main question, I ask if the women of
this country have given their consent to this Government? You say
they are consenting. I say they are assenting to it, the majority
of them; but they have no means of giving their consent to this
Government within the theory of the Declaration of Independence;
and they can not consent to it unless they have a voice, have a
right to vote "yes" or to vote "no."

What was the old theory of the common law? It was that the father
represented the interests of his daughter, the husband of his
wife, and the son of his mother. They were deprived of all legal
rights in a state of marriage, because it was said that they were
taken care of by those who stood to them in these relations; but
they never were taken care of. The husband never took care of the
rights of his wife at common law; the father never took care of
the rights of his daughter; the son never took care of the rights
of his mother. The husband at common law was a tyrant and a
despot. Why, sir, he absorbed the legal existence of his wife at
common law; she could not make a contract except as his agent.
Her legal existence was destroyed, and the very moment the
marriage was consummated he became the absolute owner of all her
personal property. What was the theory of it? The old theory of
the common law, as given in elementary writers, was that if the
wife was allowed to own property separate from her husband it
would make a distinct interest; it would break up and destroy the
harmony of the marriage relation; the marriage relation must be a
unit; there must be but one interest; and therefore the legal
existence of the wife must be merged into that of the husband. I
believe a writer as late as Blackstone laid it down that it would
not do to permit the wife to hold any property in severalty from
her husband, because it would give to her an interest apart from
his.

We have got over that. It took us one hundred and fifty years to
get past that, and from year to year in this country, especially
in the last twenty-five years,