ct is, that neither in this country nor in any
country has woman--I mean the great mass of them--ever demanded
such a state of things. Our Government has existed for about a
hundred years, and the number of females who have demanded to be
invested with equal political and civil rights and to be placed
upon an exact equality with the male portion of our population,
compared with those who have remained in retirement, who have
staid at their homes and lived and ruled within that sphere in
which it seems God intended that they should rule, is as a drop
in the sea. So it appears in this conclusive way that the women
of America do not demand this state of things. They do not
protect themselves by votes, nor do they need to do so. They
shape the man when he is a child, rule him with the power of
love, and thus they shape, affect, and often control the
destinies of men, nations, and empires. I do not propose,
however, to go into a discussion in detail of what the women
desire or what we ought to grant. My main purpose is to reply
very briefly to some remarks that fell from the honorable Senator
from Indiana [Mr. Morton] in reference to the Declaration of
Independence. I differ, with all respect, from the revolutionary
construction which he puts upon that instrument. It is true, as
he says, that the Declaration of Independence provides in these
words:

[Illustration: Ellen Clark Sargent.]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Now, I maintain in the first place that we must put a reasonable
construction on those words. Plainly, to my mind, all men are
created equal in point of natural rights, certainly not equal in
point of civil rights, not equal in point of political rights. By
nature man has no civil or political rights. Natural rights are
one sort of rights; civil rights are another sort of rights; and
political rights are a third sort of rights. Every human being
has a natural right to life and liberty; but every human being
has not a natural right to government. He has not a natural right
to the civil rights conferred and defined by a system of
g