ledge of the world or strength of understanding;
and we have agreed upon a certain age when men and women come to
the possession of their understanding and are able to take care
of their own rights, whatever they may be.

Mr. EDMUNDS: May I ask the Senator, after all, what his opinion
is, whether a child of tender years, say ten years of age, has
not every natural right that a man of seventy has?

Mr. MORTON: Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS: Morally, legally, and every other way?

Mr. MORTON: To my mind that furnishes no argument at all.

Mr. EDMUNDS: I am not arguing it.

Mr. MORTON: It is merely putting an extreme case to say that a
woman twenty-five years of age shall not have the right to vote
because if she votes the child in her arms has the right to vote.
Is there any force in that?

Mr. EDMUNDS: I have not put any case at all. I am asking the
Senator from Indiana, which he seems to be very unwilling to
answer, whether a child of tender years has or has not, in his
opinion, the same natural rights that a grown-up person has. That
can be answered one way or the other without saying it is an
argument.

Mr. MORTON: I suppose the child has the right, certainly the
incipient right; but that amounts to nothing when you apply it to
a child that has not the strength, the experience, the knowledge
of the world, or the age to exercise it. The common sense of
mankind in this and every other country fixes a certain age when
men and women shall be regarded as mature and qualified to take
care of themselves.

Mr. EDMUNDS: They do not fix the same age, let me suggest to the
Senator.

Mr. MORTON: Now, Mr. President, unless we are prepared to deny
the very fundamental doctrine upon which our Government is based,
we must admit that women have the same rights that men have. The
Senator from North Carolina will not deny that women have the
same natural rights that men have. The Senator nods his assent.
Then if that is so, they have the same natural right to use the
means necessary to protect those rights that men have. That
right, so far as men are concerned, is the ballot.

Mr. MERRIMON: Natural means.

Mr. MORTON: Whatever means are necessary and proper to the
protection of a natural right are natural means.

Mr. BAYARD: