married
woman.

And the attorney, who carried this question to its final success,
is now the Senator elect from Oregon, Hon. J. H. Mitchell, in
whom the cause of equal rights to women has an added power on the
floor of the United States Senate.

Though the words persons, people, inhabitants, electors,
citizens, are all used indiscriminately in the National and State
constitutions, there was always a conflict of opinion, prior to
the war, as to whether they were synonymous terms, as for
instance:

No _person_ shall be a representative who shall not have
been seven years a _citizen_, and who shall not, when
elected, be an _inhabitant_ of that State in which he is
chosen. No _person_ shall be a senator who shall not have
been a _citizen_ of the United States, and an _inhabitant_
of that State in which he is chosen.

But, whatever room there was for a doubt, under the old regime,
the adoption of the XIV. Amendment settled that question forever,
in its first sentence:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside.

And the second settles the equal status of all persons--all
citizens:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty or property,
without due process of law, nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The only question left to be settled now, is: Are women persons?
And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood
to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens, and
no State has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old
law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence,
every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws
of the several States, is to-day null and void, precisely as is
every one against negroes. Is the right to vote one of the
privileges or immunities of citizens? I think the disfranchised
ex-rebels, and the ex-state prisoners will all agree with me,
that it is not only one of them, but _the