this time to the consideration
of Mr. Julian's XVI. Amendment, as something which, if we were
not arguing for it, somebody else would be. It is the logical
sequence of what has gone before in the way of the experiment of
republican government in this country. There is no one--either
American or foreign-born--who has observed the workings of our
institutions and the progress of our country, who will say that
we must stand still. We must either go forward in our work of
extending suffrage until we finally reach universal suffrage, or
go back to a one-man power. The victims of the slave power are
to-day standing erect in the possession of equal citizenship on
the basis of absolute legal equality with the white men of the
country. Therefore, with slavery abolished, with our free-school
system, with newspapers scattered all over like snow-flakes
throughout the country, with free thought and free education,
there is not such a thing probable or possible as our going
backward to the system of one-man power. The question now to be
decided is the enfranchisement of women. And this question is at
last fairly before the world--not in newspapers alone, but in
State Legislatures, and even in Congress. Propositions are
pending in Washington for the enfranchisement of the women of the
District of Columbia, and for the enfranchisement by
Congressional authority of the women of the Territories. There is
also a Constitutional amendment proposed, which, if successful,
will abolish all political proscription on account of sex
everywhere throughout the country. My advice would be to
concentrate directly our chief energy on the larger part of the
problem. I believe in State action. I think it would be well to
go to Albany and to the Massachusetts Legislature and to the Ohio
Legislature, and to the Legislatures of all the States, and to
urge that the States take the initiative and enfranchise their
women. But I do not expect that any one State, whatever may be
the political opinion of that State, will go much in advance of
the nation at large. It seems to me that no political party
existing in any one State can establish the precedent of woman's
enfranchisement much in advance of the National Government. I
think it therefore the part of wisdom to concentrate directly