o the present; and
still we mount! Woman suffrage is present in the institutions of
our country as a germ; it is growing. In not affirming it the
fathers did no conscious or intentional wrong; and only a few
cultivated women of the Revolutionary period, like Mrs. Adams and
a lady friend of Richard Henry Lee, felt the inconsistency of
affirming the equality of all human beings and then ignoring half
of them. But in days of war and slavery, Mr. Seward said,
"Liberty is in the Union"; so we may say, Suffrage is in the
Union. The negroes who fought for the Union, while it was only a
white man's Union, were winning their own enfranchisement; the
women who celebrate American Independence are doing honor to
principles which will some day bring justice to all the
inhabitants of the land.

The discussions on this subject of suffrage have disclosed to the
American people their own low estimate of the ballot, as a coarse
and uncertain instrument for procuring only coarse and doubtful
benefits. They ought to thank us for bringing to light this
dangerous skepticism, and for compelling attention to those
deeper principles of justice and equality which alone can work
the timely cure. To refuse to follow those principles when their
new application becomes obvious, is to give up the Republic.

Yet there has been a relative decline of politics. The "powers
that be," or the ruling forces of the country are not seated
alone at Washington and the State capitals; new and mightier
lawgivers have arisen. Civilization has come to include and
employ other than political agents for the maintenance of order
and the promotion of welfare. The power of opinion as generated
by education, literature, religion, business or social life, and
as announced through the press, and propagated in the widening
circles of personal influence--this rules the rulers and masters
the country. Thus, within the nation and fostered by its freedom,
there has grown up a grander republic of thought and sentiment,
which has also blossomed into many a fair institution. Of this
more glorious republic, woman is a welcome and unquestioned
citizen. Her opportunities for self-help and for helping others,
her share in the common burdens and her dividend of the common
benefits, must be far larger, i