ed the pen of Jefferson, the sword of Washington, and the
wisdom, humanity, and statesmanship of the founders and framers of the
Government; and until far louder thunders than Bunker Hill and
Saratoga dashed it to the ground, and almost whelmed the Government
itself with it in a common ruin. And the terrible lessons of the late
war will all be in vain, should we now attempt to relay our
foundations in injustice and oppression. Out of the jaws of rebellion
and treason was the nation snatched by the hand of negro valor. And
thus, surely, has that race earned the right of full citizenship and
equality in the State. Even Jefferson declared, more than half a
century ago, that whoever "fights and pays taxes" has the right of
suffrage against the world. But the right of humanity, of manhood, is
older and of higher and diviner appointment than any other. If the
right of liberty and the pursuit of happiness be the gift and
endowment of the Creator, then surely is the right to the ballot the
only possible or conceivable assurance and guaranty of it in
republican governments. And on this ground the claim of woman is no
less than that of man. But base and degrading as has been the position
of the negro in the Government, that of woman is far lower. At no
price within human power to pay, can she arrive at equality in the
Government she is compelled to support and obey. In the making or
executing of no law, however deeply her womanly interest or happiness
may be involved, can she bear a part. She is found guilty, not of a
crime, not of a color, but of a sex; and all her appeals to courts or
communities for equality and justice, are in vain, even in this
democratic and Christian Republic. She is a native, free-born citizen,
a property-holder, taxpayer, loyal and patriotic. She supports
herself, and in proportionable part, the schools, colleges,
universities, churches, poor-houses, jails, prisons, the army, the
navy, the whole machinery of government; and yet she has no vote at
the polls, no voice in the national councils. She has guided great
movements of philanthropy and charity; has founded and sustained
churches; established missions; edited journals; written and published
invaluable treatises on history and economy, political, social, and
moral, and on philosophy in all its departments; filled honorably
professors' chairs; governed nations; led armies; commanded ships;
discovered and described new planets; practiced creditably in t