excluded our legislation will still lack that moral tone, for want of
which the nation is to-day drifting toward ruin. There is no other
name given by which the country can be saved but that of woman.
"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed." Women are governed, negroes are governed, and should give
their consent. Will men never learn that a principle which God has
made true He has also made it safe to apply? Aye, more, that a
principle He has made true, it is not safe not to apply? The problem
for the American statesmen to-day is no narrow question of races, but
how to embody in our institutions a guarantee for the rights of every
citizen. The solution is easy. Base government on the consent of the
governed, and each class will protect itself. Put this one great
principle of universal suffrage, irrespective of sex or color, into
the foundation of our temple of liberty, and it will rise in fair and
beautiful proportions, "without the sound of a hammer or the noise of
any instrument," to stand at last "perfect and entire, wanting
nothing." Omit it, and only "He who sees the end from the beginning"
knows through what other national woes we must be driven, before we
learn that the path of justice is the only path of peace and safety.

LUCY STONE.

BOSTON, _May 5, 1867_.

_To the American Equal Rights Association_:

Although not permitted to be present with you, yet, in spirit, I join
you in all your efforts to secure justice and equality to all the
children of God. I have so long felt deeply upon the subjects before
you, that I wish to add my word to the voices of those who are more
fortunate in being present. Since I was old enough to think upon
important subjects, I have constantly felt the pressure of injustice
that has borne so heavily upon my sex. At sixteen I earnestly desired
to enter some college, that I might have the benefit of those helps to
learning which were open to all boys, and I deeply felt the cruelty
and injustice that closed the doors of the universities to me, who was
longing and thirsting for knowledge, while they were invitingly open
to the youth of the other sex, who often only used them to waste their
time and give them the name of educated men. I could see no reason for
this exclusion, nor could I imagine how it would harm any one to allow
girls who desired