to learn the privilege of going to the universities.

My next personal experience of the injustice done to women by the laws
was, when a widow, I buried one of my little daughters, and found that
I, who had borne her and nursed her and provided for all her wants,
was not her heir, but her little sister, who had done nothing for her,
and was still dependent on me for care, etc. This I felt very keenly,
not on account of the property involved, for it was but little, but on
account of the great injustice done to my maternal heart. My next
personal lesson in the law's iniquity was, when about to marry the
second time, both myself and husband desired to secure to me the
property I possessed. I employed a great lawyer in Maine, Gov.
Fessenden, the father of one of our senators, to make an instrument
that would secure that end. After thinking on the subject a week, and
doing the best he could, he handed me the paper, saying, "I have done
my best; but I can not assure you that this instrument will secure to
you your property if your husband should ever become insolvent!" This
surely astonished me. The law not only did not protect women in their
property rights, but did so much to prevent their getting or keeping
them, that an able lawyer could not frame an instrument that would
secure them even when signed by their intended husbands before
marriage! This was more than thirty years ago, and some improvements
have since been made in the laws in reference to women.

The next great wrong that pressed heavily upon me was when I again
became a widow. I found myself yearly taxed for State and county, and
later for revenue, without a voice in anything that concerned the
raising of money, or in any of the elections to office in the great
struggle that our country was passing through. With all the deep
feeling of my brethren, a clear appreciation of the all-important
issues at stake, and an intensely painful knowledge of the sin of
slavery and its concomitant evils, I could not cast a vote in favor
of the right, but must look on with folded hands, and give my money to
support the Government, without a chance of giving it an impetus,
however slight, in the direction of justice and liberty! In view of
all these wrongs, I felt that the women of America had as just cause
for rebellion against the Government as our fathers had against the
British Government when they resisted, on the ground that taxation and
representation were one and inse