precedents of the past to
be all against any such proposition as that now submitted. It is
said that there is no precedent, that it is not customary in any
of our governments, that it is not one of the recognitions of our
society, that it has never been signified as such in the past. I
do not know that such an argument amounts to anything at best,
but I do know that the allegation itself has no foundation in
fact. I know that in many cases and on many occasions this
impassable barrier that is now set forth as dividing the natural
rights of man and woman has been broken down and trampled upon,
and that, too, without any injury to the society from so doing.
Perhaps I can best illustrate this point by what an accomplished
lady, who has given much thought and research to the subject, has
presented. I read from a contribution she has made to one of our
leading public prints. She says:

So long as political power was of an absolute and hereditary
character women shared it whenever they happened, by birth,
to hold the position to which it was attached. In Hungary,
in some of the German States, and in the French Provinces to
this day, certain women, holding an inherited right, confer
the franchise upon their husbands, and in widowhood empower
some relative or accredited agent to be the legislative
protector of their property. In 1858, the authorities of the
old university town of Upsal granted the right of suffrage
to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing
business on their own account. The representative that their
votes elected was to sit in the House of Burgesses. In
Scotland, it is less than a century since, for election
purposes, parties were unblushingly married in cases where
women conveyed a political franchise, and parted after the
election. In Ireland, the court of Queen's Bench, Dublin,
restored to women, in January, 1864, the old right of voting
for town commissioners. The Justice, Fitzgerald, desired to
state that ladies were also entitled to sit as town
commissioners, as well as to vote for them, and the
chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was
nothing in the act of voting repugnant to their habi