ts.

In November, 1864, the Government of Moravia decided that
all women who were tax-payers had the right to vote. In the
Government of Pitcairn's Island, women over sixteen have
voted ever since its settlement. In Canada, in 1850, a
distinct electoral privilege was conferred on women, in the
hope that thereby the Protestant might balance the Roman
Catholic power in the school system. I lived where I saw
this right exercised by female property holders for four
years. I never heard the most cultivated man, not even that
noble gentleman, the late Lord Elgin, object to its results.
In New Jersey, the Constitution adopted in 1776, gave the
right of suffrage to all inhabitants, of either sex, who
possessed fifty dollars in proclamation money. In 1790, to
make it clearer, the Assembly inserted the words "he or
she." Women voted there till 1838, when, the votes of some
colored women having decided an election, the prejudice
against the negro came to the aid of lordly supremacy, and
an act was passed limiting the right of suffrage to "free
white male citizens." In 1852, the Kentucky Legislature
conferred the right on widows with children in matters
relating to the school system. The same right was conferred
in Michigan; and full suffrage was given to women in the
State constitution submitted to Kansas in 1860.

I think that is a list of illustrations sufficient to dispose of
any argument that may arise on such a score. And now, Mr.
President, permit me to say, in concluding the remarks I have
felt called upon to make here, that I have spoken rather as
indicating my assent to the principle than as expecting any
present practical results from the motion in question. In the
earliest part of my political life, when first called upon to
represent a constituency in the General Assembly of Missouri, in
looking around, after my arrival at the seat of Government at
those matters that seemed to me of most importance in
legislation, I was struck with two great classes of injustices,
two great departments in which it seemed to me the laws and the
constitutions of my State had done signal wrong. Those were one
as respects the rights of colored