ide that no privileged class could ever again close
it against the humblest citizen of the republic?

"This is the negro's hour." Are we sure that he, once entrenched in
all his inalienable rights, may not be an added power to hold us at
bay? Have not "black male citizens" been heard to say they doubted the
wisdom of extending the right of suffrage to women? Why should the
African prove more just and generous than his Saxon compeers? If the
two millions of Southern black women are not to be secured in their
rights of person, property, wages, and children, their emancipation is
but another form of slavery. In fact, it is better to be the slave of
an educated white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one. We who
know what absolute power the statute laws of most of the States give
man, in all his civil, political, and social relations, demand that in
changing the status of the four millions of Africans, the women as
well as the men shall be secured in all the rights, privileges, and
immunities of citizens.

It is all very well for the privileged order to look down complacently
and tell us, "This is the negro's hour; do not clog his way; do not
embarrass the Republican party with any new issue; be generous and
magnanimous; the negro once safe, the woman comes next." Now, if our
prayer involved a new set of measures, or a new train of thought, it
would be cruel to tax "white male citizens" with even two simple
questions at a time; but the disfranchised all make the same demand,
and the same logic and justice that secures suffrage to one class
gives it to all. The struggle of the last thirty years has not been
merely on the black man as such, but on the broader ground of his
humanity. Our Fathers, at the end of the first revolution, in their
desire for a speedy readjustment of all their difficulties, and in
order to present to Great Britain, their common enemy, an united
front, accepted the compromise urged on them by South Carolina, and a
century of wrong, ending in another revolution, has been the result of
their action. This is our opportunity to retrieve the errors of the
past and mould anew the elements of Democracy. The nation is ready for
a long step in the right direction; party lines are obliterated, and
all men are thinking for themselves. If our rulers have the justice to
give the black man suffrage, woman should avail herself of that
new-born virtue to secure her rights; if not, she should begin with
renewed