of the moral universe. If we have our neighbor's right
of suffrage and citizenship in our keeping, no matter of what
color, or race, or sex, then we have stolen goods in our
possession--and God's search-warrant will pursue us forever, if
those goods be not restored. And then we impudently assert that
"all just governments derive their powers, from the consent of
the governed." But when was the consent of woman ever asked to
one single act on all the statute books? We talk of "trial by
jury of our peers!" In this country of ours, women have been
fined, imprisoned, scourged, branded with red hot irons and hung;
but when, or where, or for what crime or offense, was ever woman
tried by a jury of her peers?

Suffrage was never in the hands of tyrants or of governments, but
by usurpation. It was never given by them to any of us. We
brought it; not bought it; nor conquered it; nor begged it; nor
earned it; nor inherited it. It was man's inalienable,
irrepealable, inextinguishable right from the beginning. It is so
still; the same yesterday, to-day, and while earthly governments
last. It came with the right to see and hear; to breathe and
speak; to think and feel; to love and hate; to choose and refuse;
or it did not come at all. The right to see came with the eye and
the light: did it not? and the right to breathe, with the lungs
and the air; and all these from the same infinite source. And has
not also the moral and spiritual nature its inalienable rights?
Have the mere bodily organs, which are but the larder of worms,
born of the dust, and dust their destiny--have they power and
prerogative that are denied to the reason, the understanding, the
conscience, the will, those attributes which constitute
responsibility, accountability, and immortality? Or shall God
give the power to choose, or refuse obedience to his law and
reign, leaving the human will free as his own; and must mortal
man, the mushroom of yesterday and perished to-morrow, usurp a
higher and more dreadful prerogative, and compel support of and
submission to laws in which the subject has no voice in making,
executing, or even consenting, on pain of perpetual imprisonment,
banishment, or death?

Must a brave soldier fight and bleed for the government, and,
pruned of limbs, plucked