e the most respected; and it would be if women
were once there; but it never will be until they are there.

Our rights are as old as humanity itself. Yet we are obliged to
ask man to give us the ballot, because he has it in his own hand.
It is ours, and at the same time we ask for it; and have sent our
petitions to Congress. We have been told that the Republic is not
destroyed; it has been destroyed root and branch, because, if it
were not, there would be no need to reconstruct it. And we have
asked Congress, in the reconstruction, to place it upon a sound
foundation. Why have all former republics vanished out of
existence? Simply because they were built upon the sand. In the
erection of a building, in proportion to the height of the walls
must be the depth and soundness of the foundation. If the
foundation is shallow or unsound, the higher you raise your
superstructure the surer its downfall. That is the reason a
republic has not existed as long as a monarchy, because it
embraced principles of human rights in its superstructure which
it denied in its foundation. Hence, before this Republic could
count a hundred years, it has had one of the mightiest
revolutions that ever occurred in any country or in any period of
human existence. Its foundation was laid wrong. It made a
republic for white men alone. It discriminated against color; it
discriminated against sex; and at the same time it pronounced
that all men are created free and equal, and endowed with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. It raised its superstructure to the clouds;
and it has fallen as low as any empire could fall. It is divided.
A house divided against itself can not stand. A wrong always
operates against itself and falls back on the wrong-doer. We have
proclaimed to the world universal suffrage; but it is universal
suffrage excluding the negro and the woman, who are by far the
largest number in this country. It is not the majority that rules
here, but the minority. White men are in the minority in this
nation. White women, black men, and black women compose the large
majority of the nation. Yet in spite of this fact, in spite of
common sense, in spite of justice, while our members of Congress
can prate so long about justic