h this constitution for the United States of
America."

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the
male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we
formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not
to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole
people--women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to
women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are
denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this
democratic-republican government--the ballot.

The early journals of Congress show that when the committee reported to
that body the original articles of confederation, the very first article
which became the subject of discussion was that respecting equality of
suffrage. Article 4th said:

"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse between the people of the different States of this
Union, the free inhabitants of each of the States, (paupers,
vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted,) shall be entitled
to all the privileges and immunities of the free citizens of the
several States."

Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the
universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all--in
order to produce the desired result--a harmonious union and a
homogeneous people.

Luther Martin, attorney-general of Maryland, in his report to the
Legislature of that State of the convention that framed the United
States Constitution, said:

"Those who advocated the equality of suffrage took the matter up on
the original principles of government: that the reason why each
individual man in forming a State government should have an equal
vote, is because each individual, before he enters into government,
is equally free and equally independent."

James Madison said:

"Under every view of the subject, it seems indispensable that the
mass of the citizens should not be without a voice in making the
laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who
are to administer them." Also, "Let it be remembered, finally, that
it has ever been the pride and the boast of America that the rights
for which she contended were the rights of human nature."

And these assertions of the framers of the United States Constitution of
the equa