the three-penny tax on tea, or the paltry tax on paper and
sugar to which our revolutionary fathers were subjected, when compared
with the taxation of the women of this Republic? The orphaned Pixley
sisters, six dollars a day, and even the women, who are proclaiming the
tyranny of our taxation without representation, from city to city
throughout the country, are often compelled to pay a tax for the poor
privilege of defending our rights. And again, to show that
disfranchisement was precisely the slavery of which the fathers
complained, allow me to cite to you old Ben. Franklin, who in those
olden times was admitted to be good authority, not merely in domestic
economy, but in political as well; he said:

"Every man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons and
criminals, is of common right and the law of God, a freeman and
entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom
consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who
are to frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every
man's life, property and peace. For the all of one man is as dear
to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right,
but more need to have representatives in the Legislature than the
rich one. That they who have no voice or vote in the electing of
representatives, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved
to those who have votes and their representatives; for to be
enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and
to be subject to laws made by the representatives of others,
without having had representatives of our own to give consent in
our behalf."

Suppose I read it with the feminine gender:

"That women who have no voice nor vote in the electing of
representatives, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved
to men who have votes and their representatives; for to be enslaved
is to have governors whom men have set over us, and to be subject
to the laws made by the representatives of men, without having
representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf."

And yet one more authority; that of Thomas Paine, than whom not one of
the Revolutionary patriots more ably vindicated the principles upon
which our government is founded:

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by
which other rights are protected. To ta