rms with every other citizen, in the formation and
administration of government. This claim on the part of the female sex
presents a question the magnitude of which is not well appreciated by
the writers and speakers who treat it with ridicule. Those engaged in
the movement are able, sincere and earnest women, and they will not be
silenced by such ridicule, nor even by the villainous caricatures of
Nast. On the contrary, they justly place all those things to the account
of the wrongs which they think their sex has suffered. They believe,
with an intensity of feeling which men who have not associated with them
have not yet learned, that their sex has not had, and has not now, its
just and true position in the organization of government and society.
They may be wrong in their position, but they will not be content until
their arguments are fairly, truthfully and candidly answered.

In the most celebrated document which has been put forth on this side of
the Atlantic, our ancestors declared that "governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed."

Blackstone says, "The lawfulness of punishing such criminals (i.e.,
persons offending merely against the laws of society) is founded upon
this principle: that the law by which they suffer was made by their own
consent; it is a part of the original contract into which they entered
when first they engaged in society; it was calculated for and has long
contributed to their own security."

Quotations, to an unlimited extent, containing similar doctrines from
eminent writers, both English and American, on government, from the time
of John Locke to the present day, might be made. Without adopting this
doctrine which bases the rightfulness of government upon the consent of
the governed, I claim that there is implied in it the narrower and
unassailable principle that all citizens of a State, who are bound by
its laws, are entitled to an equal voice in the making and execution of
such laws. The doctrine is well stated by Godwin in his treatise on
Political Justice. He says: "The first and most important principle that
can be imagined relative to the form and structure of government, seems
to be this: that as government is a transaction in the name and for the
benefit of the whole, every member of the community ought to have some
share in its administration."

Again, "Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of
individuals; and it seems both reasonabl