overthrown. Neither was Rome immortal; her laws were class laws; the
rights of humanity were not respected; she underwent many changes, and
that vast empire which once ruled the world lives now only in name.
Egypt held the wisdom of the world, and as to a certain extent she
recognized the equality of woman, her empire endured for ages; at last,
she too fell, for her civilization was still an unequal one.

Special laws, or laws specially defined for one particular body of
people, on account of race, color, sex, or occupation, is class
legislation, and bears the seeds of death within itself. It was the
boast of our forefathers, that the rights for which they contended were
the rights of human nature. Shall the women of this country forever
have cause to say that the declaration and the constitution are
specially defined,--are organs of special law?

Where the legislative and executive function of the law are in the hands
of a single class, special law, or special renderings of law are the
unvarying results. If the constitution of the United States is defined
and ruled by United States officials to discriminate between classes of
citizens, then the constitution is by them made to be nothing less than
an organ of special law, and is held not to sustain the rights of the
people. While the class which has usurped the legislative, the executive
and the judicial functions of the government, defines political rights
to belong to male citizens alone, the women of the United States are
under special law; and while thus debarred from exercising their natural
right of self-government, they are subjects, not citizens. It matters
not if women never voted since the framing of the government, until now,
this right has merely been retained by them; it has been held in
abeyance, to be exercised by them whenever they chose. The principles
advocated by the women to-day are the principles which brought on the
revolutionary war, and Miss Anthony and other women associated with her
are exponents of the very principles which caused the colonies to rebel
against the mother country.

The eyes of all nations are upon us; their hopes of liberty are directed
towards us; the United States is now on trial by the light of its own
underlying principle. Its assertion of human right to self-government
lies a hundred years back of it. The chartered confirmation and renewal
of this assertion has come up to our very day, and though all the world
looked on