ent as that two and two make four, there is no need of
any written authority. But this is not what I intended to speak
upon. I wish to introduce a resolution, and leave it to the
action of the Convention:

_Resolved_, That we ask not for our rights as a gift of charity,
but as an act of justice. For it is in accordance with the
principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to
maintain government, she has a right to participate in the
formation and administration of it. That as she is amenable to
the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their
enactment, and to all the protective advantages they can bestow;
and as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life,
she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. And any
difference, therefore, in political, civil, and social rights, on
account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of
justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the
contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.

... But we call upon the law-makers and law-breakers of the
nation, to defend themselves for violating the fundamental
principles of the Republic, or disprove their validity. Yes! they
stand arrayed before the bar, not only of injured womanhood, but
before the bar of moral consistency; for this question is
awakening an interest abroad, as well as at home. Whatever human
rights are claimed for man, moral consistency points to the equal
rights of woman; but statesmen dare not openly face the subject;
knowing well they can not confute it, and they have not moral
courage enough to admit it; and hence, all they can do is to
shelter themselves under a subterfuge which, though solidified by
age, ignorance, and prejudice, is transparent enough for the most
benighted vision to penetrate. A strong evidence of this, is
given in a reply of Mr. Roebuck, member of Parliament, at a
meeting of electors in Sheffield, England. Mr. R., who advocated
the extension of the franchise to the occupants of five-pound
tenements, was asked whether he would favor the extension of the
same to women who pay an equal amount of rent? That was a simple,
straight-forward question of justice; one worthy to be asked even
in our republican legislative halls. But what was the honorable