exclude
woman from a share in making them, while they are her only
security for the advantages she ought to enjoy, will never cease
crying aloud to all men for purification. One of the great aims
of all government, one of the strong considerations which alone
makes its restrictions endurable, is the assurance which it gives
the governed, that the sum of their happiness, and even of their
liberty, shall, by individual restraints, become greater on the
whole. It holds out a bonus to society, or rather, to its
individual members, "Give me this little, and I will give you in
exchange this much." Thus each individual puts a stake into the
common fund, has an interest in the common weal, which demands
careful watching. Can woman watch the large, the all-absorbing
interest she has at stake? She, above all, the most tender, the
most sensitive of beings, the most keenly alive to wrong, to
insult, to oppression, to aught that bruises her womanly nature,
can she give a careful eye to the disposal of those important
questions which touch the very core of her heart? Why, when
reduced to these, its naked dimensions, the injustice seems so
horrible, as not to be credible, and did we not know the facts,
we would find it hard to believe that man, made in the image of
his Maker, could violate justice so barbarously. Surely woman
lies under no moral obligation to any laws which, wanting her
assent, yet assume to control her every action, word, and even
thought. Her property, her person, all her rights, her most
sacred affections, come within the province of those enactments;
yet she can have no voice, no weight in determining what those
enactments shall be. (Stamping and groans).

In the third place, woman is entitled to vote, because she is
liable to all the penalties imposed by government. Not only is it
that she confides, or rather, that government compels her to
confide to it, the custody of person, property, rights, and all
dearest interests, but it goes a step further, and thus adds
another link (though quite a superfluous one) to the adamantine
chain of argument which it supplies to bind down its own
injustice. It stands not merely in a passive or receiving
relation to woman, it becomes the active arbiter of her doom; it
declares itself competent t