er than all books, and whatever of good
there is in any written revelations, must necessarily agree with
ours, or it is not true, for ours only is the true revelation,
based in nature and in life. That revelation is no less than the
living, breathing, thinking, feeling, acting revelation
manifested in the nature of woman. In her manifold powers,
capacities, needs, hopes, and aspirations, lies her title-deed,
and whether that revelation was written by nature or nature's
God, matters not, for here it is. No one can disprove it. No one
can bring an older, broader, higher, and more sacred basis for
human rights. Do you tell me that the Bible is against our
rights? Then I say that our claims do not rest upon a book
written no one knows when, or by whom. Do you tell me what Paul
or Peter says on the subject? Then again I reply that our claims
do not rest on the opinions of any one, not even on those of Paul
and Peter, for they are older than they. Books and opinions, no
matter from whom they came, if they are in opposition to human
rights, are nothing but dead letters. I have shown you that we
derive our claims from humanity, from revelation, from nature,
and from your Declaration of Independence; all proclaim our right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and having life,
which fact I presume you do not question, then we demand all the
rights and privileges society is capable of bestowing, to make
life useful, virtuous, honorable, and happy.

But I am told that woman needs not as extensive an education as
man, as her place is only the domestic sphere; _only_ the
domestic sphere! Oh, how utterly ignorant is society of the true
import of that term! Go to your legislative halls, and your
Congress; behold those you have sent there to govern you, and as
you find them high or low, great or small, noble or base, you can
trace it directly or indirectly to the domestic sphere.

The wisest in all ages have acknowledged that the most important
period in human education is in childhood--that period when the
plastic mind may be moulded into such exquisite beauty, that no
unfavorable influences shall be able entirely to destroy it--or
into such hideous deformity, that it shall cling to it like a
thick rust eaten into a highly polished surface, which