Though the atmosphere is forty miles deep all round the globe, no
man can do more than fill his own lungs. No man can see, hear, or
smell but just so far; and though hundreds are deprived of these
senses, his are not the more acute. Though rights have been
abundantly supplied by the good Father, no man can appropriate to
himself those that belong to another. A citizen can have but one
vote, fill but one office, though thousands are not permitted to
do either. These axioms prove that woman's poverty does not add
to man's wealth, and if, in the plenitude of his power, he should
secure to her the exercise of all her God-given rights, her
wealth could not bring poverty to him. There is a kind of nervous
unrest always manifested by those in power, whenever new claims
are started by those out of their own immediate class. The
philosophy of this is very plain. They imagine that if the rights
of this new class be granted, they must, of necessity, sacrifice
something of what they already possess. They can not divest
themselves of the idea that rights are very much like lands,
stocks, bonds, and mortgages, and that if every new claimant be
satisfied, the supply of human rights must in time run low. You
might as well carp at the birth of every child, lest there should
not be enough air left to inflate your lungs; at the success of
every scholar, for fear that your draughts at the fountain of
knowledge could not be so long and deep; at the glory of every
hero, lest there be no glory left for you....

If the object of government is to protect the weak against the
strong, how unwise to place the power wholly in the hands of the
strong. Yet that is the history of all governments, even the
model republic of these United States. You who have read the
history of nations, from Moses down to our last election, where
have you ever seen one class looking after the interests of
another? Any of you can readily see the defects in other
governments, and pronounce sentence against those who have
sacrificed the masses to themselves; but when we come to our own
case, we are blinded by custom and self-interest. Some of you who
have no capital can see the injustice which the laborer suffers;
some of you who have no slaves, can see the cruelty of his
oppression; but who