the
governments for those in the West were organized there had been
no practical example of universal suffrage in any one of the
older States, hence it might be pardonable for their settlers to
ignore the right of the women associated with them to a voice in
their governments.

But to-day, after fifty years' continuous agitation of the right
of women to vote, and after the demand has been conceded in
one-half the States in the management of the public schools;
after one State has added to that of the schools the management
of its cities; and after four States have granted women the full
vote--the universal reports show that the exercise of the
suffrage by women has added to their influence, increased the
respect of men, and elevated the moral, social and political
conditions of their respective commonwealths. With those
object-lessons before Congress, it would seem that no member
could be so blind as not to see it the duty of that body to have
the provisional governments of our new possessions founded on the
principle of equal rights, privileges and immunities for all the
people, women included. I hope this convention will devise some
plan for securing a strong expression of public sentiment on this
question, to be presented to the Fifty-sixth Congress, which is
to convene on the first Monday of December next....

During the reconstruction period and the discussion of the
negro's right to vote Senator Blaine and others opposed the
counting of all the negroes in the basis of representation,
instead of the old-time three-fifths, because they saw that to do
so would greatly increase the power of the white men of the South
on the floor of Congress. Therefore the Republican leaders
insisted upon the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to secure
the ballot to the negro men. Only one generation has passed and
yet nearly all of the Southern States have by one device or
another succeeded in excluding from the ballot-box very nearly
the entire negro vote, openly and defiantly declaring their
intention to secure the absolute supremacy of the white race, but
there is not a suggestion on their part of allowing the citizens
to whom they deny the right of suffrage to be counted out from
the basis of representation. Some of the Northern newspapers