he necessary steps to put
the ballot in the hands of women....

I pray you to think of this question as you would if the one-half
of the people who are disfranchised were men, if we women had
absolute power to control every condition in this country and you
were obliged to obey the laws and submit to whatever arrangements
we made. I want you to report on this question exactly as if the
masculine half of the people were the ones who were deprived of
this right to a vote in governmental affairs. You would not be
long in bringing in a favorable report if you were the ones who
were disfranchised and denied a voice in your Government. If it
were not women--if it were the farmers of this country, the
manufacturers, or any class of men who were robbed of their
inalienable rights, then we would see that class rising in
rebellion, and the Government shaken to its very foundation; but
being women, being only the mothers, daughters, wives and sisters
of men who constitute the aristocracy, we have to submit.

The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw (Penn.) presided over the hearing before the
House Judiciary Committee.[128] The Constitutional Argument was made
by Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who said in the course of a
long and logical address:

We find that it is declared in Article IV, Section 4, that "the
United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a
republican form of Government." What is a republican form of
Government? In a monarchy, the theory is that all power flows
directly from the monarch; even in constitutional monarchies each
concession has been obtained "by consent of our gracious
sovereign." When the laws are based on the idea that the caprices
of the ruler regulate the privileges granted to the people, it is
at least logical, even if it is cruel, to refuse the right of
suffrage to any class of the community. You will agree that this
is not a monarchy, where power flows from the sovereign to the
people, but a republic, where the sovereign people give to the
Executive they have chosen the power to carry out their will. Can
you really claim that we live under a republican form of
government when one-half the adult inhabitants are denied all
voice in the affairs of the nation? It may be better described as
an oligarchy, where certain privileged men