choose the rulers who
make laws for their own benefit, too often to the detriment of
the unrepresented portion of our people, who are denied
recognition as completely as was ever an oppressed class in the
most odious form of oligarchy which usurped a government.

Article XIV, Section 2, provides that "Representation shall be
apportioned among the several States according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians, not taxed." What sort of justice is
there in excluding from the basis of representation Indians who
are not taxed and including in this basis women who are taxed?
The framers of this amendment were evidently impressed with the
tenet that taxation and representation should be associated, and
that as the Indian paid no taxes, and was not, therefore, forced
to carry the burdens of citizenship, he might, with justice, be
denied the privileges of citizenship. But by what specious
reasoning can any one maintain that it is honest to tax the great
body of women citizens, to count them in the basis of
representation, and yet deny to them the right of personal
representation at the ballot box? What excuse can be made for
this monstrous perversion of liberty? Each one of you, gentlemen,
sits here as the representative of thousands of women who, by
their money, have helped to build this Capitol in which you
assemble and to pay for the seats in which you sit; nay, more,
they pay a part of the salary of every man here, and yet what
real representation have they? How often do you think of the
women of your States and of their interests in the laws you pass?
How much do you reflect on the injustice which is daily and
hourly done them by denying to them all voice in this body,
wherein you claim to "represent the people" of your respective
States....

Some years ago, when the bill regulating affairs in Utah was
under discussion Senator Edmunds said, "Disfranchisement is a
cruel and degrading penalty, that ought not to be inflicted
except for crime." Yet this cruel and degrading penalty is
inflicted upon practically all the women of the United States. Of
what crime have we been guilty? Or is our mere sex a fault for
which we must be punished? Would not any body of men look upon
disfr