f women ask for the suffrage they may
have it." By this very concession they admit that there is no valid
reason for withholding it, and in thus arbitrarily doing so they are
denying all representation to the minority, which is wholly at
variance with republican principles. This is excused on the ground
that the franchise is not a "right" but a privilege to be granted or
not as seems best to those in power. This was the Tory argument before
the American Revolution, and, carried back to its origin, it upholds
"the divine authority of kings." The law to put in force the one and
only amendment ever added to our National Constitution to extend the
franchise was entitled, "An act to enforce the _right_ of citizens of
the United States to vote;" and the amendment itself reads, "The
_right_ of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged." (See Chap. I.)

The readers of the present volume will not find such a story of cruel
and relentless punishment inflicted upon advocates of woman suffrage
as is related in the earlier volumes of this History, but the passing
of rack and thumbscrew, of stake and fagot, does not mean the end of
persecution in the world. Those who stand for this reform to-day do
not tread a flower-strewn path. It is yet an unpopular subject, under
the ban of society and receiving scant measure of public sympathy, but
it must continue to be urged. If the assertion had been accepted as
conclusive, that a measure which after years of advocacy is still
opposed by the majority should be dropped, the greatest reforms of
history would have been abandoned. The personal character of those who
represent a cause, however, sometimes carries more weight than the
numbers, and judged by this standard none has had stronger support
than the enfranchisement of women[2].

The struggle of the Nineteenth Century was the transference of power
from one man or one class of men to all men, it has been said, and
while but one country in 1800 had a constitutional government, in 1900
fifty had some form of constitution and some degree of male
sovereignty. Must the Twentieth Century be consumed in securing for
woman that which man spent a hundred years in obtaining for himself?
The determination of those engaged in this righteous contest was thus
expressed by the president of the National Suffrage Association in her
address at the annual convention of 1902:

Before the attainment of equal rights for men and