y to men; that I simply counted as one in
the population; that I must submit to be governed by the laws in
the selection of whose makers I had no choice; that my consent to
be governed would never be asked; that for my taxation there
would be no representation; that, so far as my right to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was concerned, others must
judge for me; that I had no voice for myself; that I was a woman
without a country, and only on the plane of political equality
with the insane, the idiot, the pauper, Indians not taxed, the
criminal, and the unnaturalized foreigner.

Honorable gentlemen, women come here annually to ask that these
wrongs be righted. To-day we have come again to entreat that, as
you have extended this building to meet the needs of the people,
you will extend your thought of the people and make it possible
that the principle underlying the Government of this country may
be embodied in a law which will make the daughters of the land
joint heirs with the sons to all the rights and privileges of an
enfranchised people. In the name of the women of the State of New
York, I ask it.

MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL (Mass.): Except where there is some
very strong reason to the contrary, it is generally admitted that
every man has a right to be consulted in regard to his own
concerns. The laws which he has to obey and the taxes he has to
pay are things that do most intimately concern him, and the only
way of being directly consulted in regard to them, under our form
of government, is through the ballot. Is there any very good
reason why women should not be free to be consulted in this
direct manner? Let us consider a few of the reasons which are
generally given against this freedom of women, and see whether
they are good.

It is said that women do not need to vote, because they are
virtually represented by their husbands, fathers and brothers.
The first trouble with this doctrine of virtual representation is
that it is not according to numbers. I know a man who had a wife,
a widowed mother, four unmarried daughters and five unmarried
sisters. According to this theory his vote represented himself
and all those eleven women. Yet it counted but one, just the same
as the vote of his next-door bachelor neighbor witho