n congress. I have seen but one
woman who ever expressed even a wish to be president of
these United States. But we do ask with most serious
earnestness that you should give us the ballot, which has
been truly called the expression of allegiance and
responsibility to the government. All over the world this
same movement is advancing. In many countries earnest,
thoughtful, large-hearted women are working day and night to
elevate their sex; to secure higher education; to open new
avenues for their industrious hands; trying to make women
helpers to man, instead of being millstones round his neck
to sink him in his life struggle. Ah, if we could only
infuse into your souls the courage which we,
constitutionally timid as we are, now feel on this subject,
you would hasten to perform this act of justice, and
inaugurate the beginning of the end which all but the blind
can see is surely and steadily approaching. We are willing
to accept anything. We have always been in the position of
beggars, as now, and cannot be choosers if we wished. We
will gladly accept the franchise on any terms, provided they
be wholly and entirely honorable. If you should see proper
to subject us to an educational test, even of a high order,
we should try to attain it; if you require a considerable
property qualification, we would not complain. We would be
only too grateful for any amelioration of our legal
disabilities. Allow me to ask, are we less prepared for the
intelligent exercise of the right of suffrage than were the
freedmen when it was suddenly conferred upon them? Has not
this right been to them a beneficial stimulant, inducing
them to use exertions to promote their improvement, and has
it not raised them to a superior place, above the
disfranchised classes, such as the Chinese, Indians and
women?

Perhaps you think only a few of us desire the ballot. If
that were so, we think it would not be any sufficient reason
for withholding it. In old times most of our slaves were
happy and contented. Under the rule of good and humane
masters, they gave themselves no trouble to grasp after