nhere in the people at the foundation of the government.

You may listen to our demands, gentlemen, with dull ears, and
smile incredulously at the idea of danger to our institutions
from continued violation of the civil and political rights of
women, but the question of what citizens shall enjoy the rights
of suffrage involves our national existence; for, if the
constitutional rights of the humblest citizen may be invaded with
impunity, laws interpreted on the side of injustice, judicial
decisions based not on reason, sound argument, nor the spirit and
letter of our declarations and theories of government, but on the
customs of society and what dead men are supposed to have
thought, not what they said--what will the rights of the ruling
powers even be in the future with a people educated into such
modes of thought and action? The treatment of every individual in
a community--in our courts, prisons, asylums, of every class of
petitioners before congress--strengthens or undermines the
foundations of that temple of liberty whose corner-stones were
laid one century ago with bleeding hands and anxious hearts, with
the hardships, privations, and sacrifices of a seven years' war.
He who is able from the conflicts of the present to forecast the
future events, cannot but contemplate with anxiety the fate of
this republic, unless our constitution be at once subjected to a
thorough emendation, making it more comprehensively democratic.

A review of the history of our nation during the century will
show the American people that all the obstacles that have impeded
their political, moral and material progress from the dominion of
slavery down to the present epidemic of political corruptions,
are directly and indirectly traceable to the federal constitution
as their source and support. Hence the necessity of prompt and
appropriate amendments. Nothing that is incorrect in principle
can ever be productive of beneficial results, and no custom or
authority is able to alter or overrule this inviolate law of
development. The catch-phrases of politicians, such as "organic
development," "the logic of events," and "things will regulate
themselves," have deceived the thoughtless long enough. There is
just one road to safety, and that is to understand the law
governin