make, proceeds
from the supposition that it is probable that all the women will
range themselves upon one side in politics and all the men on the
other. Such supposition flatly contradicts the other arguments
drawn from the dependence of women and from their alleged
unwillingness to assume political burdens. So men over fifty
years of age are without the power to enforce obedience to laws
against which the remainder of the voters forcibly rebel. It is
not physical power alone, but power aided by the respect for law
of the people, on which laws depend for their enforcement.

The sixth, eighth and ninth reasons of the committee are the same
proposition differently stated. It is that a share in the
government of the country is a burden, and one which, in the
judgment of a majority of the women of the country, they ought
not to be required to assume. If any citizen deem the exercise of
this franchise a burden and not a privilege, such person is under
no constraint to exercise it. But if it be a birthright, then it
is obvious that no other power than that of the individual
concerned can rightfully restrain its exercise. The committee
concede that women ought to be clothed with the ballot in any
State where any considerable part of the women desire it. This is
a pretty serious confession. On the vital, fundamental question
whether the institutions of this country shall be so far changed
that the number of persons in it who take a part in the
government shall be doubled, the judgment of women is to be and
ought to be decisive. If woman may fitly determine this question,
for what question of public policy is she unfit? What question of
equal importance will ever be submitted to her decision? What has
become of the argument that women are unfit to vote because they
are dependent on men, or because they are unfit for military
duty, or because they are inexperienced, or because they are
without power to enforce obedience to their laws?

The next argument is that by the present arrangement the
administration of justice is so far perverted that one-half the
citizens of the country have an advantage from the sympathies of
juries and judges which "would warrant loud complaint" on the
part of the other half. If this be true, it is doubtless due to
an