r property, and their happiness.--[Governor LONG
of Massachusetts.

However much the giving of political power to woman may
disagree with our notions of propriety, we conclude that,
being required by that first prerequisite to greater
happiness, the law of equal freedom, such a concession is
unquestionably right and good.--[HERBERT SPENCER.

In the administration of a State neither a woman as a woman,
nor a man as a man has any special functions, but the gifts
are equally diffused in both sexes. The same opportunity for
self-development which makes man a good guardian will make
woman a good guardian, for their original nature is the
same.--[PLATO.

It has become a custom, almost universal, to invite and to
welcome the presence of women at political assemblages, to listen
to discussions upon the topics involved in the canvass. Their
presence has done much toward the elevation, refinement, and
freedom from insincerity and hypocrisy, of such discussions. Why
would not the same results be wrought out by their presence at
the ballot-box? Wherever the right has been exercised by law,
both in England and this country, such has been its effect in the
conduct of elections.

The framers of our system of government embodied in the
Declaration of Independence the statement that to secure the
rights which are therein declared to be inalienable and in
respect to which all men are created equal, "governments are
instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed." The system of representative government they
inaugurated can only be maintained and perpetuated by allowing
all citizens to give that consent through the medium of the
ballot-box--the only mode in which the "consent of the governed"
can be obtained. To deny to one-half of the citizens of the
republic all participation in framing the laws by which they are
to be governed, simply on account of their sex, is political
despotism to those who are excluded, and "taxation without
representation" to such of them as have property liable to
taxation. Their investiture with separate estates leads,
logically and necessarily, to their right to the ballot as the
only means afforded them for the protection of