r had a share in the
Government. Their privileges were only what the chivalry or kindness of
the men permitted. In law, their rights were greatly inferior. The evils
of anarchy fell with direct effect upon them. At first, they organized
for mutual protection from the lawlessness that prevailed. The
organizations grew, united and developed into military power. They used
their power wisely, discreetly, and effectively. With consummate skill
and energy they gathered the reins of Government in their own hands.

"Their first aim had been only to force the country into peace. The
anarchy that reigned had demoralized society, and they had suffered
most. They had long pleaded for an equality of citizenship with men, but
had pleaded in vain. They now remembered it, and resolved to keep the
Government that their wisdom and power had restored. They had been
hampered in educational progress. Colleges and all avenues to higher
intellectual development had been rigorously closed against them. The
professional pursuits of life were denied them. But a few, with sublime
courage and energy, had forced their way into them amid the revilings of
some of their own sex and opposition of the men. It was these brave
spirits who had earned their liberal cultivation with so much
difficulty, that had organized and directed the new power. They
generously offered to form a Government that should be the property of
all intelligent adult citizens, not criminal.

"But these wise women were a small minority. The majority were ruled by
the remembrance of past injustice. _They_ were now the power, and
declared their intention to hold the Government for a century.

"They formed a Republic, in which they remedied many of the defects that
had marred the Republic of men. They constituted the Nation an integer
which could never be disintegrated by States' Rights ideas or the
assumption of State sovereignty.

"They proposed a code of laws for the home government of the States,
which every State in the Union ratified as their State Constitution,
thus making a uniformity and strength that the Republic of men had never
known or suspected attainable.

"They made it a law of every State that criminals could be arrested in
any State they might flee to, without legal authority, other than that
obtained in the vicinity of the crime. They made a law that criminals,
tried and convicted of crime, could not be pardoned without the sanction
of seventy-five out of one h