struction Reports, do not reflect your highest thought. The constitution, in basing representation on "respective numbers," covers a broader ground than any you have yet proposed. Is not the only amendment needed to Article 1st, Section 3d, to strike out the exceptions which follow "respective numbers?" And is it not your duty, by securing a republican form of government to every State, to see that these "respective numbers" are made up of enfranchised citizens? Thus bringing your legislation up to the Constitution—not the Constitution down to your party possibilities!! The only tenable ground of representation is Universal Suffrage, as it is only through Universal Suffrage that the principle of "Equal Rights to All" can be realized. All prohibitions based on race, color, sex, property, or education, are violations of the republican idea; and the various qualifications now proposed are but so many plausible pretexts to debar new classes from the ballot-box. The limitations of property and intelligence, though unfair, can be met; as with freedom must come the repeal of statute-laws that deny schools and wages to the negro. So time makes him a voter. But color and sex! Neither time nor statutes can make black white, or woman man! You assume to be the representatives of 15,000,000 women—American citizens—who already possess every attainable qualification for the ballot. Women read and write, hold many offices under government, pay taxes, and the penalties of crime, and yet are allowed to exercise but the one right of petition.
For twenty years we have labored to bring the statute laws of the several States into harmony with the broad principles of the Constitution, and have been so far successful that in many, little remains to be done but to secure the right of suffrage. Hence, our prompt protest against the propositions before Congress to introduce the word "male" into the Federal Constitution, which, if successful, would block all State action in giving the ballot to woman. As the only way disfranchised citizens can appear before you, we availed ourselves of the sacred right of petition. And, as our representatives, it was your duty to give those petitions a respectful reading and a serious consideration. How well a Republican Senate performed that duty, is already inscribed on the page of history. Some tell us it is not judicious to press the claims of women now; that this is not the time. Time? When you propose legislation so fatal to the best interests of woman and the nation, shall we be silent till the deed is done? No! As we love republican ideas, we must resist tyranny. As we honor the position of American Senator, we must appeal from the politician to the man.
With man, woman shared the dangers of the Mayflower on a stormy sea, the dreary landing on Plymouth Rock, the rigors of a New England winter, and the privations of a seven years' war. With him she bravely threw off the British yoke, felt every pulsation of his heart for freedom, and inspired the glowing eloquence that maintained it through the century. With you, we have just passed through the agony and death, the resurrection and triumph, of another revolution, doing all in our power to mitigate its horrors and gild its glories. And now, think you we have no souls to fire, no brains to weigh your arguments; that, after educa-