to be compelled to stand on a political platform with such men as these? Let no man dream that national prosperity and peace can be secured by merely giving suffrage to colored men, while that sacred right is denied to millions of American women. That scanty shred of justice, good as far it goes, is utterly inadequate to meet the emergency of this hour. Men of every race and color may vote, but if the women are excluded our legislation will still lack that moral tone, for want of which the nation is to-day drifting toward ruin. There is no other name given by which the country can be saved but that of woman. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Women are governed, negroes are governed, and should give their consent. Will men never learn that a principle which God has made true He has also made it safe to apply? Aye, more, that a principle He has made true, it is not safe not to apply? The problem for the American statesmen to-day is no narrow question of races, but how to embody in our institutions a guarantee for the rights of every citizen. The solution is easy. Base government on the consent of the governed, and each class will protect itself. Put this one great principle of universal suffrage, irrespective of sex or color, into the foundation of our temple of liberty, and it will rise in fair and beautiful proportions, "without the sound of a hammer or the noise of any instrument," to stand at last "perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Omit it, and only "He who sees the end from the beginning" knows through what other national woes we must be driven, before we learn that the path of justice is the only path of peace and safety.
To the American Equal Rights Association:
Although not permitted to be present with you, yet, in spirit, I join you in all your efforts to secure justice and equality to all the children of God. I have so long felt deeply upon the subjects before you, that I wish to add my word to the voices of those who are more fortunate in being present. Since I was old enough to think upon important subjects, I have constantly felt the pressure of injustice that has borne so heavily upon my sex. At sixteen I earnestly desired to enter some college, that I might have the benefit of those helps to learning which were open to all boys, and I deeply felt the cruelty and injustice that closed the doors of the universities to me, who was longing and thirsting for knowledge, while they were invitingly open to the youth of the other sex, who often only used them to waste their time and give them the name of educated men. I could see no reason for this exclusion, nor could I imagine how it would harm any one to allow girls who desired to learn the privilege of going to the universities.
My next personal experience of the injustice done to women by the laws was, when a widow, I buried one of my little daughters, and found that I, who had borne her and nursed her and provided for all her wants, was not her heir, but her little sister, who had done nothing for her, and was still dependent on me for care, etc. This I felt very keenly, not on account of the property involved, for it was but little, but on account of the great injustice done to my maternal heart. My next personal lesson in the law's iniquity was, when about to marry the second time, both myself and husband desired to secure to me the property I possessed. I employed a great lawyer in Maine, Gov. Fessenden, the father of one of our senators, to make an instrument that would secure that end. After thinking on the subject a week, and doing the best he could, he handed me the paper, saying, "I have done my best; but I can not assure you that this instrument will secure to you your property if your husband should ever become insolvent!" This surely astonished me. The law not only did not protect women in their property rights, but did so much to prevent their getting or keeping them, that an able lawyer could not frame an instrument that would secure them even when signed by their intended husbands before marriage! This was more than thirty years ago, and some improvements have since been made in the laws in reference to women.
The next great wrong that pressed heavily upon me was when I again became a widow. I found myself yearly taxed for State and county, and later for revenue, without a voice in anything that concerned the raising of money, or in any of the elections to office in the great struggle that our country was passing through. With all the deep feeling of my brethren, a clear appreciation of the all-important issues at stake, and an intensely painful knowledge of the sin of slavery and its concomitant evils, I could not cast a vote