bility and of carrying out their practical results—in other words, for the purpose of making an impossible thing possible. And a century of discussion has not yet made the constitution understood. It has no settled interpretation. Being a series of compromises, it can be expounded in favor of many directly opposite principles.
A distinguished American statesman remarked that the war of the rebellion was waged "to expound the constitution." It is a pertinent question now, shall all other contradictory principles be retained in the constitution until they, too, are expounded by civil war? On what theory is it less dangerous to defraud twenty million women of their inalienable rights than four million negroes? Is not the same principle involved in both cases? We ask congress to pass a sixteenth amendment, not only for woman's protection, but for the safety of the nation. Our people are filled with unrest to-day because there is no fair understanding of the basis of individual rights, nor the legitimate power of the national government. The Republican party took the ground during the war that congress had the right to establish a national currency in every State; that it had the right to emancipate and enfranchise the slaves; to change their political status in one-half the States of the union; to pass a civil rights bill, securing to the freedman a place in the schools, colleges, trades, professions, hotels, and all public conveyances for travel. And they maintained their right to do all these as the best measures for peace, though compelled by war.
And now, when congress is asked to extend the same protection to the women of the nation, we are told they have not the power, and we are remanded to the States. They say the emancipation of the slave was a war measure, a military necessity; that his enfranchisement was a political necessity. We might with propriety ask if the present condition of the nation, with its political outlook, its election frauds daily reported, the corrupt action of men in official position, governors, judges, and boards of canvassers, has not brought us to a moral necessity where some new element is needed in government. But, alas! when women appeal to congress for the protection of their natural rights of person and property, they send us for redress to the courts, and the courts remand us to the States. You did not trust the Southern freedman to the arbitrary will of courts and States! Why send your mothers, wives and daughters to the unwashed, unlettered, unthinking masses that carry popular elections?
We are told by one class of philosophers that the growing tendency to increase national power and authority is leading to a dangerous centralization; that the safety of the republic rests in local self-government. Says the editor of the Boston Index:
