of. There is no end to the smart speeches and the witty remarks that may be made on the subject. But when we seriously attempt to show that a woman who pays taxes ought not to have a voice in the manner in which the taxes are expended, that a woman whose property and liberty and person are controlled by the laws should have no voice in framing those laws, it is not so easy. If women are fit to rule in a monarchy, it is difficult to say why they are not qualified to vote in a republic; nor can there be greater indelicacy in a woman going to the ballot-box than there is in a woman opening a legislature or issuing orders to an army.
To all who are more serious in their opposition to the movement, we would remind them of the words of a few distinguished men:—
I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens, by no means excluding women.—[Abraham Lincoln.
I believe that the vices in our large cities will never be conquered until the ballot is put into the hands of women.—[Bishop Simpson.
I do not think our politics will be what it ought to be till women are legislators and voters.—[Rev. James Freeman Clarke.
Women have quite as much interest in good government as men, and I have never heard or read of any satisfactory reason for excluding them from the ballot-box; I have no more doubt of their ameliorating influence upon politics than I have of the influence they exert everywhere else.—[George William Curtis.
In view of the terrible corruption of our politics, people ask, can we maintain universal suffrage? I say no, not without women. The only bear-gardens in our community are the town-meeting and the caucus. Why is this? Because these are the only places at which women are not present.—[Bishop Gilbert Haven. I repeat my conviction of the right of woman suffrage. Because suffrage is a right and not a grace, it should be extended to women who bear their share of the public cost, and who have the same interest that I have in the selection of officials and the making of laws which affect their lives, their 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 allow-