den,
Pease, Biggs, Knight, and others were the advance guard of the political
women in England. The earliest pamphlet on women's suffrage preserved to
us appeared in 1847. It is a small leaflet and says among other things,
"As long as both sexes and all parties are not given a just
representation, good government is impossible" (which is a paraphrase of
the American principle--every just government derives its powers from the
consent of the governed). The contrary view had been stated in the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ as early as 1842 by the father of John Stuart
Mill: "It is self-evident that all persons whose interests are identical
with those of a different class are excluded from political representation
without injury." Certainly from such an arrangement the "representatives"
will suffer no injury. That select group of intellectual women who trained
themselves politically during the antislavery movement and the struggle
for free trade consisted of the mothers, the sisters, and daughters of
liberal politicians and academically trained men. Many of these women were
themselves students and teachers. No antagonism ever existed in England
between the woman's suffrage movement and the movement favoring the
education of woman.

Such were the conditions in 1866. A new election law was to be introduced
in Parliament; a new class of men was to be granted the right of suffrage
by the lowering of the property qualification. The women decided to
present a petition to the House of Commons requesting the right to vote in
national elections. The women had decided to act thus publicly because of
the presence of John Stuart Mill in the House of Commons, and because of
an utterance of Disraeli's, "In a country in which a woman can be ruler,
peer, church trustee, owner of estates, and guardian of the poor, I do not
see in the name of what principle the right to vote can be withheld from
her." Four petitions (one signed by 1499 women, one by 1605 taxpaying
women, and two more signed by 3559 and 3000 men and women) were sent to
the House of Commons; and on May 20, 1867, John Stuart Mill, after he had
presented the petitions, moved that the right to vote be given to the
qualified women taxpayers. His motion was rejected by a vote of 196 to 73.
Thereupon there were formed for systematic propaganda, woman's suffrage
societies in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, and Bristol; these
cities are still the center of the movement. The ne