who are
to be the guardians of every man's life, property, and
peace. For the all of one man is as dear to him as the all
of another; and the poor man has an equal right, but more
need to have representatives in the Legislature than the
rich one. That they who have no voice or vote in the
electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are
absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and their
representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors
whom other men have set over us, and to be subject to laws
made by the representatives of others, without having had
representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.

Suppose I read it with the feminine gender:

That women who have no voice nor vote in the electing of
representatives, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely
enslaved to men who have votes and their representatives;
for to be enslaved is to have governors whom men have set
over us, and to be subject to the laws made by the
representatives of men, without having representatives of
our own to give consent in our behalf.

And yet one more authority; that of Thomas Paine, than whom not
one of the Revolutionary patriots more ably vindicated the
principles upon which our government is founded:

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right
by which other rights are protected. To take away this right
is to reduce man to a state of slavery; for slavery consists
in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not
a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is
as criminal as the proposal to take away property.

Is anything further needed to prove woman's condition of
servitude sufficiently orthodox to entitle her to the guarantees
of the XV. Amendment? Is there a man who will not agree with me,
that to talk of freedom without the ballot, is mockery--is
slavery--to the women of this Republic, precisely as New
England's orator, Wendell Phillips, at the close of the late war,
declared it to be to the newly emancipated black men?

I admit that prior to the rebellion, by common consent, the right
t