ardly be
satisfied if we should tell them that my friend from
Massachusetts represented South Carolina, and my friend from
Michigan represented Alabama. They would hardly be satisfied, I
think, with that kind of representation.

Nor have we any more right to assume that the women are satisfied
with the representation of the men. Where has been the assembly
at which this right of representation was conferred? Where was
the compact made? What were the conditions? It is wholly an
assumption. A woman is a member of a manufacturing corporation;
she is a stockholder in a bank; she is a shareholder in a
railroad company; she attends all those meetings in person or by
proxy, and she votes, and her vote is received. Suppose a woman
offering to vote at a meeting of a railroad corporation should be
told by one of the men "we represent you, you can not vote," it
would be precisely the argument that is now used--that men
represent the women in the exercise of the elective franchise. A
woman pays a large tax, and the man who drives her coach, the man
who waits upon her table, goes to the polls and decides how much
of her property shall go to support the public expenses, and what
shall be done with it. She has no voice in the matter whatever;
she is taxed without representation.

The exercise of political power by women is by no means an
experiment. There is hardly a country in Europe--I do not think
there is any one--that has not at some time of its history been
governed by a woman, and many of them very well governed too.
There have been at least three empresses of Russia since Peter
the Great, and two of them were very wise rulers. Elizabeth
raised England to the very height of greatness, and the reign of
Anne was illustrious in arms and not less illustrious in letters.
A female sovereign supplied to Columbus the means of discovering
this country. He wandered foot-sore and weary from court to
court, from convent to convent, from one potentate to another,
but no man on a throne listened to him, until a female sovereign
pledged her jewels to fit out the expedition which "gave a new
world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon." Nor need we cite Anne
of Austria, who governed France for ten years, or Marie Theresa,
whose reign was so great and glorious. W